I have really been letting negative comments about our birth plans get to me lately and it has made me sort of lose trust in my body and my baby. That makes me really scared because I feel like so much of labor and birth, and pregnancy even, are about mindset. I don't want to fear any of it. I want to be confident and strong. I feel like with V's pregnancy and birth I was scared and nervous and with M's I was not. I was confident and strong and I feel like I need to be there mentally again.
I have been feeling baby move a lot this pregnancy and it is amazing! But most of the movement I was feeling was down low, which sort of gives me faith that my placenta isn't near my c/s incision or anterior, but it also made me think baby was breech. One of the midwives and I had a really short discussion about breech birth because that is a big part of my baggage. I am scared of a breech baby. She said that if baby is breech, as long as he/she is butt down, vaginal birth, and homebirth, is still an option. I think just hearing that (even though I knew that already) gave me a lot of peace. That isn't something I have to worry about. Funny thing is that a few days after she and I had that chat, I am fairly sure baby flipped and is head down now. I get a lot of strong kicks at the top of my belly.
I also laid in bed the other night and just talked to my baby. I think that really brought me to a better place where I again feel confident in our birth choices. I know that we are doing what we feel is best for our baby, for me, and for our family. I feel like I can really get excited about having a new member of our family.
H and I have also been discussing a lot about whether or not we want to know if baby is a boy or a girl and I think we are pretty set now on waiting until his/her birthday to find out. I just love the excitement and selfishly, I feel like it gives me something to focus on during pushing. Since baby and I had our little chat the other night though, I have a really strong feeling about baby's gender :)
So at somewhere around 23-25 weeks, I am feeling good. I am feeling confident. I am feeling strong. I feel prepared to welcome our newest little miracle (but not for another 12ish weeks at least!)
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
thankful
I have seen all over facebook people doing 25 things they are thankful for and I didn't do it on facebook, but I want to do it now. So here it is, 25 things I am thankful for this year:
1. my husband. He is the hardest working man I know and I am so thankful that he picked me to be his wife (and that I was smart enough to pick him to be my husband!). I know he loves me and our kids with everything he has and we really appreciate how hard he works for us.
2. my kids. My kids are my everything. They always make me laugh and I get so much joy from watching them interact. They love each other and I am so thankful that I get to be their mama.
3. my belly. I am so blessed to be able to experience pregnancy and birth again and I am so excited to meet the little person in my belly.
4. my birth experiences, both of them. Without one I wouldn't have the other and I am thankful for both. They have truly made me who I am today.
5. my friends. I have some of the best friends a girl could ask for. I know if I need anything I can call them and they will be there, even at 2 in the morning :)
6. my parents. They drive me batty, but they do it out of love. I know they love me and H and our kids so much and we appreciate everything they do for us.
7. my midwives. I am so thankful that they are here and supportive of VBACing mamas. Plus, I smile every time I am visiting them :)
8. hot showers. Really, is there anything better in life than a hot shower? (I'm talking the kind that leaves your a$$ red)
9. good food. I know there are so many people who don't have enough food and I am thankful that I have plenty and it is yummy too!
10. coupons. I am thankful that I am able to save our family money with coupons.
11. Dave Ramsey. Had we not met Dave 5 years ago, I don't know where we would be. It is nice that what used to be an emergency is now just an inconvenience.
12. our house. I know it is not finished, but I am thankful that we have a house to keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
13. our cars. They aren't the coolest or the most expensive, but they get us where we need to go and I am thankful for that.
14. sleep. I don't get much of it lately, but when I do I LOVE it!
15. our health. Our family is mostly healthy and I am so thankful for our health.
16. my OCD tendencies. They bug me a lot, but really, I am thankful that it keeps me organized
17. hand sanitizer. I love that when one of my kids touches something gross I can get their hands sort of clean, even if there isn't soap and water around.
18. a clean house. My house isn't always clean, but I am glad that I have the time to keep it mostly clean.
19. my education. Even though I don't use my degrees, I am glad I have them.
20. my kids toys. They keep them entertained so I can get dinner made or laundry thrown in the washer or the floor vacuumed.
21. my washer/dryer and dishwasher. I can't imagine having to do stuff by hand or having to take laundry elsewhere to be washed.
22. cloth diapers. I love how cute my babies look with their big cloth diaper bums!
23. the Internet. So many questions can be answered in a matter of seconds with this cool technology.
24. automatic bill pay. I love that I don't have to think about paying bills anymore.
25. that I have so much to be thankful for. My list could go on and on, and I am so thankful that it could.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
1. my husband. He is the hardest working man I know and I am so thankful that he picked me to be his wife (and that I was smart enough to pick him to be my husband!). I know he loves me and our kids with everything he has and we really appreciate how hard he works for us.
2. my kids. My kids are my everything. They always make me laugh and I get so much joy from watching them interact. They love each other and I am so thankful that I get to be their mama.
3. my belly. I am so blessed to be able to experience pregnancy and birth again and I am so excited to meet the little person in my belly.
4. my birth experiences, both of them. Without one I wouldn't have the other and I am thankful for both. They have truly made me who I am today.
5. my friends. I have some of the best friends a girl could ask for. I know if I need anything I can call them and they will be there, even at 2 in the morning :)
6. my parents. They drive me batty, but they do it out of love. I know they love me and H and our kids so much and we appreciate everything they do for us.
7. my midwives. I am so thankful that they are here and supportive of VBACing mamas. Plus, I smile every time I am visiting them :)
8. hot showers. Really, is there anything better in life than a hot shower? (I'm talking the kind that leaves your a$$ red)
9. good food. I know there are so many people who don't have enough food and I am thankful that I have plenty and it is yummy too!
10. coupons. I am thankful that I am able to save our family money with coupons.
11. Dave Ramsey. Had we not met Dave 5 years ago, I don't know where we would be. It is nice that what used to be an emergency is now just an inconvenience.
12. our house. I know it is not finished, but I am thankful that we have a house to keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
13. our cars. They aren't the coolest or the most expensive, but they get us where we need to go and I am thankful for that.
14. sleep. I don't get much of it lately, but when I do I LOVE it!
15. our health. Our family is mostly healthy and I am so thankful for our health.
16. my OCD tendencies. They bug me a lot, but really, I am thankful that it keeps me organized
17. hand sanitizer. I love that when one of my kids touches something gross I can get their hands sort of clean, even if there isn't soap and water around.
18. a clean house. My house isn't always clean, but I am glad that I have the time to keep it mostly clean.
19. my education. Even though I don't use my degrees, I am glad I have them.
20. my kids toys. They keep them entertained so I can get dinner made or laundry thrown in the washer or the floor vacuumed.
21. my washer/dryer and dishwasher. I can't imagine having to do stuff by hand or having to take laundry elsewhere to be washed.
22. cloth diapers. I love how cute my babies look with their big cloth diaper bums!
23. the Internet. So many questions can be answered in a matter of seconds with this cool technology.
24. automatic bill pay. I love that I don't have to think about paying bills anymore.
25. that I have so much to be thankful for. My list could go on and on, and I am so thankful that it could.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Monday, November 8, 2010
the happenings in our house
so much has been going on in our lives. H has been out of town working nearly every week and when he is in town he is working late (as in he gets home long after I am in bed). It has been hard not seeing him, but when he is home it makes it so much better :)
V has been cracking me up with everything he says and does. He has started calling everyone "honey" which is just about the cutest thing ever. I call him and M (and H too) honey so I guess he figured that is just what we do. The other night he said "Mama, will you read this book to me please, honey?" My heart melted right there!
His imagination is crazy! He is always telling me about things he is dreaming up like storms in the bathroom or dinosaurs in his bedroom. Frequently I have to go in and take them out because they scare him which is even cuter!
He has also started laying on the floor saying "help! help!" and M goes over and crawls on top of him making them both laugh hysterically! I love it!
And M, my sweet baby is not so much a baby anymore! She is just changing so much! She has taken a few steps, but really prefers to crawl. I think she realizes she is faster crawling so she just does that. But she is talking up a storm! We had an electrician over the other day fixing some stuff in our kitchen and he had is ladder up while we were eating breakfast. She kept saying "up that! up that!" The girl loves to climb! Hide-and-seek and peek-a-boo are her favorite games and I think she likes waking up early so she and I have some time just the two of us to play. She is so much fun!
And our little belly baby is growing too. It is getting harder and harder to nurse M and V is realizing that real estate on my lap is getting scarce. Plus, I am feeling some movement which is crazy to me since I hardly ever felt the kids! I usually only feel it at night (which very well could be because I just don't have the time to pay attention during the day) but I love it. I look forward to it every night.
I feel so blessed to have such a hardworking husband and such amazing little people in my life!
V has been cracking me up with everything he says and does. He has started calling everyone "honey" which is just about the cutest thing ever. I call him and M (and H too) honey so I guess he figured that is just what we do. The other night he said "Mama, will you read this book to me please, honey?" My heart melted right there!
His imagination is crazy! He is always telling me about things he is dreaming up like storms in the bathroom or dinosaurs in his bedroom. Frequently I have to go in and take them out because they scare him which is even cuter!
He has also started laying on the floor saying "help! help!" and M goes over and crawls on top of him making them both laugh hysterically! I love it!
And M, my sweet baby is not so much a baby anymore! She is just changing so much! She has taken a few steps, but really prefers to crawl. I think she realizes she is faster crawling so she just does that. But she is talking up a storm! We had an electrician over the other day fixing some stuff in our kitchen and he had is ladder up while we were eating breakfast. She kept saying "up that! up that!" The girl loves to climb! Hide-and-seek and peek-a-boo are her favorite games and I think she likes waking up early so she and I have some time just the two of us to play. She is so much fun!
And our little belly baby is growing too. It is getting harder and harder to nurse M and V is realizing that real estate on my lap is getting scarce. Plus, I am feeling some movement which is crazy to me since I hardly ever felt the kids! I usually only feel it at night (which very well could be because I just don't have the time to pay attention during the day) but I love it. I look forward to it every night.
I feel so blessed to have such a hardworking husband and such amazing little people in my life!
on insurance
I follow a fellow VBACer's blog (http://thefeministbreeder.com/) and she posted the other day about her insurance woes which got me thinking about my issues with insurance.
Her story in a nutshell is that her insurance plan changed and now doesn't cover her homebirth like she thought it would and she can't afford the thousands of dollars OOP that it would cost for a homebirth. Totally understandable and I can relate to how she feels.
When H got his new job we fully understood that the new job did not come with insurance (which was provided at 100% with his old job). We planned to get private insurance, but when I called to apply, I was told only one company in this state will provide maternity coverage. Well, we weren't planning on having any more kids, but I wanted to know that we had insurance just in case because I didn't want to take the risk of a huge bill if I ended up with another c/s if we got pregnant again. We knew then that if we had another baby, he/she would be born at home, but I just wanted the back-up since V's birth was well over $100k.
Well, the only company that offers maternity insurance in Oklahoma won't cover a woman with a prior cesarean, even if she has had a vaginal birth after the c/s. Totally sucks. So that left us with the option of no maternity coverage or going through my dad's business to get insurance since I work there for him one day a week. We applied for the private insurance, but V got denied completely because his medical records show that he "might have XYZ" but then says later that he does not and apparently the insurance company can't read and didn't realize it said he didn't have that (which, BTW, I had never even heard of). I was also denied anything relating to uterine surgery because of my cesarean. Well, V can't just not have insurance so we "chose" the group policy. Since it was FIVE TIMES more for insurance with the group policy than we would have with the private, for less coverage and higher co-pays, we decided we would just have that until we got the mess with the private company figured out. Well, in that time, I got pregnant so our whole family got denied coverage.
So, then we actually contemplated working the system a bit and getting legally separated so that the kids and I could be covered by the state and we would just pay for private insurance for H. Our homebirth would still not be covered, but at least we wouldn't have to pay thousands of dollars in the off chance that I ended up in a hospital, on top of the premiums we are paying for the insurance.
We decided that wasn't the right thing to do, and then found out it wouldn't work anyway because H can't get private insurance if he is expecting a child. (We found that out when we realized it would be cheaper monthly to get H and the kids private insurance and I just keep the group policy--no insurance company will do that since H is expecting a child).
So in the end, I feel like we are paying a crapton of money for insurance that we can't even use (won't cover the homebirth in network and out out of network deductible is way higher than the homebirth, plus we get a discount for not running it through insurance). I am thankful that we have the funds to pay for our birth (with cutting out other things), but it still pisses me off.
And then I think about the women who don't have the option of a group policy at all or don't have the money to pay for the birth (which is not cheap--it is costing us more than my other 2 births). I feel like the insurance companies are dictating how many children a woman can have. I mean if my dad didn't own a business that I worked for, we would be screwed. No insurance, no coverage for any of us, nothing. How many other families are in that situation? It really sucks, and I feel like there isn't a whole lot we can do about it. We need them and they know it.
Her story in a nutshell is that her insurance plan changed and now doesn't cover her homebirth like she thought it would and she can't afford the thousands of dollars OOP that it would cost for a homebirth. Totally understandable and I can relate to how she feels.
When H got his new job we fully understood that the new job did not come with insurance (which was provided at 100% with his old job). We planned to get private insurance, but when I called to apply, I was told only one company in this state will provide maternity coverage. Well, we weren't planning on having any more kids, but I wanted to know that we had insurance just in case because I didn't want to take the risk of a huge bill if I ended up with another c/s if we got pregnant again. We knew then that if we had another baby, he/she would be born at home, but I just wanted the back-up since V's birth was well over $100k.
Well, the only company that offers maternity insurance in Oklahoma won't cover a woman with a prior cesarean, even if she has had a vaginal birth after the c/s. Totally sucks. So that left us with the option of no maternity coverage or going through my dad's business to get insurance since I work there for him one day a week. We applied for the private insurance, but V got denied completely because his medical records show that he "might have XYZ" but then says later that he does not and apparently the insurance company can't read and didn't realize it said he didn't have that (which, BTW, I had never even heard of). I was also denied anything relating to uterine surgery because of my cesarean. Well, V can't just not have insurance so we "chose" the group policy. Since it was FIVE TIMES more for insurance with the group policy than we would have with the private, for less coverage and higher co-pays, we decided we would just have that until we got the mess with the private company figured out. Well, in that time, I got pregnant so our whole family got denied coverage.
So, then we actually contemplated working the system a bit and getting legally separated so that the kids and I could be covered by the state and we would just pay for private insurance for H. Our homebirth would still not be covered, but at least we wouldn't have to pay thousands of dollars in the off chance that I ended up in a hospital, on top of the premiums we are paying for the insurance.
We decided that wasn't the right thing to do, and then found out it wouldn't work anyway because H can't get private insurance if he is expecting a child. (We found that out when we realized it would be cheaper monthly to get H and the kids private insurance and I just keep the group policy--no insurance company will do that since H is expecting a child).
So in the end, I feel like we are paying a crapton of money for insurance that we can't even use (won't cover the homebirth in network and out out of network deductible is way higher than the homebirth, plus we get a discount for not running it through insurance). I am thankful that we have the funds to pay for our birth (with cutting out other things), but it still pisses me off.
And then I think about the women who don't have the option of a group policy at all or don't have the money to pay for the birth (which is not cheap--it is costing us more than my other 2 births). I feel like the insurance companies are dictating how many children a woman can have. I mean if my dad didn't own a business that I worked for, we would be screwed. No insurance, no coverage for any of us, nothing. How many other families are in that situation? It really sucks, and I feel like there isn't a whole lot we can do about it. We need them and they know it.
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