Catholic Blessings: December 2010

Today our son is one month old.

Breastfeeding is better, though extremely noisy and aggressive.

Changing his diaper is easier, although at times he's pretty upset about it.

He still has the hair he was born with and some of it can be measured at about an inch in length.

He rolled over from his stomach to his back at about 2 weeks, I was shocked.

He hates being locked into his car seat but as long as we are away from home he'll sleep the time away, once home (I think he can smell it) he wakes up and cries and screams until someone takes him out (I don't think we are given 2 minutes until this happens).

He smiles every day now and I'm in love.

He sleeps the sleep of a child, heavy and sweet.

Happy birthday to my one month old.

Before getting pregnant I was fascinated with the multitude of birthing options out there. I had seen the film, "The Business of Being Born" and watched a water birthing documentary on the Discovery channel. I avoided watching the dramatized Birth Story show on TLC since I didn't want to make myself feel like a hypochondriac. I definitely wanted to have a midwife and possibly a water birth. But after I got pregnant I found that my husband had no interest in alternative birthing methods. For him he was only comfortable with going to the hospital. He was much more comfortable leaving the decision making up to the professionals.

So I contacted the insurance company and found myself an OBGYN who would care for me during my pregnancy. My husband came to the first appointment and we found we didn't like the bedside manner of who I had been given. My husband contacted his sister who worked in a NICU and got a reference from her. Even though my sister-in-law lived over 100 miles away and had never met her recommendation, I switched trusting she had found me a conservative pro life doctor.

The next time I went in I was by myself, my husband having to work, and the new doctor seemed friendly and cracked a lot of jokes. Unfortunately, her style of humor wasn't one I was able to pick up on and she had me confused for half the appointment. The next time I went in I had both my mother and my husband in tow, my mother was there because I found her knowledge of the medical community invaluable (she had worked for OBGYN's for years when I was a child even though she wasn't a nurse). At this point in my pregnancy I didn't have many questions so I wasn't able to really test my doctor's personality. Everything seemed fine and my husband and mother were neutral in response to her.

Then I started having real problems with my allergies and difficulty breathing at night. I was on allergy meds but they weren't doing much. At my third appointment with my OB only my mother came along. We asked a few questions about my general health and my difficulties breathing. The doctor gave a sarcastic answer which I saw immediately turned my mother off. It was then I realized what I wasn't comfortable with. This doctors' style of humor was sarcasm and she made you feel like you were an idiot for asking a question.

Each doctors' appointment got more difficult. We tried not to ask questions when we could help it. Then one day I was sent to the hospital for monitoring for high blood pressure and numb fingers. Some tests were run and the doctor prescribed me Betamethasone to develop my baby's lungs just in case he was born early. My husband tried to talk to the doctor over the phone about side effects and I could see he was irritated with her response.

At the next appointment we tried to talk to the doctor about the possible side effects but she fired back that she had already discussed this with us. I was a bit shocked at her response and fired back that she had talked with my husband about it, not me, and I wanted to know the answer to my question. She then basically blew us off by telling us there were no side effects. That didn't make sense from my perspective of how I was raised and taught by my mom who told me all drugs have side effects. It was listed as a Pregnancy Category C drug which means there are side effects. We left the appointment dissatisfied and irritated.

My next appointment I had submitted my birth plan and we were given the opportunity to discuss the plan with the OB. She was fine with all of it. When we talked a little bit with her about waiting to cut the umbilical cord she made a comment the it was a "granola" idea. I got the feeling that she didn't like it when her patients did their own research. The granola comment made my husband very upset and whenever he didn't like something my OB did he'd make the comment that we should send her a basket of granola bars and thank her for her "help".

The last time I went to see her she sent me to the hospital for montitoring and told me that she wouldn't be available that weekend because she had no child care and some other doctor would help me if I had to deliver early. I silently applauded since I no longer wanted her as my OB. I dutifully went to the hospital but all was not right under the sun. My BP was high and wasn't going down. I was induced three different ways but only progressed to 5cm after 29 hours, being stuck at 5cm for 9 hours. A c-section was ordered and the anesthesiologists comment that because I made a birth plan, now I needed him. I really disliked him when he said that, it was mean. I had a pretty rough time with the pain medications and eventually they had to knock me unconscious because I wasn't responding well. The doctor on call was great, efficient and our type of friendly. My husband liked him as well as the rest of my family. He answered our questions even if he'd already done so before. on the same one. I felt safe.

After the surgery was over I was given a room to share with another couple. I stayed in the hospital for four days in hopes they would give me help with breastfeeding, I could have left on day three (I should have left on day three). I didn't know until later that breastfeeding assistance was not given until you were being discharged from the hospital. Had I known that I would have checked out as soon as I was able. The extra day led us to a new worry that our baby was losing too much weight and had to have formula as a supplement. With the pediatrician prescribing formula too, I cried from my inability to provide for my baby. I felt like a bad mother.

We finally left and proceeded much better at home. Our baby gained quickly and the food was better. Then, just the other day, we got the bill from the insurance company. We didn't have to pay anything but we were pretty shocked at the price of the care we received: $34,000. On the website Better Birth for Sacramento it shows my hospital as $10,000 for a birth (that's 1 day, natural birth, no meds). So that is $24,000 in extras that I accumulated. Wow.

Because I had such a good reaction to the OB who did my c-section I was able to switch to him for my post-partum care. I can't wait to talk with him about what went wrong and what we can do to remedy the situation for our next pregnancy. I know I am now considered high risk and a midwife won't touch me. Too bad.