Happy Halloween!!!

7:29 am

Good morning! And Happy Halloween!!!

I don’t know how much time I have because Joanna should be appearing any moment needing to use my computer.

Amena did her thing this morning and did not wake up in time to get up in time to catch the bus. She probably thinks I’m joking about her bedtime being 9:00 now but I’m dead serious. Girls who keep sleeping through alarms or going back to sleep once the alarm goes off obviously are not capable of staying up until 10:00 or later. If homework is a problem, it needs to be done as soon as she gets home. She really needs to learn the lesson that Daniel did—homework as soon as you get home and early to bed on school nights. For him, that was 8:00 because he knew he could get up in time which for him was 5:30. He ate, got ready and only missed the bus once that I remember for sure. Today was the second time this week and that is just absolutely ridiculous. Especially when it’s foggy out and you get stuck behind a vehicle whose operator takes at face value the words on the back of the bus, “KEEP BACK 100 FEET.” Are you SERIOUS!!! If not for that wonderful person, we could have caught up with it on the last stop on Ragged Hill. As it was, we had to follow it down Elm to Barre where Hale turns off.

9:48 am

I knew it would happen, and it did. About five minutes later than I expected it. Now that I have my computer back, I have more to say than I probably want to take the time to but I’ll begin with the reason why I stopped reading and decided to fold a load of laundry.

As you know, I’ve been reading Silent Knife: Cesarean Prevention & Vaginal Birth After Cesarean by Nancy Wainer Cohen and Lois J. Estner. It was published in 1983 and I would love to see a new edition with newer research but it still is an excellent book with some excellent points. I’m in the chapter titled “Birth Interventions and Their Consequences” and just finished the section on Episiotomy. I had to stop reading for a bit when I read this: “Occasionally, a needle is jammed into the baby’s brain when the anesthetic is administered, causing its death. . .” Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me? I had an episiotomy with Alisha but with none of the others. I did tear a few times but always they were minor and only required stitches fewer times than I tore. I am so glad I did not give birth in hospitals.

That’s just a bit of what I read this morning. More good stuff about the noise women make during labor: “When someone eagerly offers you a drug, he or she may be dealing with his or her own fears about pain in labor. If those around you are nervous, suggest that they take something!” What a good idea!

About anesthesia: “Erickson remarks that it is indeed a paradox that the drugs most toxic to the fetus and newborn are precisely those which produce the most desirable effects from the obstetrician’s point of view, and are most widely used.”  I won’t even begin on the effects these drugs right now but I will tell you that I would NEVER use one unless there was an extremely good reason (like a heavenly messenger appeared to me and told me to).

Quoted in the book is this little quip that I agree with from other things I’ve read and heard, “Insurance companies and golf games must run doctors’ practices, because good, caring judgment certainly does not.” Yet another reason to GET RID of those darn insurance companies. Once and for all.

“Dr. Delee, who introduced forceps and episiotomy around the turn of the century, stated just before he died that if he had his whole life to live over, he would do home births and nothing else, realizing that the majority of his work was probably going to do bad instead of good.” He isn’t the only person to have regrets such as this. Louis Pasteur regretted his work as well, realizing that pasteurized foods are not, after all, good for us because we are not sterile beings and ought not to be eating sterile foods.

About draping (which I don’t think is done all that often for routine births any more): “. . . discard the drapes by throwing them on the floor. If the doctor replaces them when he enters the room throw them on the floor again. If he questions your behavior, tell him doctors in California are no longer draping. And if you’re in California, tell him doctors in New York have stopped this strange custom.”

This is just funny: “You can Kegel when you are stopped at a traffic light. You can Kegel when you are making love. You can Kegel to music. Ready? And-a one, and-a two, and-three. . .” Are you Kegeling?

My other noted topic of interest is about pushing and I could write a few paragraphs about that I think so right now it will have to wait.

In other news, I took Snowflake over to Raven and Bella’s because they have a very nice buck. It was funny watching them for the ten or fifteen minutes I was there. The buck was very interested in being amorous and Snowflake’s body language said she was interested as well but any time he tried, she ran away. Hilarious. Raven and Bella are interesting people but I am ready to call it quits for today.

Have a fantastic day!