First Family Outing

Today we decided to take a drive out to Brenham to see the wildflowers and get me and Matilda out of the house since we were going stir crazy. We ended up detouring and ended up at a state park called Washington on the Brazos where we took a walk and got some good pics. By the time we got back to Brenham baby was screaming about her full diaper and the Bluebell ice cream factory was packed, so we pulled into a parking lot, fed and changed her, and headed home. Not before we terrorized the Wendy's drive through with a screaming baby, though. She was a really good road tripper, just probably had her out too long.

Had to add the Cougar Mom pic, from the car we were following back. Can't beat that for laughs. I want one.

Cosmo and Lily Crate Crunch

I meant to add this a couple weeks ago. I text messaged it to a few of you. Aren't they ridiculous?!

Matilda Post Birth

We just got the pictures from Jeff's mom's camera downloaded onto our computer, so this is actually the first time I am seeing a lot of these, and they make me want to cry. This is my absolute worst case scenario, biggest fear hospital birth scene (other than dying, which fortunately did not happen). Meeting my baby for the first time while unconscious, her being whisked off to the nursery away from me, and her screaming while people dressed in their weird hospital clothes suction out her lungs and monitor everything. Did I mention her entrance into the world was someone grabbing her and pulling her out of my stomach into bright lights? I know it had to happen that way, but it's exactly the scene I was trying to avoid. I don't understand how anyone could choose an elective c-section for convenience (obviously it's smart to choose one if there are risks). It seems way too traumatic to me. I know that she wouldn't have come out any other way, and that the suctioning saved her life. I still feel horrible she had to go through all that, though. Too bad my body couldn't just spit out a kid like it was supposed to.

On a better note, apparently my body does very well feeding a kid like it's supposed to. Miss Matilda has gained a lot of weight! 9lbs at birth, then she dropped to 8lbs 14oz at the hospital. They expect it to take 2 weeks just to get back to their birth weight, but at her checkup yesterday (1o days old) she was 9lbs 13oz. Fat little baby! She's wearing mostly 0-3 month clothes, and today she got into one of the bigger 3 month size sleepers. I love her little chub rolls and her big fat cheeks :)

New Pics

Matilda's Here!

A blog is long overdue, but babies keep you REALLY busy! Matilda Gail Moline was born on Saturday, March 27th, 2010 at 3:24pm. She weighed 9lbs and was 20.5 inches long. Leave it to me to have a giant kid!

We were planning to have a home birth, and spent the first 27 hours of labor at home. I went into labor around 11:45 Thursday night, and woke Jeff up around 5am to let him know he should stay home from work because I was pretty sure we were having a baby that day. Later in the evening my friend Cheska and my midwife Cathy came over, and our friend Nam came to pick Quinn up for an all night game night with some of Jeff's guy friends.

I don't even want to re-live the whole home experience, but it was really bad. The first several hours were fine, and I was doing really well with managing the contractions. Jeff gave me bubble wrap to pop during them to take my mind off things, I took some really hot showers, and it wasn't a huge deal. I called my midwife when things started getting hard to handle. By about 2am I couldn't handle the pain anymore, even with the birth tub. My contractions never really got regular, nobody could tell me how things were progressing, I couldn't pee by myself anymore.. I was SO done. The midwife and her RN were telling me all the reasons I shouldn't go to the hospital (2 hours wait, by then it will be too late for an epidural, blah blah blah) but at 4am I was outta there having Jeff take me to the hospital. The midwife called ahead to her back up doctor, who was fortunately already at the hospital that night.

We went in through the emergency room and they had me at labor and delivery about 5 minutes later with me whining and begging all the way for pain meds. They got me hooked up with an epidural about 30-40 minutes later after they did all their procedures like taking blood, etc. I got to lay there for a really long time having contractions I really didn't feel (thank goodness) and at about 11:30am I started pushing. I pushed until around 2:45pm, with them backing off the pain meds once so I could feel how to push and the intensity I needed, then I started getting really mad until finally they bumped the meds back up. I really didn't want a c-section, which is why they let me push so long, but finally the doctor came in and said that only about 5% of women deliver after pushing that many hours, and I could keep exhausting myself and turn it into an emergency, or we could just go ahead and do the c-section and have a baby soon. Everyone (Jeff's mom was there the whole time in the hospital helping, Jeff was there and my midwife came along and was allowed to offer lots of guidance) agreed that it was probably the best idea, even though I was freaking out and not wanting one. It didn't take long for logic to set in, though. Matilda's head was positioned wrong, my contractions still weren't super regular, pushing for 3.5 hours only moved her down the birth canal a centimeter or so, and they were seeing a lot of meconium once my water broke.

The c-section was kind of scary. They put the big curtain up, but you can still feel what they're doing. I could feel a lot of pain when they pulled her head back up to get her out. Just like it hurt going one direction as I was pushing, it hurt coming back up the other direction! Jeff got to go in with me and he watched the entire thing. He was pretty excited later to tell me that my guts are purple, and the doctor laid them on a table. I apparently met Matilda for a second after they got her out (Jeff has a picture proving it), but the first time I remember seeing her is in the recovery room when they brought her to me. I do remember hearing a lot of gurgling and suctioning when she was born, which I think was them getting the meconium out. She had a lot of it in her lungs. They got even more out in the nursery.

So things didn't go the way I planned. At first I felt like a failure, abandoning what I had wanted to do when I felt all that pain. I was really against epidurals because of the risks, and against hospitals in general. Now I am just grateful to have a really healthy baby. We would have ended up at the hospital anyway, and I am really glad we did because I don't think the midwife would have been equipped to handle it. Maybe she would have, maybe she wouldn't have. It ended up fine, though, and Matilda was born safely and got the care she needed as soon as she came out... which is a strange twist, considering part of the reason I wanted to stay out of the hospital was for her safety against interventions.

The one thing I have learned from this is not to judge. That seems to be a frequent lesson in my life. I am definitely not against home birth, and was really happy that my midwife was involved to the extent she was. I think it would have been much scarier if she hadn't been there acting as an advocate for a lot of my wishes. I guess I got a lesson in sitting on my home birth high horse, though, because after 27 hours my body was just not handling the pain and I have no idea how I would have gotten through having her at home. Plus with all that meconium, it could have gotten bad for her quickly.

Oh well. I have a really awesome baby and that's what matters! She didn't get her "I Was Born At Home" t-shirt, but she did get a "I was Helped Out by a Midwife" t-shirt. That works for me.

Volunteer Work- possibly the last straw

Disclaimer: VERY sad blog for animal lovers to read... but I know you all will anyway.

So, I was very excited to go see the chief investigator from the SPCA teach a class on animal cruelty investigations today. He was teaching at the city shelter I volunteer on the weekends for. However, the last week some really horrible stories have emerged about the shelter, and I didn't feel like I could even go down there. Not even that I couldn't go down there... but that I would be humiliated to sit in a room and show affiliation with them... that I would be a hypocrite learning about animal cruelty investigations at the headquarters of a place that should be shut down for animal cruelty... and that I didn't want to benefit from any of their resources. That might sound dramatic, and I have been torn between continuing to volunteer to help animals get out of there, and not wanting to have anything to do with this awful organization. The article speaks for itself. This particular article was written by an animal rights group here, but it gets the story across in its entirety better than any of the newspaper articles can. People have been following the story so closely here that many of the true news station articles just assume background knowledge when writing on the story. So, article below:




BARC to remove a dog’s eyes although rescuers offer to save her


BARC’s refusal of offers of humane care may have cost an injured dog her life
By nokillhouston

Kieko aka Liberty, a young dog, was brought to BARC on Monday, 3/15/10. It was obvious that she had suffered severe head/eye injuries. BARC’s vet reportedly told volunteers that it appeared that the dog had been beaten with a 2×4.

Despite, Keiko’s obvious severe injuries BARC decided that she should wait at BARC until Friday when her stray hold period would expire. At that point she would “officially belong to BARC” and BARC would remove her eyes. On Friday morning, BARC vet staff operated on Keiko. This was done despite that BARC has no diagnostic tools to properly evaluate the extent of Keiko’s injuries, nor do they have the proper surgical equipment for this type of surgery. If BARC’s services had been the only option available for Keiko, BARC might have been considered a hero for attempting to save this animal. However, this is far from the truth.

Early this week, the rescue community offered to take Keiko from BARC to a specialist where she could get the immediate specialized care that she desperately needed. This would have been at no cost to BARC i.e. taxpayers. BARC repeatedly refused these offers.

After hearing of BARC’s refusal, the community bombarded BARC and the city of Houston with requests that Keiko be released to see a specialist. BARC did not release Keiko to rescue, but on Thursday, BARC allegedly took Keiko to a specialist who allegedly recommended that her eyes should be removed. That day, BARC representative, Chris Newport told Fox 26 that the specialist had offered to perform Keiko’s surgery free of charge. This offer was refused and Keiko was taken back to BARC where BARC staff proceeded to operate on Keiko.

BARC is a clinic of “last resort” i.e. when there are no other options available. BARC staff has only the most basic diagnostic tools at their disposal; they have no x-ray machines and certainly nothing more sophisticated such as an MRI or CT scanner; their microscopes are in need of repair; their surgical equipment is geared towards spays/neuters only; they do not have the ability to run complete blood panels; many of the spays / neuters are done in a former closet. In addition, after delicate surgery such as this, Keiko would have required overnight medically monitored care. BARC cannot not provide this. Yet, BARC still proceeded with the surgery to remove Keiko’s eyes and soon after she died.

There are a number of troubling questions: 1) BARC is not equipped to diagnose nor treat this type of severe injury. Why were offers of proper care repeatedly refused? 2) Why did Keiko wait 3 ½ days before BARC’s attempts to diagnose her injuries with proper equipment? 3) BARC is severely underfunded. If a rescue group was willing to take to take Keiko and have her treated by an eye specialist, at no cost to taxpayers, why did BARC continue to refuse? 4) In emergencies, other animals have been released from BARC before the stray hold period was up. BARC’s own policy and procedure manual states clearly that animals with certain medical conditions such as ringworm and upper respiratory infections can be released before the stray hold period has expired. Why wasn’t this dog, with far more severe injuries, released when care was offered?

Had Keiko been released to rescue who could take her to a specialist the minute she entered BARC, she might have lived. A specialist might have been able to save her sight had she been evaluated at that time. However, BARC’s director and veterinarians utterly and stubbornly failed this dog and I believe it cost Keiko her life. The animals’ welfare should be the number one concern for the staff at BARC. Everything else should come second, including egos.

I think it is time for regime change. Clearly, BARC leadership is no better than it was before.

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There is the article. It's the worst thing I've heard in a long time. Not even releasing the dog to receive proper care is disgusting. The dog might have died anyway with such massive head trauma, but obviously that's not the point. The other thing that emerged this week (because if you have bad publicity like this, someone is going to go digging for more) is that the shelter is immunizing pregnant bitches that come in, which apparently gives the puppies whatever disease they are immunizing for. It's obvious when I volunteer on the weekends, just by the looks of the animals, that the vets they hire don't know their asses from a hole in the ground. It's not uncommon to see worm infestations, dogs having diarrhea all over the place, and one of the girls I work with recently took a dog home to foster that ended up having distemper. These people are just reckless incompetents! On one hand I want to help the dogs get out of there, on the other hand I feel horrible for the dogs that land there but feel like they are potentially toxic disease carriers being sent out into the community. I've mentioned to some of you, I strip at my washing machine when I get home from volunteering and Lysol my shoes top to bottom so my own dogs don't catch anything.

I don't even know how to bring this blog to a close. I'm sure everyone will have comments, though. If you're interested in reading more or seeing pictures of the dog that died (her eyes were red and bulging out of her head) it's a really easy Google search... just type in BARC Keiko.

What to Ask a Pediatrician

So I finally set up a couple consultations with prospective pediatricians for Matilda. Both are in my good graces so far for not making snide comments about me taking care of this the same week as my due date. They also both seem to have friendly staff. One put me off slightly by having the "If you speak English press 1" menu, followed by the "What do you want?" menu, and then keeping me on hold for about 3 minutes. The person who answered the phone was really nice, though, and I need to meet with more than one doctor for the sake of comparison (and this is one that came highly recommended), so I went with it.

I just need a list of questions to ask. Here is what I have so far, and am hoping for some help filling in the blanks:

*What if the baby is sick at night and we need advice? Is there a line to call? What is the response time? (This is a question courtesy of my midwife... I would probably just call grandma or auntie, LOL. They aren't always awake, though, so this is important).

*Do you offer same day appointments if the baby is sick?

*How long is your wait time in the office, and will an emergency appointment bump my pre-scheduled appointment and cause a wait?

*Views on feeding: breastfeeding vs. formula, etc.

*Views on shots (of course we are still working out our own views on shots and scheduling them, so I am not really sure what I am looking for with this question other than a willingness on the doctor's part to be flexible with our decisions).

Are there any other really important questions I am overlooking?

Right now I am leaning towards the doctor whose office did not put me on hold, because she has a website with lots of newborn Q and A's on it, as well as safety tips. It talks about what to expect at each one of the visits, and it says if you have trouble with certain things (like breastfeeding, for example) to call them and get help rather than getting discouraged. I really like that willingness to help even if it's not a true illness. She gets very good recommendations, also, but my midwife doesn't know her as well as she knows the other doctor. I got both names from the midwife, though, so at least I know that I won't get criticized the second I walk in for doing a home birth.

So I guess we'll see how the consultations go!