Adventures in weaning

So in my long distant past I had these grand plans to let Cassia self-wean, expecting it would happen around the age of three. Then she was actually born and breastfeeding wasn't quite the blissful pinnacle of mothering I was expecting. Aside from initial difficulties, I just never really enjoyed it that much even though I certainly found my groove with it, was able to feed her without having to watch her every second, and was fine feeding in public. Unfortunately I had watched a breastfeeding video produced by the ABA on Cassia's first day, the catchphrase of which was "breastfeeding should be 100% pleasant and comfortable", and I think it set me up for disappointment. Breastfeeding was never 100% pleasant and comfortable for me.

Nevertheless, I decided to stick to my plan of letting her self-wean because it's not like I hated feeding, I just didn't like it that much either. And I knew that it would not do her any harm at all; on the contrary, it would do her lots of good for as long as it continued. And it's such an easy (read: lazy) mothering tool too!

Then when she was 14 months old I got pregnant again. Oh boy. Why had I never read about the pain of breastfeeding while pregnant before? (I probably had, somewhere, but it was far too theoretical for me to take much notice I guess.) It was as painful, if not more, than in those early days of her learning to latch on and it made me totally miserable. I contemplated weaning her, but certainly felt she wasn't ready for that, physically or emotionally. So I gritted my teeth and bore it a little longer, wondering what on earth I was going to do if she didn't self-wean during the pregnancy because I simply couldn't take the idea of tandem-feeding. Maybe I'd have to wean her at some point after all. Anyway, as the weeks went by and the pregnancy hormones left my body (not that I knew it at the time) the pain eased off and by the time I had the miscarriage it was already back to normal.

So I made a slight change in my original plans. I'd breastfeed until she self-weaned or I got pregnant again (because we were planning to start trying to conceive again when she was 32 months), with a progress review when she turned 2.

Plans, plans, plans. Pfft. I got pregnant again when she was about 21 months old and the way I confirmed it was by the incredible pain feeding was suddenly causing me. Maybe my memory is faulty, but it seemed even worse than last time. And it would hurt on-and-off for the duration of the feed, not just those first few awful sucks. And it didn't abate as the weeks went by either. There was no way I could continue this and keep my sanity. My supply was dropping dramatically because of the pregnancy anyway... and so finally, I made the decision to wean her for good. Quite a lot earlier than I would have ideally liked but that's life. I had no regrets, just found it an interesting exercise in "letting go".

As for the practical side of the process, I wanted to do it as gently as possible which meant taking a fairly long-term approach. She was feeding five times during the day and however many times overnight she would wake, which was usually two or three (sometimes, when I was lucky, just once). I decided to drop one of her day-feeds each week, and the first one to go was the mid-morning feed. Easy as pie. The next week I dropped the mid-afternoon feed. Not quite as easy but almost. Then I dropped her midday-naptime feed. Surprisingly easy. By this time I had coincidentally managed to night-wean her, as she'd begun sleeping through the night or occasionally waking once and being content to just eat food (usually fruit) before drifting back off. So I was down to feeding her twice a day -- once in the morning, and then before bed at night. The morning feed was the next to go, and that also wasn't too hard although by mid-morning sometimes she'd ask for booby and be a little upset when I said no. I'd just have to offer her some other food though and she'd be fine after that. And so came the final week -- down to feeding her once before bed and that was it! It also went remarkably well. As the week went by, and it was still killing me to feed her even just that once, I could hardly wait to finish. I spent the week telling Cassia that it was only four/three/two more days until she would have to say bye-bye to the boobies for good and at last, at last, AT LAST that final feed arrived. I was prudent enough to get a souvenir of it.

(I'm wearing shorts in this photo, I promise. You just can't see them.)

Well, that was 10 days ago. She has asked for booby several times since then and the intensity of her reaction to being told no has a direct relationship with the extent of her tiredness. I've had an emotionally turbulent time for unrelated reasons and she has been reflecting this back to me, which has been difficult, but I'm making a concerted effort to spend lots of time with her. Overall, I'd say the process has been amazingly smooth.

And yet it's obviously not quite as simple as all of that, because I feel compelled to reflect and write about it in this much detail. I do have some conflicting emotions about weaning, but not in ways I would have expected. I don't feel sad about it at all. At the moment, this photo produces more feelings of repulsion than sentimentality. (Ugh, get that child off my boob!) But I strongly suspect this feeling will fade over time and eventually I will look at it and think "awww". Maybe even "sniff". I also feel a strange regret that I can't feel compassion for other women who DO mourn the end of their breastfeeding relationship. They seem to be the ones in most need of a hug, not the ones like us who'd throw a party if anyone would come. (Hmmm, they used to hold "weaning parties" in days of old, didn't they? I'd never really thought about that before...) Perhaps the strongest feeling I'm experiencing is a sense of wistfulness over Cassia's growth and development. She hasn't been a baby for a long time, but she's making progress in leaps and bounds at the moment and I suppose there's that part of me which is aware that time moves on in spite of us.

So now I begin gearing up in preparation for feeding this next babe. I'm afraid it's going to hurt, that I'm going to hate it as much as I hated feeding Cassia towards the end. I don't anticipate the same sort of difficulties I had last time in getting breastfeeding established (though you never know for sure, of course), but right now my nipples are still sensitive enough, and the memories of the last few months are still fresh enough that I cringe at the thought of it. All part of the adventure of mothering, I guess.

16 weeks and time for an update

But not much to report. I'm pleased to say I can feel my uterus all the time now, so it finally seems more real. A couple of times I've even felt a little "something" that may or may not be baby movements. Braxton Hicks is doing her thing so I could be just mistaking it for that. On the forums I'm a member of there are a couple of women not as far along as me already saying they can feel movement and of course I'm jealous.

It's still not worth taking a photo of my belly yet. I remember being totally obsessed last time with how much I was showing (or not) around this time too, so that's nothing unusual.

We've been trying to explain to Cassia that Mama has a baby growing in her tummy. She can say the words back to us, but we're not entirely sure they have any meaning for her. Fortunately during our last week in Australia we visited P, F & J. F was 38 weeks pregnant at the time and her "big tummy" impressed Cassia enough that she still remembers it. So we've been saying "Remember how Aunty F had a big tummy? She had a baby in there! And Mama's got a baby in her tummy too. It's still pretty small now but it'll get bigger." We've also been looking through our old photo collection for pics of when I was pregnant with Cassia. That's been fun and interesting too. Check this one out.

Wanna take a stab at how pregnant I was then? 39+3. She was born four days later. It's good to have this reminder, though. Stops me obsessing over how "small" I am.

It was also interesting to see photos of me from around the 20 week mark. My boobs were (comparatively) huge! I wonder if that'll happen again this time. Oh! That reminds me -- Cassia has been weaned. YAY. Actually I'd like to reflect on that in more detail later so I'll hold that thought for a separate post.

A few weeks ago I was beginning to find the search for a midwife extremely stressful and decided to take a few weeks off to just relax and gestate. Unfortunately, birth politics in Australia chose exactly the same time to get a whole lot more heated and now homebirthers are staring down the barrel of being forced into hospital (it might take a while, but it's inevitable that freebirthing will also become illegal). The reality of something I suspected but was trying to ignore hit me really hard on Sunday: I would be one of those women ineligible for a homebirth even if I lived next door to a hospital offering a homebirth program because of my high risk status. Yep, I'm high risk because I've had a previous miscarriage and a history of GBS. (Of course, I'd refuse to take all the stupid tests they "offer" which would get me booted off the program too.) Anyway, absorbing the reality of the situation in which I and so many of my homebirthing sisters were so broken by our hospital experience that forcing us back there is akin to forcing a rape victim back to the scene of the crime made me go into shock while standing in line at the supermarket. I felt nauseous, light-headed, went pale and started sweating. By God's mercy I remained upright long enough to get my change, move to the side and rip into the container of pineapple pieces I'd just bought but that's as close as I ever want to get to fainting, thanks very much.

One of the things that devastates me so much about the direction we are headed is that eventually there is going to be a total lack of accountability for the hospital system. Stamping out independent midwifery, which is a voice in the wilderness championing the cause of natural childbirth (because it doesn't matter how much stuff you read on the internet -- the future of which is also up for debate when you read the proposed legislation -- if you can't find people to support you to have a natural birth, you won't get one), is stamping out the only real opposition to what is currently happening that exists. I foresee a continuing rise in interventions and caesarean rates and it BREAKS MY HEART TO THINK MY OWN DAUGHTER IS VERY LIKELY TO END UP WITH UNNECESSARY MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY by virtue of being a woman designed by God to give birth. And people wonder why I'm so upset about this.

Anyway. We press on, remembering that women all over the world have been given a terribly raw deal since the very beginning and nothing has really changed even in supposedly enlightened, progressive free countries like Australia. It's another sign of the times and God speed the day it all ends.

On a lighter note for the sake of my own sanity, we're making some more progress with potty training. It's very slow progress, and that's OK, but it's exciting nonetheless. We've had a few more wees and even one poo! I would LOVE to have her out of nappies for good by the time this next baby arrives. I've got about five months, but there'll be a major interruption in the form of another trip to Australia right in the middle of it, so I don't know for sure whether it'll happen or not. And even if it did, I've heard so many times that toddlers "regress" when a baby sibling comes on the scene so we'll just see how it goes, take it as it comes. But it's fun watching and participating in Cassia's development anyway.

OK, that's about it. I've been sitting here for five minutes trying to think of something relevant to say but I'm done. 'Til later.

Dear Ms Roxon

RE: PROPOSED LEGISLATION AFFECTING HOMEBIRTH AND INDEPENDENT MIDWIFERY IN AUSTRALIA FROM JULY 2010

I'm writing this to you as one woman-mother to another. It hardly matters whether I'm a homebirther or not, because the core issue at hand transcends birth location. It's about a woman's right to choose what's best for her and her baby, and I think it's fair to say every woman-mother cares about that.

I see you have one child yourself and no doubt your child is the most important person in your life. So I know this same issue affects you personally, because I'm sure that as you carried that baby in your womb you thought constantly about where and how they would be born, what choices you had at your disposal, and what would be safest and best for you and for them.

I also know you're an intelligent woman who can appreciate that one person's choices are not the same as another's. And when it comes to birth choices, what makes one woman feel safe is likely to make another want to run for the hills.

Ms Roxon, please think back to the choices you made for the birth of your own child. You did what you believed was best for you and them, didn't you? It was none of anyone else's business, was it? It was your body, your baby, and no-one had the right to decide for you what you would do, correct?

Now imagine how you would have felt if some total strangers had come along and said "We don't think the care provider you've chosen for your pregnancy and birth should be allowed to provide your care any more. We are going to remove them their practice. You will be forced to make a different choice, and we don't care if the choices you are left with make you want to run for the hills. We know better than you what is best for you and your baby." I don't imagine, being the strong woman you obviously are, that you would take such an irrational, overbearing and unfair restriction lying down.

And yet Ms Roxon, you are doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING to hundreds of your fellow women-mothers. Do you realise that? Removing legal access to homebirth with independent midwives is a travesty of a woman-mother's right to autonomy over one of the most significant and personal events of her life. It perhaps would be understandable if the choice was a demonstrably unsafe one. However, by now enough people will have written to you with evidence-based research that you well know the opposite is true -- that homebirth is safe, that independent midwives have transfer rates of less than 10% (compare this to Australian birth centre transfer rates of 42%, or the deplorable overall c-section rate of 31%), and that safe, empowering births have an enormous beneficial flow-on effect to society's health in general (less incidence of post-natal depression, greater breastfeeding success rates, fewer health complications caused by surgery, etc).

Ms Roxon, please also consider the irony that YOU, a woman in a position of influence thanks to the political activism of her foremothers, may be responsible for the removal of not only a basic human right for your countrywomen, but also the availability of the safest birth choice for women in Australia.

Please use your position of influence to reverse the direction these proposed laws are taking us in.

Yours straight from the heart,
Nat

P.S. I am attaching a copy of my daughter's birth story as a classic example of what a "normal" (or worse, "natural") birth in hospital looks like.

One of those taggy games

Thanks to the Koala Bear Writer, I am going to spend the next three days lying on the couch in a self-therapy session for getting involved in one of these things. For the time being I'll justify it to myself by saying I haven't had much else to blog about and I know it's just a harmless fluffy diversion anyway. Ahem.

This photo was taken in 2003. A group of friends was out for dinner one Saturday night with another friend -- P, in the photo -- who was visiting from Sydney. P was a pretty exuberant bloke back in 2003 (I think marriage has turned him into a comparatively old man since then, but don't tell him I said that) and was entertaining us by spontaneously leapfrogging the parking meters as we walked down the street in search of a restaurant. These were tall parking meters too, I might add. Anyway, Craig pulled out the camera and P obligingly jumped another one for him.

What cracks me up about this photo, however, is that he happened to jump over a parking meter that was just outside a National Australia Bank branch, and Craig caught the sign in the photo. This in itself is not very funny, except that P was working for the NAB at the time. I always wished that the NAB was running one of those promotional campaigns where they photograph their own employees doing crazy stuff so that we could submit the photo and make millions from the royalties.

OK, now here's the fun bit. I get to share the love with some others. All righty then Dana (you knew you would be it, didn't you?), Sazz and skimbly -- go for your lives.
1) Pick the sixth photo from the sixth album or folder in your photo collection.
2) Post it to your blog and tell the story behind the photo.
3) Tag some other blog friends to do the same. Be glad it doesn't have to be six others.

It gets even worse

Yesterday the bill for the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law was proposed in Parliament House in Canberra.

Two of the proposed laws are:

Subdivision 6 General
148 Directing or inciting unprofessional conduct or professional misconduct
(1) A person must not direct or incite a registered health practitioner to do anything, in the course of the practitioner’s practice of the health profession, that amounts to unprofessional conduct or professional misconduct.
Maximum penalty:
(a) in the case of an individual—$30,000, or
(b) in the case of a body corporate—$60,000.

and

101 Conditions of registration
(1) If a National Board decides to register a person in the health profession for which the Board is established, the registration is subject to the following conditions:
(a) for a registered health practitioner other than a health practitioner who holds non-practising registration:
(i) that the registered health practitioner must complete the continuing professional development program required by the National Board, and
(ii) that the registered health practitioner must not practise the health profession unless professional indemnity insurance arrangements are in force in relation to the practitioner’s practice of the profession,

Let me make three things very clear.

1) Professional indemnity insurance is not available to independent midwives. It is not going to become available for several reasons, one of which is that "botched birth" payouts range in the millions of dollars, and with a pool of about 100 independent midwives in Australia to draw this money from, their insurance premiums would be untenable.

2) If you, as a woman seeking homebirth, even ask an independent midwife to attend you regardless of the insurance law, you could be up for a fine of $30,000.

3) The proposed legislation is not outlawing homebirth altogether. Homebirth will still be available -- if you have a hospital-based midwife operating under the hospital's policies*, live near a hospital offering a homebirth program, and you fulfil the hospital's low-risk criteria for the entire duration of your pregnancy and labour.

As two examples of women who cannot, ever, obtain a homebirth under these laws:
1) Women who have had one or more previous caesareans. Even if they've had three vaginal births since their surgery, they will still not be eligible for a homebirth.
2) Women who live too far from a hospital offering a homebirth program. This is the majority of women in Australia.

There is a protest rally against this oppressive legislation being organised by Homebirth Australia outside Parliament House in Canberra on the 7th of September, and I am going. This is not about "pushing homebirth" (it never has been). This is about human rights and justice.

***** ***** *****

*As an example of this, the Community Midwifery Program run by King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth requires that midwives measure the fetal heart rate every five minutes during the pushing stage.

Midwiving a poo

Thanks to Dana for inspiring me to record this anecdote, and to someone out in cyberland for giving me the title...

The other day Cassia was suffering constipation. The poor little girly was pushing and straining away, even developing beads of perspiration on her face with the effort. Unsurprisingly, the experience was a bit distressing for her and she started urgently requesting a nappy change.

"Are you sure?" I said. "It would be better if you finish doing the poo first. Come on, try to finish the poo."

She obligingly had another go at pushing and then started crying. "Nappy change lie down? Nappy change lie down?" she begged.

"Oh baby girl," I replied. "I really think you need to finish the poo before I change your nappy."

Nope. She was pretty desperate for a nappy change lie down. So I finally relented, lay her on her back and took her nappy off. Sure enough, a small lump of hard poo was sitting just inside her bum and it was obvious there was more to come. "Come on, let's push the poo out," I encouraged her. I held her legs up over her tummy and made her squeeze. "Puuuuuuuush! Puuuuuuush!" I said. Oh man. Listen to me! I sound just like a really annoying midwife telling a woman to push her baby out, as if the woman wasn't already doing so or didn't know how. I'm even pressing on her belly! Gah. Shut up Nat, just shut up, keep your hands to yourself, and let Cassia get on with it.

But Cassia was still quite upset and didn't seem to be getting anywhere. I knew it was because she was on her back. It's just like giving birth, being on your back is a really inefficient way to do it. "Baby girl, it would be a lot easier if you squatted or stood up."

"No no no no no!" Sob sob sob.

This went on for a while. She refused to try squatting, but I finally somehow managed to convince her to stand up (maybe she just "got" that lying down wasn't helping). So she stood up and held onto me while I held the nappy underneath her and kept saying, much to my own disbelief, "push push push!" Shut up shut up shut up Nat! Gah. Amazing how I'm feeling compelled to say this stuff even though I don't want to. I guess I'd like to think I'm actually being useful. Maybe that's how a lot of nurses feel too.

A few more tears and hard pushes later, a very large, smooth, hard ball of poo fell out of her, rolled off the nappy I was holding and landed on the floor. OK, so that bit wasn't much like an ideal birth but she was an awful lot happier once it was out! Unfortunately, however, she's a very particular and tidy little girl, so seeing the poo sitting on the bare floor was simply Beyond Her Scope of Acceptability. She cried some more. I tried hard to comfort and reassure her that it was OK, Mama was cleaning it up, but I'm not sure how effective it was given the laughter I was suppressing at the time.

I was later relaying this story to someone who told me she'd been there, done that, except that she was obviously a better poo midwife than me because she said stuff like "Push when your body tells you to", "Not too hard" and "Can you feel the poo coming out?" She said it felt just like midwiving a poo, although she did manage to stop short of saying "Reach down and touch your poo's head". Oh man, I can't believe I find this sort of stuff hilarious these days.

Let the rains begin

I think we can finally say the rainy season has begun. It started raining last night and it's forecast to rain for the whole week. This is really no big deal at all, except that I was expecting it to happen about three weeks ago based on what I'd heard from locals.

I've never lived anywhere that had a "rainy season" before. Well, Melbourne traditionally has a rainy season; it lasts from April to December. But that doesn't count. And anyway, in the last few years with the drought we haven't seen much rain at all.

Anyway, my point is, this is new and different. The end.