Vibrant Moms

Here’s the recipe for the pregnancy tea that I’ve mentioned drinking.  I got it from bulkherbstore.com.  I try to drink at least a cup a day in the last month, though I’ve seen it recommended to drink up to to 5 cups a day starting at 37 weeks.  One precaution I would make is that if you do drink a lot of this, to increase the amount of water you drink, as red raspberry leaves can be a diuretic.

I personally wouldn’t drink it until the end of the first trimester, and not more than a cup or two a day until the last month.  I’m aware of women miscarrying because they drink huge amounts of this daily in the early part of pregnancy, maybe under the misguided belief that if a little is good, a lot must be better.  This is a wonderful uterine toner, but like everything, should be used as it’s meant to be used, not indiscriminately.

• 8 parts red raspberry lea
• 3 parts alfalfa
• 3 parts peppermint
• 2 parts nettle (I usually leave this out)

You can make a cup of hot tea by adding 1 or 2 teaspoons of the premixed herbs to 1 cup of boiling water. Let it steep for 5 to 10 minutes, strain, and add honey (raw is best) to taste.

To make a pitcher of tea for storing in the refrigerator, use 10 teaspoons or so of the premixed herbs for 8 cups of boiling water. Let it cool for a while and strain. Discard the used herbs, and put the tea in the refrigerator to drink over ice or reheated.

If you use this in labor, then you’ll drink it as an infusion instead of as a tea.  Only drink an infusion in labor or when you’re ready to be in labor.  To make it, take one ounce of the herbs (it will be a lot), and pour two cups of boiling water over it.  Let it steep about 30 minutes, and drink as hot as you can, when active labor has started. 

Avivah

>>Wow. An unassisted childbirth. Sounds scary, but glad everything worked out great!<<

It actually isn’t scary at all, but I can see how it could sound like that!  I was talking to my dh about why people think giving birth without medical professionals present must be such a frightening situation.  A big part of this is because our society has bought into the belief that birth is dangerous and therefore has to take place in a hospital, because anything can and probably will go wrong in the absence of professionals.  But I don’t buy into this mindset of danger and fear.  I see labor and birth as a normal and healthy process, and generally when the birth goes so quickly, it’s because everything is fine.  So to me the fact that things were going so fast would in and of itself be reassuring, if I had been worried.  But I wasn’t. 

I think giving birth in a hospital can be a pretty scary proposition - there are so many unknowns facing birthing women other than labor itself, factors that they would have control over in their homes.  But maybe it’s only scary if you know that the infant and mortality rates are higher in the hospital, infection rates are higher in the hospitals, all the intervention rates that lead to further intervention and are linked with other complications are higher in the hospital - most people think they’re safer and view the frequency that all of these things occur in hospitals as proof that they need to be there, proof that birth itself is dangerous.  “Imagine how much more dangerous it would have been if they hadn’t been in a hospital!” goes the reasoning. 

A friend afterwards tongue in cheek asked me why I hadn’t called Hatzolah.  Besides the fact that the idea didn’t even enter my mind, that’s another option that sounds unpleasant. I think Hatzolah is amazing, but for helping women in childbirth?  Umm, that’s not exactly where their strengths are.  I can just imagine them rushing into my room in emergency mode, insisting on taking me to the hospital even after the baby was born to be sure everything was okay. 

 >>A friend of mine had an unplanned HB and is sooo traumatized by it.<<

Not being prepared for a situation mentally can make anything traumatic.  I also think that mental preparation in life tends to be one of the most important factors to being content.  (Mental preparation for labor is the most important factor in having a positive birth, in my opinion.)  That means working on accepting what is, rather than continuing to verbally or mentally hold on to your image of what you want.  This is something that we all get to work on every single day, every time your child, spouse, or even the person in the store does something that doesn’t match what you want.  I know that the more I can let go of what I think needs to happen, the more I can tune in to what H-shem wants and the happier I feel.

If I had mentally focused on how absolutely unacceptable it was to me that the midwife wouldn’t be able to make it in time, my insistence on my past plans would have kept me from being able to shift into being fine with what was going to happen. 

>>Thanks so much for posting a photo for those of us who can’t be there to see him in person. It is a nice addition to your posts. <<

It’s my husband who’s to thank for this.  I’ve never had the patience (or desire, to be more honest) to figure out how to put a photo on the blog.  I also liked that he put it there - I didn’t ask him to.  Maybe now I’ll be inspired by him to post photos from time to time. 

>>Birth is truly a surprise and an adventure, not matter how many
times you’ve been through it. <<

This is so true.  If I PG have another pregnancy, this is something I’m going to remember - not to think that I know what even my own normal is by virtue of being pregnant nine times before.  Being ‘overdue’ was a much needed exercise in humility and trusting H-shem’s plan. 

>>You had your supplies, your midwife was coming anyway, but that sounds like such an ideal birth. If you’re emotionally capable of handling such a thing, and medically prepared just in case, that sounds so special!<<

It really was an ideal birth - I’ve always felt homebirths were amazing experiences, but this birth was on a totally different level. 

>>Can I ask what you do with your placenta? Do you bury it? If so, is it for halachic reasons? I have never gotten a clear answer if I need to bury mine or not.<<

Rav Heinemann was here this afternoon to check the baby (he was our mohel for the last two brissim, also) - too bad I didn’t read this in time or I would have asked him.  I’ve never asked a shaila about this - in hospitals, placentas are thrown away and I’ve never heard of anyone wondering what to do instead.  And until now, we’ve always thrown it away. 

This time, the kids were talking about planting a special tree over it (they know a 20 year old whose family planted a cherry tree when she was born), which I thought was a beautiful idea.  Because of their enthusiasm, I was researching fruit trees before Pesach, trying to figure out what kind to buy and where to put it, but now it’s so late in the season that it’s not really the time to plant fruit trees. 

We always put the placenta in the freezer, and then throw it away right before the garbage truck comes; this time I figure I can leave it there a little longer until I decide what to do with it. 

Avivah

I know some people love reading birth stories, and some people are totally of a different mind set.  So I’m clearly labelling this so you can skip it if it’s not the kind of thing that interests you!

I’ll start with some details you already know, for the sake of continuity.  I was having contractions every 10 - 20 minutes from Tuesday morning and on, and by 3:30 am Thursday morning, they had turned into real labor - long and close together.  I thought it was about time, since I was officially 42 weeks and 6 days at that point!  These contractions continued for two hours, and just when I thought I was a few minutes away from having the baby, they started getting further and further apart.  After three hours of waiting for them to reestablish their previous pattern, I sent the midwife home.  You know all of that from my last posts - and that I was tired and discouraged.

After that, I took a nap, got up for a while, and was still tired later in the day so I went back to sleep for a late afternoon nap.    I continued having contractions while I was napping, but nothing different from the past days and nothing I couldn’t mostly ignore or take a breath or two and then fall back asleep.  Suddenly, before I was even fully awake, I had a massive contraction that I was totally physically or emotionally unprepared for, and I thought that I needed my husband that minute.  There was no way for me to call him, because he was two flights below at the end of dinner time and wouldn’t have heard me even if I was yelling at the top of my lungs.  But he must have heard my thoughts, because a minute later, he came up the stairs just in time for the next contraction (after hours of staying downstairs and taking care of the kids so I could rest).  I immediately had another contraction after that, and as soon as they were over, he told me he was calling the midwife to come immediately.  I didn’t know why he was so sure he should call her - usually he asks me what I think and goes with my opinion - but later on he told me he was timing them and saw they were 2 minutes long and that they were very different from regular contractions. 

As he called her, my water broke, and I went into the bathroom to get my head together and figure out what was happening.  Remember, I had just woken up and was kind of mentally foggy so I didn’t have a realistic perspective about how intense the contractions were.  My mind set had been that I was going to have to make a decision about taking something to get labor going again when I got up, and that was kind of hazily going through my head as I was waking up.  I was thinking that because I wasn’t yet awake I wasn’t mentally on top of the contractions, and that’s why they seemed so strong to me.  After a minute, I was able to clear my head and realized that I was going through the very end of transition and going to have this baby very soon.  I felt very calm by this point - it had been maybe 5 or 6 minutes from the time I woke up.  I told dh to call a friend of mine to come over because the midwife wasn’t going to make it.  But she wasn’t home and I wasn’t about to have him start searching my planner for her cell number right then. 

While I was in the bathroom, he called the midwife again to find out how far away she was - she had had enough time from the first call to get to her front door - she told him she’d talk him through it on the phone if he wanted, and reassured him that it wasn’t a big deal to catch a baby.   When I came out a couple of minutes later, he was rushing around trying to unplug the cordless phone from downstairs and bring it up to our room, but I told him to forget about it, that he didn’t need a phone or to speak to her.  Honestly, does that sound relaxing, to have someone on the phone listening to instructions while you’re giving birth?  I didn’t think so either. 

After the baby finished moving down and before there was any urge to push, there was a short lull, maybe three minutes.  By this point, he was also calm and and totally present in the moment.  The baby was born a couple of minutes later, another boy!  This was the first time my husband knew if the baby was a boy or girl before I did.  :) 

It was a very beautiful and peaceful experience for us both, positive in every way.  I’m not even going to try to describe what a special time it was.  If you had asked me about that scenario as a possibility, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable with even the thought at all.  My husband has never been physically involved in any of my labors except to bring me a drink or some dried fruit, and hasn’t ever been in the room for the birth - I always sent him out and he would come back in after the birth had taken place and everything was cleaned up.  But it was really all perfect.  (And now, a couple of days later, he said he feels he was initiated into a private club of fathers who were unplanned baby catchers for their children - it seems there are a lot more of them out there than you would think.)  I also think it psychologically was much easier for us than for many people who find themselves in this situation because: we trust the birth process and mentally see birth as healthy and normal; were planning a home birth so already had the room set up and supplies on hand; were in the comfort of our own home, not in a car somewhere on the side of a road; have already had more than one child and knew what to expect when giving birth.   

Neither of us thought to look at the clock and see what time it was when the birth took place.  We had other things on our minds. :)  Later we estimated that the baby was born about 10 minutes after he first called the midwife, so we might have had a total of 15 minutes from when I woke up.  Basically, I had a two part labor - 2 hours in the early morning, a 13 hour ‘break’, and then the last 15 minutes for transition and the birth itself, when labor started again right where it left off early that morning.  The friend I called to come called back a couple of hours later when she got the message, and said she knows of this happening with other women who have had a lot of kids - something about giving the uterus time to ‘catch up’ after active labor is completed.  When I asked the midwife at breakfast Thursday morning what her thoughts were on why things slowed down, she said it sometimes happens when the baby is unusually positioned, and needing more time to get into the right position - and it turns out his positioning was probably military, looking at the molding on his head and the way he holds his head if put down on his tummy.  To me, both of these explanations make sense and are compatible. 

The kids had to wait over almost 40 minutes after the birth took place to come in, but they didn’t find that too long, since they didn’t know that the baby was born before the midwife got here; it was still only a half hour after she came!  My ds15 was at his baseball game - he left and I was napping with no signs of anything happening, got home and there was a new baby! 

The baby was our biggest by far at 9 lb, 7 oz (almost 2 lb bigger than the last two) - before this our biggest was 8.5 lb.  His birth has officially put the boys in our family way ahead of the girls, with six boys to three girls.  He’s doing great, nursing well and getting cuter every minute.  He so far has slept on a solid surface only at night when his siblings are sleeping, since otherwise someone constantly wants to hold him. :) I’m also BH feeling good - now that we’ve gotten past the 48 hour mark, the afterpains are pretty mild (thanks to my super Chinese herbal blend and tincture! - but the first 48 hours weren’t easy), and I’m getting lots of rest.

I’m so, so, so glad that I didn’t do anything to ‘make’ labor go any faster or sooner.  It was an empowering experience that further reinforced to me that things generally go best when we trust the body and the labor process to proceed at the rate they’re meant to.  I would have missed out on that if I had agreed to even a mild or natural way of moving things along, and that would have been a huge loss. 

The shalom zachor was wonderful, with a suprisingly large turnout for when Shabbos meals end so late, and lots of women coming.  Thank you to those of you who sent goodies - it really enhanced the simcha! 

Avivah

Thanks, everyone, for your good wishes!  I’m not really supposed to be downstairs, but my kids are so excited about the baby that they’ve been carrying him around all day!  I called to them a couple of times to bring him to me so I could feed him, but they didn’t hear, so I came down to tell them myself.  And naturally, once I’m here I had to pop in!

I’ll share the fun and interesting details of the birth another time, probably after Shabbos.  I’ll just say that it’s very humbling to realize that no matter how many kids you have, there’s something new to experience and learn.  I’m feeling great and hope to see some of you who live in the area tonight!

And yes, it’s going to be another erev yom tov bris!  We’re on a roll with the last three boys!  The gabbai of our shul was joking the first night of Pesach with dh that he was waiting to hear that we were making a bris the next morning because of our past history.  He was off by the holiday, but not the basic idea! Ds3 was the first day of Pesach, ds20 months was erev Rosh Hashana, and now this baby will b’ezras H-shem be on erev Shavuos, which is also my husband’s birthday. :)  To do that they had to be born on very different time tables from all of their due dates - 2 weeks early, 3 weeks early, and 3 weeks late.  H-shem’s timing is perfect, isn’t it!

Have a great Shabbos!

Avivah

Avivah wanted you to know that she is doing very well after giving birth to our new baby boy today (Thursday, May 21) at 725pm.  If you live in our neighborhood you are invited to our Shalom Zachor at our home starting 915.

I’m feeling a little discouraged and tired this morning.  Until now, I’ve had a good attitude and mindset about being so far overdue (42 weeks and 6 days, according to the original due date).  I’ve been having contractions every 10 - 20 minutes for the last couple of days, but they haven’t gotten much closer than 10 minutes, and though it’s been a little taxing physically, I’ve been okay with that, too. 

But now I’m feeling less accepting and cheerful.  Today at 3:30 am I woke up with contractions every few minutes apart, about 90 seconds long - finally, real labor!  It was pretty intense but I was so glad to know that I was finally close to having this baby!  The contractions continued at this rate for a couple of hours, and I decided it was definitely time to call my midwife.  

I thought this would be a quick labor and birth, because of all the preparatory work my body’s been doing until now, and that we’d have a new baby to greet the kids with when they woke up in the morning.  Well, I was wrong.  Because after a couple of hours, the contractions starting slowing down and getting further apart.  Finally, at 8:30 am, I told the midwife I didn’t think she should wait around because the contractions were getting further and further apart, and shorter, too. 

I drank a strong raspberry leaf infusion before bed last night - she suggested I continue drinking it today, and suggested I would benefit by steadily continuing to ‘keep at it’, to keep labor going.  I used up the last of my premixed pregnancy tea; I thought I didn’t have any more ingredients for it, but my dd said she was pretty sure we had more red raspberry leaves on the shelf of herbs, and she was right.  So sometime this morning I’ll mix more up (it’s a blend of red raspberry, alfalfa, and peppermint, will try to post the exact ratios when I get the chance).  She also gave me an herbal tincture called LaborEase to take every half hour.  I took some before she left and have been having contractions every five minutes or so, but I don’t really want to take any more right now.  I’m too tired to deal effectively with more contractions at this point.  And I really don’t want to take walks or go up and down my stairs two at a time - I can hardly keep my eyes open!

She had breakfast with our family before heading back home, which was nice, and I joined everyone for breakfast, though I was too tired to eat much.  To say my kids were disappointed to see just me is an understatement - they saw her car outside long before they saw her, and it’s never before happened that she’s come for a birth and not left without a new baby having joined the family. 

Sooo….I think I’m going to go back to bed and get some rest.  I usually find when I’m feeling down that a good nap perks me up and I’m much more positive and cheerful afterwards.  It would be easier to rest if I weren’t having contractions, since I find laying down isn’t a great position to deal with contractions in.  But I could use some positive energy right now and hopefully I’ll be able to get enough of a rest to refresh my spirits!

Avivah 

My midwife came by for a visit yesterday to see how things were going, and as always, we chatted for a while.  She asked me my thoughts on the ‘overdue’ situation, and I told her that I don’t believe in the concept of it being past the right time, assuming all physical signs are good.  The baby will be born when it’s ready, and that time hasn’t yet come.   I told her I know all the natural type things that could be done to ‘make’ it happen sooner, and wasn’t interested in any of them, that I’d like to wait for H-shem’s plan to unfold.  Though I’d like it if sooner rather than later was part of that plan, I’m truly okay with whenever it happens.  (My kids were talking today about how we were prepared for a Pesach baby, and then a Lag B’omer baby, but never did any of them think we’d be considering the possibility of a Shavuos baby! :))

I also raised my concern that although we’ve used the traditional way of figuring out due dates until now, it really isn’t accurate based on a cycle that is longer than 28 days (which mine was).   So she re-established my due date based on this information, and it’s officially now May 14, which means I’m just four days beyond it, instead of 2.5 weeks.  I laughed and told her it didn’t make a bit of difference to me if it was the 2nd or the 14th, it’s just a technical difference that practically speaking doesn’t matter a bit!  It will reassure other people, though.  People seem to think that there’s some terrible danger that awaits anyone still pregnant a day beyond 42 weeks. 

I’m very fortunate to have a midwife who also trusts the body and birth process, and works to follow a mother’s feelings about this.  She listened to the heartbeat, checking for variations, and it was BH good - she was able to do this by listening with a fetascope, no need for electronic monitoring or even a hand held Doppler.  (If you ran up the stairs, your heart would beat faster.  The same thing with a baby - after it moves around, it’s heart rate should go up.)  Then she externally palpated the uterus, and assessed that the volume of amniotic fluid was fine.  This is basically what is checked with a non stress test, but in a more pleasant way. 

So while hopefully none of you are feeling alarmed that I keep posting here every day, and still with no news of a baby, there’s the latest update!

Avivah

Actually, I think the title of my post isn’t accurate.  Officially (even according to the medically conservative ACOG), you have to be 42 weeks to be considered overdue, and it will be a couple more days until I’m at that point.  Maybe it would be more accurate to say I’m not overdue and there’s nothing to be worried about!  (It’s not irrelevant to mention that the way we estimate due dates is problematic for many women and their cycles, and therefore very often not accurate.  See this site for more information on a more accurate way to determine your due date - http://transitionsdoula.com/pregnancy/ddcalc)  But it’s amazing how just because we are given an estimated due date that we mentally expect a baby to be born by then and start worrying when it hasn’t! 

I explained it to my kids, who are losing hope that this baby will ever be born, like this.  When you have an apple tree, there are some apples that ripen early, most of them ripen around the same time, and some ripen after all the others have fallen off.  Babies are like that, too.  Each one has his own growing pattern.  Some start growing later than others, and some grow faster or slower than others. That’s how it is after they’re born, and all of us know that babies have different growth rates.  Somehow we forget that it’s the same way before they’re born. 

Unfortunately, we live in a world where medical induction is so common that we don’t get to see or hear from many people who have gone past 42 weeks.  But it didn’t used to be rare for women to have babies at 43 or even 44 weeks - I even read online about someone who was positive about her dates and gave birth at 46 weeks!  Some of those babies were very big, but others were supposedly late and small, with signs of being early.  Too many babies have been induced or born by cesarean because the care provider was convinced they needed to be born because of the dates themselves, ultrasound estimates of size, etc, only to find that the baby wasn’t as big, or as late, or as ready to be born as expected. (I was once with a first time mother who was pressured into a cesarean because of her extremely big baby, according to the ultrasound.  They told her he was too big to safely be born vaginally.  After the cesarean, the supposedly huge baby the baby was 7.5 pounds, covered in lots of vernix and clearly born before he was ready.  I heard the nurses talking about what an embarrassment it was that the surgery was done unnecessarily, though they promptly stopped discussing it when they saw me close to the nurses station.)

We get fearful that something is wrong when our experience is even slightly outside of the norm because it’s unfamiliar territory, and because the message in the society around us is that different = wrong.  Being past your estimated due date doesn’t mean something has gone wrong, or that something bad is going to happen to you or your baby.  It just means that your baby is growing on its own time table. 

It’s hard to be constantly asked about if you’ve had the baby yet, every single day for weeks by every person you meet.  It’s hard to go to sleep every night wondering if tonight will be the night you’ll go into labor and then wake up the next morning still pregnant.  It’s hard to not make plans every night for the next day, because you don’t know if you’ll be able to keep your commitments.  What I personally think is the hardest thing, is hearing other people’s concerns and assumptions that something is wrong (”when are you going to be induced?” - and even natural minded friends suggesting natural induction methods) and staying emotionally disconnected from their message of fear/ distrust of the body and birth process but not from them. 

For me I have a subtle sense of irony about still being pregnant.  I wasn’t mentally prepared for this scenario, since my concern was really about avoiding being early!   This is new territory for me, after eight children!  But I really believe in the ability of the body to do what it’s created to do in a healthy way.  And I strongly feel that H-shem is giving me a special opportunity during this unexpected space and it’s up to me to use it well.  These last twelve days have been a chance for me to consciously release my ideas and expectations, and be truly open to what H-shem has planned.  Last night as I was lying in bed, I was listening to a musical relaxation cd and thinking continuously of  the following words almost as mantras:  Trust.  Accept.  Release. These were words I thought of because they represented concepts that resonated with me.  To me they meant:  Trust - that H-shem is taking care of everything, and it’s all as it’s supposed to be. Accept - what is and not what you think that should be.  Release - your fears, concerns, and expectations.  These aren’t specific to birth, but to all areas of life. 

I also feel this time space helped my kids become more balanced with the idea of a new baby, instead of the hyper excitement we were experiencing before.  And though they were strongly favoring a baby of one particular gender before, at this point they’ll be so happy with any baby that I don’t think they’ll be disappointed if it’s not what they were initially hoping for.  My husband commented it’s helped him get into a good head space for another baby, whereas a couple of weeks ago things were so busy that he almost didn’t have time to think about it.  It’s giving me lots of snuggling time with different kids, to ’shore up’ the relationship while things are quiet, before life gets busy and I may not be able to do as much of that as I’d like.  And today I even cleaned the refrigerator!  :) 

Seriously, I’ve been able to release concerns regarding having this baby that were very subtle, but somewhere there in my subconscious nonetheless. I don’t know what I did to let go of them, but I feel differently inside, and know that they’ve lost their power.  (Yes, I know I sound very crunchy and airy fairy, but that’s how I feel.)  Most of all, I’ve been using this time to consciously try and connect with H-shem.  I can’t really accurately express the feeling I have inside of being more settled and grounded, more at peace both emotionally and spiritually.   

So that’s why as of now, I have no plans to use even natural induction techniques.  I’m not taking homeopathic caullophyllum, castor oil, stimulating pressure points, drinking infusions of raspberry leaf tea, having accupuncture done, or even trying to tell my body to get labor going right now.  Just like we’re going to enjoy the surprise of it’s a boy or girl, we’re going to enjoy the surprise of when our baby is born! 

Avivah

I hope everyone is enjoying their Lag B’omer!  My husband took the kids to our shul bonfire last night; I stayed home with the youngest, who was sleeping, and finally was able to listen to three of the relaxation cds that I checked out on Friday.  Two of them were good and I’ll happily use them during labor, one I couldn’t listen to for more than a minute without feeling annoyed so that immediately went into the reject pile. 

Today we went to a state park for a homeschooling get together.  It’s been six years since our last Lag B’omer homeschooling outing, since it kept falling on Sunday or Friday or other times that were inconvenient.  Finally this year the dates worked out, the weather was perfect, and we all had a great time.  It works out especially well since the last Weds. of the month, when we usually meet, will be erev Shavuos, so it’s like meeting now and making up for missing it then.  And a friend brought me two Jewish name books, so I’ve been looking through them this afternoon, looking at different spiritual connections between various names and this time of year.

>>There is no group here that makes meals or otherwise helps out with the family after birth, and there are no other shomer Shabbos families with a wife in town either, so I do worry about putting all the work on my husband (and it will be around the end of the semester (he is a professor). I have had very easy births so far, but you never know.<<

Some people are fortunate enough to have mothers who come and take care of everything for a week or even longer after birth, which is wonderful.  But most grandmothers are still working and can’t take the time off, and even if they can, after a week a mother still should be resting and taking it easy. 

So you have to be your own support, which isn’t really hard to do if you plan ahead and don’t get emotional about the help you should have but don’t.  Seriously, feeling sorry for yourself is just not productive because it doesn’t move you forward, but lots of women get stuck in this head space.   So it’s worth mentioning that it’s good to avoid that.

First of all, think about what kind of help you’ll need.  For most people, what comes to mind are the basic running the house kind of work that you’ll want to minimize as you give your body a chance to rest.  That usually means meals, laundry, and childcare. 

Meals - I’ve been fortunate to have friends send meals for a week after birth, for dinner.  I’ve always felt this was a huge help because it’s one less thing to think about or to do, and the kids always find it to be a treat to enjoy someone else’s cooking!  But even when you’re not in this situation, you can make meals in advance for yourself and stock your freezer.  I did this from my very first pregnancy through no. 6 (I can’t remember exactly).  There are lots of one dish meals that are ideal for this; hearty soups can also be frozen.  If for the month before you give birth you double whatever you’re making for dinner each night and pop the extra into the freezer right away, you’ll fill your freezer with hardly any extra thought or effort.  Even when I just had one newborn and no other children to take care of, it was such a help to pull a pan out of the freezer early in the day, warm it up before dinner, and know that we’d have a nice meal to enjoy without any exertion on my part.  This becomes a lot more important when you have young children, since the more people depend on you to be fed, the more pressure there is when you’re not feeling up to it.  So that’s dinner.

Going backwards in the day, you’ll need to take care of breakfast and lunch.  I’m a big believer in keeping things simple.  There are times in life to make more complicated meals, and there are times for hard boiled eggs and carrot sticks.  After birth is a time to just be concerned about basic nutrition, not any standard of impressive presentation!  For breakfasts, you can pull things you’ve baked in advance from the freezer, like muffins, quick breads, baked oatmeal, or you can make fast and simple breakfasts like oatmeal, polenta, or eggs.  Granola can be made in a large batch in advance, or you could use store bought cold cereal (because I don’t use cold cereals, it’s not the first thing I think of but it can be a good option) or instant hot cereal packs (like grits or cream of wheat). 

Lunch - sandwiches, cottage cheese, tuna, veggie sticks.  Again, simple, simple, simple.  Serve whatever it is with a smile and everyone will be happy.  Even as easy as this can be, it takes mental space to think about what to put out.  So I’d suggest before birth making a menu for the first month postpartum, writing down what you’ll have for each meal.  This can be posted on the fridge, and will make it easier for you to make sure everyone is fed, and make it easier for your husband to do the shopping for whatever it is you’ll need.  You can use this same meal schedule for the next month, if you feel that will be helpful to you at that time. 

Child care - this is the hardest thing to delegate.  If you have the possibility of hiring someone to come in for an hour or two a day, that will give you time to rest.  I remember when I had my third that just being able to take a nap for an hour in the afternoon was a big help - this was the main thing I remember my mother in law doing for me when she came to visit after that birth - watching the kids while I took a nap later in the day.  Often you can find a homeschooled teen who is home during the day, or even a 10 or 12 year old can be a big help in entertaining the kids.  You’ll be home so it’s not like you need a babysitter as much as a mother’s helper, and younger kids are great for that. 

But often that’s not possible, financially or because you can’t find anyone!  When you’re the one who is supervising the kids, stay seated as much as possible.  A lot of the time we get up and feel like we have to do something but many of those things can just as easily be dealt with from the couch.  :)  You can have your older kids (even age 4- 5 and up) bring you diapers and the baby or toddler when they need changing.  (My 4.5 year old was already changing her baby brother’s wet diapers by herself by the time he was 6 months old, but that was initiative she took; I wouldn’t have thought of asking her to do it!)    Your kids can help each other instead of turning to you for everything (an older one can play with a younger, bring them a toy, etc), and when you explain that mommy needs to rest they can share in the good feeling that they’re able to help you recuperate.  Kids love to be helpful.

Laundry - With a washer and dryer, this shouldn’t be a big physical effort.  But the less you do after birth, the faster you’ll recuperate.  If you can, ask your husband to do this when he gets home - popping a load in right before dinner, and then another right after dinner can keep things moving along very nicely.  If he’s not available for this, then at least have someone else bring the dirty laundry to the machine and take the clean laundry to where it needs to go.   You can have your kids put the actual dirty laundry in the machine for you, and then put the clean wet laundry in the dryer, so that you’re not exerting yourself.

My midwife’s instructions are no driving anywhere for two weeks, not even as a passenger.  It’s not that riding in a car is so strenous that she says this.  I think it’s more that once we get into the car, we have a tendency to think that we can and should be taking care of things.  Don’t be a martyr, and don’t try to prove how capable you are, that you’re back to normal so quickly after having a baby.  The more you rest after birth, the sooner you’ll get back to yourself.  Being pregnant and giving birth takes a lot out of your body, and even if you feel great, your body deserves some healing time.  The postpartum period is the time to nurture yourself as much as you possibly can, to drop down to the most basic standards, and to put yourself first without feeling guilty for it.  Anyway, it’s not like you’re sitting around eating bon bons after giving birth - you’re still working hard, taking care of a newborn with all that entails.  You’ve earned a break after doing all you’ve done for nine months, plus what you’re doing with a new baby, don’t you think?!?  If that doesn’t earn you a break, I don’t know what will!  Emotionally, you’ll also benefit by taking care of yourself, as you’ll be less likely to suffer from postpartum depression. 

If someone offers to help, take them up on it.  It’s not easy to ask a visitor to wash your sink full of dishes, put a load of laundry in the machine, or take your kids to the park for an hour, but I think most people who care enough to visit you or call to ask about your well being really want to help and would be happy to do something concrete if they can. 

Avivah

>>Avivah, I have a question about having the midwife stay
in the other room. Most of the midwives I’ve talked to
over the years have emphasized that *watching* the mom
labor (hopefully unobtrusively) is an important way that
they gain a sense for how the labor is progressing and
how the mom and baby are doing, without having to do a
lot of exams or monitoring. How do you feel about that?
Do you think you would be able to call the midwife in if
you felt you were having a hard time?

I’m asking, not to judge your approach, but just to
increase my own understanding.<<

It’s a good question, and you don’t sound a bit like you’re being judgemental! 

I didn’t mean to give the impression that the midwife stays out of the room the entire time - she doesn’t.  She comes in periodically and assesses how things are going, but she goes out when she sees things are fine.  If I felt I needed her at any of these times, she would stay with me.  Whenever my husband goes in and out of the room, he keeps her updated, too.  If something suddenly and drastically changed in my labor, she’s very close by, and my husband would get her.  My husband tends to be with me during a lot of labor, though he ends up sitting somewhere to the side, usually.  I like to know he’s there, but not to feel that he’s there.  :)  That’s how he’s able to call her immediately when I say I want her to come in. 

All of my hospital births were attended by midwives (CNMs) and this is what they did, and both of my home birth midwives have done the same thing.  It really is possible to learn a lot about where a woman is holding just by watching her - I used to pretty accurately be able to guess how many centimeters the women I was providing labor support for were at by paying attention to their labor signposts.  Experienced midwives have been at a lot more births than I have and I’m sure can detect a lot more factors than that.

 I think the above is the typical approach to keeping an eye on a laboring woman, but periodic monitoring doesn’t require a constant presence, and most experienced midwives have learned the art of being unobtrusive even when they are present.

Avivah