Our daughter joined the outside world as a bit of a surprise to us, on the day she would have reached 38 weeks just a few days ago! We went in for a routine check-up and they told us our amniotic fluid was leaking, and to continue downstairs to labor and delivery. We checked in around noon and she was born yelling about the state of things at 4 am by vaginal birth the next day!
I’m still in the hospital, partly for getting support from lactation consultants as this is our first but also my blood pressure was a bit high yesterday and since I was group b strep positive they wanted to give plenty of time for observation of our new human before we leave.
Her coming this early was pretty surprising to us. For many different reasons, we hadn’t even had time to do online birthing classes yet! Literally the day before being admitted, when my fluid had started leaking but I didn’t know it, I STARTED reading “The Birth Partner” by Penny Simkin. (A really helpful text for everyone involved in having a baby)
So there’s a lot of ways the experience could have gone poorly, a lot of it out of our immediate control, but some of it was because of some of the lessons and inspiration from this sub! By keeping up with my yoga my hips were limber enough to make good use of the squat bar even after the epidural. Staying active lifting freight (safely) and moving around at work until week 36 has meant I have a baseline of movement that’s helpful for holding a 7 lb (and growing) weight a large portion of the day. And, above all? Working on being constantly tuned in to my body’s cues where possible meant I listened to my gut and had brought along our stocked baby/birth supply bags to our “routine” checkup that turned in to a delivery checkin.
So I guess this might be goodbye and thank you! For:
Thank you again folks! Take care of yourselves!
I’m still in the hospital, partly for getting support from lactation consultants as this is our first but also my blood pressure was a bit high yesterday and since I was group b strep positive they wanted to give plenty of time for observation of our new human before we leave.
Her coming this early was pretty surprising to us. For many different reasons, we hadn’t even had time to do online birthing classes yet! Literally the day before being admitted, when my fluid had started leaking but I didn’t know it, I STARTED reading “The Birth Partner” by Penny Simkin. (A really helpful text for everyone involved in having a baby)
So there’s a lot of ways the experience could have gone poorly, a lot of it out of our immediate control, but some of it was because of some of the lessons and inspiration from this sub! By keeping up with my yoga my hips were limber enough to make good use of the squat bar even after the epidural. Staying active lifting freight (safely) and moving around at work until week 36 has meant I have a baseline of movement that’s helpful for holding a 7 lb (and growing) weight a large portion of the day. And, above all? Working on being constantly tuned in to my body’s cues where possible meant I listened to my gut and had brought along our stocked baby/birth supply bags to our “routine” checkup that turned in to a delivery checkin.
So I guess this might be goodbye and thank you! For:
- the clothing rec’s (whoever said Beyond Yoga maternity shorts may your beverage of choice never run dry and always be the perfect temperature)
- encouragement (when first trimester exhaustion ran into winter snow shoveling recommendations)
Thank you again folks! Take care of yourselves!
