What you need to know before giving birth

So I imagine like myself no one is truly prepared 100% and no one really tells you what you really need to know about birth. In my opinion, the most important thing to understand is that during labor anything can happen. I went into my first pregnancy being really stressed out and scared of the whole experience and birthing process. This stress did not in any way change the outcome of the birth experience. The biggest mistake my husband and I made with our first pregnancy is to not be well informed about the birthing process. Sure in school you get sex education as part of the curriculum; however, this is highly insufficient for preparing women about what happens during gestation, during labor, and postpartum. I knew that the baby came out of the vagina everyone knows that right? But that is really the extent of it. They explain what happens but not really how it happens at least that is what it was like for me when I was in school. They used to show you a low resolution video from the 1970s of a woman on her back with her legs splayed and blood everywhere. However, there was no education about the stages of labor, how long it can take, how to cope with the pain, positioning for optimal delivery and fetal well being.

Now getting into what truly matters for the pregnant lady I believe these five things are the take home message of the most important things about birth.
1) Take a birthing class, this is the single most important thing women can do to improve birth out comes and lesson the amount of interventions a doctor can push onto you and your partner. Be well informed about the birthing process, what happens, what is expected, and how not to freak out immediately.

2) I recommend to every woman, especially if it your first birth or if you have had a previous traumatic birth, is to hire a doula. They can assist you during the birth and give you recommendations based on the best evidence as to whether the intervention is warranted and if you should wait or take another approach to birthing that baby. They are equipped with knowledge about the best positions, what stage of labor you are in at the time, and the most important thing how to cope with the pain and have a drug free birth.

3) One of the most important things for my husband and I for our second baby, which I believe impacts on what kind of birth you have, was to limit the people who will be there to support you. Only have people there that you trust and that will support you. I had my best friend there during the delivery of my first baby. In hind sight, she was not the best person because to this day she likes to remind me of all the embarrassing things that happened during that birth. I am well aware of what happened, I hate thinking about it, and do not need to be reminded of how horrible it was. So my advice is to only have people that understand the process and will respect you during and after the birth. This includes doctors, residents, nurses, nursing students, midwifery students, mothers, fathers, siblings, and best friends.

4) Also do not read too much information on the internet. Be informed, yes, however, do not obsess over every detail. This includes having a "birth plan". Of course you need a plan; however, do not base every single decision on that birth plan. Do not be disheartened if your birth plan goes awry and things do not go exactly as planned. Do not be sad if you did not get to listen to your favourite podcast, light those candles, you need to be induced, or whatever detail that is part of your birth plan. Have some general guidelines in place. Make sure you talk it over with your partner, birth support, and you health care provider. But do not have a super detailed list which will be too hard for everyone to follow. Just list the most vital elements and write them down and make sure everyone is on board.

5) Finally, get a good photographer or make sure you have someone that it the dedicated photographer. Because sometimes this is the biggest thing that gets forgotten and then the baby is born and there are no pictures of him or her coming out. I wish I had a shot of my daughter as her head popped out. But I don't so my recommendation is to talk to whoever is taking the photos and tell them what kind of photos to take and which to avoid.

My traumatic birth story - my first born

Storm’s Birth Story

It all began on the 28^th of January 2013. My baby was already two weeks overdue and I was to be induced that day. Sarah, my best friend and my husband Justus accompanied me to the antenatal ward at the Royal Hospital for Woman in Randwick, one of the suburbs located in the eastern part of Sydney, Australia. It was a cool summer morning in January and rain clouds were looming overhead, threatening us with rain. The first thing that happened when I went into the room was having my cervix checked so that the midwife could determine if my cervix had in fact opened up over the weekend and since my last appointment, which I’d had on the 21^st of January. On that day when Fiona (the midwife) had checked my cervix it had not opened up at all, it was completely closed and in a posterior position. On top of that my baby had not dropped, which is what triggers labor and your cervix to dilate or “open up”. I was carrying high throughout my entire pregnancy right until the very end.

The first thing the midwife did was check on the baby. She monitored his heart rate for about 45 minutes before deciding to check on my uterus. The position of the cervix and how open it was would determine if my waters would be broken that day or if I was to be induced instead. As I lay down put my feet together and flopped my knees to either side, the midwife checked my cervix again. It was softened, and starting to open slightly but still extremely posterior. He did not want to budge, and as far as he was concerned, my womb had become his favorite place.

It was at this point that they decided to administer the prostaglandin gel onto my cervix. The gel is used to soften and help dilate the cervix and to bring on the contractions. The gel was administered at 11am. Sarah, my husband, and I then went downstairs to have coffee; I had tea because I did not want to stress out bubba. I started feeling a little strange and some pain, nothing to write home about so Justus and I decided to go back upstairs. In the room the contractions slowly started to get more painful, I remember thinking to myself this isn’t so bad. The midwife decided to check my cervix again and it had opened up about 1cm, While she conducted the examination Sarah held my right hand while Justus held my left, all I remember was that the pain was excruciatingly uncomfortable the most horrible feeling. Eventually my parents arrived at about 5pm and came to the hospital right away after arriving at central station.

In the following hours after my parents arrived, I can remember a blur of events. The contractions began feeling like intense pressure on my bowels and anus. At this point the pain was still manageable. I kept walking around the ward to encourage labor to begin. I walked with Sarah, walked with my mum, and walked with my husband on separate occasions. The pain slowly intensified as the night progressed. At one point I took panadeine forte to help with the pain, the medication dulled the pain momentarily maybe for about thirty minutes. The pain only intensified further as the medication wore off. Eventually those painkillers acted like placebos compared to the intensity of the contractions and were only a temporary fix. It became increasingly hard to walk, at this stage of my labor, maybe around 10pm they offered me a warm bath. I went in there with Justus, but the water wasn’t hot enough I told him to pour more hot water in because I wanted it to be scalding I didn’t care about the heat. The pain was so bad at that stage that I began moaning louder and louder, it is very animalistic experience and when contractions worsen you become oblivious to your surroundings and increasingly aware of what is happening to your body. Looking back now it was like I was on some weird drug like mushrooms or ecstasy, except with intense pain accompanied by eurphoria.

It was at this stage that the midwives decided to do an internal exam again, and judging from the sound of my cries they assumed it must have opened farther. When they checked my cervix it had opened up to 3cm. Again, the internal exam was extremely painful but worth it because it meant that I was going to be transferred to the delivery suite. At this stage of the labor I could barely walk and the contractions were becoming much more regular and extremely painful. I lost sense of myself and was wheeled in with a wheelchair to the delivery suite; I could no longer hold myself in an upright position.  

In the delivery suite, we put on some music, and I continued to labor throughout the night. It was midnight when I looked at the clock and realized that no progress was made except for the fact that the pain was getting worse, the contractions were extremely close and every time I had one I got this overwhelming sense I wanted to push, poop, or explode I don’t know which but all three choices were extremely painful and unbearable to think of. The dull period type pain became more like jagged knives being thrust into every part of my abdomen, like I either needed to shit so bad, or that my insides were going to explode and that I was literally about to die right there and then on that excruciatingly uncomfortable bed. I was being murdered from the inside out. The pain really is indescribable; it is something that can only be felt in order for it to be properly understood. When I thought about contractions before that day I thought to myself that they would simply be a little worse than menstrual cramps, was I mistaken.

The night continued and I started getting back-to-back contractions. Meanwhile it was storming all night, the rain poured outside, I was sweating, then I was cold, and I was so incredibly thirsty. Sarah kept giving me water. I had no rest between contractions and I could no longer cope. The midwife came and said do you understand your pain relief options? I looked at her and was slightly delusional. I told her “yes gas and epidural!”. She then informed me that I could have morphine. I said “Really, morphine? Are you sure? But is it safe for the baby?” Immediately my mother was opposed, Justus started googling the side effects of having morphine on the baby. Justus then agreed with my mother and said that he did not think it was a good idea. As he said that, the midwife came back in and said that the baby can have withdrawals and they can give something to the baby to reverse it. That was all I needed to hear, I said I did not feel safe about taking it, even though my uterus and bowels felt like they were on fire. The pressure was so intense, and I just felt like I constantly needed to push, it felt as though my insides were going to explode out of my body each time I was having a contraction and I was having two or three a minute.

At this stage, the night became a distortion of events, there were a couple of moments when I had a contraction and right afterward I would feel this huge sense of euphoria. This helped me manage for a little while. Then the time finally came when they had to do another internal, I was petrified because every time they did an internal the pain was ten times worse with each exam. I was so scared and new it was going to hurt like crazy, I didn’t want her to do it and I was refusing and shaking my head in my delusional, semi-conscious state. The midwife informed me that once she checked she could break my waters and then it would speed up the labor. I freaked out and new I would not be able to handle the pain, Sarah and Justus both encouraged me, I remember Sarah telling me it will be good if you do because then labour will progress otherwise labor won’t progress and it will be worse to which I replied “I can’t do it! I’m in so much pain! I don’t want to have another contraction while she breaks my waters!”. Finally, they both convinced me, I lay down with Sarah holding my hand on one side and Justus on the other. Once again, I put my feet together and flopped my knees side to side. She looked inside and said my cervix had opened up 5cm and she could break my waters. She took out the long amniohook and proceeded to break my waters. I screamed so loudly, it was the most painful experience, and as the warm liquid ran down my bottom, I felt the most intense period pain, and the contractions got even worse, about ten times worse. I never thought they could get any more painful than they had already been.

The midwife who broke my water finished her shift; the new midwife came in, as the change over occurred the contractions became so much more intense and closer together. Just when I thought there could not be any more pressure, each contraction brought with it a huge surge of pain that radiated down my legs, and through my anus and vagina. It felt like someone was poking a fire stoker into my abdomen and intestines and colon. My insides seemed as though they would explode out at any moment. To be quite honest the best way to describe a contraction or an “induced contraction” is in this way, rather than a fire stoker it felt as though (now this will sound really horrible) that I had a bowling ball sized poop lodged somewhere in between my rectum and cervix, and that this poop was as hard as platinum and didn’t want to come out, and that it was on fire all at the same time, yes I think that is a better description for the type of contraction I was having. Oh and they were not spaced one minute apart (as promised by the midwife) but rather, I was sometimes having them back to back. It was so painful that I think if you were being murdered with and axe and then being poked inside your vagina with a double edged sword at the same time it wouldn’t even compare to a contraction.

I don’t know how long this was going on for, but eventually the midwife said you can use gas.  I had tried it for a brief second and was aware that is was there but when I tried it I threw the ventilator into the air and screamed, “no it doesn’t work, it’s crap”. She said, “It can really help you work through your contractions” I didn’t really know how to use it, and just as I said that another contraction began and the midwife showed me how to use it she picked it up and said “Ok when another contraction begins breath in deeply though your mouth and out through your nose”. I did as she instructed, and breathed the gas in throughout my contraction. It didn’t make the pain go away but it stupefied me enough where I got a little high and the contraction didn’t feel as bad. Now all I can say is this to future preggers out there, don’t ever be astonished at what other women do during their labour because when your in the moment anything can happen especially if you have been induced. I threw the gas mask in the air, as it really was not helping. Little known to me at the time I had only dilated 3cms during this whole experience. Nothing was happening. The contractions were erratic and I was not getting a break for even a second. I was moaning like a wolf howling at the moon and nothing was happening.

My cervix was not even dilated when the midwife had checked the few days prior to this experience. My cervix was not ripe and I am baffled as to why they would recommend for me to have an induction. It was guaranteed to fail.

The pain continued unabated and I was on all fours on this extremely uncomfortable bed. I remember feeling as though I had rug burns on my knees and that’s how much time I was spending crouched over in pain on my knees. This continued on into the night with nothing really progressing. The midwives were shockingly nonchalant and uncaring. They offered me no help or advice as to how to position myself or how to birth this baby. It was shocking that this was happening to me, and that I had stupidly allowed them to do whatever they liked to my body.

Things got from bad to worse when the midwife came in and told me that my cervix was not dilating quick enough and that they would have to administer Pitocin via IV drip. I asked them how bad the contractions would become then. They said they would intensify and the pain would be worse than what they had been. It was at this point in time that I realized that my body had failed me and that I could not handle this type of artificially induced labour pain. I asked my best friend to get the midwife and to tell her that I wanted to have an epidural. I think at that point I had been in there for 18 hours. I had only reached 3cm and it seemed as though my body was going to explode.

My mother attempted to stop me. And I said to her I need this. In hindsight I know that there were too many people involved with my birth experience and that no one should have been there except for my husband. I ended up having the epidural. Just before the anesthesiologist administered the medication he gives me, what seemed like a novel at the time, pages and pages of information regarding the epidural I looked at it with my blurry vision, hunched over in pain and immediately handed it to my husband. There was no way I could give informed consent by reading a thousand page document regarding the risks of the injection. It was completely ridiculous.

They administered the medication. Slowly the pain subsided and everyone was able to rest. It was around 2am. The lights were dimmed. My husband and best friend fell asleep. My mum and dad paced the hallways and room. I tried to relax.

Suddenly it was 6am. All the lights were turned on and the registrar or head of the department came in with two residents (i.e. students). The room was filled with onlookers, nurses, doctors, cord donation, midwives, my parents, my best friend and my husband. It was a complete and utter circus. I was then poked, prodded, given and internal examination, my vagina was in full view of everybody. I felt helpless, drugged up and completely out of control. Finally, the registrar said to me “we are going to try to manually move your baby” he was now stuck with his head in a transverse position. The doctor (in front of all the staff and my family and friends) put his whole arm up my vagina and tried to turn my baby while I attempted to push. He tried a few times to no avail. Finally he said to me. If we can’t turn your baby we are going to have to prepare you for a c-section”. Upon hearing those words I burst into tears because I left the USA precisely for that reason. To not have an interventionist birth. The staff prepped me for surgery. My mum started to help I was so embarrassed and told her to move out of the way. If you can imagine a little Italian woman attempting to move me from my bed to the operating table while all the doctors and nurses were preparing to move me together.

The whisked me away to the operating theatre for an emergency caesarian; I was completely bewildered and sad at that point. Once we were there the doctor prepared me by telling me that they were going to try two more times to manually move my baby. SO we got into the operating theatre he tried two more times, and used two different types of forceps with no luck. They prepared for the operating table, covered my face with a sheet so that I couldn’t see anything, and they cut me open. I remember hearing my baby cry and the doctor saying “A beautiful, healthy baby boy” and my husband and I were in tears it was so emotional and so exhausting. I held him for a little while but I couldn’t hold onto him for long because I was shaking uncontrollably. They took him away and the room cleared while the residents stitched me up. I remember not feeling a thing from the waist down except for being tugged hard left and right.

I finally saw my baby in the recovery room and they immediately put him to my breast. At that point I didn’t care about how he came into the world. He was healthy and he was perfect. However, over the next few months and even years I always remembered hi birth in a very negative way. I felt depressed when I thought about it. I felt like my body was broken, and I felt like I had been treated like a science experiment rather than a human being. In these situations mothers don’t matter any longer all that matters is that they get that baby out no matter how horribly they treat the person carrying the baby.

It was traumatic, excruciatingly painful, I felt used, defeated and extremely embarrassed.

I have not written in quite a while and have decided to update what has happened since I was pregnant the first time. I had him, obviously, and now he is three years old and he also has a little sister who is now six months old. I think the hardest part of becoming a mother is that there are so many unknowns you are constantly asking yourself: "Am I a good mother"; "Am I doing this right"; "Are they learning"; "Am I putting enough effort in?"
Nobody warns you how difficult it will be and will become. I have spent three and half years being a mother and I can say one thing it is so hard but contrast to this difficulty mothers face every day there is also an abundance of rewards and joy. Now, one thing I can say is for sure is that the internet is littered with rubbish on how to do this and how to do that. I use the internet as a resource to help me be a better mother; however, I rely mostly on gut instinct combined with my feminine natural inclination to be a mother, which I find comes naturally for me even though some times I want to pull out my hair and at other times I feel like closing the door and never coming out.
This blog is taking a new direction. I am going to write about my life as a mother and what I do to fill our days with as much joy and happiness that I can muster. Included will be recipes based on a gluten free and paleo diet, educational information for mothers who are entering the realm of motherhood, and photography.

Enjoy

One more week

I have one more week until my baby is due to be born. So what has happened so far: we flew to Australia and arrived here on the 5th of November. So we have been here for a little over two months. We decided that the medical system in the USA was not for us. After I had been told different scenarios by three different practitioners my husband an I decided that we did not want to have the baby in the US so we flew to Australia, my home country, and also one of the top five places to give birth. We are now living in Sydney, and it would appear that I haven't gotten much bigger since leaving the USA. After staying with my parents for the first couple of weeks in Canberra, Justus (HB) and I drove to Sydney to search for our apartment. It was so hard because being pregnant makes it increasingly difficult to travel. Anyway, to make a long story kind of short we eventually found a place. And mind you when I got here I didn't even have a practitioner to go to or anything and I was already 7mths preggers. So, we eventually found a temporary place through GumTree the Aussie version of Craigslist. The apartment was located in Potts Point, right in the city, and it was close to the hospital where I wanted to give birth. We met Emmy one Sunday, and her sister was also there. She also happened to be pregnant and her name, coincidentally was also Suzanne (with a z instead of an s) ha ha how weird. And not only that Emmy was also a resident GP (general practitioner) the Australia equivalent of a family doctor. We all got talking and she was so awesome, one dilemma that we got to talking about was how I was going to get into the Aussie medical system since I was already so far along. In Australia when you get pregnant you get it confirmed by your GP and then you get the referral to boot the hospital that is in the "area" I which you live. So I had quite a journey ahead of me. Funnily enough Emmy new an easier way in, she said just go to the emergency department and tell them you are pregnant and pretend you are having contractions, and they have to see you by law. So, after meeting Emmy and Suzanne and talking about everything and agreeing to move into her place as a sublet I finally had an easy way into the hospital. We moved in that Wednesday and the next day we went to the hospital and I was immediately seen. They took me to the delivery ward, poked and prodded me and signed me in to give birth there. It was awesome, and the staff at the delivery suite  were awesome. I then ended up going downstairs to the antenatal clinic saw a midwife there and she booked all of my appointments for me for the next 2mths. Everything was awesome. So that is how easy it was, oh and everything was free 

The Broken U.S. Medical System

So the latest in my gestational diabetes debacle, I was seeing Irina Norovsky at Sutter Health in Vallejo, she works under Dr. Anat Sapan, Obgyn. I felt that I was not going to get the birth experience I was after and I really didn't like the maternity ward there. So I did a lot of research and really wanted a midwife, because I believed I would get what I wanted and since my insurance does not cover home births I had to search for a midwife that was affiliated with a doctor's office. I left Dr. Sapan's office and started seeing Debbie Coleman, N.P, CNM in Oakland, California. I thought that by seeing her I would finally have the care I wished for. I didn't leave Irina's care because she sucked in any way I just didn't want to give birth in Vallejo, and I wanted a natural birth with little to no intervention. And on the plus side my husband was born at Alta Bates in Berkeley so by going through Debbie Coleman I would be able to also give birth at Alta Bates.

So as you know from my last post, upon seeing Debbie and telling her my A1c results that were given to me at 5 weeks of 5.8/120 she immediately said to me that they consider that diabetic at her office. So she then referred me to East Bay Perinatal Associates, and a genetic counselor because my sister has had kidney issues. I go to see the cunt (genetic counselor) first at some other perinatal office, and this woman can't really tell me what causes kidney issues, and that many genes are involved. She then says since you have GD you may have had diabetes before you were pregnant so your son could have a congenital heart defect. She then goes over the nuchal translucency results and the blood work saying that my son is better than normal, yet she still goes on to suggest an amniocentesis, I immediately refuse knowing that it can cause early labor. the bitch then tells me "Yes I always tell my patients to have the amnio before 25 weeks, because after 25 weeks if you do go into early labor there is a chance your son will survive and he will be severely retarded"

I could not believe she was suggesting this to me. And on top of that she was a complete bitch to me. She then says that from my ethnic background (i'm Italian) and your husband's background (Italian, Syrian, Irish and German) there is a "chance" that you could both be carriers of sickle cell anemia. Mind you I have 31 cousins on my mothers side and 7 on my fathers side and NOT ONE PERSON IN MY FAMILY has sickle cell anemia or Thalasemia and the same goes for my husband's family. So then she suggests that we also get tested for that and that my son should also have a fetal echocardiogram since I "may" have had diabetes before I was pregnant even though NO ONE in my family has diabetes except for my granddad who developed diabetes when he died (on my fathers side).

Now this isn't even the craziest part of my pregnancy, I was quite defensive of the whole stupid A1c results since the day I received it. I strongly doubted I had diabetes before I was pregnant because my BMI when I found out I was pregnant was 18.2, a number that does not even appear on those ridiculous growth charts, and I eat a really clean diet. And by clean I mean organic, no heavily processed food, and I cook food AT HOME using fresh ingredients. I grew up on a mediterranean diet and my mother grew her own vegetables, I have always been WELL NOURISHED since birth.

So I continue to see Debbie, I think I saw her one more time before she referred me to East Bay Perinatal Associates. So I go to see them two weeks ago to talk and see their nutritionist and a high risk Obgyn. My husband and I go together, both of us are fit people my husband looks amazing and he works out every day, plus he eats my home cooking. We go into her office and look at the fake sample foods she has on her desk all heavily processed shit, not one product is organic and most of them has some sort of corn derivative (i.e. maltodextrin). I haven't been eating any food with corn derivatives in it for some time now, since before I got pregnant. My husband and I were amazed that this would be the person who would be telling me how I should be eating.

She comes in and I am armed with information, I have read the HAPO study (which caused the guidelines for GD to be altered this year), I read blogs, and other research articles regarding GD. The thing is there is very little knowledge regarding GD. And although the HAPO study was well conducted I do not think that 26,000 women is representative of the 3.5 billion or so women that live on this planet, their dietary history, genetics, nutrition, or body type. And although there was a correlation between GD and birth injury the correlation was not significant. And birth injuries occurred in women who were not even diagnosed with GD. Furthermore, macrosomia (or large for gestational age infants) has been found to be much more closely related to the weight of the woman before she got pregnant, i.e. obese women.

Now having said all that, there is something left to be desired by the medical establishments need to intervene in the body's of pregnant woman and their future offspring.

Now back to the nutritionist's office, armed with knowledge about GD it was clear that even she was uninformed and that her information came from the higher ups or studies conducted and funded by government bodies, such as the diabetes association. So after showing her my excel spreadsheet of my glucose levels she recommended that I take some sort of diabetic drug, namely Glyburide and/or insulin. After telling me that my baby would get huge, and that my fasting blood sugars should be below 90 she convinced me that I needed to be on medication. After her appointment I saw the Obgyn, and she gave me two weeks to lower my FBG. So in those two weeks I tried many things to lower my morning glucose levels. They wouldn't go down at all. I still wasn't completely convinced and my husband believed it was complete and utter bullshit. He was absolutely against me being on insulin or glyburide. Mind you, insulin does not cross the placenta, however, I have no idea what the long term affects of taking insulin when you do not need it would have on my body post-pregnancy, and glyburide freely crosse the placenta, and although in small amounts, there still has been no longitudinal studies conducted on what affects taking glyburide has on a developing fetus.

I questioned both of these, so I call Debbie Coleman and asked her if she can organize another A1c. She said that she new about my high fasting blood sugars and said that she could no longer see me because I was now considered "high risk" and that from now on I would be going to East Bay Perinatal for my prenatal appointments. I couldn't believe they were classifying me as GD with only one test and with a glucometer that is known to have a 20+/- error margin.

So then I decided to go back to Irina and tell her what was going on, and at this point my husband and I had already decided to go for a birthing holiday to Australia (where I am from). I tell Irina everything that I had been told. She said you FBG has to be below 100 every morning because after 30 weeks the baby gains a lot of weight in the brain, and if he has too much glucose, all of that extra glucose goes straight to his head making him difficult to deliver. She said after 37 weeks he starts to gain about 8ounces per week before delivery, which may make him too big for delivery. Here at this office we will induce you at 38 weeks (it was the same scenario at East Bay Perinatal). In her office however, they do not prescribe insulin but they do prefer to give pregnant women glyburide. After the appointment I was even more confused about this whole mess. Was I making the right choice by going to Australia and not taking medication. Would my high morning sugars result in an enormous baby. All these questions were floating around my head dizzying me. I then finally go and have another A1c, and I leave the office hoping that it isn't super high.

Two days later I get my results and low and behold they are 5.4, which is what is considered to be normal. if I hand't missed my appointment for the perinatal fucks in Oakland I would probably have been convinced to take insulin. What effects this will have on my body would have remained to be seen. My hypothesis is however, that if you introduce a hormone that doesn't need to be introduced into a healthy body, there will be adverse affects in the future, such as onset of type 1 diabetes.

Now take this information ladies and do with it what you will, my decision is based on my gut feeling that nothing is wrong with me, and my pregnant body is doing what it is supposed to be doing, and that is to feed my baby.

So now my husband and I are due to leave for Australia in 10 days, because the medical establishment here strongly believes that my body is incapable of doing this because they have lumped me in with the hugely obese women or with women who are extremely undernourished.

One good thing that has come out of this, during my pregnancy I have watching what I eat and have gained the weight that I was supposed to be gaining.

Pregnancy progression Photos Thus Far

Gestational Diabetes

I don't know how other women handle the news that they have pre-gestational diabetes or full blown gestational diabetes. I was extremely shocked because other than eating fruit, the occasional dark chocolate, and one teaspoon of sugar in my coffee I am not really in to sweets. Not to the point where it warrants me having GD. What I found most amazing about this prognosis was that all I got was an information sheet on how to eat "properly" according to the American Heart Association's equivalent of what a healthy diet should be. I strongly disagreed with the ridiculous food pyramid which requires an absurd amount of fruit, and carbs, and other nonsense. I have always eaten a very clean diet. My ancestry is Italian and we pride ourselves in eating healthy.
Since the prognosis I took my blood sugar every day. And wrongly might I add. I was under the impression that you test you glucose level 1 hour after you have finished eating, instead the hour begins as soon as you commence eating. So for the past 5 months I had been taking it the wrong way, I guess that is what happens when you try to teach yourself something that a nutritionist or a doctor is supposed to teach you. I just figured that the nurse practitioner was over worked and really had no time to explain how to do it correctly. Nevertheless, in month five of my pregnancy I decided to cut out carbs in the form of bread, pasta, rice, grain, and potatoes and I also limit my fruit intake to 1 and a half pieces accompanied by a fat like cream or ricotta. I figured early on that the carbs actually converted to sugar, I may as well have been eating a bag of lollies. Since then my blood sugars are pretty well under control. Below 100 fasting blood sugar, and way below 140 post meal. The numbers pretty much depend on what I eat. But I figured out what causes the spikes. If I followed that ridiculous food pyramid there was no way that my blood sugar would be this low. My recommendation to anyone that is told they are on their way to developing GD should immediately cut out carbs and sugar (including fruit, only have 1 piece a day) increase their good fats (butter, olive oil, cream, coconut oil) and mix the food up, for example one protein, two veggie. 
One thing I have learned from this pregnancy is that the pregnancy process is highly medacalized here in the United Stats it is considered to be a condition. There is so much intervention during pregnancy that I began to feel impotent, as though I should just surrender my rights as a human being and let the American medical industry make all the decisions for me. Sooner or later women will have no control and we will be told to stay in bed the whole 9 months while being fed intravenously by some pharmaceutical company's new pregnant woman formula, and what they consider is best for the baby. What is more surprising is that when I changed providers from an Obgyn, to a midwife she said that my A1c levels are considered to diabetic not pre-gestational diabetes. So who the fuck is right and who doesn't know shit. Then After that I get told that I could have had diabetes before I was pregnant and didn't even know it which means my baby could have a defect, so now they want me to have a fetal cardiogram to check his heart.  I think I will say no, because I am already half way through so what could they really do to help at this stage? Lesson learned, no one is informed and no one knows anything.

Bleeding during pregnancy

I remember that morning so well, it was around the first week of June on a Sunday. Our new kitten was not adjusting well to the new environment and he had terrible diarrhea. I said to my husband we need to take him to the vet because he is not getting better. So we take him to the vet and get the preliminary bill. A whopping $400! My husband was livid, but we both new that our kitten was sick and needed the care. Still  my husband was so stressed out and I in turn got stressed out. On the way home I start bleeding heavily as soon as we round the corner to our street. I jump out of the car and run to the toilet, and immediately start freaking out as a light pink liquid gushes onto my underwear. I start crying "Did I do this?" "What did I do wrong". My husband grabs me and puts me in the car, we rush to emergency. We immediately get put in a room away from all the other patients. Hours pass by as they poke and prod me, and send me for ultrasounds. I am thinking that I have lost the baby. After 5-6 hours in emergency we are told that it is a placental abruption meaning that the placenta had torn away from the uterus. The nurse who was so kind to us asked "Did you guys have sex?" We had, actually the night before, maybe a little too rambunctiously. She then told us that the same thing happened to her and that it was extremely common. So as it turned out we freaked out for nothing and I wish I had just waited and stayed home, especially since I had no cramping or any other pain especially when you have to pay a $150 copay to visit emergency. But seeing that this was our first experience with pregnancy we naturally thought the worst right away. Lesson to be had, don't panic. 

The Stress of Being Pregnant

When I found out I was pregnant I really had no idea bout the amount of warnings and crazy crap that littered the internet. I had no idea that toxoplasmosis existed or what it was, which was scary because the week I found out I was pregnant I was due to get a new kitten. After stressing out like a crazy person I found out I was immune to the parasite having been exposed at an earlier time before pregnancy. Plus your cat can only get it if it goes outside kills an animal who has it and then shits in the kitty litter box in the house, then shedding the parasite over the next few weeks. My kitten has been an indoor cat ever since and had no weird parasite, which after weeks of stressing turns out didn't matter anyway because I was immune.
I did not know you must avoid pretty much every food because it may harm the baby. Although our pregnancy was planned, I had not planned on being confronted with all of these stressors and worries. Many pregnant women may also go through stress and worries in pregnancy or maybe they won't, I discovered that for me personally pregnancy is bloody stressful. I thought it would like movie magic, that the whole time being pregnant would be perfect bliss. Instead for me, because I am a bit of a hypochondriac I tend to worry about every disease and problem out there. Being pregnant has made me more fearful. Throughout the first trimester I had incredible morning sickness, yet I did not vomit. I only vomited  twice. The first time was because I ate a mixture of scrambled eggs, olives, artichokes and who knows what else. It didn't go down too well. The second time I ate canned tomato soup and shortly thereafter I felt so ill and vomited again. Other than that my morning sickness felt more like a my stomach was doing the rinse cycle of a washing machine. Not fun. Below is my very first transvaginal ultrasound to confirm pregnancy, as you can see there is the egg yolk sack, yay confirmed pregnancy.

This is me at about 5 weeks

I pregnant!

Well I found out I was pregnant on the 10 of May, after about 3 months of trying and thinking that I couldn't get pregnant. When I finally did pee on the stick I saw those two pink lines and was rather shocked because I had convinced myself that I probably couldn't get pregnant since I was 33 and getting on. But looking at the pregnancy stick I realized that I actually could get pregnant and that I actually was pregnant,. Which as you could imagine shocked me incredibly. As soon as I found out I sent a picture of the pregnancy stick to my husband and I asked "I think I am pregnant". So finding out was a shock even though we were actually trying to conceive. Then began the task of finding out what I should and shouldn't be doing. That Sunday I smoked some pot and felt incredibly guilty, because after those months of frustration I honestly couldn't believe that I could actually do it. So then began the process of preparing for baby. Or at least mentally preparing for baby.