Body, Where are you?

Went dancing today. First time I've done anything physical since labor. Got there. Listened to the music. Moved. But I couldn't find my body. And my knees hurt. They hurt like they did after the marathon. Probably because my low back was sore because I have no ab strength. But my body was missing.

I think my soul hovers behind me, in the upper corner of the room to my left. At least it's close by. There is a part of me that shattered away, gone to another universe. That part I can never retrieve.

So I moved and danced. And had no heart. I left early. One step at a time.

Swimming will strengthen me. Yoga will bring me back.

Breastmilk Search

Dave told me to approach finding breastmilk like a job - so I hired an assistant. Her name is Laura and she is amazingly plugged into the world of breastmilk exchange.

She lives in Vancouver and has been doing this type of service for years - way before facebook made it easy. Within a few hours of hiring her, she found me 4 donors, 2 of which may be ongoing (my dream).

She is also an expert in how to ship breastmilk at the safest and cheapest way possible. One time she shipped 2,800 ounces to a single mom. THAT is amazing. (Satchel isn't too upset about having to share his freezer space as he's trying to get into the breastmilk fetish market).

Keeping up with all her leads yesterday was a bit difficult - she's fast and a talker - so I spent lots of time on the phone and email and facebook. She had me create a one time blog to refer potential donors to. She had me identify drop points around the country (within my price range) of friends who would be willing to ship milk from donors in their city, then I had to post on 5 websites about my story and that I was looking for milk.

She says it's hard to get milk in Portland right now - there are 3 sets of twins and 8 other moms looking for full supplies. I feel so fortunate that I've been able to do it this long for Lazadae.

Having someone out there looking for me has been such a relief. Up until this point I was getting a large stash in (100 ounces or so) every week and I was able to have one scheduled a few days after the last pickup. But I was never able to find an ongoing donor myself, so having her looking will be so helpful.

Little Lazadae; a double Aries with a Pieces moon - a child of the universe.

My Timeline

More and more and more I've been thinking that my breastfeeding issues are related to my miscarriage. I believe the body is sensitive to anniversaries and time and the timing of Azu-zu passing and Lazadae being born and the deep grief I felt in April of the past 2 years is connected.

April 6 - Azu-zu died | April 1 - Lazadae born

May 21 - I begin to feel like myself | Around this time this year I started to feel like myself

May 26 - I let go | Around this time this year I started to accept that the way I breastfeed now is the way it might be

June 1 - I bury Azu-zu

I also want to note that April 6th of this year (without me making the connection at the time) was the worst day of our postpartum. I had been up for 8 days since labor with only about 10 hours of sleep dispersed over that time. I had reached the point before exhaustion and needed to sleep.

It was the day we put Lazadae in the harness and I had emotional breakdown after emotional breakdown and Dave was beyond concerned for me. It was the day we realized I wasn't making milk and Lazadae was starving and we didn't know what to do.

That night I had to get some sleep and Dave spent the night with an inconsolable, hungry baby (our only night like that) for a few hours. I woke in the middle of the night and struggled out of bed to find Dave asleep on the couch and my daughter sleeping alone in a cold, dark kitchen in her car seat. I sobbed as I watched her, thinking that everything I wanted for this child was lost. that day and night was the worst of my life. I still feel pain when I think about it.

So over the past 10 days I changed some things. I stopped doing the things I don't like doing to try to being my milk in. I stopped tracking every ounce and time I fed Lazadae. I stopped pumping and the quality of my life greatly improved. I stopped drinking Shatavari because it tastes bad and sometimes gives me migraines. I tried a new supplemental feeding (the Lact Aid) and I really like it; there is a rhythm and ritual to preparing the bags and I would even describe using it as fun. I've also begun being okay with this situation as a long-term possibility over the next 2 years or so.

I'm still taking herbs that support breastfeeding. I'm taking the max dose of Domperidone. I'm still working with Bob to balance my hormones. I'm still working with Meg on possibilities (she's never seen anything like this and is consulting with the nation's expert on low milk supply to try to help me). And just like the miscarriage, I've stopped wondering when the big event will happen. I don't wake up disappointed anymore. I've let it go.

Over the course of the past 10 days, I've felt engorgement and let down. My boobs are sore when Dave takes the middle of the night feeding and I get to sleep for 7 straight hours. Occasionally, I can tell when Lazadae needs to feed by the feeling in my breasts. And when I'm feeding her I feel dull, deep aches in different parts of my breast.

But the best thing that has happened since letting go is that last night, while sitting on the toilet, drops of milk started landing on my thighs. I looked up to the ceiling not knowing where this gray water was coming from. And then I saw it, beads of milk at the end of my nipples. I'd wipe some away and more would appear. This happened randomly - I didn't miss too long of a feeding, I wasn't stimulating my breasts.

(After this I did run to the pump, only to feel a little down that nothing came out. Won't do that again.)

I know it's dangerous to compare timelines and feel that something great will happen soon. But this feeling isn't a feeling that will make me sad if it doesn't happen. It's just an interesting parallel and when I think about it I feel good - and that's half the issue here.

Placenta

I think, maybe, out of everything that happened during my birth, the thing that causes me most grief is how my placenta was handled. She was born at 7:04 and by 7:05 my placenta was already torn from my body. Her cord cut as she was being pulled from me and handed to someone who was not her mother.

Little Lazadae didn't get any cord blood, the blood that belonged to her. She didn't have that privilege. And I didn't have the privilege of letting my placenta remove itself naturally. I also didn't get to keep it.

I asked. They said they had to send it to pathology because "of my situation". I didn't say anything. I didn't refuse to allow them to take a part of my body and send it to the lab. I didn't say the words, "I do not consent". I allowed it to happen. I didn't even think twice. I was so out of my body.

This is what I realized yesterday after I called Pathology to request the release of my body. They said they usually keep it for 6 weeks but "for some reason" still had mine.

I know from other peoples exerpeince getting their placenta "released" is not easy. Thankfully, once again, my hospital experience has been great. They said yes, sure, of course, no problem. Others have spent weeks fighting for it.

After I got off the phone with the hospital I was thrilled - finally I had accomplished something birth related on my own - I can have my placenta. In the next minute I was down, just realizing that they didn't even have a right to it in the first place.

My placenta has been soaked through with formaldehyde. I can't eat it. I can't make medicine from it. It shouldn't be in the freezer next to food and technically, I shouldn't even bury it. But I need it. I want to do a ritual with it.

I'm waiting for a call back from a funeral home to see if they can cremate it and I can have the ashes. The one issue with this is that a placenta is all organic material. When a body is cremated the ashes are the bones minus the marrow - the rest of the body, the organic stuff, is burned off.

What the hospital did allow us to do is examine and touch it. They even left us alone in the room with the placenta after the birth. Midwife Kim got gloves, we explored and took pictures.

I wonder if I had the opportunity to ingest my placenta if my milk would be better.

Breastfeeding Redefined

I have a plastic tube taped with hypoallergenic, porous taped to my aerola that sticks out a quarter an inch from my nipple. It's attached to a 4 ounce bag that is tucked inside my bra. This is how I feed my baby.

This is a more manageable method than what I've been using for the past 5 weeks - a hard tube that I slipped between her mouth and my nipple that is attached to a bottle.

Prior to that I feed her with a syringe between my nipple and the corner of her mouth.

I hate this.

And I love this.

If I didn't spend 10-20 hours a week seeking donor milk, then picking up the milk, I would have so much more time to spend with Lazadae. If I didn't spend this time seeking I would have no idea about the generosity of people in this world.

A woman drove from Tacoma with the express purpose of delivering me 100 ounces of milk. Then she pumped so I could have fresh milk to give my daughter.

Another woman offered to nurse Lazadae.

People are amazing.

My situation breaks my heart.

As some of my feelings begin to sort themselves out, I'm beginning to wonder if my miscarriage, and how that all went down, plays a role. I never had time to recover my body. And now my body doesn't work. At least it worked to make Lazadae.

I'm trying to think of myself as a breastfeeding mother. Lazadae is such a big help with this - she always knows my breast will give her milk, no matter how it's delivered behind the scenes.

Baby Time

I'm sad about Lazadae growing up. I'm sad that I already feel this skin to skin bed in time is soon to be over. Her newborn phase is short. Her child time is short. And as Dave says, she's going to be an adult for a long long time. I love this baby time so much. This is why people want more babies.

Dave reminded me how sad I was when Satchel was a puppy and I'd think about loosing that time. And he grew up and now we get to enjoy his distinct personality as an adult. And I don't feel sad anymore about him not being a puppy.

People are drawn to babies. It must be because they are pure energy - absolute innocence and also because of how sweet this time is.

I don't want to loose a second of my time with Lazadae. And then I feel guilty because I'm doing other things -like blogging when it would be nice to be holding a sleeping baby. But I know that is ridiculous AND I don't ever want to over identify with Lazadae as her mom.

Her needs almost always override my needs and I follow her flow of hunger and sleep. I also want to be sure that she is a part of our world - so wearing her is important to me. That way she can be a participant of what I do without me sacrificing my time 100% of the time.

I also made a mental list of who I am in this world as a way of becoming me again. My goal is to do something, even if it's just a little bit, of who I am. I am someone who enjoys the farmer's market. I am a person who likes to walk. I am a reader. I am a blogger. Eventually I will be a yoga-doer and a dancer again.

Our Birth Story - Day 2, Part 4

Thursday, March 31, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

...Dave thought of Fernhill Park where I could walk some hills, which would hopefully kick labor back into gear...

Throughout the labor I wound up taking three car rides, each of which were fairly manageable thanks to the Zada's back bucket seats, which allowed me to swivel my legs and move through contractions easily.

Armed with a bottle of Recharge and a handful of poop bags, the four of us walked up and down the park's hills, stopping for contractions. Toward the end I had more energy than Dave, who kept asking me if I was ready to go home.

Midwife Laurie napped on the couch back at our house, and left shortly after we returned. As soon as the door closed on her way out, my contractions started back up again, the performance anxiety having ended.

A couple of hours went by, during which time the contractions felt bigger and closer together. Then they began to slow again, which created a great deal of frustration.

I moved to labor in the bathroom for the first time, where I had a major, teary breakdown wondering what was going on. With such an irregular contraction pattern, I wondered how I was ever going to get through this. As the video linked above shows, I was managing my contractions pretty well, but feeling a little hopeless about the timeline (already in the 37th hour).

After about an hour in the bathroom I called Bob, our naturopath. He came over around two o'clock with a pineapple, pulsatilla, insight into acupressure points, and new hand maneuvers that Dave could use to help ease the back labor. Dave immediately cubed up a bunch of pineapple, which I savored for the rest of labor. The acupressure points were immediately helpful. As for the pulsatilla, it was meant to bring on stronger contractions. It was time to move things along. As much as we laughed at the idea of having an April Fools' baby, we both agreed -- as did the midwives -- that March 31st would make a great birthday.

The pool had cooled throughout the day, and Courtney was ready to get back in. I started the process of draining it by scooping out about two-gallons of water at a time and tossing it bucket-by-bucket out in the grass. Once the water level went down, I went about refilling it using two five-gallon boiling pots I used to use for brewing beer.

With Courtney in the water, we figured out a few good positions in which I could use both the acupressure points Bob showed me as well as the hand maneuvers on her sacrum and lower spine. At one point Courtney said, "I'm never getting out of this tub." I started thinking maybe the baby would be a water birth after all.

It was either the pulsatilla, the acupressure or the water, but something was suddenly making labor feel much more intense, with occasional back-to-back contractions. At this point in the labor I began feeling rectal pressure, a sign of baby descending. In my laboring mind I started freaking out, fearing that I wasn't going to be able to do this anymore, and that it was going to hurt too much. In my midwifery mind, I estimated my dilation to be around 6 or 7 centimeters, and that I was nearing transition.

In the middle of a contraction I told Dave to call the midwives. I was scared.

Midwife Kim arrived a little before five o'clock -- hour 43 of labor -- which seemed like only a few minutes after Dave called her but in actuality was over an hour. She carted in all of her stuff - midwifery bag, oxygen tank and knitting supplies, always a good sign that she'd be here for the long haul.

Our Birth Story - Day 2, Part 3

Wednesday, March 30, 6 p.m. - Thursday, March 31, 10 a.m.

After she left, Dave, the pups and I prepared for our second night of labor . . .first by walking down the street to Woodlawn Park, where Dave and the dogs had been earlier in the morning.

In the last month to six-weeks of pregnancy, we both felt the dogs were being a little neglected, primarily because I became super busy with a number of time-sensitive projects while, at the same time, Courtney's mobility had decreased. Here we were in actual labor and the dogs were actually getting exercised more than they had grown use to . . .

We stayed at Woodlawn for about 20 minutes or so, enough time for the dogs to run around and for me to have a few contractions up against some trees.

Night came on quickly. I tried the chair again then labored in the bed for a while, but was using too much energy moving from resting to contractions so I moved to the kitchen.
Here I bounced on a medicine ball between contractions, and when a contraction came on, I leaned on the table. I did this for well over an hour in the dim glow of the light over the sink.

At this point, I would sit on the ball between contractions, moving continuously because of the back pain. During a contraction I'd immediately stand and lean over the table with Dave pressing on my back. Maji filimed this video of a short contraction. She ducks out from behind the camera, then leaves the room when the contraction starts. After the contraction ends, I tell Dave that I lost more water during the contraction, which is something that happened throughout labor.

I was still having intense back labor, and nothing helped. I thought the birthing tub might help, but with my contractions still fluxuating between 5 and 15 minutes apart, I was afraid the water might slow labor down. Dave called Laurie to check in about this, and she gave the go-ahead to get in. She also said she'd stop in to check on us in a few hours.

Filling the pool was definitely the most work I'd done yet during the labor. Filling it with air and hot tap water was easy enough; the dozen or so five-gallon pots of boiling water was another story. Still I enjoyed the sweat and sudden burst of movement on my part. It definitely kicked in a fourth wind for me, and I knew Courtney would benefit from being in the water.

I felt immediate relief to my back as soon as I got in the tub. For a few contractions, the pain felt really light. Once my body got used to the temperature, however, the pain increased slightly.

I was definitely getting into a steady rhythm, and was surprised by this. This was the only place I wanted to be. During contractions I would lean over the side and hold Dave's hands and arms. The rhythm kept up until Laurie arrived.

After she checked my vitals, I noticed that my contractions began to dwindle, and the rhythm that had been building up suddenly shifted back to the irregular contraction pattern of earlier. I didn't think I'd be someone with "performance anxiety" but that's what it felt like.

I moved out of the water and into the Huxtable chair where I labored and actually slept through a few contractions. After about an hour of this, and with labor continuing to slow, Laurie suggested that we walk. Dave thought of Fernhill Park where I could walk some hills, which would hopefully kick labor back into gear.

Lazadae's First Outings

Her first outing was to Woodlawn Coffee and Tea when her Godparents Dan and Stacy were visiting. She drew some attention and enjoyed herbal tea.

Her first evening outing was a poetry reading by her Daddy on May 8th when her Grandparents were in town. This time she drew a crowd of attention. We had to leave just once during one of Dave's poems, but made it back just in time for a birth control poem and a few choice others.

I also got to breastfeed in public for the first time (I'm not counting the time in the empty waiting room of a doctor). I felt so proud and happy and really special to be feeding her in public. The bottle was a bit hard to manage on my own - getting the cap off, threading the tube through the nipple, detangling the kink that formed in the tube, slipping it between nipple and mouth -but we got it! And we were both very happy.

Here is a link to 2 poems Dave read that are fitting for this blog. The first is my very favorite - the Lazadae poem (renamed to Lazadae). It's all about her. The second poem is a new one called For the Daughters. It's all about the three generations of us.

Lazadae: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf4ZahLs-w4

For the Daughters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCVUkzyZmrc

Her third non-doctor outing was to fish fry with the grandparents. We were those people who left their baby in her car seat in the corner of the booth. She loves her car seat and passes out. I'm thinking of bringing in her car seat when we're alone and mommy needs to nap. Or else I can just put her hat on - at the site of that thing she usually passes out.

Today Lazadae and I are having a bed in. After weeks of visitors and appointments I've started to feel a little far away from those first three weeks we spent in bed together. So here we are, naked and together - totally connecting (and blogging) and enjoying our time together.

She also has a diaper rash, so the fresh air will do her booty good. And you never know, maybe it will help my milk supply. At the very least, we're having fun (she's sleeping on my chest right now).

Crazy Lady

Last night I dreamt that I was in an insane asylum because I kept pumping my breasts and nothing would come out but I kept trying and trying. The guy who used to kill people and who kept his face painted red, silver and black like a wrestler was getting out before me. Apparently he was less crazy than I.

Dready Mama Head

I got a new water bottle on Thursday. I see a lady falling off the edge, barley hanging on. It makes me feel like I have chosen good company.

I've driven twice with Lazadae and no Dave. Both times to appointments in Lake Oswego. The first time last week I had a minor panic attack; my mouth went dry, my breathing ceased and I felt very unsafe - like I was an assault victim. Like it can happen again at any moment.

And that's part of how I feel when I have a moment to my head. During these times I don't even believe I was in labor. It feels like a Cesarean was just done to me without my consent. And none of that is true.

Yesterday, the second time I was alone with my thoughts with nothing to distract me I saw my head as a very unhealthy space. I just started crying and I wasn't even aware of any thoughts I was having. It just all feels like too much.

At this point, early on in my mental recovery (which actually hasn't even begun), I am grateful to have a beautiful daughter to distract me from my head. If it wasn't for Lazadae, I would be laying in my grief, absolutely crushed by dark head.

I'm taking homeopathics to help with the emotional scarring of my birth. I'm also going to go to counseling - a woman who specializes in birth trauma. I don't want these thoughts to start creeping up when I am at home, busy with the life of a newborn.

This blog is a part of that healing. This is my outlet and I want to try to make time to use it. This morning I woke before my daughter (our queen size bed feels small for all three of us sometimes) and I took a long, hot shower to condition the dreads out. (One time in college I told Dave that if I have kids I'm going to grow dreads as an effort to maintain my coolness. Well, the dreads now come unwanted from days of sitting with my curly head resting on the back of a chair).

And now I'm here. Writing.