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diberjones [at] gmail [dot] com
Ecco Puer
Three Years
Ecco Secundo
Three months
the next phase
I guess I'm officially over childbirth. I had my postpartum checkup with the midwife on Monday, and everything checked up fine. I still feel a little tenderness where my artery tore, but it's all healed fine. The midwife I saw this time was one I hadn't met before--she said she used to be full time, but now just helps out for office hours in the summer. I really, really liked her. I wish she could be my midwife forever. Oh well. I chatted a long time with her about the next phase of things, being Not Pregnant.
I kind of felt a little nostalgic as I drove out to the birth center again. It had been seven weeks, and summer had set in where i left off in spring. i have no other reason to go to that part of town other than to go to the birth center, so I hadn't been in that direction since then. I thought of the trips out there in the winter, watching spring come through increasingly frequent appointments. Remembering the sweet scent of something flowering while I paced outside during early labor.
Except for the end when I would leave Still Pregnant, I found the appointments satisfying; usually very quick, but I was very much part of the system and not left to the mercies of it. I wasn't abandoned in waiting rooms to do my homework waiting for an OB who was off in surgery somewhere. It felt more like a little visit with the midwife. And I'll miss our little visits in a way, I guess. Though I certainly don't miss being pregnant. um, no.
Okay, mother of two signing off now.
Comments
amanda k:
Wow! Look how big Marlowe is!! And you look great, Jnet.
Harriet:
I'm so glad to hear you say this. My friends thought I was nuts, but part of my missed being pregnant afterwards. Part of it was the physical sense of a hole left in my body -- I was so used to feeling like I had company in my own skin. But part of it was that I missed my visits to my OB (in a practice with midwives, so much the same experience with treatment and waiting room as you experienced, even though they were part of a big university teaching hospital). They were always happy, always about hope and family. They went a long way to preparing me for the major shift in my priorities that was about to occur. And afterwards, I felt a little like I'd lost my support system. Those first few weeks can be isolating and I missed the routines that had helped me prepare. A close friend is expecting her first child in a few weeks. I told her that the time may come where she may almost miss peeing in a cup on a weekly basis. She laughed -- it was meant to be funny--but it was also a little bit true. I love the picture of your beautiful family!
Jo:
OH my goodness, is Marlowe smiling already? Cuz that certainly looks like one. What sweet boys!!!
When I read "artery tore" I experience almost physical pain. Yeowch!!!!!!
lynnp:
I love me some for real midwives, baby. My girls deliver a lot of their babies at home, but many at their birthing center, too. The appointments are each allotted an hour where you're never given a vaginal exam unless in the last weeks you ask b/c you're too curious. Appointment time is allotted for measuring, palpating, peeing in a cup and talking. THEN, after Baby's birth they come to your house twenty four hours later and visit you again in your home the first week. Then they see you weekly for the next eight weeks or so for postpartum follow-up. They're all about support. Supporting you and your entire family.
They're moving buildings for the birthing center and both buildings were a mess for my scheduled appt yesterday so they just came on over to my house for the appointment. Ooh, love me some good midwives!!!
diber:
oooh, lynn, how nice! that postpartum followup sounds dreamy. For me, a nurse came out a couple of days later for a checkup and that was it 'til the 6week appt. I never had any concern I NEEDED to talk to them about, so I never called, but several times I wished I could've talked to them during immediate postpartum. Just to process everything.
I'm glad you have good care. I'm thinking about you in these last days of your pregnancy.
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