Blog Moved

I am no longer able to log into blogger with my old e-mail account, so I have moved Refuse to be a Womb Pod to the following address:

www.refusetobeawombpod.blogspot.com

Hope to see you there!

Finding a "super" supporter

As I was thinking over my pregnancy plans, HG protocol, etc this morning I realized that my task in finding a care provider is two-fold. I must find a provider who is both HG supportive AND vbac supportive.

Is this the impossible dream? I fear it might be. A supportive HG provider must be very proactive and intervention-minded, whereas a truly supportive vbac provider must not be. How can the two exist in the same person?

I'm becoming more and more convinced that my best option is to find the most HG supportive provider I can, even if that means I must "sign up" for a cesarean at my first appointment, and then birthing at home unassisted.

Plans, Plans, Plans

So many plans to be made! Our lives are so much different, so-full!-now. My first experience with HG was traumatic, but I only had to find a way to care for myself. My second experience with HG was more challenging because I had a very young toddler to care for. Still, there was just one child (who still napped) and family to help. Hyperemesis part three was the hardest thing I've ever done, to date. I had two active, non-napping children to care for and we'd moved away from family. The kids and I had to move back home and my mother-in-law practically raised them for five months. I was hospitalized for a week.

This time we're in for a ride! This next pregnancy will test our faith, above all, but also our commitment to each other and our endurance. A new pregnancy will find us with a school-aged daughter, a preschool son and a toddler daughter. Our oldest daughter began homeschooling this year the beginning of a new pregnancy will find us at the beginning of 1st grade and pre-K. My toddler shows no sighs of weaning and also co-sleeps. How will I manage nursing one child, homeschooling two children all while living on the bathroom floor for 9 months? We've decided not to separate this time, so we'll be away from any family who might've helped.

This season we're entering will be one that lives in infamy!

I know you think we're crazy. I know. But so is the "Iron Man" who pushes his body to its tipping point, no? And Iron Man finishes where he began. Our family will finish with a brand new immortal soul in the world. We'll end with ten hands helping two more emerge. We will be more, not less. Stronger, not weaker.

Unlike previous pregnancies, I hope to have internet access throughout. I'm looking forward to sharing this Phoenix-journey with you and chronicling how I make it through.

Kyrie eleison down the road that I must travel.

When I Used a Pencil

Before I had a blog, before I knew what a blog was, I had a no. 2 pencil that must be sharpened and I had a hardback journal with pages that smelled of ink and libraries. I kept a journal all through middle school, high school and college. Every now and then I'd throw out all my old journals. I don't know why. Maybe I felt that I was only writing for myself, and so there was no need to keep chronicles of adventures I'd never have again, people I'd never see again, places and events I wanted to forget. I wish I had those journals now though.

One month after I graduated college I quit writing. Writers are "oppressed", aren't they? I was a married college graduate whose job it was to care for my husband and home. Gone was the teen angst, the girlish catty drama, college adventures and dreams of what "might be." What "might be" had become what "was" and there was nothing to write about.

When I first became pregnant I felt the desire to write again. One creative process begetting another, maybe? My first pregnancy journal was difficult to write. It began with such promise and so much excitement. I was pregnant! I was going to be a mother! My happiness quickly turned to horror as hyperemesis descended upon me. There would be days, then weeks between entries. The pages were full of morose musings and fogged with depression. The neat handwriting turned into barely-visible scrawls because I was too weak to hold the pencil properly. There were little dots of green and yellow vomit stains. With everything I lived through in that pregnancy--the hyperemesis, the "homelessness", the hurricane, the gallbladder attacks, the cesarean--I think it could rightly be subtitled "the little book of horrors".

Most of what I've written on this blog was written with some time and space (and sweet, precious children) between my writing and the actual events. I have my journals though, I thought I'd share a little from them, starting with my first pregnancy.