A midwife’s “medical” records

Last week in the mail I got my “medical” (the word just feels wrong in this context, somehow) records from my pregnancy and birth, courtesy of my midwife. It’s fascinating to read them over now–it’s very Rashoman-like, and now I’m having the weird experience of seeing something that I was so close to from a completely different perspective.

There’s the page with records of all my prenatal visits, giving a month-by-month (and, later, week-by-week) view of weight, size, blood pressure, etc.; that stuff I remember, basically, though it’s interesting to see it all laid out at once like that.

The really interesting part, though, is the labor record–the notes my midwife was making during the night and early morning I was in labor. There’s an entry for virtually every contraction at points, various notes, and recordings of all the Doppler readings (FHT–fetal heart tones): 

“11:50pm FHT 140s Mom side lie–shaking a lot”

“3:00am FHT 136 ‘I’m ready to move my baby’”

“4:45am FHT 144 SROM clr fluid–possible slight mec”

“5:42am FHR @ 90 following cx, but rises immediately”

“7:45am FHT 120-140 Decels not notes in previous 15 contractions”

Some of this I remember, some I don’t; some I remember like a dream or something that happened to someone else and I was told about. 

After that, there’s also a record of all the post-partum visits, from when my midwife returned that night, twelve hours after the birth (“Christina feeling weel + engaged in conversation; pulse 130–very tired; ate indian food; no dizziness”), through to my six-week post-partum visit (“Baby Marcus weight 10#2; excels developmentally”).

Have you read your midwife’s complete records of your pregnancy, labor, and birth? If not, I highly recommend it!

–Christina

WBUR.org–nice piece on midwifery in MA!

Check out this great, midwife-friendly homebirth article on WBUR.org–it’s a quick read, and very nicely done. Apparently it’s the companion piece to today’s Radio Boston piece on midwifery in MA.

–Christina

The babywearing video sensation!

Really, why aren’t there more babywearing videos? I don’t mean instructional videos about how to do a Secured High Back Carry with a woven wrap, or how to nurse in a mei tai, or things like that; no, I mean this–the new-this-week, in-an-Interweb-near-you, babywearing video sensation. Put a sling on ‘em, mamas!

–Christina

PS–watch this with your babies! Mine, at least, loved it. Plus it’s a vast improvement on the original song.

Home Birth Buddies, and Family Birth Stories

So, I was just looking back at pictures from last year, marvelling at how much my baby has grown. I came across this picture, with my then-three-month-old son and my Aunt Mary, and I was struck by the fact that Marcus and my aunt are home birth buddies: Aunt Mary, my mother’s older sister and the second child of my Sicilian-immigrant grandparents, was the last person in my family born at home until I had my homebirth last year. 

Of course, when Aunt Mary was born, in 1925 in the family’s railroad flat in Manhattan, there was almost certainly not a lot of angst over the decision to give birth at home. I heard the story from her older sister, a then-three-year-old girl to whom (clearly) nothing was explained. Aunt Grace recalled neighboring women rushing into the apartment, running in and then out with blood-stained sheets, and not stopping to talk to her. She remembered her father holding her tightly in the hallway of the apartment building, not letting her go back into the apartment, while she heard her mother moaning and vocalizing inside and just wanted to run to her mother.

By the time the next child was born, it was 1930, and the family had enough money that there was indeed a choice about where to give birth–home or hospital. My grandparents chose the hospital, in the new modern way, and my Uncle Sal was born. My grandmother was given Twilight Sleep for that birth, which must have been a drastically different experience than the community-centered, midwife-attended births of her two older daughters. In fact, my grandmother insisted until she died that she gave birth to twins that day in the hospital, but that the second child was born dead and the doctors took it away without showing her or telling her and her husband. She insisted that although she was drugged, she saw it hazily, and according to my mother and her sisters, she was absolutely convinced of this. Who knows, really, what happened? She could have been hallucinating because of the drugs, but it’s also not beyond the realm of probability that a paternalistic doctor might have decided it was better for this immigrant woman not to know.

It’s funny thinking about the birth stories of the generation above ours–I like thinking about how I came full-circle in 83 years, giving birth on my bed with a midwife, and an old black-and-white photo of my grandmother hanging on the bedroom wall.

–Christina

Sigh. Comments on breastfeeding a toddler. . .

And so it begins!

On Thanksgiving evening—after dinner, but before the supper of leftovers—my fifteen-month-old baby took time out from his busy day of knocking over block towers built by my cousins to toddle over to me, where I sat at a desk in the living room, and indicate that he wanted to nurse. I lifted him up into my lap and latched him on, and he nursed seriously for about five minutes before pulling off with a drip of milk and a huge grin on his face. I readjusted my shirt, and he toddled off to go back to the towers.

“How long are you planning to—you know—for?” my older cousin (herself a mother and an RN) asked.

I looked blankly at her as though I didn’t understand.

“How long are you planning to nurse him for?” she asked again.

I shrugged. “As long as he wants,” I said.

There was a short pause. Then my cousin asked if I’d heard of the new Adam Sandler and Kevin James movie (“Adam Sandler and who?” I asked. “You know, Kevin James, from Mall Cop?” “Uh, no. . . .”). She said she’d just seen a preview for it. I was surprised at this change of subject, but tried to roll with it.

“Did it look good?” I asked.

“Eh, so-so, it looked okay, but there was this one scene with this guy and his trophy wife, you know, and their son walks up to her and asks to nurse, and she does, and everyone’s staring, and someone asks, ‘How old is your son?’ and they say, ‘Forty-eight months,’ and they’re like, ‘That’s four years!’” My cousin stopped. Apparently the moral was too evident to state, and apparently there wasn’t, really, any change of subject at all. 

When my cousin had gone home I looked up this dreadful-sounding movie and discovered that while the Internet consensus seems to be that it won’t be very good, the word is that it does manage to feature “hippie cougars and inappropriate breastfeeding.” Really? Inappropriate? I’m finding that phrase tough to digest. I can only imagine how much I’d love the actual movie.

Currently, I don’t plan on nursing my little one until he’s four, but then again, I don’t plan on cutting him off arbitrarily one day because he’s hit any certain age. I love the closeness that nursing brings us: I know that this is a fleeting phase, though, and I know that there will be closeness and cuddles and affection even when he’s done, and I certainly am not forcing my baby to nurse beyond when he wants to. But he does want to—he seeks it out, and it comforts him and nourishes him even on days when he only eats five cheerios, half an orange segment, a lick of applesauce, and a couple bites of meat.

And, for the record, while I don’t plan on stopping nursing because of either pointed comments from family and friends or a bad movie, I also don’t plan on seeing the movie.

–Christina

Midwives on Monk!

While watching Monk (the show about the obsessive-compulsive detective) last night, on what happened to be part one of the series finale, I got super excited about a plot involving midwives!

A murder occurred at a birth center (fictionally set in San Francisco), and Monk was investigating. He asked if “any of the other nurses had heard anything,” and was snippily told that they weren’t nurses–they were midwives. “A midwife is a highly trained medical professional skilled in assisting with natural birth,” Monk was told (though I paraphrase slightly–I was watching at my parents’ house, and they do not believe in DVRs so I couldn’t instant-replay it).

Pretty cool! Maybe there will be more midwives next week on part two!

–Christina

Holiday gifts for your midwife!

These may be a little pricier than most women are planning on spending on their midwives, but still, I’m sure there’s someone out there who knows a midwife, lactation consultant, or anyone interested in women’s health who would love one of these as a holiday gift.

A charitably-minded friend introduced me to Mercy Corps, a great foundation that helps people around the globe. Of interest here are their “Breastfeeding Mercy Kit” and their “Women’s Health Mercy Kit,” charitable gifts which respectively train lactation consultants and midwives in poor areas. What a great idea at the holidays!

–Christina

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all midwives, natural birthers, breastfeeders, attached mamas, and, really, to all! I’m spending this Thanksgiving in New York with family, and we are particularly thankful that my mother is home from the hospital after several months of illness, surgery, and complications.

It was shocking to see my mom when we first arrived: she’d been in the hospital for over three weeks, and she was down to only 87 pounds. We’re trying to take good care of her and encourage her to keep walking, eating, and getting stronger. My mom stayed with us before, during, and after I gave birth to my son at home, and she was a huge encourager for me at that time. In the video my husband took during labor, you see my mom in the background, sitting near the foot of the bed, saying warm and supportive things and, at at least one point, obviously praying. She’s got a road to recovery ahead of her longer than my labor was, that’s for sure.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, whatever you’re all thankful for!

–Christina

Quick link: Baltimore article on free birth

I think most of us here at this site are fans of midwives, but most would also agree that a women who chooses to give birth alone should be supported in her decision. This article in the Baltimore Sun is quite the mixed bag–with obligatory, ill-informed quotes from Harvard-associated OBs, for example–but it ultimately ends on a positive note with a nice quote from a free-birther.

–Christina

Everything’s cooler in England

. . . even groups that promote natural birth!

These are some pretty classy ads from the Jentle Childbirth Foundation.

–Christina