Natural Childbirth

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I am very thankful for upcoming baby Zola.

As I said a few posts ago, we are going the route of natural childbirth, having the birth at a birth center.  I know 90% of people probably think that it's crazy to go the route of no pain medication.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that people just don't know about what goes on in the hospital and why it's not ideal.  There are some documentaries out there, such as "The Business of Being Born", that help to explain the situation.  We've also been listening to a bunch of natural childbirth podcasts on our commutes together.  One common misconception is that people think you are screwed if there is an emergency by being at home or a birthing center.  In reality, almost always the midwife can see problems coming and you can be transferred to the hospital within 30 minutes.  Also, a lot of the drugs used during pregnancy, such as pitocin for inducing labor and the epidural for pain control,  have been shown to usually be unnecessary and potential harmful.  There are a lot of extra things that a hospital does that aren't necessary and can lead to more interventions, such as IVs and continuous fetal monitoring.

Part of the problem with hospitals is that they're taking something totally natural and making it an emergency, when in reality only about 5% of births require the level of medical technology that a hospital has.  Of course, money and convenience for the doctors/nurses plays a big role.  Pitocin is convenient for the doctor because they can hurry and get the mom through labor so that the doctor can catch an afternoon round of golf.  Plus, time is money for the hospital.  Also, the use of more drugs, surgery, and intervention is money for the hospital (pitocin, epidural, C-section, IVs).  There is a lot of research out there that shows that pitocin, epidurals, and C-sections are not ideal solutions.  Of course, common sense would tell you that cutting a huge gash in your stomach is not good.

That's enough for now.  I realize a lot of the things I mentioned are totally foreign to a lot of you.  After all, why not take advantage of all the medical wizardry that a hospital offers?  Well, it's not quite that simple, and we didn't realize it wasn't that simple until we started doing a lot of research.

Chia Muesli

Today for breakfast we made chia muesli. This is a delicious raw food breakfast that is packed with super-foods, nutrients and antioxidants. We first tried this at a local restaurant, Jack Sprat, and I loved it so much I was inspired to make it at home.

Recipe Per Bowl:
Almond or Soy Milk (approximately 1.5 cups)
Gogi Berries (small handful)
Apples diced (half apple any type)
Bananas sliced (1)
Walnuts chopped (small handful)
Chia Seeds (3 Tbsp)
Enjoy!

We are in an interesting place here when it comes to food. We have been watching a lot of documentaries recently that will just make your head spin and also hopefully get you thinking and questioning. Some of the documentaries that we have viewed would include "Food Inc," "The Botany of Desire," "Food Matters," "Food Fight," "Food Beware," and the "Future of Food" to name a few. There is a lot of great information out there, it is just deciding from there where you can start chipping away at this issue. Unfortunately, it requires funds but there are those out there that insist you can do this on a budget. Some of the small things we started with included shopping our  local farmers markets this season and definitely being more conscious of the food that we are taking in. Some things I want to do in the upcoming seasons include: do a raised bed garden, get a greenhouse going and I want to get what meat we do eat, which is not much, from our local butchery that sells wild game. Next season we will be fishing for salmon and possibly halibut. I also try and tell everyone I know about these shows to hopefully add to the common consciousness about the food crisis that we are currently in.

This all becomes so much more important for us now that we have a baby on the way. Mom wants to be eating the best foods possible to provide the baby the nutrients she needs as she is growing. We plan on breastfeeding for as long as possible, making our own local organic produce/fruit based baby food and instilling healthy eating choices/habits from an early age. This continues to mean a major shift in what we are/were used to as a couple, considering we pretty much sustained ourselves on eating out every meal for the first two years we were married.  We are slowly getting there, but now have that added motivation that comes from becoming parents.

Baby Dream

Last night I (Todd) had an interesting baby dream.  For some reason we took the baby out of Jenevra's body a few months early to see how she was doing.  Well, first off there was the issue that it was a baby kitten, not a baby human, but apparently that seemed normal in the dream.  She couldn't stay asleep for more than a few seconds at a time and constantly wanted milk and had a poopy diaper.  Also, tons of people were huddled around the crib, which couldn't have helped the sleeping situation.  The last thing I remember is taking this several month premature baby (kitty) on a hike.  I'm sure there are more dreams to come.

Thoughts on Parenting

We've obviously been thinking a lot about how we're going to raise our daughter.  A couple things:

• Little or no TV.  If any TV at all, we'll watch with her and make it a learning experience.  I've come to the conclusion that TV really makes it difficult for someone to entertain themselves without TV.  We really want her to be able to find things to do and appreciate the beauty in little things.  We don't want to hear her say "I'm bored!". 
• Lots of time spent with mommy and daddy.  We want to do lots of activities with her, both indoors and outdoors.  We want to teach her to ski as soon as she can walk.  Of course, we want it to be fun and won't force it on her.
• We want her to be super nice to others.  We are going to really emphasize sharing, and treating others like you would want to be treated.  Our daughter will not be a bully!
• We plan to talk a lot to her right from the start, and not necessarily in a baby voice.  We will talk to her describing what we are doing at the moment.  We also plan to use some sign language so that she can express what she wants before she can talk.
• We want her to be fairly good at playing an instrument.

Ultrasound!

Footsies




Side View



So apparently there is a baby in there.  A couple weeks ago we had an ultrasound, and I (Todd) have to admit I was petrified.  The guy giving the ultrasound was just so darn quiet, and I kept thinking those moments of silence meant something was wrong with our little girl.  But so far so good.  She was extremely mobile during the ultrasound, so there weren't a lot of good pics.  They did some color pics during the ultrasound using some more advanced technology, but I didn't post them on here since the baby looks more like an alien or a pig and not a little girl.  She just wouldn't stay still!

We're going the natural birth/homebirth route, using midwives at Geneva Woods Birthing Center.  We've done a lot of research on the whole thing, and Jenevra has kind of an inside view having worked at the NICU.  Let's suffice to say that the ways things are done at the hospital are not ideal.  The NICU itself is fine, but the whole process of giving birth in the hospital has a lot of problems.  One documentary you can watch is "Pregnant in America" if you're curious about natural birth.  We'll post more about this in the future.

Introduction

Finally joining the blogosphere, with this blog being about our baby girl, to be born in March.  Announcement on her name coming soon!  It seems like the pregnancy has been going on forever.  I wish the baby would just come already!