(no subject)
There have been several little things over the past week or so that I've been meaning to write about, but never found the time/motivation to do so, so I'm going to lump most of them together right here.
1. Therapy has been weird lately. I've been seeing the same therapist for 9 years now, and she's been a lifesaver for me. She has seen me through some seriously perilous times and I've grown & changed so much with her help. But now that I'm pregnant, and a large portion of our sessions revolves around pregnancy-related issues, I'm starting to feel less connected to her. For one thing, she's never been pregnant and never been a parent. That probably wouldn't bother me so much if she wouldn't keep pointing it out. She keeps saying, "you know, I can't relate to what you're going through, having never been pregnant, but..." and I just wish she would cut that part of it out. I already KNOW she's never been pregnant and really wish she would stop reminding me 3-5 times a session that she has no clue what I'm going through. It's really not helpful. But the thing is, usually whatever she says after the "but..." part is really useful, so I wish she'd just drop the preface off half of her comments and move on. I don't care that she's never been pregnant. We've been working together long enough and have built enough of a rapport in that time that I don't think it makes much of a difference. I think maybe she's got a bigger issue with that difference than I do. It's not like I'm a totally different person now. Pregnant Emily is still Emily, just a little bigger and more tired :)
And to add to the weirdness, I really don't feel like discussing anything too deep & meaningful just now either. I really feel like I just don't have the extra emotional energy for it because I sort of need to preserve my sanity for the upcoming birth, having a newborn at home, adjustment period, etc. There are a lot of really stressful things coming up and I don't feel like now is the time to start chipping away at my foundation, cracked though it may be. And I told her as much, and she agrees and totally understands. See what I mean? We really are able to function well on the same page together 95% of the time... I really wish she'd stop going on and on about how she can't relate to the pregnancy part of my life. I'm sure lots of her clients have issues that she's never personally experienced (and a few that she has), but she doesn't sit there talking about how she doesn't get it.
But I can't exactly quit therapy because for one thing, it wouldn't be appropriate to the level of support that I need right now, and for another thing, I have my disability review coming up this summer. If I'm not still in therapy when they go to review my case, they will assume that I have gotten better. Which I have, to a certain extent, but a lot of it is BECAUSE I'm not working. If they find me no longer disabled and I have to go back to work, I will rapidly deteriorate. I know how this cycle works because I've been in it my entire adult life. I'm really stressing out about this and it's very much bad timing, so I'm just trying not to think about it.
Therapy is still something I very much need, though probably as a maintenance thing right now rather than a full-on construction project. So we've cut back to twice a month for the time being.
Anyway, on to #2...
2. Birth class is going awesomely. Last night, there were a couple of former students who had just given birth about a month ago and they came in to talk about their experience with natural childbirth at one of the local hospitals. It was a very encouraging story because all the hospital staff was very respectful of their birth plan and they didn't have any problems at all. I'm almost starting to regret watching The Business of Being Born. While I'm glad to have learned about a lot of the issues in the film, all it really did was make me terrified of hospital birth because it paints a totally black and white picture of hospitals being horrible and homebirth being perfect. When I found out we wouldn't be able to afford a homebirth, I was terrified, and it has taken me several months to move past that. I have since heard wonderful stories from women who have birthed at both of our local hospitals here in town and received nothing but cooperation and admiration for their natural birth plans from the hospital staff. Many of them have said they would prefer a homebirth next time, but only because it sucks to get up and go to the hospital while you're in labor, and they'd naturally be more comfortable at home.
Rikki Lake, in case you're reading this, I'm glad you made that documentary. But until homebirth is an available option for every woman who wants one, it's not fair to go around terrifying the women who have no choice but to go to the hospital. Not all hospitals are horrible. I think your energy would be better spent educating women about natural childbirth in general and helping them advocate for more holistic care that is accessible to every pregnant woman, not just the ones who are able to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for a homebirth. I know there were many aspects of your first birth that sucked and the biggest difference was that it was in a hospital while your second, much more peaceful and empowering birth took place at home. But that's not how it always is and that's not how it has to be. Peaceful and empowering births can and do happen in the hospital, but women need to know how to stand up for their rights and what their choices are in order to advocate for the right kind of experience.
ANYWAY, where I was originally going with this before I went off on my tangent to Rikki Lake is that the couple who came to class brought their teeny baby, who was painfully adorable, and when he started fussing and making little grunty baby noises, Sprout started kicking me. She was all like, "Hey! Who's that out there? Is that my friend?" :)
She was super active almost all day yesterday, so it was likely a coincidence more than anything, but I thought it was cute even so.
3. I'm finally getting my "real" linea nigra. The hilarious part is that I started getting a line down my belly a couple months ago, but it went from navel to my ribs, instead of from my navel down. How like me, to do it completely backwards, right? But then just the other night Sheila was leaning in close and talking to Danica and she noticed a faint line starting to come up from my pelvic bone toward my navel. I can't see it as it's on the underside of my baby bump still, so she took a picture of it and showed me and heavens to Betsy, there it is! It was so neat :)
4. The SPD pain is definitely very much there, and I'm learning ways to cope with it. Too much physical activity makes it flare up within hours and most of the next day, but the definition of "too much" seems to always be changing, especially as I get larger and am carrying more weight. I'm thinking of quitting my exercise classes at the end of the month when the current sessions are up. I discussed it with my midwife earlier this week and she is encouraging me to keep going to the classes because it's good for me, and while I understand that the pain isn't actually doing any physical harm to me or the baby, it is very emotionally draining for me to be in pain and limited in what I can do around the house and in my daily life. It's killing me to not be able to get out and enjoy this beautiful spring weather as much as I'd like to. I've only taken the dogs for one walk in the woods so far this spring, and normally I'd like to be out there several times a week. Also, we're trying to organize a garage sale, but I'm not able to bend and lift anything over 10 pounds or so without moderate pain... even doing the laundry is a struggle. And forget standing in one spot long enough to do the dishes. I could hardly do that before I got pregnant with my back like it is, now it's out of the question.
So even though I don't want to admit she could be wrong, on account of her being a midwife and all, and midwives generally being awesome, I think I'm going to listen to my body on this one and at least cut back on the exercise classes. I don't think I'll sign up for another session of water aerobics, but I might still do the prenatal yoga for a few more weeks. We'll see. It's all stuff that I could be doing at home on my own time, but I enjoy getting out and seeing the other pregnant ladies, and the instructor is really fun.
Last week's Tuesday evening water aerobics class caused a hugely painful flareup and I haven't been back in the pool since. There's another class tonight and I'm still debating on going. I also need to do laundry, clean the bird cage, get groceries, and work on organizing some yard sale stuff today, and I'm not sure if going to the class on top of that will be too much. Hell, even if I skip the class and do the other things, it'll probably still be too much. I'm sure I'll be out of commission most of the day tomorrow. Oh well, there's nothing on the calendar.
Laying in bed for a large chunk of the day helps with the pain, but I hate to do that because I just recently got my sleep schedule straightened out after nearly 3 weeks of dysfunction/insomnia and I don't want to mess it up again. Also, heat helps with the pain, as does sacrum massage. I haven't tried any pain meds for it because that's just not my style.
And a couple more private matters to be continued in a friends-only post, maybe now, maybe later...
1. Therapy has been weird lately. I've been seeing the same therapist for 9 years now, and she's been a lifesaver for me. She has seen me through some seriously perilous times and I've grown & changed so much with her help. But now that I'm pregnant, and a large portion of our sessions revolves around pregnancy-related issues, I'm starting to feel less connected to her. For one thing, she's never been pregnant and never been a parent. That probably wouldn't bother me so much if she wouldn't keep pointing it out. She keeps saying, "you know, I can't relate to what you're going through, having never been pregnant, but..." and I just wish she would cut that part of it out. I already KNOW she's never been pregnant and really wish she would stop reminding me 3-5 times a session that she has no clue what I'm going through. It's really not helpful. But the thing is, usually whatever she says after the "but..." part is really useful, so I wish she'd just drop the preface off half of her comments and move on. I don't care that she's never been pregnant. We've been working together long enough and have built enough of a rapport in that time that I don't think it makes much of a difference. I think maybe she's got a bigger issue with that difference than I do. It's not like I'm a totally different person now. Pregnant Emily is still Emily, just a little bigger and more tired :)
And to add to the weirdness, I really don't feel like discussing anything too deep & meaningful just now either. I really feel like I just don't have the extra emotional energy for it because I sort of need to preserve my sanity for the upcoming birth, having a newborn at home, adjustment period, etc. There are a lot of really stressful things coming up and I don't feel like now is the time to start chipping away at my foundation, cracked though it may be. And I told her as much, and she agrees and totally understands. See what I mean? We really are able to function well on the same page together 95% of the time... I really wish she'd stop going on and on about how she can't relate to the pregnancy part of my life. I'm sure lots of her clients have issues that she's never personally experienced (and a few that she has), but she doesn't sit there talking about how she doesn't get it.
But I can't exactly quit therapy because for one thing, it wouldn't be appropriate to the level of support that I need right now, and for another thing, I have my disability review coming up this summer. If I'm not still in therapy when they go to review my case, they will assume that I have gotten better. Which I have, to a certain extent, but a lot of it is BECAUSE I'm not working. If they find me no longer disabled and I have to go back to work, I will rapidly deteriorate. I know how this cycle works because I've been in it my entire adult life. I'm really stressing out about this and it's very much bad timing, so I'm just trying not to think about it.
Therapy is still something I very much need, though probably as a maintenance thing right now rather than a full-on construction project. So we've cut back to twice a month for the time being.
Anyway, on to #2...
2. Birth class is going awesomely. Last night, there were a couple of former students who had just given birth about a month ago and they came in to talk about their experience with natural childbirth at one of the local hospitals. It was a very encouraging story because all the hospital staff was very respectful of their birth plan and they didn't have any problems at all. I'm almost starting to regret watching The Business of Being Born. While I'm glad to have learned about a lot of the issues in the film, all it really did was make me terrified of hospital birth because it paints a totally black and white picture of hospitals being horrible and homebirth being perfect. When I found out we wouldn't be able to afford a homebirth, I was terrified, and it has taken me several months to move past that. I have since heard wonderful stories from women who have birthed at both of our local hospitals here in town and received nothing but cooperation and admiration for their natural birth plans from the hospital staff. Many of them have said they would prefer a homebirth next time, but only because it sucks to get up and go to the hospital while you're in labor, and they'd naturally be more comfortable at home.
Rikki Lake, in case you're reading this, I'm glad you made that documentary. But until homebirth is an available option for every woman who wants one, it's not fair to go around terrifying the women who have no choice but to go to the hospital. Not all hospitals are horrible. I think your energy would be better spent educating women about natural childbirth in general and helping them advocate for more holistic care that is accessible to every pregnant woman, not just the ones who are able to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for a homebirth. I know there were many aspects of your first birth that sucked and the biggest difference was that it was in a hospital while your second, much more peaceful and empowering birth took place at home. But that's not how it always is and that's not how it has to be. Peaceful and empowering births can and do happen in the hospital, but women need to know how to stand up for their rights and what their choices are in order to advocate for the right kind of experience.
ANYWAY, where I was originally going with this before I went off on my tangent to Rikki Lake is that the couple who came to class brought their teeny baby, who was painfully adorable, and when he started fussing and making little grunty baby noises, Sprout started kicking me. She was all like, "Hey! Who's that out there? Is that my friend?" :)
She was super active almost all day yesterday, so it was likely a coincidence more than anything, but I thought it was cute even so.
3. I'm finally getting my "real" linea nigra. The hilarious part is that I started getting a line down my belly a couple months ago, but it went from navel to my ribs, instead of from my navel down. How like me, to do it completely backwards, right? But then just the other night Sheila was leaning in close and talking to Danica and she noticed a faint line starting to come up from my pelvic bone toward my navel. I can't see it as it's on the underside of my baby bump still, so she took a picture of it and showed me and heavens to Betsy, there it is! It was so neat :)
4. The SPD pain is definitely very much there, and I'm learning ways to cope with it. Too much physical activity makes it flare up within hours and most of the next day, but the definition of "too much" seems to always be changing, especially as I get larger and am carrying more weight. I'm thinking of quitting my exercise classes at the end of the month when the current sessions are up. I discussed it with my midwife earlier this week and she is encouraging me to keep going to the classes because it's good for me, and while I understand that the pain isn't actually doing any physical harm to me or the baby, it is very emotionally draining for me to be in pain and limited in what I can do around the house and in my daily life. It's killing me to not be able to get out and enjoy this beautiful spring weather as much as I'd like to. I've only taken the dogs for one walk in the woods so far this spring, and normally I'd like to be out there several times a week. Also, we're trying to organize a garage sale, but I'm not able to bend and lift anything over 10 pounds or so without moderate pain... even doing the laundry is a struggle. And forget standing in one spot long enough to do the dishes. I could hardly do that before I got pregnant with my back like it is, now it's out of the question.
So even though I don't want to admit she could be wrong, on account of her being a midwife and all, and midwives generally being awesome, I think I'm going to listen to my body on this one and at least cut back on the exercise classes. I don't think I'll sign up for another session of water aerobics, but I might still do the prenatal yoga for a few more weeks. We'll see. It's all stuff that I could be doing at home on my own time, but I enjoy getting out and seeing the other pregnant ladies, and the instructor is really fun.
Last week's Tuesday evening water aerobics class caused a hugely painful flareup and I haven't been back in the pool since. There's another class tonight and I'm still debating on going. I also need to do laundry, clean the bird cage, get groceries, and work on organizing some yard sale stuff today, and I'm not sure if going to the class on top of that will be too much. Hell, even if I skip the class and do the other things, it'll probably still be too much. I'm sure I'll be out of commission most of the day tomorrow. Oh well, there's nothing on the calendar.
Laying in bed for a large chunk of the day helps with the pain, but I hate to do that because I just recently got my sleep schedule straightened out after nearly 3 weeks of dysfunction/insomnia and I don't want to mess it up again. Also, heat helps with the pain, as does sacrum massage. I haven't tried any pain meds for it because that's just not my style.
And a couple more private matters to be continued in a friends-only post, maybe now, maybe later...