Prenatal yoga, thoughts from my weekend.

I just had an amazing weekend at Blooma's prenatal yoga teacher training.  The ladies were amazing.  Pregnancy is beautiful.  Birth is incredible.  I just can't put into words how truly beautiful.  I know I haven't been blogging much.  It's hard to think of the next entry to write after linking to the incredible sadness of the tragedy that happened to Kristin and Andy.  I have to thank Stevie Joy from the bottom of my heart, and her mama Kristin.  Stevie's short life has had such a profound effect on so many people, myself included.  It was with her on my mind that I went into my prenatal yoga teacher training and I just know that it is because of this tiny beautiful little girl, and her sweet mama, Kristin, that I am going to hopefully be able to help women who have gone through a loss in the past, or maybe in the midst of one.  It's through Kristin's real, raw words on her blog that I feel like I experience just a tiny fraction of the incredible pain she must be going through.  Love and prayers to you Kristin and Andy.  It is my hope that someday when you make Stevie a sister that you will be uplifted by the amazing women of Blooma, as I and so many others have been.  

I am truly passionate about working with pregnant women.  Such an amazing time in their lives.  It is my honor to help them to learn to trust their intuition and to surrender and trust their bodies, their bodies that know perfectly how to birth their babies.  I am excited to hopefully teach prenatal yoga sometime in the not too distant future.  And I am hoping to start the process of becoming a postpartum doula, and then someday a birth doula, but I need to wait on the birth doula stuff since the unpredictability of birth doesn't mesh well with my life situation currently :)

Anyway....

I think some people think prenatal yoga will give them this perfect birth.  But what I really think prenatal yoga does is to help you accept the perfection of the birth you are given, regardless of whether it goes according to your plan.  I read that somewhere and I like it (not an exact quote as I am not sure where I read it... Gurmukh maybe?).  To be honest, my 2nd birth was very close to my idea of 'perfect.'  I wouldn't change one thing about it.  It was exactly the way my son was supposed to come into the world.  Prenatal yoga helped me to trust in my body, to surrender to the process of birth, and to just get out of my own way and let my body do what it knows very well how to do.  It helped me to reprogram myself- to breathe deeply in the midst of overwhelming sensation instead of doing the whole 'fight of flight' thing of holding my breath or taking shallow breaths.  It helped me to relax, instead of tensing up and causing unnecessary pain.  Here's my thing- birth is INTENSE.  It's overwhelming.  It's a lot of work- emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  But birth is the most freaking awesome thing there is.  It's through the intensity that one can experience the most amazing experiences ever.  Birth is life changing.  I venture to say that no matter what your birth is, it WILL change you in some way.  If, through prenatal yoga, I can help just ONE woman really experience the amazingness of birth.... to truly BE present at her birth instead of trying to run away from it.... well then it's totally worth it.

Lots of Love!
Linz    

Happy Birthday dearest Roxie!

My little girl turns 3 today.  I am a bit sad to see it all go by so quickly... it seems like just yesterday I giving birth to her, rocking her to sleep, sleeping next to her at night, wearing her in a sling, changing her diaper.  Now she seems like such a big girl!  I could have sworn, if you'd have asked me 2 1/2 yrs ago or so that I'd be sneaking into her dorm room at night to rock her to sleep since that would be the only way she'd fall asleep.  But, inevitably, they grow up and don't need you quite as much as they used to.

Roxie is definitely my fiery girl.  She has real spirit.  Real personality.  And I wouldn't change anything about her.  She loves her baby brother fiercy.  She loves puzzles more than any child her age that I've ever seen.  She can read books to herself for hours.  She can get lost in her intricate make believe games for long periods of time.  She loves to dance... lately her favorite is doing the robot dance with her daddy.  She is a daddy's girl.  Don't get me wrong, she loves her mama, but there is a special place in her heart for her dearest daddy.  Her drawings are adorable- she loves to draw pictures of people.  She loves to tell me how much she loves me.  She hasn't stopped saying "he came out of your tummy!" since Jasper was born 7 months ago.  She is obsessed with learning things like sign language and reading and writing- with no poking or prodding from me- she just loves it!  "Why?" is her favorite thing to ask and her daddy explains to her in scientific detail.... when she asks me (a quiz, I'm sure) and I can't tell her the exact right answer she says "No, this is why" and tell me the scientific reasoning behind something like rainfall.  She eats slowly- mostly because her food turns into magical make believe stories.  Currently, her blueberries are talking to each other and walking around her plate together and singing a song that Roxie made up.

There is so much I could say about this special little girl that took hold of my heart and changed it forever 3 years ago.  It seems like just yesterday that she was born, yet at the same time I can't remember my life before her because her life as intertwined mine so tightly.  I am so blessed to have the opportunity to be her mother.

first day in the world

 

Good weekend. Good people. Good places.

We just got back from a weekend at camp.  I love camp.  This is the camp that I met my husband at when we were summer staff, so it will always have a special place in my heart.  I have way too much fun taking pictures of the pony rides as it just makes for such beautiful photos (too bad I don't have any editing software, I bet I could make them even cooler with a few adjustments!).

What a beautiful place.  It's richness just draws me in and makes me do a little happy dance in my head (or maybe not JUST in my head...).  The snow just adds such a dreaminess.  Only God knows where on earth this adventure of life will take our family, but I hope my kids will be able to experience the simple joys of Village Creek as they grow up.  I have such great memories of this place, and I hope they will too.    

I think I am still recovering a bit.  Jasper, who is normally a very good sleeper, didn't sleep so well there.  Actually I think none of us really did.  We're just so used to our comfy little house, I guess!!  This house definitely feels the most like 'home' of all the places we have lived.  Maybe it's because we moved here when Roxie was only a few months old, so it's the place that we've had kids the longest.  Also, maybe me giving birth to my son in the living room has something to do with it?  I don't know, but I love my house.... even if it doesn't have a dishwasher, or the kitchen is too small, or there is no storage space, or or or.... I don't care.  I know I'll be sad, for the first time when moving.  I can't believe my husband only has one more year of grad school after this year.  Then I honestly can say I haven't the slightest idea where we'll be living- it could really be anywhere on the Earth.  Except for maybe Antarctica.  I don't think the penguins need any philosophical teachings.  And PROBABLY not Greenland.  Or Iceland.  And very likely not the North pole either.  Although maybe Santa clause is looking for a philosophy or religion professor for his elves?  I guess really I will love any place where we can all just BE together the best.  It doesn't matter where we move.  And I will laugh really hard if we end up in Greenland because it randomly popped into my head as somewhere that we would not be moving too.  For the record I know nothing about that place (except I do remember learning that greenland is icy and iceland is green- is this true or am I just randomly remembering an untruth?) and hold not contempt towards it, it just doesn't seem too likely of a place to end up.  

So, I guess in conclusion, my favorite place to be is wherever my favorite people are.  But the awesomeness that is the beautiful valley that Village Creek is nestled in sure does add something special.  If I weren't too green for cremation (which I hear is pretty bad for the environment as far as what to do with your dead body), I would say that Village Creek would be one of the forerunners for where I'd want my ashes scattered.  Too weird?  That's okay.      

Sweet baby boy

Love.  Oh how I love him.  Sweet baby boy.

Birth Story of Jasper Michael

This is the birth of our son the way I remember it.  Written just days after his birth so it is still fresh in my mind.  

 Born July 25^th 2009 at 1:52am  8lbs 4oz, 20inches long 

This story starts with the birth of our first child.  Roxanne was born in the hospital.  While it wasn’t a BAD experience, I realized after the fact that that was not what birth was intended to be.  I had pitocin drip, an internal monitor, external monitors, constant blood pressure cuff… so basically I was stuck on a hospital bed for the entire 6 hours that I was birthing.  I knew there had to be a better way and after much research and thought I decided before we even conceived our son that I would have a homebirth for my next birth.

I researched the facts about the safety of homebirth and after some time of soul searching I decided for sure what I had known all along- I couldn’t NOT do this.  This was too important to me.

Which brings us to the birth. 

It was 5 days past my guess date and I was getting very antsy to welcome our son into the world.  I felt like I had been really patient up until that point, but I was getting very anxious to meet him!  Since my first birth ended up being an induction at the hospital 1 day after my due date, I was working on just trusting my bodies ability to go into labor on it’s own.  Also, the fact that I had not really had much prelabor feelings at all worried me that I’d go super late.  I was still, even after my guess date, going to the gym almost every day and going to yoga a few times a week.  I guess I felt like I should feel worse in the time leading up to my birth.  Although I will sat that I said “I’m sick of being pregnant” more times than I’d like to admit and did admit to the midwife and apprentice that I would be pretty emotional if I made it past 41 weeks.  I made a list of “reasons why I am happy to still be pregnant” which did help me get through those last few days. 

I felt like I was feeling WAY too good to be close to labor that Friday morning (the 24^th).  We went to toddler storytime at the library (which Matt, Roxie and I do every Friday morning), lunch with my mom and sisters, and just had a good day.  My twin sister was in town from Chicago just for the weekend and she was disappointed that I had not had him yet since she was not going to be in town again for a few months.  But, what can you do, right? 

Around 10pm I went to the bathroom and had some bloody show and starting having manageable surges about every 10 minutes.  I could walk during them and talk during them so I figured it was nothing to get TOO excited about, but since I had not really had any surges up until that point at all, I asked Matt to fill up the birth tub around 10:30pm.  I figured that we could leave the water in it for up to 2 days anyway and being 5 days past my guess date- I had to be going into labor SOMETIME soon, right?  I also texted my friend who was going to be my birth photographer to tell her that it might be sometime that night.  Matt will tell you that I apologized WAY too much during my birthing time.  Sorry for making him fill up the pool in case it was a false alarm, sorry for needing this or that.  He kept telling me this was NOT a time to apologize for anything!!

We called the midwife around 11:15pm just to let her know that I had had some bloody show and was having surges every 10 minutes and that we might be calling her later tonight to come over.  I got some birth stuff set up and then tried to lie down and relax in bed around 11:30pm, listening to my “easy first stage” hypnobabies track.  Hypnobabies is a program of CD tracks that I listened to during my pregnancy and it really helped me to be positive about birth and also gave me the tools to relax during my birthing time.  I set the laptop next to me and went to a contraction counter website to try to monitor how close they were coming.  I kept telling my husband Matt that I wasn’t sure if this was the real thing or not (even though in retrospect, I knew it was I just didn’t want to call too early) and that I didn’t think we should call the midwives for a while.  I just felt like this was going to go on for a long time and I didn’t want them to just be sitting around the house.  They were 5-7 minutes apart so Matt told me that if they kept up for another hour like this that he was going to call whether or not I wanted him to.  Good man.  So at 12:30am he called our midwife, Jeanne, and told her that they were 3-5 minutes apart and strong.  She had told us to call when they were 5 minutes apart because she thought I was going to be quick, so she said she and the midwife apprentice, Amber, would be right over. 

At that point I got in the birth tub.  It felt AMAZING.  While I was managing the intensity okay, the intensity didn’t seem to wear off in between surges until I got in the water.  I say intensity and not pain because it wasn’t pain that I can recall- just very strong intensity surging through me.  Matt sat close to me (at least someone got some use out of the birth ball!) and put his hands on my shoulder/back and told me “relax” and was the best support person I could have asked for.  He helped me to stay calm and relaxed and just let my body do what it had to do.  I was very quiet during all of this- just deepening my breath and closing my eyes and going inward whenever a pressure wave would come.

The midwives arrived around 1:20am.  Right as they were walking in the door I told Matt to grab a bowl because I was going to throw up.  He ran and grabbed something right as I puked over the side of the tub into my hands and onto the towel below.  I did catch most of it in the bowl though.  Okay, I guess it’s a good thing he called them when he did, because this was not going to be a long drawn out affair. 

The midwives got everything ready and kind of stayed away and let us do our thing together.  I still felt like I was managing everything really well and it did feel VERY strong, but not painful.  Pain is just not the word I would use to describe the feeling.  Very shortly after the midwives got to our house (maybe minutes?) I felt a very strong pressure pushing down and out.  I told Matt “I’m pushing!” and Jeanne came over the check things out.  I was definitely pushing.  Jeanne thinks my water must have broke during that first big pushing surge, but I don’t have any recollection of it since all I really felt was all the power of it pulsing through me.  I didn’t push actively at all until his head was almost out- my body just took over and did it all for me.  I just would say “ahhhhhhhh” and breathe my baby down and focus on relaxing my birthing muscles so they could do their thing.  Jeanne supported my perineum, which actually felt really great during the pushing phase.  When his head was just about out I believe I did push a little bit because I was just ready for him to come out.  I did feel the “ring of fire” burning of crowning and I believe I said a few times “it burns!” and Matt just kept reminding me to relax and I would come back into my peaceful place and it was so powerful and beautiful and amazing!  My baby was almost here!!!  All my pushing was done holding onto the side of the tub on my knees until Jeanne told me to put one of my legs back “like I’m running a race” when he was just about out.

Roxie, our 2.5 yr old, woke up sometime during my pushing.  We heard her cute little “mommy?” while she was standing at her closed door.  Matt quickly just went in there and put her back in bed and she went right back to sleep.  He was gone from me for probably less than 30 seconds and it was in between surges and pretty early on in the pushing and I did fine without him.  I’m so glad she just went right back to sleep (she never really wakes up at night and if she does she always goes back to sleep quick like this) because I really needed him right there next to me.  I didn’t even want him to call the birth photographer that I had REALLY wanted there because I just didn’t think I could handle him leaving me for any amount of time.  I was just enjoying and managing it so well with him THERE next to me.  I needed his presence and touch.

At 1:52am Jasper emerged and I flipped over and he was placed on my chest and wrapped in towels.  He was so peaceful!  No huge piercing screams like our daughter that was born in the hospital.  He was born calmly in water in very low light and he just looked around.  I asked Matt to take some pictures then, remembering that I had really wanted something to record this time.  So at least we got SOME. 

We waited in the pool for the cord to stop pulsing after it was delivered and then Matt cut it.  I got out of the pool and went to the bedroom where Jasper latched on for the first time.  I remember feeling very shaky, not in a bad way, but just in a cold shivery way.  I guess I just had had all that power surging through me and my body was just responding in that way.  They got me a blanket to wrap around myself. 

During the newborn exam he got a perfect apgar score and we found out that he weighed 8lbs 4oz and was 20 inches long.  Just 3 oz more than his sister and just ¾ inches shorter.  After I took a shower they checked me out and it was found that I had a surface abrasion but no tearing and definitely nothing that would need any sort of stitching.  Jeanne went over everything that we were supposed to know- the comfrey compresses that were still freezing in the freezer, the stuff they had made for me to spray on myself in a peri bottle, etc.  They left around 4am and we all tried to get some rest after Matt called his mom and my mom.  My mom said she’d come over around 630 or 7am when Roxie woke up so she could take her for the day.  

I was wired.  No way could I sleep after such an amazing experience.  I think it’s also probably all those hormones that flooded over me after the birth.  All I could do was just lay and stare at my new son and talk to Matt about how wonderful everything was and had went.  He was TIRED but was nice to me when I was being extra chatty and we eventually did all get a little bit of sleep.

Roxie woke up at 6:30am and I went in there and said “Roxie guess what?  Jasper came out of mommy’s tummy!”  She got all excited, even for how early it was and how groggy she was and said “he came out of mommy’s tummy!” and rushed into our room to see him.  She started saying things like “we will change his diaper and give him a paci and he cries”  etc etc.  It was very cute and she was very in awe of her baby brother.  It’s funny- I had stressed so much about childcare during the birth and was planning to have my mom pick her up during the birth, but didn’t want to have to wake her if it was nighttime, but also didn’t want her waking up in the middle of things.  So it worked out just PERFECTLY to have her just sleep through it all. 

Looking back on the birth, it was one of the most memorable and amazing couple hours of my life.  It was very short and very intense and powerful, but painful is not a word that I would use to describe it at all and I feel so blessed to have gotten to opportunity to experience it.  It was such an enjoyable experience and now I truly realize how birth is meant to be!  Afterpains actually were more painful than the birth!