17 Weeks & Counting

I did start blogging again to chronicle and share my own "adventures" in tandem nursing so, to be fair, I will share one such adventure from this morning. Well, this morning, for the first time while nursing Kapono, I felt those mild, back-ache type cramps which later into my (first) pregnancy, I learned are actually contractions and I wondered if I was actually having mild, nursing-induced contractions -- and if Kapono's morning nursing session should stop? We did wrap up the nursing, although not immediately, and intuitively, I wasn't worried (I must also embarassingly confess that these physical sensations may simply have been indicative of a bowel movement). Nevertheless, the experience did get me thinking about nursing-induced contractions that I may experience later into my pregnancy when the actual birth will be much more imminent and if I'll feel so not worried then...? :P

The only new nursing challenges that I've faced (so far) as a result of the pregnancy are increased sensitivity when Kapono latches on and then, inevitably, at some point into the nursing session, I will feel FAMISHED -- like, I need to EAT, and I need to EAT A LOT RIGHT NOW. Usually by that point, I also feel like whichever side Kapono has nursed on more is now running on "E". Sometimes I wonder if he's still getting milk when he nurses past that "empty feeling" point, but so far, no complaints :-)

Women Giving Birth vs. Doctors Delivering Babies

*THANK YOU* to my cheering squad ;-) for your encouragement and support in my tandem nursing efforts! I read a vignette from a mother in "Adventures in Tandem Nursing" who wrote that she made a point of nursing both her toddler and infant simultaneously in public to make a statement about tandem nursing -- basically, that it is possible! I don't know yet if I'll find myself doing the same thing, but I have found myself making a point of telling people that I am still nursing Kapono as a means of raising awareness about continued breastfeeding during pregnancy. Previously, I frequently censored that piece of information, but lately I've been forcing myself not to edit that part out anymore, so, good for me :-)

I've been reading "Silent Knife", a book about Cesarean prevention and vaginal birth after Cesarean (VBAC), and the experience of reading this book has really motivated me to have a home birth for our second child. The *only* thing is that we don't know where home will be in late September (around my due date) since we're moving all of our stuff to Arizona at the end of May and then staying in China for the summer. We're planning to return to Arizona in late Aug/early Sep about a month or so before my due date, but we're not sure yet if we'll be in Tucson or Phoenix.

The more I reflect on my own birth experience in a hospital and the more I reflect on what I really and truly believe in my heart to be true about childbirth (that it is/should be a SAFE, NON-MEDICAL experience for the vast majority of women and children in the world), the more I want to have a home birth. The most recent section that I read in "Silent Knife" talked about the disempowering process of childbirth in the United States -- how we have adopted and perpetuated this general attitude that doctors deliver babies (vs. women give birth). What a contrast! And so true!!! At my first pre-natal check-up this year, my ob mentioned that he was exhausted from having delivered babies all night and I was thinking, you just caught those babies, the women delivered them!!! I just got in touch with a free-standing birth clinic in Tucson which I'm hoping might be a good alternative to a home birth experience, but their first email reply to me was very impersonal and I told Emiliano that if I wanted impersonal, I could just go to a hospital again :P