My Birth Philosophy

As with all things in life, when it came time to think about birth I did a lot of research, talked to a ton of people, spent some time in prayer, talked Ted's head off for hours, and trusted my increasingly strong gut instinct. This is the result.





Birth is a natural process. Pregnancy is not a disease or illness. It is a normal stage of life. An incredibly awesome normal stage of life.

I am not afraid of giving birth. I trust my body to know what to do. I trust my body to instinctively do what it needs to take care of my baby. It's already doing it. It will continue to do it. This acceptance was hard to come to since my body didn't instinctively know how to get pregnant-but I'm there now. The amazing care it has provided my baby with these last 23 weeks has convinced me.

Ted is the most important person in the entire world for helping me through this birth. He is learning and studying and reading as much as I am. He's praying harder than I am. He is my coach, my best friend, my baby's daddy. He is my primary support.

Babies are born on their birthdays, not their due dates. There is absolutely nothing special about February 2nd, other than the fact that is is 38 weeks after the beautiful night that this miracle was conceived. If my baby wants to hang out inside mom for a few more weeks, then who am I to stop her? I will wait-even if I do so rather anxiously and impatient.

Drugs are for sick people and I am not sick. I will not use drugs during my labor and delivery unless they become medically necessary for my safety or my baby's. Epidurals are not medically necessary (in almost all cases). Pitocin is not medically necessary (in almost all cases). And in many, many, many cases C-sections are not necessary. I will reject these and other options unless they are crucial for the life and safety of my baby.

Drugs are bad for babies. Period. There is absolutely no way to convince me otherwise. I do not care if you had an epidural/narcotic/whatever and your baby turned out fine. I'm glad that your baby is fine. There is no guarantee that mine will do the same. I will not risk it. What goes to the momma, goes to the baby. I do not want to drug my baby.

I am not an idiot and think that labor and delivery will be easy. I actually believe it will be the hardest and most demanding thing I ever do in my life. While I do think that years and years of endometriosis cramps have given me an slight edge in knowing what to expect in the pain department-I fully expect contractions to be more intense and and more painful than I can even imagine.

Labor and birth require preparation. I will not show up at the hospital on delivery day and wait for the nurses to tell me what to do. I will know what to do to the best of my ability. I will read about birth, watch videos of birth, and practice for birth. I will not be an expert. I will make mistakes. But I won't walk in blindly and let a stranger tell me what I need to know.

The preparation starts now. Ted and I have been practicing daily for over a month. We will continue to practice daily for the next four months until the baby comes. We practice birthing positions and relaxation techniques. He coaches me in exercises that will give me much needed stamina and endurance during labor. We attend childbirth classes and take lots of notes.

I will hold my baby immediately after delivery. A baby should be with his mommy in the first moments of life-not on an examination table with a nurse who means absolutely nothing to him. I will be covered in blood and sweat and goo and it will be the most amazing moment of my life. I have tears in my eyes every time I think about it.

I will give breastfeeding my absolute very best effort because it is what's best for me and what's best for my baby.

I will keep my baby with me at all possible times while still in the hospital. I will not leave his care up to the nurses, although I will be eternally grateful for their help. My mothering responsibility will not take a two day break while I "relax" in the hospital. I will be exhausted, overwhelmed, and emotionally spent. But I will have spent my energy bonding with my baby and I will never regret that.





Maybe this philosophy comes across as judgemental? Like I'm judging mothers out there who've made decisions that are different from mine? I hope not. I'm not judging. Do I think that my decisions are superior? Well, obviously. If I didn't, I wouldn't have made these decisions.

Perhaps veteran moms out there are reading this and thinking, "Just wait until you go through it. You have no idea what you're talking about." And they're right to some extent. I've never given birth. But I know I can. And I know how I want to do it.

Am I a bit nervous about announcing the expectations I have set for myself on such a public forum? Yup! Talk about accountability! In four months or so I will (God willing) write about my birth experience and you will all be able to judge for yourselves how well I carried out my philosophy. "I told you so" comments will happily be deleted :)

Why I Love My Husband (An Explanation)

I got several comments on my first "Why I Love My Husband" post from other bloggers wanting to do the same. I think that's awesome! We should all be able to brag about the men whose job it is to help us get to heaven. Some even suggested I get one of those nifty little icons to make it more official.

Like the icon? Well thanks, but I didn't make it. That would be the work of the woman who has way too many the perfect amount of blog features and designs creative icons for every one. :) Thanks Leila!

So I'm laying down some ground rules and some explanations for the "Why I Love My Husband" posts.

I absolutely can't stand when women complain about their husbands. It's one thing to have an actual problem in your marriage and seek the advice, counsel, and support of a good friend. It's another thing completely to trash the man you chose to marry and spend the rest of your life with. It's not acceptable. We need to be building up our husbands with everything we have within us, not cutting them down with hurtful comments to other women. Yes, they have faults. But we don't need to expose those faults to others. We don't need to go on and on about them.

Kimberly Hahn said that we should never speak badly of our husbands because we are one flesh. If we tear our husband down, we're really only hurting ourselves. I love that.

When I write a post dedicated to how much I love Ted, it is not to imply that everything is always perfectly peachy in our marriage. While I do think he's Superman, even Superman falls sometimes. He's not perfect-but that's just another one of the reasons that I love him. So the purpose of these posts isn't to gloss over the difficulties of marriage and pretend like nothing ever goes wrong. The purpose is to rejoice in the special and wonderful things our husbands do for us, to give them a much needed pat on the back, and to brag about how great our "other half" really is. Save the negative stuff for a priest or trusted friend-not a ladies night out.

The rules? Well there aren't any really.

You can do a post like this whenever you want. Not just on Fridays or the second Tuesday of the month or some other day.

You can include as few or as many reasons as you want to explain why you're husband is da bomb.

You can do this often or as infrequent as you want.

Save the icon from the top of this post and use it whenever you write your own.

Linking back to my blog isn't necessary (the credit would only go to my head). I'm not opposed to links-just don't feel obligated.

Ted and I have discussed the fact that every conversation we have with our married friends (and non-married friend for that matter) can either tear marriage down or build it up. (I'm sure we heard this somewhere but we can't remember where. It makes us feel smart to claim it as our own.) It's so easy to fall into the trap of complaining about marriage. It's so easy to let little comments slide without standing up for marriage. "Is Kaitlin gonna LET you go fishing today?" "Gee, Ted seems to be gone an awful lot." Do our conversations with others affirm their marriages? Are we supportive of the crosses they carry? Do we speak highly enough of our own marriage to serve as a witness to the beauty of this awesome sacrament?

If not, I encourage you (and myself!) to get going. Build up your hubbies. Defend your marriage. Be a witness.

I think that's it. Let the bragging.....BEGIN!

No Quick Takes

No time for a Quick Takes today. Date night with the hubby only allows time for these two sentences.

And this.....YAY!

Why I Love my Husband (1)

I'm starting a new blog series. Because I can. And because I love my husband.

I love my husband because he knows exactly what I like. When we have fried potatoes and onions for dinner he only puts the small, crispy ones on my plate and eats the big, soggier ones himself. I don't have to remind him that the small, crispy ones are my favorite. He just knows.

I get a hug and a kiss as soon as he walks in the door. No matter what kind of day he's had.

He's really cute when he plays tennis. And he tells me the score in between sets because he knows I lose track.

When he comes home from work he asks how his "babies" are doing. He's already a great dad.

Quick Takes (14)

Yes, yes-I know it's not Friday anymore. I wrote the first four on Friday and the last three on Sunday. Does that count??

-1-

There are times that a blog post is written over and over in my head before I ever get it down on paper (screen??). Other times I sit at the computer with no idea what I'm going to write before I actually start typing. Today is the latter.

-2-

Please pray for my blogger friend's baby. His names is James Fulton and he was born one week ago. He was without a heartbeat for 61 minutes and is now in the NICU. His family could really use your prayers. Read about baby James here.

-3-

I'm really, really proud to be Catholic. And really, really sad that so many people misunderstand that.

-4-

A lady in the grocery store asked me when I was due today. I'm still not used to the fact that I'm visibly pregnant to strangers. We had a lovely conversation about how we're not finding out the gender (she didn't either) and she wished me well. I left the conversation thinking about that visibility and how different it is from infertility.

No one in the grocery store can tell that you're NOT pregnant (and can't get pregnant). No one knows why your eyes are red from crying. No one offers to help carry things for you after you laproscopy. No one strikes up pleasant conversations with you while picking out apples.

But everyone can see pregnancy. Strangers smile and me and look down at my tummy all the time. People ask me when I'm due, offer their congratulations, and even ask if I need help carrying heavy items. It's part of what makes infertility so painful and pregnancy so great. I wish there was a way to even it out a little.... Invisible suffering makes the hurt even worse.

............................................................................................................

-5-

College football is AMAZING when you're at a college in the SEC! It was absolutely not the same in Missouri. If you haven't been here-you can't possibly know what a big, fun, crazy deal it is. Ok, Mississippi-I'll give you that. You're football is fun. But everything else is better in Missouri.

-6-

The temps are going to finally get out of the 90's this week! It's not exactly going to feel like fall (even though it's almost OCTOBER!!!) but I'm grateful. Fall puts me in a good mood. I think God planned the timing of this pregnancy perfectly when he made pumpkins, changing leaves, and cooler weather coincide with the highly emotional and weepy end of the second trimester. Thanks God.

-7-

Are you Catholic? Are you anti-Catholic? Are you curious about Catholics or think we're weird? I really don't even know who is reading this little blog of mine anymore, but if any of those questions apply to you-you need to check out Little Catholic Bubble. Read the archives, subscribe to the new feeds, and learn.

10 Things

I was tagged by Megan in this little "10 Surprising Things About Me" chain post event quite a while ago. I haven't been in the mood until tonight.

If you know me in real life, I'm sure very few (if any) of these things will be a surprise. I'm pretty much an open book and don't keep things in. Here goes...

1.  I hate this kind of stuff. Chain letters, email forwards-I just think it's all stupid. Megan-if you weren't such an awesome blogge,r I wouldn't have felt honored to be "tagged" by you (but you are and I did :)

2.  I form very strong opinions about things almost immediately upon hearing about them. I always do my own research and spend some time in prayer evaluating those opinions, but there hasn't yet been a time when my gut reaction has later changed. (I'm not saying it couldn't happen.) My strongest sense is my sixth one.

3.  For example, I don't ever remember being told that abortion was wrong (I'm sure I was-but I have no memory). When I was eight or nine years old I just knew it was. I remember standing in front of my bedroom mirror rehearsing what I would say to President Clinton to convince him that abortion was wrong if I was ever given the opportunity. I was sure I could change his heart. I needed to be ready.

4.  My second strongest sense is my sense of smell. I have a good nose. Too good. When I was a kid I would wake up from a sound sleep when my dad made popcorn. I would crawl down from my bunk bed and go into the living to share some. I can smell cigarette smoke on the clothes of someone across the room from me-even if they smoked hours earlier. I can recognize certain people coming up behind me just from the way they smell. I was always curious how it could get even more sensitive with pregnancy (people told me this was common.) It hasn't changed. I don't think it had any room for improvement.

5.  I minored in Child and Family Development in undergrad. The classes didn't feel even feel like school. I loved them. The only reason I didn't pursue a degree in that field instead of Speech-Language Pathology was because the money was waaaaay worse, the job outlook was waaaay worse, and the flexibility was waaaaay worse. I'm using a ton of what I learned about child development in my current job. It works :)

6.  I didn't know I had curly hair until I was fourteen. My mom doesn't have curly hair and she had no idea how to fix it. We just let it dry frizzy and stuck it in a bun-like ponytail. When I was on vacation once, a girl who had really curly hair fixed mine for me. My parents were amazed.

7.  I can't hear rap music without dancing. When we go to baseball or basketball games and rap songs come on, I dance in the bleachers. Ted is only slightly embarrassed.

8.  Ted and I get the Reader's Digest every month as a Christmas gift from my mom. I'm always ridiculously excited to read the jokes. We save them for right before we go to sleep and then I read them to him in bed. I laugh out loud at a lot of them-but they're not really that funny. In fact, we just got a new one in the mail..... You all know what we'll be doing in bed tonight now!

9.  I RARELY laugh out loud when I'm watching tv or a movie. I find things really funny and laugh in my head-but never out loud. It sometimes looks like I'm not enjoying myself-but I am. (Comedian Brian Reagan is the one exception. I laugh so hard I cry.)

10. I'm horrible at Geography. That is a supreme understatement. I'm REALLY horrible at geography. I thought Oregon was next to Missouri. I didn't know Haiti wasn't in Africa. I can't put any states that begin with the letter "I" where they belong on a map (except Iowa and Illinois-they DO touch Missouri!) And when Ted and I first started dating he was trying to "impress" me with his knowledge of state capitals. I named the state and he gave me the capital. I was trying really hard to stump him and I finally got him. He looked at me with a blank stare. "Ha! I thought of one you didn't know!" I said. Which "state" did I finally stump him on you ask? "What's the capital of.....Chicago."

I understand if you never want to read my blog again.

On Money

Today's readings for Mass couldn't have come at a better time. Ted and I have been seriously discussing our budget issues lately and it was so nice to have the Church's perspective on the complex matters of money. The Gospel passage was from Luke 16: 1-13 and the first reading was Amos 8: 4-7. Here's what I got out of the homily:

Money is corrosive.
Greed and dishonesty are far too prevalent when it comes to money.
The Church recognizes the importance of savings and encourages us to be responsible with our saving.
The Church also asks that we be generous. Everyone is capable of giving-no matter how little they may have.

Ted and I had a looong talk about our spending habits the other night. I was in the throughs of despair as I worried I would NEVER be able to stay home with our children. We went through all of our spending for the last several months and tried to pinpoint areas in which we could improve. Some months were better than others, but May was a killer. "Why in the world did we spend so much in May??" I wondered. "Well, this explains a lot (as I looked at the enormous amount of money we spent on medical bills and drugs that month). "Our spending on medicine was much higher than usual," I said. I only had to ponder what the cause of this was for about 0.5 seconds. I looked down at my belly. Oh yeah.

The extra money spent on medicine that month resulted in the greatest miracle we could have ever asked for. I smiled at Ted and said, "I guess that was worth it, huh?" His face said it all.

Money is important. It's important to try to save and be responsible. It's important to give away as much as possible to those who need it a lot more than we do. But it's still just money. It has no inherent value other than to better the lives of human beings and make us more capable to serve God and each other.

May I never forget this again.