Total Support Pillows

I totally love this idea.

Cesarean Support Pillows

From the ICAN blog http://blog.ican-online.org/2011/04/09/new-ican-support-pillows/

"ICAN debuted our newest support offering at our 2011 Conference in St. Louis. Designed by talented ICANer Mallory Brock from a concept by Education Director Krista Cornish Scott, this fabric can be ordered by the yard directly from www.spoonflower.com with a portion of the sales going to ICAN. One yard of fabric makes three support pillows. A caring and thoughtful gift for a mom recovering from a cesarean, it has both practical advice and emotional support that is the hallmark of ICAN."

I'm ordering two yards right now to make up pillows for cesarean moms in my community.

The words of the back are particularly wonderful... the one that is sticking in my mind is something like: It's normal to have more then one emotion about a single event"

How true, my littlest son's birth was both a amazing magical moment and a source of deep trauma.

These pillows will support in many ways. I believe that physical and emotional recovery needs to be active and almost violent, the same way an aggressive surgery is.

A wise friend of mine reminded me that

Sometimes you ave to meet the fire with your own heat.

All That Matters is a Healthy Mother?

We have all heard it time and time again the many versions of:
"all that matters is you have a healthy baby".

Often I found this to be in response to people finding out that my newest son had been born by unplanned cesarean section. But I also found that a version of this phrase was tossed out when I talked to birth professionals about the lack of prenatal information about cesarean avoidance and/or preparation.

I once suggested that women should be given more information about their risk versus the unborn baby's risks of cesareans. The response I got was:
"Most mothers would say to do what ever it takes to get the baby out safely".

I felt like I was being chastised for suggesting that I might choose their safety of myself over the safety of my baby. I quickly dropped the subject. But months later I think.
Am I really the only one who would choose me?

Through out my pregnancy my greatest fear was that I would die in childbirth and leave my older son motherless. I no longer do many of the more risky things my pre-mother self did and I felt that I had taken on a risk in being pregnant and giving birth that was unfairly exposing the mother of my son to potential harm.
Apparently this fear is fairly common in second time mothers.

I would look at my 8 year old and imagine the life he would have without me and how much emotional damage would be done to him if I didn't make it though the pregnancy and birth.
I should also note that this fear was greatly enhanced by contracting H1N1 at about 30 weeks.

If I had been asked who's life should be protected first I would have picked my sweet eight year old's mama (me) over the baby in my belly, who is now my beautiful 2 year old son. Yup it might sound terrible to say but it's true.

And I don't say that lightly-but if it had to be one of us, I would take on the pain of loosing a child to protect my other child from the pain of loosing his mom.
And I know it would be awful.
I was there for one of my best friends when she lost her newborn. I grieved along with her and saw the total and horrible sadness that consumed and transformed her. Her life was never the same. She is a very different woman because of the loss of her new baby.

Maybe I am the only one. Maybe I am driven by a subconscious selfishness that I have justified to myself. But I will stand by my assertion that we should be given a choice in who's health is the most important.

Would I give up my newest son to avoid the P.T.S.D. that I endure because of his birth, no way.
But for example...
Should a women with her heart set on a very large family have the right to decline a cesarean for fetal distress knowing it could put future pregnancies at risk?

There are so many different scenarios. So many different risks and wants and beliefs. Should we be informed and be able to choose for ourselves?

Am I crazy to think that many there should be a box to check that says "Protect me first"?

I'm going to end with a phrase we are starting to hear more...

Mother's Matter Too

(Almost) Wordless Wednessday

Along the Journey

I haven't been in the birth community in a while. And I feel so blessed to come back to find a beautiful blog post that made me feel just the type of support I needed.
Healing is hard. Dealing is hard.
Trying to savour these last few days of true babyhood that my 22 month old takes concentration.
Knowing there are many mama's out there getting it done is more inspiring then anything else.
Happy Womens Day All.

Here's the post that felt like a great big hug... thanks Avital

"CESAREAN COURAGE"

http://avital.blogspot.com/2011/01/cesarean-courage.html#axzz1G2HPkQra

PTSD and Me.

I've seen a few post around the 'net in the last little while about PSTD caused by childbirth. Two years ago if you had asked me what post traumatic stress disorder was I would have told you that it was what happened to people who were involved in combat or violent crime.

Now I know differently.

For me it started almost immediately. Within hours of my baby's birth if I would fall asleep for even a moment I would be shocked back awake by violent dreams, mostly about people killing my baby. I wont go into details, but they were so awful that I didn't sleep at all for over 30 hours. No sleep at all despite 12 hours of labour followed by surgical birth. Finally, I literally passed out and slept dream free for a few hours only to wake up in a panic as my baby wasn't beside me. And when I say "panic" I mean I had what I believe to be the first anxiety attack I've ever had. Heart racing, cold sweats, nausea, and terrible fear. I quickly discovered I had to be in physical contact with my baby to feel even the slightest bit grounded.

Part of this reaction was likely due to the large amounts of morphine I had been given. Looking at my records I see that I was given hydromorph twice when I thought I was getting tylanol and that was on top of the 48 hours worth of morphine put through the epi line at the end of my cesarean. Some people feel awesome on morphine, I'm not one of them. My sister who came to see me in the hospital, on day two, realized what was happening, as she too reacts badly to opiates, can't sleep, lots of nightmares. But the other reason I was having these feelings was a much more complex issue I would eventually learn was my very own p.t.s.d.

I thought things would be better if I could just get out of the hospital and go home. I remember being very aware of "looking the part". I got into my flower flannel pajamas, and walked circles in the ward to prove I was ready to go home. The doctor agreed and I was free to take my baby home.

Unfortunately, things didn't get better. While the drug induced nightmares lessened, I was still plagued nightly by disconcerting dreams of birthing in dirty, public places or being chased by blue clad people through halls that turned Esher-like into themselves. Toss in the odd full blown hunted by a serial killer dream, and I found that most mornings I awoke in tears.

I also had a desperate need to be near my baby. I couldn't bear him to be out of my sight, or panic would start to set in. Yet strangely I didn't feel bonded to him in the way I had with my first born. While I needed him near me I didn't have any of the blissful gazing moments I had had naturally with my first son. In fact I had to remind myself to smile at him and talk to him and love him in the way I knew he deserved. I feel eternally grateful that his traumatic birth was not my first baby as I was able to recognize early that I wasn't bonding normally and actively work on bonding techniques. (I'll devote a whole post to that some time soon!)

I tried to find a way through this confusing time. I had a huge need to talk about what had happened to me. I needed to try to piece together what had occurred. I tracked down my primary care provider who was able to answer some of my questions and helped me fill in some of the information I needed. It made me feel better to know the details and not have a hole in my understanding of the first few moments of my son's life, but some of it made me angry as I realized that my experience had been made much worse by needless protocols and a lack of compassionate bedside manners.

The months ticked by. The nightmares continued and other symptoms started to be apparent.
Before my second son's birth I had what I would consider normal protective fear for my children. I would watch at the window while my 9 year old crossed the road to play with the neighbour and I would feel slightly nervous, silently willing him to be careful and watch for cars. Now it is completely different. Now I watch at the window in complete fear with violent images of him being killed by a speeding car flashing through my mind.
Every day I was( and still am) faced with heightened fear. Violent images of my loved ones meeting horrible deaths are hard to keep in check.

I started to search for information on what was happening to me. Soon I was reading about symptoms that sounded just like mine. I found information through ICAN's Recovery pages. You can find their info about PTSD and PPD HERE
http://www.ican-online.org/recovery/postpartum-depression-and-post-traumatic-stress-disorder

I also found on online community called Solace for Mothers http://www.solaceformothers.org/
where many women gather to share their stories and support each other. Unfortunately, I am not alone. Many, many women have ptsd from childbirth, and this online forum is so helpful as it can be really hard when no one understands what you are going through.

Fast forward to 18 months post birth and many sessions with a good councilor. I still have nightmares, but not every night. I still have way more fear then is healthy. I still have anxiety and hyper-vigilance. I still have lost some of the joy in my life to this condition. But I have hope. Hope that I will learn ways to overcome. Hope that one day I will be able to feel normal again. This year my plan is to watch the elementary school concert and NOT jump up to grab my kids and run when the grade ones stand up to sing a holiday song.

Some times I wonder why did my cesarean birthing experience result in ptsd for me when so many other women don't suffer from this.
In the thinking I have done about this I have come up with the facts that I am a very sensitive human. I am often struck by how much more information I receive then others close to me. Often this has been a great gift but when in a traumatic situation perhaps having such highly open senses may not be a good thing. I also have a extremely precise memory for what people say and do. (I got by in university by going to class, if heard the prof say it chances were high I would remember it, -sure beat studying) These are the attributes that I think lead me to be more susceptible.

I have read that some people think that some women are more likely to get ptsd because of previous experiences. This bothers me because who has had the perfect life? By the time we are of child bearing age who hasn't had their share of heartache and pain? Maybe for some prior traumas may add to their risk, but my own experience is that even a normal life can lead to reacting to birth trauma in this way.

Well thats my little bit on that. I hope that it is helpful to some.

I would like to end with this;
PLEASE If you are suffering don't suffer alone. Reach out. It's hard, you may have to reach out more then once ( I did), but when you start to find a way to feel better it will be worth it.

Resolution

There are these moments in my life when I feel a little push from the devine. Sometimes it's a gentle nudge in the right direction, sometimes it's a unwelcome shove that sends me into a momentary free fall.

I was just reminded about one of these moments. In the fall of last year I had written a "Review of my Birthing Experience" and was contemplating what to do with it. While I felt that it should be read by the care providers at the hospital I had delivered at it was extremely difficult to face the idea that numerous people would examine me again. No, not physically, but psychologically-I knew my experience would be reviewed and dissected by many, many people. I would never meet these people or even learn their names. I knew I would be criticised.
And worse then anything else, I would never know the truth about what was said about me behind those closed doors. And so I did nothing. I left my "Review" in a file and tried to move on with my life.

And then I picked up the paper in a coffee shop one day in December and on the cover was a picture of a vibrant young mother and her baby. The mother was a doctor who had spent her career delivering babies and her baby was born the same month as my baby at the same hospital. The story in the paper told of their death in a plane crash. Tears jumped to my eyes.

The next day I sent the review to the complaint department of the hospital.

Life is short. Life is too short to wait for another day for anything.

I read that this young mother/doctor had great faith in the hospital I delivered at and I'm sure she would want it to be the best it possibly can be. Criticism is a great motivator for change.
So in saying prayers for her family, and sending my review I tried to honour her life.

Dealing with the complaint wasn't fun, it didn't make me feel better, in fact in many ways I felt worse, but it was a push towards more positive births. By providing my feedback to those who cared for me I can only hope that there were ripples of change.

I believe saying our truths can be one of the hardest things and also the most important.

I was sent this in an email;

"Finding strategies to heal and integrate the experience in your truth takes time, energy and resolution."

And so, by chance yesterday, I found myself reading about that mother and her baby again;
lives lost reminding me to take a breath and feel my resolution.

WOW

I feel almost out of touch with my blog, like a friend that I haven't had a chance to call.

I am desperate to review Breastfeeding with Comfort and Joy by Laura Keegan.

I'd explain all the things I have going on that are keeping me from writing , but that would only take time away from what I need to say which is that

I AM FEELING SO HOPEFUL!!! Change is a coming I can feel it in the wind.

Last night I was in a room with Suzanne Arms (of Immaculate Deception and so much more)
Gloria Lemay, Jennifer Block (of Pushed), Helene Vadeboncoeur (of Birthing Normally after a caesarean or two), along with other activists, doulas, midwives, lacivists, intactivists, mothers who home birthed, hospital birthed, elective cesarean birthed, and 4 babies.

I could feel the cogs shifting, the universal work being done. Women are so powerful, we just have to take hold of it and NEVER LET GO AGAIN!

I must go, I have a 200+ to do list but I had to stop in and share my joy.

After august I'll fill in all the details.