our life, in a nutshell
You might be thinking “wow, Christine, I know the blog’s been slow lately, but are you really that hard up for things to write about that you’re telling us about your mail?”
Yup!
That’s not just any mail there. That is my application to become a DONA certified labor doula. One workshop, two references, three births, four essays, five books, nine evaluations, 45 local resources. 68 pages. All the i’s dotted and t’s crossed and signed on the dotted line…
Now we wait.
Tonight before bed, Emily sat down on the floor and started singing the “clean up” song from Barney. And cleaning up the bristle blocks.
She must have learned that in her Creative Play class, cause we don’t do Barney here! Weird.
The class seems to be going well. She had a great time the first day, then two rough times where I had to go pick her up, but seems to be over the hump and has had two good classes in a row 
I’m glad she is enjoying herself.
I did a guest blog for Baby Steps today – Are you looking for a cheap doula? Baby Steps is the company that I will be teaching for starting later this year, and I really can’t wait!
I can hear you groaning now… another playground post? Well, we don’t have a playset (although we are working on it!) so we go to playgrounds a lot. What can I say.
Today we tried out a new playground – Garrard Landing.
This is a brand new playground near the new water treatment facility on Holcomb Bridge Rd. It has that huge monstrous playset with four tube slides, then you can see behind it to the right there is a toddler sized set that has a couple of smaller slides. There is a pavilion with lots of picnic tables, that provides good shelter if it is raining, as it was when we got there.
The swings are sort of oddly placed on the other side of the pavilion:
There are two toddler swings and four regular swings. Emily ALWAYS wants to swing, so the placement of them bothers me a bit because Catie will be sort of out of sight with the pavilion in the way. Unless she is playing in the drinking fountain…
Yeah, that’s right, take her to a brand spankin’ new playground full of slides and climbing things, and she wanted to play with either the ashes in the grills, or the drinking fountain. That’s my girl. I was able to coax her to play on the equipment a little bit, though.
But at least I can see the drinking fountains while pushing Em on the swing!
This playground also had a Jenny, who comes in very handy holding babies who are missing their naps, and pushing the swings when I get tired.
(The availability of Jenny may vary.)
It was not fully fenced, which is a drawback, but at least part of it was fenced so I knew where to watch for escapees. It also does not have a sandbox, which is a plus for me right now as yesterday we had a horrible experience involving the sandbox at another playground we frequent. Or used to frequent 
I just uploaded almost 200 pictures to the gallery from april until now. there’s no way I can thoroughly blog what happened in the past month or so, so I will do a “LOST-recap-esque” version for you. Go to April’s album and follow along:
We went to the playground. Jenny put Jack on her shoulders. We played on the front lawn under an umbrella. We got one of those Cozy Coupe cars. I ran a 5K. Catie wore the shirt I got in the race. Jack learned to sit up. We put in a fence in the front yard. Emily played more in the Cozy Coupe. Catie wore a hat backwards. Jack played with Antha. Emily played with some flowers. Catie walked barefoot in sand along the Greenway.
(skip to may’s album)
We went to Florida. Jack swung. Jack and Emily sat in a wagon. Jack, Emily and Catie played on the beach. Catie played with a pirate ship. Catie and Emily swam. Jack learned to crawl. John and I ate shrimp. We went to a playground. We ate stuff in the backyard. Nana bought outfits for the kids and art for us.
Back home, Jack played in his “cage”. So did Emily. Jack learned to pull up. We went to a playground. Catie climbed a tree. Emily did too. We got a cube toy. All three kids got in the “cage” to play with it. We got new carseats for John’s car. I got the kids new clothes. Emily got new Crocs with Backyardigans Jibbitz (Jibbitzs?). We went to Jenny’s. She held Jack. There were bubbles. We went to another playground. Catie climbed things. Jack was on my back. The girls played on the bouncy bridge. We took a walk. Emily had a flower. We went to another playground. Catie threw rocks in the river. Jack found the water table. All three kids played in it. We went to ANOTHER playground! And another one. And another one. Catie gathered rocks.
(end of pictures)
Also, not pictured: I went to a birth. I went to another birth the same day. I had a birthday. I got a big cake. I scheduled some more births that I haven’t gone to yet. I drank about 22 of the new “make your own” Frappuccinos. I knit some diaper covers and a hat. I crocheted some dishcloths. I crocheted some scrunchies. I learned how to french braid my hair. I worked on my doula certification. I resigned as mod on the Canadian board.
Whew! That really IS our life in a nutshell
Well, I (John) haven’t contributed to this thing for a while. I’m just sitting on a plane right now though, so it’s as good a time as any for an update.
Things are pretty quiet, really. It’s an interesting time at the office because of a lot of organizational changes that ate taking place, but really not that much affects us day-to-day yet. I guess we’ll see what happens. Actually right now I’m en route to Philadelphia for a big development meeting. I guess I will know more about what’s coming up in a couple of days when the meeting is over. I’m heading out today and heading home Thursday afternoon/evening.
On the home front, well a lot has been happening in the past momh or so. Jack suddenly started pulling up and crawling, so he’s pretty much fully mobile at this point. And I swear he gets a little fatter every day. He’s actually gotten a lot easier for me to handle in the past couple of months since he eats food and doesn’t really need swaddling anymore. He says “dada” but I don’t think he means it yet. He sure smiles when he sees me most of the time, though. He knows us guys have to stick together.
Both girls are communicating better all the time. Catie has come an especially long way since Jack was born–she had regressed to the point of being almost totally non-verbal at that time and now she’s communicating some abstract ideas (still mostly scripting but she’s using what she’s got better). Emily is talking more too. She actually is attending a Mondays-and-Wednesdays creative play class with other kids her age for the next couple or three months. Tomorrow is her third class, the first one went pretty well and the se one pretty badly so we’ve got our fingers crossed for tomorrow. As long as she gets a good night’s sleep I think she’ll be fine.
Christine’s doulaing has taken off, she has now attended three births (satisfying the teaching requirement) and she is on call for another couple of births. Exciting stuff, hopefully nobody delivers while I’m gone.
We had an acquaintence come by a couple of days ago to take a look at the area at the bottom of the driveway for purpose of putting in a playset. He is supposed to give us an estimate soon at which point hopefully we can get that project going.
We’re about to land so i’m done for now.
I was going to post with some pictures from today, but my photo editor keeps crashing. I have tried three times, and it has crashed three times, so I guess it’s telling me to go to bed and do it later.
we have had a busy week of playgrounds, playgroups, and learning to french braid hair.
*edited to add* I just read my last entry and it looks so similar to this one. busy, will do it later, and playgrounds. i guess that’s how we roll right now :p
I know I haven’t posted anything recently. And I don’t have a lot of time right now because it is late and I’m tired, but just wanted to post something quickly to say sorry I have been such a slack blogger!
We visited Florida last week and had a wonderful time, I will post some pics when I get a chance. Otherwise we’ve been doing the usual playground stuff, and I have been busy working on my new doula gig I put together a website, nothing spectacular but it’s something!
The rally was yesterday! We had a good turnout, about 40 people, and the weather was PERFECT.
Despite repeated calls, we couldn’t get any news coverage. Apparently people enjoying the various festivals around town this weekend is more interesting than maternal and fetal health. Did you know that Georgia is dead last in the US for maternal mortality?
The location we chose this year was Piedmont Hospital, which has the 2nd highest c-section rate in Atlanta. A representative from the hospital contacted ICAN of Atlanta and the Georgia Birth Network to let us know they were aware of the rally, and wanted to be part of this “positive message sent to the women of Atlanta”. She attached an article that Piedmont’s Chair for Women’s and Newborns Services was interviewed for, suggesting that we might distribute it at the rally, and that it did “a great job of discussing the pros and cons of VBACs”.
Here is the article – VBAC risks and benefits: Is vaginal birth possible after a C-section?
By the title and her description, it sounds like a great article discussing both sides of VBAC vs. elective repeat cesarean section (ERCS), right? The problem is that if you read the article, you will see that it is not. Not even close. The article starts off quoting a recent study about the safety of VBAMC (vaginal birth after multiple cesareans), in this case 3 or more. While this was a very encouraging study, it isn’t the best one to use in an article about VBAC. There are many other studies demonstrating the safety of VBAC. In fact the National Institute of Health concluded at their recent Consensus Development Conference on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean that:
Given the available evidence, TOL is a reasonable option for many pregnant women with a prior low transverse uterine incision.
Going back to the article, we would expect to see some of the risks and benefits of VBAC laid out in the section titled “Risks and benefits of a VBAC” (or am I crazy here?). Instead what we find are “numerous risks for a woman attempting a vaginal birth after one or more C-sections” listed. The entire section on risks and benefits does not list a single benefit to a VBAC – or a single risk of ERCS. (For the record, some of those risks are infection, hemorrhage, injury to organs, adhesions, hysterectomy, secondary infertility, risks to future pregnancies such as ectopic pregnancy, placenta previa, accreta, and percreta, and uterine rupture).
Later in the article, a few risks of increasing cesareans are mentioned, but only in the context of how much MORE risky they would make attempting a VBAC after 3 cesareans. I’m really not sure why they are focusing so much on the VBAMC issue and study, when the article isn’t supposed to be about that.
Harry M. McFarling, III, M.D., the Piedmont physician who was touted as doing a great job discussing the pros and cons, instead offers this reason for why the mother might choose an elective repeat cesarean:
A mother with another child at home, for instance, may choose the predictability of a scheduled C-section.
While I’m sure that some mothers might choose this, for some it may be more important to try for the probability of a shorter recovery so that they can take care of their other children. Or it may be more important to them to choose the option that presents a smaller risk of them dying, another risk that the article does not list.
McFarling also says that the reason for the first cesarean is key.
If it was due to failure to progress, if baby was too large or pelvis too small her risk would be greater than, say, a woman who had a C-section for another obstetrical problem that didn’t involve failure to progress in a previous labor.
There are studies showing that if the reason for the previous cesarean was failure to progress (FTP) or cephelopelvic disproportion (CPD aka “baby too big/pelvis too small), the chance of a successful VBAC may be lower. But NOT that the risks of attempting a VBAC is increased. And both FTP and CPD are diagnoses that are not cut and dried. Was failure to progress possibly due to the mother being induced with a low Bishop Score? Or being confined to the bed instead of utilizing upright positions? How long before they declared the labor to have failed to progress? The inability of a baby to fit through the pelvis could also be for many reasons. Was the baby in the optimal position to fit through the pelvis? Was the mother allowed to push in a position that helps the pelvis open up more? Even if the baby was truly too big to fit (which is quite rare), is there any reason to believe that a future baby won’t? Every pregnancy and every baby is different.
The article ends with this gem:
Ultimately, McFarling says, a VBAC is something a mother needs to discuss with her doctor. “Together they can weigh the risks and options to help mom make the best decision for herself and her family.”
The risks and options. Not BENEFITS, because according to this article, there are none. This article is crap. And that’s using a nicer term than I normally would
The decision to attempt a VBAC can be a difficult one, but it should be made with real informed consent. If you are looking for evidence-based information on VBAC vs. ERCS, Childbirth Connection has a very thorough section on VBAC or Repeat Section.
There were hundreds of cars that drove by the rally location, hopefully our signs spurred some conversation or got them thinking about their options.
I found out the other day that I got a partial scholarship towards my doula training fee from the Georgia Birth Network 
GBN is a great group that has doula and CBE mentorship programs, member referrals on their website, and co-sponsor of the Cutting Thru The Fear cesarean awareness rally with ICAN of Atlanta.
I applied for a spot at a childbirth educator training this fall, with Baby Steps, a local company that holds many different classes. I am very excited about that opportunity as well
