Yesterday a woman named Deb Tambor committed suicide.She was 33.
I didn't know Deb in person, but she and I posted on the same Off the Derech facebook groups for several years. Deb was a lovely woman who often posted encouraging words to others struggling with leaving the orthodox jewish religion, and posted about her own struggles. The last time I heard from her was when she was congratulating me for having a child. And I got to know some details of her life over the years. How she had several children with an orthodox jewish spouse whom she divorced. How her own father testified against her in the child custody case because she was no longer religious, and she lost custody of her children. How her children were told negative things about her because she was no longer religious, and how they began to treat her with the same disdain shown towards her by her former chassidic community.
I hesitate to post these details becasue Deb posted them in a protected group, in confidence. But I felt it was important for the world to know that these type of things happen, and continue to happen. And what the consequences sometimes are. And these aren't the only consequences. The consequence of the threat of having this happen keeps many people in unhappy marriages, or hiding their true religious beliefs, sometimes for decades .
Now I'm not saying that these things are the reason she committed suicide. I don't know why she committed suicide and I don't really know why she lost custody of her kids, other than what she said about it. Maybe she was depressed in general, although that's no reason to lose custody of your children unless she posed a threat to them. Maybe she did pose a threat to them. I have no idea.
What I do know is that if there is an all powerful sky being, and that sky being is just, then there's a special place in hell reserved for people who encourage parents to turn against their children, or children to turn against their parents, in the name of religion or lack thereof.
What I do know is that if court systems are ruling in favor of religious spouses and cutting off custody of non religious spouses due to religious reasons, whether that is because of some misguided idea that keeping children in the same religion is more in their best interest than regular visits with both parents, or because witnesses are giving false testimony due to the religious beliefs of a parent, then they are making unjust decisions.
What I do know is that the off the derech community has more and more been turning into a real community in the past few years, due in no small part to facebook groups, and before that, the writing of many bloggers. Along with things like footsteps and cholent. We've organized protests against child molestation and have visited courts to support victims of the orthodox community. And maybe it's time we started using that community power to organize something more. Maybe a non profit that provides free legal aid for those going through custody cases with religious spouses or who need other sorts of legal help related to leaving their religion? Maybe a phone line to connect you with another OTDer for those who need someone to talk to or advice? I'm just throwing out ideas here.
Please use this post to throw out some more ideas. I may not be able to respond right away because things are crazy right now but I would love for those who have more time and who are geographically closer to centers of jewish life to begin organizing themselves, and I will help in any way I can. I will update with more info as I know it.
ETA: I've just learned that a young man named Yoeli Speilman, who had grown up chassidic and become modern orthodox, and who was disowned by his family as a result, killed himself the day after yom kippur. I don't even know what to say. I'm not saying his family situation is the reason he killed himself, and unlike Deb I never interacted with him him personally or know anything other than what people are saying on the grapevine, but f it's true I think it's telling that two people in similar situations killed themselves over the jewish holidays. What can we do to help people who are thinking of committing suicide?
ETA2: Some other posts about Deb from other OTDers and Jewish bloggers:
My Derech, On and Off: A Mother's Murder
I am Acher!: For Deb: A very special eulogy
Hayley Amanda: for deb. for life.
Stop Kiruv Now: Turning families against each other
Y-Love: Stolen too soon: In memory of Deb Tambor a'h
Kol B'isha Erva: Why do we assume that when a marriage ends its because one spouse went otd
ETA3: Sunday 5:04pm (eastern): Rumor is that the funeral will take place on roosevelt ave. in New Square tonight at midnight. Other rumors say she was already buried in New Square without a real funeral. A third rumor says the funeral will take place there within an hour. Either way there are many people heading to New Square right now and there is talk of a candelight vigil tonight. I'll try to post more as I find out about it
ETA4: Anyone who is thinking of taking your life, please first take the time to call someone on this list and tell them about it.
ETA5: I hear many OTDers who wanted to attend the funeral of their friend Deb Tambor (who many of us knew in 'real life') went to new square yesterday with some staying until the wee hours of the morning, but the new square shitheads wouldn't tell them where or when it was going to happen, and she ended up being buried this morning in Long island with only her family present. I am told she was not buried in the new square cemetery because she was not shomer shabbas(??). Also someone has posted a poem written by Deb before her death: Can a father hate his child? Deb's last poem
ETA6: Deb's boyfriend told me that he was notified about the funeral location by Deb's family as the funeral was starting, and that they knew he was an hour and a half away. I feel sick to my stomach over the way this has played out. One thing I will be doing in the very near future is writing a will.
ETA7: Failed Messiah has A good summary of the situation which has more sickening details of what happened to Deb.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Saturday, September 21, 2013
8 weeks old
For the first time tonight, C actually paid attention and looked at the pictures in the book when we read a bedtime story! Last night we read the first half of The Cat in the Hat. Why half? Because those Dr. Seuss books are long and I really had to pee. Since C wasn't paying attention to what I was saying or doing even though I was pointing her towards the book I didn't feel too bad about not reading the whole book. But then today we picked up where we left off (around when the cat brings in Thing one and Thing two) and she totally paid attention to the book and the pictures while I was reading it to her! And then we read goodnight moon (which we've read about 15 times already) and she paid attention to those pictures too!
She also spent several minutes this morning petting and smiling at durkheim the cat, who has decided she should be his buddy. Later today she was sitting next to him and put an arm around him:
She's decided she likes being lifted in the air (or at least she smiles a lot when she lands) and she likes tickling. She also likes when I go get her when she's been fussing in her crib. She smiles a lot now, and it's awesome, because it's the first she's showing of her own personality- smiling when she likes things. She can sit up when someone hold her around the waist and hold her head up on her own. She can roll over on her side, and in the past few days has started paying attention to toys, so we've been having fun showing her all the toys that she's gotten as gifts, one at a time. She's making new sounds and staying awake more during the day, although she's still waking up 1-4 times a night, and so far has only had 3 nights, not in a row, where she only woke up once to eat in the night.
I guess I never really updated about my parents coming to visit. When we were arranging the visit I told my parents that my mother in law was planning to come visit when she was around 3 weeks, and she was planning to stay for around a week (which she did) and told them they could come before or after. My dad was like "actually we've always been curious to meet B's parents, and unfortunately we never got a chance to meet his dad." Ha. They were 50 feet from each other at my phd graduation 3 years ago, and I offered to introduce them to each other, and my parents turned down the invitation (I had 2 graduation ceremonies- one for the entire school, one for the graduate school of arts and sciences. My parents when to the first an my in-laws to the second. That was the day my parents met B, but they turned down the chance to meet B's parents- at that point we had been married for a year).
My parents decided to fly in to a city about an hour and a half away from here and drive from there to here. We have an airport here, but with the connection it would be about the same time apparently. It took them 2 hours to drive here. They got here around 2pm on a Sunday and stayed until around 6pm. Then they drove back to the city they flew into, because they had booked a hotel room there. They ate dinner there at a kosher restaurant (something we don't have in my city) and flew out the next morning. Once again they only stayed here for a few hours, this time even though they were staying in the state overnight.
They were nice when they were here although of course they had on their "fake personality" because my mother in law was here and she's a stranger. My mom asked me to email her a scanned picture of C's footprints so she can use them in the design for a baby quilt for her. :) They took a million pictures with C and my dad invited us to drive down to visit them in florida at their condo down there that they are going to for new years. But we are driving to the midwest for christmas at my mother in law's house, and I don't think we're going to come back and then drive another 12 hours to florida a few days later, that seems crazy with a 5 month old. I told them maybe in a couple of years, since we are planning to start having christmas at our house once C is a couple of years old so then we wouldn't be traveling (and they always go down to florida for new years). Maybe in a few years we'll drive down to visit them and spend a few days in disney land or harry potter land on the way back. I secretly dream that when C is older we'll read all the harry potter books together at bedtime and then watch all the movies and go to harry potter land when we're done with the entire series.
Speaking of christmas, one of my favorite cousins who is around 22 years old just got enagaged to a guy she's known for 2 months, and they are considering having a wedding on christmas eve. When I moved here a little over 3 years ago I saw her right before I moved, and she told me I should come back for her wedding. But I don't think I could deny B C's first christmas with his family, so I'm not going to go if they have it then. They may not have it then though, and depending on the timing it might be a good time to go up and visit.
A week after my parents were here my brother and his live in girlfriend came to visit for a couple of days. It made me kinda sad that I live so far from them, since my brother really liked reading C a story and spending time with her and he was saying that the next time he see's her she will probably be a toddler. That's really why I'm considering going up for my cousin's wedding if it's not on christmas, and also why I'm getting together some research to send it to a conference that will be in NYC next summer.
Speaking of research, I heard back a few weeks ago that I got a "conditional accept" on a journal article- meaning they accepted my article for publication but wanted me to make a few last changes. They gave me a month to make the changes, so I ended up "going back to work" (working on research from home) a little earlier than planned, and sent in those revisions this week. That's #3 out of 5 of the articles I need to get tenure (only peer reviewed articles published since I got this job count towards the 5- this is my 6th peer reviewed publication in total). I also received a "revise and resubmit" decision on another article which is due in 2 months- they actually initially asked for it back in 60 days, which would have been right around now, but I got the decision 3 days before my due date and I asked them for a 2 month extension. I'm going to be working on that starting on Monday when I get a bunch of stuff my coauthor has been working on. I also have the research to get together for that conference in NYC, and some other research to get together for another conference which is going to be held locally in the spring, both with extended abstracts due in mid October. Not sure about my work schedule after that, except that I have 2 articles that were rejected from journals that I want to revise and send out to new journals, and a dissertation chapter that I want to revise and send out too, along with 2 articles I want to get started on writing.
It's hard to know how much to work since I am technically on "research leave" right now and not maternity leave. My maternity leave didn't cover a full semester- it covered 2 out of 3 of my classes. But I also had a "research leave" due to me this year as part of my hiring contract (to make a final big research push for tenure) and planned my pregnancy around it. So my choices were a) go back to work 3 weeks after giving birth but only teaching one class this semester, and then take my research leave in the spring semester and have no teaching in the spring or b) take my research leave this semester and not teach and then take my maternity leave in the spring and teach my one class then.
Of course option b made more sense, but now I worry that I am 'wasting' my entire research leave on maternity leave stuff and therefore hurting my career, since other people at my stage in their career have a semester to work on research full time. I extended my tenure clock by a year so I have 3 more years until I go up for tenure instead of 2, but I really want to publish enough that I can go up for tenure "early" which is actually on time, since tenure comes with a raise and yearly raises (when I get them) are based on a percent my current salary- so forgoing that raise for a year can really impact my salary in the long run. I figure since my maternity leave covers 2/3rds of a semester I shouldn't worry about only working on research for 3-4 hours a day for 3-4 days a week at the most right now, and should probably not even be working right now at all. And then I can go back to work full time next semester during my 'maternity leave' when I only teach 1 class, and make up that research time then. But depending on B's work and school schedule next semester, I may also be watching C a few days a week then, and it'll be harder to work when she's older and awake for more of the day. Argh. As I said, it's hard to know how much to work, but for now as long as I'm getting a few things done research-wise every week, and meeting my deadlines for journal editors and conference organizers, I'm going to try not to worry about it too much.
I was reading a mommy blog today and realized...I guess i am kinda a mommy blog now? Weird.
She also spent several minutes this morning petting and smiling at durkheim the cat, who has decided she should be his buddy. Later today she was sitting next to him and put an arm around him:
She's decided she likes being lifted in the air (or at least she smiles a lot when she lands) and she likes tickling. She also likes when I go get her when she's been fussing in her crib. She smiles a lot now, and it's awesome, because it's the first she's showing of her own personality- smiling when she likes things. She can sit up when someone hold her around the waist and hold her head up on her own. She can roll over on her side, and in the past few days has started paying attention to toys, so we've been having fun showing her all the toys that she's gotten as gifts, one at a time. She's making new sounds and staying awake more during the day, although she's still waking up 1-4 times a night, and so far has only had 3 nights, not in a row, where she only woke up once to eat in the night.
I guess I never really updated about my parents coming to visit. When we were arranging the visit I told my parents that my mother in law was planning to come visit when she was around 3 weeks, and she was planning to stay for around a week (which she did) and told them they could come before or after. My dad was like "actually we've always been curious to meet B's parents, and unfortunately we never got a chance to meet his dad." Ha. They were 50 feet from each other at my phd graduation 3 years ago, and I offered to introduce them to each other, and my parents turned down the invitation (I had 2 graduation ceremonies- one for the entire school, one for the graduate school of arts and sciences. My parents when to the first an my in-laws to the second. That was the day my parents met B, but they turned down the chance to meet B's parents- at that point we had been married for a year).
My parents decided to fly in to a city about an hour and a half away from here and drive from there to here. We have an airport here, but with the connection it would be about the same time apparently. It took them 2 hours to drive here. They got here around 2pm on a Sunday and stayed until around 6pm. Then they drove back to the city they flew into, because they had booked a hotel room there. They ate dinner there at a kosher restaurant (something we don't have in my city) and flew out the next morning. Once again they only stayed here for a few hours, this time even though they were staying in the state overnight.
They were nice when they were here although of course they had on their "fake personality" because my mother in law was here and she's a stranger. My mom asked me to email her a scanned picture of C's footprints so she can use them in the design for a baby quilt for her. :) They took a million pictures with C and my dad invited us to drive down to visit them in florida at their condo down there that they are going to for new years. But we are driving to the midwest for christmas at my mother in law's house, and I don't think we're going to come back and then drive another 12 hours to florida a few days later, that seems crazy with a 5 month old. I told them maybe in a couple of years, since we are planning to start having christmas at our house once C is a couple of years old so then we wouldn't be traveling (and they always go down to florida for new years). Maybe in a few years we'll drive down to visit them and spend a few days in disney land or harry potter land on the way back. I secretly dream that when C is older we'll read all the harry potter books together at bedtime and then watch all the movies and go to harry potter land when we're done with the entire series.
Speaking of christmas, one of my favorite cousins who is around 22 years old just got enagaged to a guy she's known for 2 months, and they are considering having a wedding on christmas eve. When I moved here a little over 3 years ago I saw her right before I moved, and she told me I should come back for her wedding. But I don't think I could deny B C's first christmas with his family, so I'm not going to go if they have it then. They may not have it then though, and depending on the timing it might be a good time to go up and visit.
A week after my parents were here my brother and his live in girlfriend came to visit for a couple of days. It made me kinda sad that I live so far from them, since my brother really liked reading C a story and spending time with her and he was saying that the next time he see's her she will probably be a toddler. That's really why I'm considering going up for my cousin's wedding if it's not on christmas, and also why I'm getting together some research to send it to a conference that will be in NYC next summer.
Speaking of research, I heard back a few weeks ago that I got a "conditional accept" on a journal article- meaning they accepted my article for publication but wanted me to make a few last changes. They gave me a month to make the changes, so I ended up "going back to work" (working on research from home) a little earlier than planned, and sent in those revisions this week. That's #3 out of 5 of the articles I need to get tenure (only peer reviewed articles published since I got this job count towards the 5- this is my 6th peer reviewed publication in total). I also received a "revise and resubmit" decision on another article which is due in 2 months- they actually initially asked for it back in 60 days, which would have been right around now, but I got the decision 3 days before my due date and I asked them for a 2 month extension. I'm going to be working on that starting on Monday when I get a bunch of stuff my coauthor has been working on. I also have the research to get together for that conference in NYC, and some other research to get together for another conference which is going to be held locally in the spring, both with extended abstracts due in mid October. Not sure about my work schedule after that, except that I have 2 articles that were rejected from journals that I want to revise and send out to new journals, and a dissertation chapter that I want to revise and send out too, along with 2 articles I want to get started on writing.
It's hard to know how much to work since I am technically on "research leave" right now and not maternity leave. My maternity leave didn't cover a full semester- it covered 2 out of 3 of my classes. But I also had a "research leave" due to me this year as part of my hiring contract (to make a final big research push for tenure) and planned my pregnancy around it. So my choices were a) go back to work 3 weeks after giving birth but only teaching one class this semester, and then take my research leave in the spring semester and have no teaching in the spring or b) take my research leave this semester and not teach and then take my maternity leave in the spring and teach my one class then.
Of course option b made more sense, but now I worry that I am 'wasting' my entire research leave on maternity leave stuff and therefore hurting my career, since other people at my stage in their career have a semester to work on research full time. I extended my tenure clock by a year so I have 3 more years until I go up for tenure instead of 2, but I really want to publish enough that I can go up for tenure "early" which is actually on time, since tenure comes with a raise and yearly raises (when I get them) are based on a percent my current salary- so forgoing that raise for a year can really impact my salary in the long run. I figure since my maternity leave covers 2/3rds of a semester I shouldn't worry about only working on research for 3-4 hours a day for 3-4 days a week at the most right now, and should probably not even be working right now at all. And then I can go back to work full time next semester during my 'maternity leave' when I only teach 1 class, and make up that research time then. But depending on B's work and school schedule next semester, I may also be watching C a few days a week then, and it'll be harder to work when she's older and awake for more of the day. Argh. As I said, it's hard to know how much to work, but for now as long as I'm getting a few things done research-wise every week, and meeting my deadlines for journal editors and conference organizers, I'm going to try not to worry about it too much.
I was reading a mommy blog today and realized...I guess i am kinda a mommy blog now? Weird.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
C is one month old!
My mother in law came to visit for almost a week and left this morning, and my parents were here this weekend too. More on that later. My brother and his live-in girlfriend are coming this weekend, and after that we are finally done with visitors for a while and maybe we can start having more of a normal routine.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
She's here! The story of C's birth.
C was born Friday, July 26th at 6:26pm! We're home now.
Thursday morning, my due date, at around 4:30am I started having contractions that woke me up every 10 minutes or so. Eventually I got out of bed, took a shower and started timing them, but they started spacing out after the shower and were maybe every 12-15 minutes for the rest of the morning. I had a doctors appointment Thursday afternoon and had a NST (test for fetal stress) that only picked up one contraction in maybe 20-30 minutes I was hooked up. At my doctors appointment I was 3-4 centimeters dilated, up from 2-3 a week before.
That night the contractions started picking up a bit. Since I had woken up so early I went to bed at around 9pm but woke up at 12:30 because my contractions were getting more painful. They were coming around every 9 minutes. I stayed up pretty much all night long, and took a shower again at 2am. They got to be 6-7 minutes apart at 4am but then spaced out again to 8-9 minutes and between 5 and 7am I slept in between contractions while sitting upright in our lazy boy. They started getting closer together again at 7am. At around 10 am I had been having contractions an average of 5 minutes apart for an hour and a half. Not very regular, anywhere from 3 to 7 and a half minutes apart. But they were becoming unbearably painful and I couldn't talk though them anymore so I decided to call the doctor. First I had a smoothie and a muffin and woke B up (he stayed up with me until 4am and then went to sleep for a while) and got everything packed and ready to go. The receptionist said to come into the office since I live so close to the doctor's and the hospital (5 minutes from both). Got there around 10:45 I think. I had 3 contractions in the waiting room. One was on the way into the office and some lady in the hallway said something about me being in labor, and during another in the waiting room I closed my eyes during the contraction, only to open them and see a nurse staring me intently, which made me burst out laughing.
When we went back to the exam room I felt like I was starting to leak and when I went to pee in a cup I suspected my water had broken (turned out it had) and it was more amniotic fluid then pee. When I had an internal exam a few minutes later there was a huge gush of water and the doctor kept putting paper pad things under my butt which I soaked right through, and one on the floor which I leaked all over when I stood up. I then proceeded to drip amniotic fluid all over the exam room as I made my way back to the bathroom to clean myself off. The timing was perfect cause most of it came out while I was pantless so didn't get anything on my pants or anything. I was a little bummed to hear at the exam that I was only 4 centimeters dilated after a whole night of not being able to sleep from the contraction pains. But since my water broke the doctor told me to go straight to the hospital.
Once my water broke my contractions got a lot stronger and more frequent. During the 5 minute car ride from the doctors office to the hospital, I had two very painful contractions that I couldn't talk through, and 3 more while being admitted. We actually first went to the wrong building- since B had practiced going to the hospital from the house and not the doctor's office, he was not used to driving the way we took, and we pulled into the parking lot of a next door building that looks pretty similar. We didn't figure it out until we had parked and got to the building, when I was like "wait where's the door to the delivery room?" B went back to get the car while I stood at the side of the parking lot having contractions. Then he dropped me off at the actual hospital and I had to check myself in while he was finding parking. They took me by wheelchair to a delivery room. They asked about a birth plan and if I wanted an epidural and I said I wasn't sure. At first I got a Hep lock instead of an iv and they took some blood and hooked me up to a fetal heartbeat and contraction monitor.
And then the contractions got really really bad. At one point according to the monitor I basically had a 10 minute contraction which I think must have been 3 or 4 contractions with no break in between. I sat on the edge of the bed and did breathing exercises and basically moaned with every exhale. I was also shaking and rocking back and forth with every contraction, which were almost constant. I have never experienced something that painful in my life. After what apparently was 2 hours of this but which seemed a lot shorter to me, I asked B for the third time to get an epidural (we agreed beforehand I would have to ask 3 times- the first time I asked was as soon as I got into my room at the hospital. I was like "ok this is my first official time asking for an epidural" and B was like "no this doesn't count, you're not even in your gown yet!" and I was all "No, this counts!") and he went to get the nurse. They hooked me up to a saline drip. First the anesthesiologist stuck me with a local anesthetic which took effect immediately and then after another painful contraction she put the epidural in. It felt weird but not painful at all. It didn't take effect immediately so I had two more painful contractions and then it was like total bliss. It was kinda like braxton hicks contractions- I could still feel them but they weren't painful at all.
After the epidural they checked my cervix and in around 2-3 hours since my doctors appointment I had gone from 4 to 6 centimeters. B decided to take a quick trip home while I wasn't in pain to eat lunch and feed the dogs. I called my parents to tell them I was at the hospital and they told me if I give birth after shabbas I should call and leave a message on my dads office line because that has an answering machine they can hear. I did some face booking and attempted to nap but was too excited.
I got checked again about 2 hours later and was 7-8 centimeters dilated which means I was officially in transition. I had some ices and apple juice and then around an hour later I started shaking really badly. The nurse came to check on me and I asked about that, and apparently it's a sign that the pushing stage is eminent and it comes from your body dumping hormones into you. When she checked me I was 9.5 centimeters dilated. She came back around 30 minutes later and asked I was ready to push and I said maybe but I'm not sure. She came back 10 minutes after that and I was definitely ready to push then. She lifted the bed so I was sitting up and lifted these stirrup things for my legs so I could put my legs up and like pull them back and curl into a ball basically. And then had me push with each contraction- I would hold my breath for the count of 10 and push as hard as I could and then take a breath and repeat 3 times for each contraction. The first time I pushed she said she could already see the head starting to come out. After around 3 push 'sessions' of 3-4 pushes each she got a mirror at my request so I could see what was going on.
The first two push sessions I did after the mirror got there, I could see the top of her head while pushing and then it like went back inside between contractions, but the third push session is stayed out a bit. In the end I only pushed for maybe 10-13 sessions I guesstimate, which lasted only 25 minutes in total. Towards the end they had me stop pushing cause the doctor wasn't there yet. He quickly came in and suited up and put on a plastic face shield which I complimented him on. They put this plastic sheet under my butt with like a hard plastic cup thing on the end to catch all the crap that was coming out of me. I started pushing again and the doctor kinda pushed up on her face from the bottom of my butt kinda, and suddenly her face was out! Once her face was out but the rest of the body was inside she turned her face sideways...that's normal cause they have to turn their body sideways so their shoulders can get out, but it was totally surreal and awesome to see. The doctor told me to stop pushing and I did and he suctioned out her nose and mouth a bunch of times, but the rest of her just came out right away anyway.
After she came out a whole bunch of fluid and blood came out too and at that point I was like "alright you can take away the mirror now." The doctor suctioned her a few more times and she started to cry, and B got a little teary eyed when she did (he now has amnesia about this but I saw it!). The doctor asked both me and B if we wanted to cut the cord but we both said no, so he did it. They wiped her off and put her right on my chest where she stayed for the first hour or so of her life. During that time I delivered the placenta- B said it looked really gross like a stomach or something, but I didn't see it. The doctor also gave me 4 stitches in 4 small tears that I had. After a little bit she started breast-feeding. B took a few pictures and then after the hour they measured her and stuff under a heat lamp because her feet and hands were blue. She was 20.5 inches long, 7 pounds 3 ounces, with a 13.5 inch circumference head.
Thursday morning, my due date, at around 4:30am I started having contractions that woke me up every 10 minutes or so. Eventually I got out of bed, took a shower and started timing them, but they started spacing out after the shower and were maybe every 12-15 minutes for the rest of the morning. I had a doctors appointment Thursday afternoon and had a NST (test for fetal stress) that only picked up one contraction in maybe 20-30 minutes I was hooked up. At my doctors appointment I was 3-4 centimeters dilated, up from 2-3 a week before.
That night the contractions started picking up a bit. Since I had woken up so early I went to bed at around 9pm but woke up at 12:30 because my contractions were getting more painful. They were coming around every 9 minutes. I stayed up pretty much all night long, and took a shower again at 2am. They got to be 6-7 minutes apart at 4am but then spaced out again to 8-9 minutes and between 5 and 7am I slept in between contractions while sitting upright in our lazy boy. They started getting closer together again at 7am. At around 10 am I had been having contractions an average of 5 minutes apart for an hour and a half. Not very regular, anywhere from 3 to 7 and a half minutes apart. But they were becoming unbearably painful and I couldn't talk though them anymore so I decided to call the doctor. First I had a smoothie and a muffin and woke B up (he stayed up with me until 4am and then went to sleep for a while) and got everything packed and ready to go. The receptionist said to come into the office since I live so close to the doctor's and the hospital (5 minutes from both). Got there around 10:45 I think. I had 3 contractions in the waiting room. One was on the way into the office and some lady in the hallway said something about me being in labor, and during another in the waiting room I closed my eyes during the contraction, only to open them and see a nurse staring me intently, which made me burst out laughing.
When we went back to the exam room I felt like I was starting to leak and when I went to pee in a cup I suspected my water had broken (turned out it had) and it was more amniotic fluid then pee. When I had an internal exam a few minutes later there was a huge gush of water and the doctor kept putting paper pad things under my butt which I soaked right through, and one on the floor which I leaked all over when I stood up. I then proceeded to drip amniotic fluid all over the exam room as I made my way back to the bathroom to clean myself off. The timing was perfect cause most of it came out while I was pantless so didn't get anything on my pants or anything. I was a little bummed to hear at the exam that I was only 4 centimeters dilated after a whole night of not being able to sleep from the contraction pains. But since my water broke the doctor told me to go straight to the hospital.
Once my water broke my contractions got a lot stronger and more frequent. During the 5 minute car ride from the doctors office to the hospital, I had two very painful contractions that I couldn't talk through, and 3 more while being admitted. We actually first went to the wrong building- since B had practiced going to the hospital from the house and not the doctor's office, he was not used to driving the way we took, and we pulled into the parking lot of a next door building that looks pretty similar. We didn't figure it out until we had parked and got to the building, when I was like "wait where's the door to the delivery room?" B went back to get the car while I stood at the side of the parking lot having contractions. Then he dropped me off at the actual hospital and I had to check myself in while he was finding parking. They took me by wheelchair to a delivery room. They asked about a birth plan and if I wanted an epidural and I said I wasn't sure. At first I got a Hep lock instead of an iv and they took some blood and hooked me up to a fetal heartbeat and contraction monitor.
And then the contractions got really really bad. At one point according to the monitor I basically had a 10 minute contraction which I think must have been 3 or 4 contractions with no break in between. I sat on the edge of the bed and did breathing exercises and basically moaned with every exhale. I was also shaking and rocking back and forth with every contraction, which were almost constant. I have never experienced something that painful in my life. After what apparently was 2 hours of this but which seemed a lot shorter to me, I asked B for the third time to get an epidural (we agreed beforehand I would have to ask 3 times- the first time I asked was as soon as I got into my room at the hospital. I was like "ok this is my first official time asking for an epidural" and B was like "no this doesn't count, you're not even in your gown yet!" and I was all "No, this counts!") and he went to get the nurse. They hooked me up to a saline drip. First the anesthesiologist stuck me with a local anesthetic which took effect immediately and then after another painful contraction she put the epidural in. It felt weird but not painful at all. It didn't take effect immediately so I had two more painful contractions and then it was like total bliss. It was kinda like braxton hicks contractions- I could still feel them but they weren't painful at all.
After the epidural they checked my cervix and in around 2-3 hours since my doctors appointment I had gone from 4 to 6 centimeters. B decided to take a quick trip home while I wasn't in pain to eat lunch and feed the dogs. I called my parents to tell them I was at the hospital and they told me if I give birth after shabbas I should call and leave a message on my dads office line because that has an answering machine they can hear. I did some face booking and attempted to nap but was too excited.
I got checked again about 2 hours later and was 7-8 centimeters dilated which means I was officially in transition. I had some ices and apple juice and then around an hour later I started shaking really badly. The nurse came to check on me and I asked about that, and apparently it's a sign that the pushing stage is eminent and it comes from your body dumping hormones into you. When she checked me I was 9.5 centimeters dilated. She came back around 30 minutes later and asked I was ready to push and I said maybe but I'm not sure. She came back 10 minutes after that and I was definitely ready to push then. She lifted the bed so I was sitting up and lifted these stirrup things for my legs so I could put my legs up and like pull them back and curl into a ball basically. And then had me push with each contraction- I would hold my breath for the count of 10 and push as hard as I could and then take a breath and repeat 3 times for each contraction. The first time I pushed she said she could already see the head starting to come out. After around 3 push 'sessions' of 3-4 pushes each she got a mirror at my request so I could see what was going on.
The first two push sessions I did after the mirror got there, I could see the top of her head while pushing and then it like went back inside between contractions, but the third push session is stayed out a bit. In the end I only pushed for maybe 10-13 sessions I guesstimate, which lasted only 25 minutes in total. Towards the end they had me stop pushing cause the doctor wasn't there yet. He quickly came in and suited up and put on a plastic face shield which I complimented him on. They put this plastic sheet under my butt with like a hard plastic cup thing on the end to catch all the crap that was coming out of me. I started pushing again and the doctor kinda pushed up on her face from the bottom of my butt kinda, and suddenly her face was out! Once her face was out but the rest of the body was inside she turned her face sideways...that's normal cause they have to turn their body sideways so their shoulders can get out, but it was totally surreal and awesome to see. The doctor told me to stop pushing and I did and he suctioned out her nose and mouth a bunch of times, but the rest of her just came out right away anyway.
After she came out a whole bunch of fluid and blood came out too and at that point I was like "alright you can take away the mirror now." The doctor suctioned her a few more times and she started to cry, and B got a little teary eyed when she did (he now has amnesia about this but I saw it!). The doctor asked both me and B if we wanted to cut the cord but we both said no, so he did it. They wiped her off and put her right on my chest where she stayed for the first hour or so of her life. During that time I delivered the placenta- B said it looked really gross like a stomach or something, but I didn't see it. The doctor also gave me 4 stitches in 4 small tears that I had. After a little bit she started breast-feeding. B took a few pictures and then after the hour they measured her and stuff under a heat lamp because her feet and hands were blue. She was 20.5 inches long, 7 pounds 3 ounces, with a 13.5 inch circumference head.
Friday, July 19, 2013
39 weeks 1 day
Still pregnant! The baby will be here in less than 2 weeks because my doctor wants to induce around 41 weeks if I go that long (although I may see if I can hold her off another day or two if I go that long..which I don't think I will). I'm between 2 and 3 centimeters dilated and almost fully effaced as of this morning. We've finished pretty much all the baby preparation, except that we might go to a baby consignment sale tomorrow and get some more clothes for larger sized babies (we got a ton of newborn/0-3 month clothes at the shower but not much for bigger babies). Assuming I don't go into labor before then.
Had a scare around 3 weeks ago when they found out the baby was in footling breech- one of the scariest kinds of breech (feet down- results in stillbirth 10% of the time when having a vaginal birth) which would have meant a scheduled c section. But for about a week after that I did all sorts of inversions and exercises and weird things to try to get her to flip to head down, and she had by the next appointment, and has stayed head down since then. I think the one that finally worked was when I took a hot bath and submerged the bottom half of my belly while putting an ice pack on the top half- during the bath she moved around a lot and later that afternoon I could feel her hiccuping in the bottom half of my belly instead of the top (when she hiccups only her head moves).
I stopped working around a week ago, and have spent most of this week lying on my couch re-reading the wheel of time series, since I just procured the final book in the series and I always said I would re-read the whole series (14 books) when I got the last one. I figure maternity leave is a good time to get on that, since I don't have to work. I always feel a little bit guilty about reading stuff not for work when I do have to work, cause I have so much reading to do for work that I could be doing instead. I'm now about halfway through book 4.
Speaking of work, this summer I submitted 5 articles + an encyclopedia entry for review (4 for first review and 1 "revise and resubmit") so even though I'm not working anymore this summer (which means I'm finishing summer work a month earlier than I usually do), this has been the most productive summer of my life. I think the baby deadline/nesting instinct just inspired me to finish a whole bunch of stuff. I have all of Fall semester off as "research leave" (and then "maternity leave" in the spring when I will teach 1 class instead of my normal 3) and I'm hoping to start working again around October, and write 2 new papers and revise a dissertation chapter, with plans to submit all 3 of those for review before the end of the academic year. I also hope to be working on more "revise and resubmits" from the stuff I've already submitted (and I think the "revise and resubmit" I submitted this summer has a very good chance of being accepted for publication). I was able to delay my tenure clock by a year because I'm having a baby, but if I can get 3-4 of these 5 articles accepted for publication within the next 2 years I will go up for tenure at the regular time anyway, since delaying tenure just means delaying a raise, and that's more publications than I need for tenure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)