Status: 7weeks & 6 days old!
The Cast (in order of appearance)
Shoshanah – Me, the pregnant woman.
28 years old, about to have my 3rd baby!
Joel – My husband of 4 years. Only
goal in this birth was to NOT catch the baby (it says so in my
chart).
Christine – Doula, friend, keeper of
sanity.
Nichole – Doula, friend, Christine's
partner in crime.
Debbie – ½ of the Atlanta Birth
Care team of midwives, all-around awesome person
Katie – one of my best friends;
breastfeeding and natural childbirth advocate
Ashley (aka “twentysixcats”) -
friend, walking companion, and habitual accidental unassisted
homebirther
Dr. Bootstaylor/Dr. B –
perinatologist and very cool, birthy dude
Sarah – Friend, photographer
Tinika - Friend, birth and
breastfeeding enthusiast
Kim – Midwifery apprentice, fan of
Talia
The Story
“The thing you worry about most is
rarely what ends up being the biggest issue.”
My doulas said this to me a lot
throughout my pregnancy. Everyone has their “thing” that they
obsess over, and this time my thing was PROM (Premature Rupture of
Membranes). If you aren't familiar with my past birth experiences,
let me fill you in. My two previous births began with my water
breaking (hence my ICAN nickname of “PROM Queen” - which has
since been revoked and replaced with “Epic Birther”). The first
was a gush, the second a leak. I had to be induced with both of them.
One ended in surgery, the other in a beautiful VBAC. I was SO proud
of my VBAC, except for the fact that I required pitocin to make it
happen. So now I knew that my body could dilate and push a baby out,
but I didn't know if it could go into labor on its own. It sort of
haunted me, in a way. Made me wonder if I was actually “broken.”
Because of those experiences, I was
focused on preventing PROM (Premature Rupture of Membranes) again. At
one point, I spent an entire day obsessively consulting Google about
how I might go about this. I found several interesting studies, and
came up with a plan that I felt was doable for me. For the first
part (maybe half?) of my pregnancy, I religiously ate Juice Plus
gummies because I was advised by Anjli (the midwife who attended my
VBAC) that she had read research saying they were helpful in growing
a strong sac. I intended to continue eating them throughout my
pregnancy, but hit a point around 24 weeks where I just couldn't
stomach them anymore. I also read a study about how eating 6 dates
per day would help (Anjli also shared this one with me – even
posted it on my Facebook wall), but I only managed to choke down one
before I decided I just couldn't go that route.
Because Vitamin C was the primary
ingredient that seemed to be prevalent in everything I had read,
specifically with bioflavanoids, I decided to just switch completely
over to those. I meticulously searched until I found a brand I was
satisfied would give me what I was looking for, and I proceeded to
take high doses from 20 weeks until the day my son was born. I
started slowly, with just 500 mg per day and worked my way up to 2500
mg, and then back down to 2000 mg (where I found the side effects
much more tolerable). On top of this, I also took alfalfa, Vitamin
D3, red raspberry leaf, a magnesium/zinc/calcium/D3 combo, and
high-dose fish oil. My mantra was “bag o' steel”, and I was
hopeful that my membranes would remain intact and that EVENTUALLY I
would go into labor on my own.....
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