wonder(ing)land

There is a whole lot of the same and some of the new.

The same: I’m pregnant, just as I had been for the past 29+ weeks. And, while the feeling of bigness still comes as a novelty on occasion, I still manage to forget all about it for minutes at a time. I am, indeed, carrying a human being in there that will shortly overtake my life. But for now, this is still a whole lot of fun!

The new: It just might be the time to, you know, buy/get some stuff for our firstborn. For example, now-ish just might be the right time to get some diapers (the unbleached, if not necessarily organic, kind. And they need to be pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-washed). Maybe it’s also time to get us a dresser and set up our baby corner. Chris is advocating a changing table/dresser sorta item. I, you may have guessed, am generally against any particular one-purpose item (baby- and other-wise: we don’t own an ironing board). Worse even, an item that is sold to me under a pretex that I need it. You see, a baby changing table (even if it is a dresser) would be superfluous after we have no more diapers to change. And I don’t need it, I can change my baby on the floor, or on the bed, or on the table, thank you very much. At the same time, I’m keeping my eyes open. My annoyance at this might just melt at the sight of the first cute changing table I see on Craig’s list.

Other new: we started going to childbirth classes, with a group of 6 couples who are also planning births at home. It’s nice not having to defiantly-brag-about/defend our choice. We’re not elitist/special/freaky, just normal.

We were recently asked a question (you might even say we were being interviewed) about our decision to have a home birth (aka homebirth). I mustered out an answer, tried to tell the story but was worried about being long-winded. Consequently, I didn’t do the greatest of jobs. To remedy that episode, and in the interest of not forgetting the long process this has been, I’ve been composing a write up.

This all got started sometime, I think, in 2003. I was working for a baby magazine (its online division) when a colleague, let’s call him Steve, announced that he and his wife just had their second child. At home. In a (kiddie?) pool of water. Just him, his wife and their older child. I remember that the whole office was surprised, emotions ranging from complete shock to astonished curiosity. Steve told me that he and his wife were so badly treated in the hospital during the birth of their first child that they wowed never to do that again.

I started reading.

Around that time, I worked close to Mid-Manhattan Library and there I went during my lunch breaks. I skimmed a whole lot of books on birth. I found out about midwives, history of birth, the need for mammals to be in quiet dark places while birthing, the way that endorphins help labor and pain, they way adrenalin stalls it. I read that a perfectly normal labor started in the comfort of one’s home can completely stop once moved to the hospital and its well lit, scary urgency. This sounded important, but we weren’t having kids so I put that pet project on hold.

Life went on. Bookclub was reading a book on mom who had a home birth. A friend birthed a child with midwives in Pittsburgh. A co-worker in New York had a c-section after being induced before her due date for having a large baby. She later told me not to let the doctors induce me, it wasn’t worth it, they did that so she wouldn’t have a c-section. “You’ll have a c-section anyways. It’s best if they don’t rush you,” she said.

Understanding that I would have to find a doctor who would be on my side, I started looking around. I found that many women recommended Eden Fromberg, a holistic doctor, who was definitely the person to go to for natural childbirth. But I couldn’t find her anywhere, she wasn’t working at the LICH anymore and there was no forwarding address. By the time I finally found her, sometime in 2005, I had probably one unnecessary gyn procedure under my belt. My insurance was accepted at her office (alas, it’s not anymore) and I thought I found my answer. However, at our first meeting I found out that no, she doesn’t deliver babies anymore and that, when I’m ready, she would recommend midwives for home birth. There it was again — this midwife/home birth thing! (At the time, Eden introduced me to natural family planning - fertility awareness, which shaped our lives in a way we wouldn’t have predicted. Though, and little did I know then, it would take almost 3 years of charting before we as a couple were finally ready to get pregnant.)

Toward the end of 2007, I read Tina Cassidy’s book Birth and, in early 2008, thanks to a friend’s website earthmother.org, I found out about the movie The Business of Being Born. Both the book and the movie, at this point in my education, were preaching to the converted. All that was left to do was assuring Chris that we should do home birth. This I’ve done gracelessly but he’s handled it with an open mind I can only strive to have. Now, we are in hands of one capable midwife and we’re taking it one day at a time. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I do know that, should we end up in a hospital, it will be out of real necessity and not because someone arbitrarily decided that my baby is too big for my small pelvis or any other stock reason doctors give us for c-sections.

I believe it was yesterday I felt this for the first time: when the little one moved, I felt a little round shape touching my insides. I don’t know if it is the head or the little bum, but oh-my-god is this a cute feeling!

And, em, last month we saw the little one in electronic person. It’s a boy.

It's a boy...

Week 27 belly

I think we are officially in our third trimester.

Cows in Lancaster County

I’m hungry. All. The. Time.

Well-meaning friends will say “Great! Eat! You can have anything you want.” But we live in the age of super-information with its blessings and curses and I know too much to just eat anything I want.

I know my mother didn’t worry about half the stuff I worry about today. But, for the most part, she ate vegetables from local farms and gardens, meats from cows/sheep/goats that ate grass and she was never really into sweets (such is the beauty of being born in the “developing” country).

New Stanton Farmers Market

I, on the other hand, am on the lookout for produce sprayed with pesticides, animal cruelty, and sugar content of just about any processed food out there. And I don’t even want to address fish and its mercurial blessings.

Raw milk cheese stand

It’s easy for me to get discouraged in this pursuit of real, clean food; from it being hard to find (on, say, interstates) to possible social consequences (if you enjoy perfunctory teasing for being a vegetarian, you’ll love going 100 % organic. I just can’t wait to start breastfeeding…). But, I stand on the shoulders of giants, people who fought and are still fighting with corporations, the government, and cancer so that the rest of us can be picky eaters. So what’s a little ridicule compared to those real battles? So what if I appear as either a snob or a cracked up, over-protective female mammal? I’m safely tucked in the folds of others who know better. And I get positively giddy when driving through Pennsylvania where I am now, I see cows grazing and find random farmers selling their goods. Chris and I will on the lookout for dairy farms selling raw milk, something I thought impossible in this freedom loving United States. Did I say I was giddy?

If I were a Terry Pratchett witch, I would be cackling. As it is, I’m simply Going Granola.

Item: Detoxing the house

Got rid of the conventional cleaning products, things possibly containing bleach, ammonia and formaldehyde, etc. Parabens, phthalates and the likes in my soaps, creams and perfumes also hit the road. I’m making my own essential oil from Thai Basil (soaking in oil for now, will move on to distillation if/when I acquire a distiller, God Oilessentialis willing). I’m in a tizzy about the recently purchased (expensive) mattress and its toxicity level (they get treated with stuff, as you may imagine, for all kinds of happy and unhappy reasons). There are probably a few more corners in our house I still need to inspect.

Item: Baby Gear

Going organic and/or reusable. No PVCs (soft plastic), not to even mention anything painted. Only American/Euro made stuff unless proven safe and/or boutique/handmade in some beautiful village. Also acceptable are used baby clothes, stains and all. I just acquired my very first one, from my favorite Brooklyn ’boutique,’ Fence on 16th, where something like 10% of my own clothes comes from and it looks like a good source of baby things too.

Item: Baby ‘handling’

Dispose of the nonsense crib and stroller racket. Sleep with baby. Considering “babywearing“, constant carrying of the child a la Amazonian tribes for months (6-8 they say) of constant touch. Obviously, breastfeeding (Goddess Lactata willing).

Item: Bottled water

I don’t exactly know what is the deal with plastic water bottles, whether they do or do not leech plastic into the water. But I find them to be the most wasteful and unnecessary product on the market, at least in New York City where water tastes so good. So, for a few months now I’ve been using either the aluminum (lined with porcelain) or the stainless steel bottle filled either with regular or filtered tap water. Both of these bottles have caused me one or two problems along the way (aluminum is pain in the neck to unscrew when thirsty at night, and the stainless steel one has a little whole on top that leaks into my bag when not upright). But, in the last 5 months, I’ve bought total of 3 disposable plastic water bottles, while in the past that number would have been a lot higher, averaging at least 1 a week.

All of this. and much much more, while trying not to annoy my love who lately wonders whom is it he married.

Week 25 Belly

Methinks we are entering explosive growth stage…

Home birth is fully covered by insurance

Back in March, when I was still daydreaming of giving birth at home, but we were looking at other options, I called my insurance, a company whose name starts with a neutered bull and ends in an American car, to inquire of their policy regarding home births. And, yes, the answer was a definite yes, they cover home births. Relieved, I put that beast on hold for the time being, while we took time for some soul-searching on our own home vs. hospital conundrum.

Fast forward some 4 months ahead: we made our decision and love our midwife. Coming up is another ultrasound exam and I thought I should call the insurance to see if I need some such silly thing as a referral. I’m part of a the Freedom Plan so, no, I don’t need a referral. Three ultrasounds are covered. Awesome. But, my midwife isn’t. Or, she will be, but at 70% of the “reasonable and customary charge” and only after I pay $2,000 “deductible.” Wha’!!! First off, and I don’t really want to get into it but here it is, this “reasonable and customary charge” is a black hole. There is no way of knowing that what you pay your doctor will be considered reasonable and customary by your insurance and, get this, it most likely IS NOT. Especially if you live in New York where things cost more.

If anyone has ever dealt with insurance deductibles (and this is the first year I am ’cause I got hooked on my out-of-network doctor), you pay your medical bill and then you submit the paperwork to insurance. So, say you paid $1,300 (with your credit card, of course) for 3 months of out-of-network exams. You submit your itemized bills thinking how you only have $700 more to pay before they’ll pick up the 70% and you can breathe a little easier. Eventually, you get a letter back with all those itemized prices that tells you how much of them will go towards this deductible. It’s something like $800 total. You see, at least 500 of those dollars were above the insurance-deemed reasonable amount. You get mad the first time, and you may even call and give them a piece of your mind. But then, you learn and start to expect it and I think they bank on that. You complain once and then you just roll over and take what’s dished out to you.

To get back to my home-birth midwife, she’s not in network. The insurance lady gives me her deductible-reasonable-customary spiel and is ready to get off the phone. Excuse me, I say, but I thought you covered home births. We do, she says. Well, is there anything else I can do to get this completely covered? Only then does she give me something I can work with. I need to call three different nurse-midwives that are in the insurance network and only after they can’t accommodate me, I can call the Medical Management office and ask for an “in-network exception.”

The very next day, I get on the phone again. I know my way around the automated system a little better today: Pressing 1 for English, then 1 again since I’m a member and I need to talk to a representative, 5 because I want to talk about benefits, 5 again because I don’t know what else to press here. I then enter my ID number including the *, I listen to some recorded message about who I am then finally I get to press 0 to speak to a representative and listen to some elevator music while waiting. Ten minutes into this, I’ finally conected to “Cathy.”

- Hi Cathy, I’m pregnant, baby’s due late November. I am planning a home birth but it turns out my midwife isn’t covered. Someone yesterday told me I need to call three nurse-midwives in the plan….
- Oh, you are trying to get in-network exception.
- Yes. - I want to kiss her over the phone.
- Ok, I’ll give you the names of nurse-midwives to call. Ready? The first one is Carol………..
- Hello, hello… hellooo - my phone got disconnected.

Man. I have to try again. Pressing 1 for English, 1 again since I’m a member, 5 for benefits, 5 again for the lack of better option, entering my number including the *,  listening to recorded message, finally pressing 0 to speak to a representative for more elevator music while waiting. Twelve minutes and I get “Trish.”

- Hi Trish, I’m pregnant, baby’s due late November. I am planning a home birth but it turns out my midwife isn’t covered. I just got disconnected with someone else…. She said I can request in-network exception.
- You know it’s really hard to get in-network exception. They are almost never given.
- I understand. I think what I need from you are names of nurse-midwives I can call.
- It’s just really hard to get an in-network exception. You have to make sure that no one around you within 20 mile radius or 20 minutes of travel isn’t providing a service you need.
- Yes, I understand. The rep earlier on the phone mentioned I needed to call three nurse-midwives and see if they would do a home birth. So, if you would, please let me have some names to call.
- Ok, but I just wanted to let you know that it’s hard…
- The names, please.

What was that all about? Did she just enjoy the pleasure of torturing me with the impossibility of the coveted in-network exception? She finally let me have the names and numbers of three midwives, two of which were in the same practice. And no, none of them do home births. One of the receptionists even chuckled in disbelief when I asked her. I chuckled to myself at the same time. Goody. It looks like the “providers” insurance supplied me aren’t really offering the service I need.

Dial again. One, 1 again, 5, 5 again, ID number including the *, pause for recorded message, 0, elevator music while waiting. Fifteen minutes and I get “Rhonda.”

- Hi, Rhonda. I need to speak with Medical Management Department about in-network exceptions.
- Right away, hon.

Thirteen minutes of elevator music. Quick talk to “Sandy”, ten more minutes of being on hold:

- Thanks for waiting. This is now being processed, we’ll let you know in two days. Keep your reference number handy.

[Oh,  Canada....]

TO BE CONTINUED

For the past few weeks, I’ve been in a strange state. Despite my baby moving inside me and my body getting generally bigger, I often forgot I was pregnant.

I put on hold any birthing research and have only lightly considered shopping for baby clothes, toys and gear. Yes, I’ve been making very conscious food choices, exercising, and paying attention to environmental hazards, but the rest of my world is just the same as it ever was. Actually better: I’ve been feeling super healthy and reasonably energetic (the heat on Sunday morning made my walk difficult, but it did the same for Chris). This must be one of those passing things, change now is undeniably constant. And I want to be un-dumb about it.

So, here, Alisa to Change:

Hi.

I apologize if I hadn’t paid you much attention, though you probably don’t care. I just wanted to say: I know you are here (there and everywhere). I’ll just sit down for this and maybe you won’t knock me off my feet.

Best,
Alisa

After our bed was delivered and after weeks of sleepless nights, Alisa suggested that our new bed deserved more room - the kind of room that comes from a sunny, airy, recording studio perched high in a fourth floor pied a tierre. It would be no easy feat. 10 years of stuff had accumulated under the platform. Two years ago we bought some clear plastic storage bins for our junk. Four of them fit under the bed. Space Heaters in summer time, box fans in winter. Luggage year round. Cat carriers. Our Red Cross safety kit. Dust bunnies. Cat hair balls. Elastic hair bands. Eye masks. Bobby pins. 10 years of stuff.

The first task was to remove all of this stuff. Here it is in it’s new home, our living room.

The next task was to swap the futon in the studio with the bed in the bedroom.

This is Sarah Lentz listening to mixes of her album ‘Begin Again’, while sitting on the futon in the studio.

That was one comfy room!

This is Alisa, folding clothes in our new ’studio’ room.

The bed / futon swap was relatively painless. Irena has been living in Bosnia for over a month now, and she was not inconvenienced in any way. The real pain is going to be when I have to move all of the studio equipment into the new studio room. For now, the bed is comfortably accessible from 3 of the four sides, albeit surrounded with electronic gear on all 3 of those sides.

Historically, Alisa has some pretty strong opinions about what a bedroom IS. There must be the bare minimum of electronics and items that emit electro-radiation, including television monitors and computer screens. Any led’s or illuminations of little colored lights are verboten - they remind her of the cockpit of a commercial airliner, and she is terrified of flying. Also, the wall hangings must be innocuous. There must not be an heavy-fonted writing anywhere, lest she end up reading the titles of museum exhibitions during bouts of sleeplessness. Also of note, there shouldn’t be any large pictures of human likenesses - they tend to just stare at her and make her uncomfortable while she’s trying to relax.

Here are some pictures of our new studio / bedroom.

There’s Tupac, watching over Alisa and making sure no thugs get her during the night.

There are the boys from KISS, making sure she hasn’t forgotten the name of the band.

There’s the computer at the foot of the bed, just in case Alisa needs to write a blog entry at 3 in the morning.

Oh, and there are all of the leds from the instrument landing system of the cockpit, ensuring that Alisa will have a safe and sound journey into dreamland.

It started with a trip to Sleepy’s. In reality, it started many years ago when Alisa told me that her ideal bed would be one that we built ourselves. After a trip to home depot, some 4×8 sheets of plywood and some 4×4 fence posts for legs, we had our bed. Alisa’s mom made a custom-sized mattress for us, and our dream of a home-made bed was realized.

I’ve always teased Alisa about her being the Princess in the Princess and the Pea story, but by our third month of pregnancy, we were living that story every night. The home made bed just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Alisa demanded a new mattress. A mattress fit for a queen. A trip to Sleepy’s was planned.

The thing about Sleepy’s is that you are encouraged to ‘try out’ the mattresses in the store - if by trying out, you mean lying on a mattress in broad daylight, in your clothes and shoes, with strangers watching you, while making judgment calls on firmness, responsiveness, and plushness - things that perhaps you’ve never even considered before. But you better start considering them, because you’re going to be spending a lot of money on a purchase that you’re going to have in your home for a LONG time. First we were encouraged to try the $6000.00 mattress with the lifetime warranty. 6 Grand. It was…nice. What else could I say? I had no vocabulary at my disposal for anything other than ‘It’s nice’. Alisa liked it too. But maybe they had something more in my size, and by my size I mean cheaper. The $5000.00 model. With pillowtop. Hand sewn. Maybe a little cheaper? The $4000.00 model. All natural fibers and a twenty year warranty on uneven wear. The $3000.00 model? Natural and man-made blend - equal degrees plush and firm, Alisa needs plush. I need my 4×8 sheet of plywood. $2000.00 model. Twenty year warranty with natural and man made fibers - a little more firm, yet a slightly higher ’sink’ factor. The $1000.00 model, no box spring. We dragged the mattress off of it’s box spring to better test it out in real world conditions, ie, what it would be like on our 4×8 sheet of plywood bed. More firm than plush, ten year warranty, queen size, natural and man made fibers, sewn by the hands of immigrant workers in North Carolina. Sold and financed. Oh, the warranty time period is cut in half if you don’t buy the box spring? So be it. The sweat stain guarantee is void if you don’t buy the $100 mattress protector? You got me. Alisa’s mom was in town that night with her truck - can we just have her swing by and pick this baby up? Mattresses are only shipped from the warehouse in Long Island and are delivered for a fee of $80.00 - plus and additional $10.00 per floor, per item delivered. Can we at least walk out of here with the mattress cover? No. Nothing is ’sold’ from Sleepy’s - the mattress cover will be an additional item delivered from the Long Island warehouse and carried up the 4 flights of stairs. Done deal.

Financing. That’s right, I’m writing this entry while lying in a bed I don’t even own. Quite a concept for me. Why should I not own the bed I sleep in? Apparently it fits in somehow with how Sleepy’s stays in business. LIfe is short. Perhaps after agreeing to spend thousands of dollars on a mattress, most consumers accept the bet that they’ll be dead in a year, and will have made no payments or interest charges, and have ended up getting the better of Sleepy’s by sleeping and eventually dying in a bed that they’ve never even paid for. Somehow, this must not be what happens in reality. After a year, serious interest charges ensue, and I’m sure folks are paying off their mattress purchases long after the sweat stains and uneven wear have customized their beds into the most comfortable mattress in the world. “For the rest of your life…”

This Tuesday, our midwife and her assistant came over to our house for my first checkup. Chris and I scrambled to make at least one room comfortable for us to meet. (Incidentally, we’ve been trying to make our apartment liveable: The Accumulation of Stuff had reached a tipping point sometime last month. Plus we’d been re-shuffling the rooms. More on all of that later — maybe from Chris.)

Had I (and I hadn’t) even the slightest doubt that I should have a home birth, this meeting would have completely obliterated it. As it were, my buckets of faith have just gotten bigger to accommodate how much I believe in this.

So, get this: they were late for our 11am. While waiting for hours or even minutes for the doctor in her office can take all the steam out of you (not to mention traveling there or the fact that you’ll only see her for 15 minutes at best), imagine waiting in your own home. You’re straightening the cover on the bed, catching up on email, eating left-over ratatouille, gathering up any data you can think of to share while your husband is maybe vacuuming the hallway or cleaning the latest cat damage in the box. We loved the extra half hour of anticipation.

When the buzzer rang, we both ran downstairs and hugged our midwife. We climbed up to our apartment and settled in our cute little railroad room. Then we started talking: birth in general, home birth specifics, her methods of handing difficult baby presentations (oh, do I love her), protein needs (80 -100 grams per day!), mercury in fish (eat small ones), sugar (don’t eat: makes big babies), labor positions, shape of pelvic bones… We went over my medical history and looked at the stack of fertility charts I’ve been keeping for 30 months. She answered my questions and in general made me feel warm and fuzzy. The assistant chimed in about her experiences working elsewhere as a nurse-midwife and assured me I’ll be getting the best care possible.

For the actual exam, I laid on our bed in our awesome sunny bedroom and the midwife took my blood pressure, measured my belly and, the best part of all, gave me her stethoscope so I can listen to the baby’s heart beat (with my eyes closed… it went tic.tic.tic.tic.tic.tic.tic for every tic of my own)! It was lovely.

I think I’m in love. To celebrate, I went to Prospect Park and took lots of pictures.

We hit a small milestone last night: Chris was able feel the baby move! It’s still pretty weak but even since last night, the kicks have gotten stronger and I can see the belly moving. Of course, it is completely, well, insane that there is another living being underneath my own skin, but I guess that’s what’s being pregnant is all about.

I’m now 20 weeks pregnant. This means the baby should be coming along around Thanksgiving (give or take a week or few, I suppose). This also means that I have renewed and stepped up my birthing research.

When I originally met with my midwife, I asked her about birthing classes: should we take them? Do we really need them? Her answer was yes, we should take Bradley method classes, particularly because Bradley engages the father in a very active and important way.

I’d vaguely remembered reading about Bradley and Lamaze methods in Tina Cassidy’s book “Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born” but couldn’t remember any details. Naturally, my curiosity was peaked and I started researching the subject. A very precursory internet research didn’t show much: Lamaze uses a pattern of breathing and distraction from pain of labor while Bradley uses complete relaxation of all muscles with the help of the coach, usually the father. In this (precursory)research there wasn’t any favoritism: either should work.

But, being that my midwife recommended Bradley, I got myself a book, “Natural Childbirth the Bradley(R) Way” by Susan McCutcheon and I am now convinced it is the better way.

Here, I learned that Lamaze’s distraction techniques may fail women when it becomes truly impossible to ignore the pain. Also, the breathing pattern can cause mother and baby to hyperventilate. Mother’s problem can be easily fixed with a paper bag, but that won’t work for the baby. This newborn may need to be supervised for the signs of sleep apnea.

On the other hand, I’m very interested in relaxation. I remember hearing that in car accidents a lot of the pain and injury actually comes from the victim’s own body. We tend to tense up during distress so we tear our own bodies apart. I once met a horse-back rider, a beautiful woman, who told me that as a rider, she had to learn to let go while falling of the horse. We were rafting on a river upstate and we both turned over. She emerged from water as if she were a mermaid, in complete ease, while I panicky tried to get get hold of my raft, coughing up water, forgetting that I’m a decent swimmer. I tensed up and got confused and experienced pain while she was able to let her body fall and give in to the event that she couldn’t control.

So, no surprise that once I started reading about the Bradley method, I knew it was the right way for me even if the complete relaxation, even a partial one, would be hard to master. The craziest part of this is that Chris has to be the one making sure I do. Should we manage to get our act together and should everything go by the book, it will be Chris who will have to be observant, alert, firm yet kind and loving, noticing the smallest tensing of my body and telling me about it and massaging my back, which, apparently, will hurt me a whole lot and exhaust him. At the same time, my job will be to listen to him and RELAX while concentrating on the body doing its thing during labor. Impossible? I’m eager to find out….