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Posts Tagged ‘pregnancy’

Oh the People You Will Meet

Friday, August 13th, 2010

Thanks Dr Seuss.  (Always did like his books.) 

I have a great belief in fate.  I believe you are meant to meet the people need to meet at exactly the right moments.  Why? I hear you ask.

Today, Little Miss and I, went to costco.  I usually try to avoid the place as I get a bit overwhelmed and confused.  Anyway, as I was trying to find a  car park, I passed another car with the number plate “doula”.  I decided I would head over to this car and leave a note under the wipers with my card as for the last couple of weeks I’ve been on the look out for doulas*.  (No I’m not pregnant.  My clients are.)  By the time I got a park, got little miss out and walked over to the doula car, the driver was loading up her shopping.  EVEN BETTER!  I introduced myself and asked her about her business and her details.  I briefly told her why I needed doula services and she told me she was one of the original doulas in Australia and her network was fairly vast.  Yay.

After we’d left and headed to the gigantic lift with the jumbo sized trolley, we found a pregnant mummy in the lift with us.  I asked when she was due and how her back was given she also had a toddler.  Painful.  When I gave her my card, it turns out she lives in the next suburb.  See, right person, right time.

So, into the massive warehouse we went.  Little Miss wanted everything and became very tired and grumpy.  We eventually left with the standard bulk load of loo paper and a few other essentials and Little Miss fell asleep on the way home.

Now to make myself a cuppa and eat one of the biscuits I purchased.

*What’s a doula?  A doula is a non-medical birth attendant who supports the mother through labour and new motherhood.

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Here comes a rant…

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Ok, this is a bit weird.  Penned (literally) in the wee hours of this morning. 

What started out as a normal pregnancy massage revealed a great dis-service to women.

A first time mother, new to the area, going to a local hospital to have her baby.  She’s living a great distance from her family, so her support network is limited.  During her pre-natal classes, she became even more distressed.  She has just been told she will be discharged from the hospital 3 hours after she gives birth – 5 at the most.  She tells me she’s concerned about the car ride home and not really knowing what to do.  She is also concerned she will be alone with only her husband to help her in the early days.  What’s interesting about this story, is she’s not the first to tell me this. It’s also interesting she’s not scared of labour or the pain.  She’s worried about where she’s having the baby.

When a post natal mother told me of her birth and post birth experience, I was saddened.  She’d had a prolonged labour, her baby was in posterior position, she’d been induced and eventually, due to exhaustion and extreme pain, her baby was born by cesarean section.  48 hours later, after much confusion, she was discharged.  She was struggling with breastfeeding, her incision wound was becoming infected and was feeling miserable.  3 days after being discharged, she gave up breastfeeding.   As she had moved to the area not long before her baby was born, she came home to little family support and no social connections.

My story you’ve heard, but it’s not unlike these two.  I spent my entire pregnancy freaking out.  Labour was the least of my worries.  I live away from my family, having moved to the city from the country.  I didn’t really know my neighbours.  My in-laws and friends all worked.  In those early days, I had no idea what I was doing, nor who I could turn to for help.  I was very lucky in some ways.  When my daughter was 6 weeks old, I fell to pieces.  My parents were 4 hours away.  My husband was at work and without a car.  My parents in-law were at work and my brother in law didn’t have a car or license.  The earliest any of these people could have got to me was an hour.  All my friends were at work except one.  She had recently resigned her job in preparation to return to study, and was house sitting around the corner from me.  She took my call and was able to help me.  She came to my aid without judgement or expectations.  She held my daughter while I ate some lunch.  She talked to me about stuff.  She brought me back from the brink.  To this day, I believe she saved both my daughters and my life.  I was lucky.

Why am I telling you these stories?  Because I believe pregnant women and new mums are being treated badly.  Not just by the hospitals but in general.  Women are returning home (and rapidly) with new babies, without support.  More and more, I finding my clients telling me similar stories of having little or no support in the early weeks post birth.  They are scared and don’t have social and family reassurance that previous generations had.  Many are the first amongst their friends and family to have children and don’t have experience with babies or what to expect when pregnant.    Sometimes all they need is someone to explain what’s happened or happening.  A chat with the local breastfeeding association informed me the area I work and live in has the lowest breastfeeding rates in Melbourne.  I always thought is was because of cultural and family influences or lack of support once they get home.  Perhaps not.  Maybe it’s because the new mums and bubs aren’t getting the help they need in the beginning.  Maybe the incidence of post natal depression would be lower if there were support programs in place. 

I’m looking for answers and suggestions.  Please leave a comment as to where you found help and support.  Maybe we can help someone without even knowing them.

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back again….

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Hello. Been a little bit absent of late. Working on lots of things and now I need your help.
For those of you who are pregnant or have been pregnant, cast you minds back. Can you tell me what you experienced around week 12? Physical, emotional, social. All of it. Thanks.

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How I became a Massage Therapist

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Hello,

Today I’m going to fill you in on how I became a Massage Therapist.

In September 2000,I was teaching music and was in a car accident.  During impact, my shoulder crashed up against the side pillar of my car and injured the joint.  I was in a great deal of pain and saw a friend who was a massage therapist the following day.  He worked on my shoulder and eased a great deal of the pain.  I regularly saw a massage therapist after until my shoulder recovered.

Over the next few years, the idea of being a massage therapist was lurking in the back of my mind until in 2003 I decided to take a basic massage course to see if I liked it.  I didn’t like it.  I loved it.

At the end of the introduction course, I asked for an application to study for the Diploma of Remedial Massage.  I chose to study part-time at night, which when I enrolled would take me two years to complete.  At some stage during the course, the school decided it would be better if the part timers completed the course in three years.  So at the end of 2006 I finished the course.

At that point I had planned on working as a massage therapist part time and working my normal job during the day for a year, returning to study the following year.  What I didn’t know was that I was pregnant and the rest is history.

I love my work and my clients and I’m very glad I took the chance on a completely different career.

Em.

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We’re Fine!

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Hello,

Yesterday evening, on the way to pick up hubby from the airport, Little Miss and I were in a car accident.  Not too bad, no injuries but enough to rattle me and do some damage to the other car.  (Our car is a FWD with a bull bar.)  Still, didn’t stop me from feeling like a complete idiot and getting angry with myself.  Told hubby what happened,  apologised for the big bill that’s coming our way and went home to curl up on the couch and give Missy cuddles.  I have now declared I’m not going to the airport unless I’m actually going to fly somewhere.

I opened my diary this morning to discover Sunday is the big photo shoot here.  Hoping to get some really fantastic action shots of me massaging pregnant women.  Can’t wait.  Partially because I’ll be catching up with two friends I haven’t seen in ages, but also because I’m so excited about both of them being pregnant!  You have no idea how happy I am!  I was seriously cheering and dancing around the place when they told me.  So here’s to good light and great hair days.

Em

PS.  Only 10 sleeps to Mother’s Day.  The price is going up May 10, get in now to make you mum very happy!

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Research

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

Hi again,

Yesterday I was rabbiting on about research stuff that I didn’t like.  Today I going to mention some results of some studies conducted in Miami by Tiffany Field.

In a brief search on google scholar, I found several studies concluding massage during pregnancy is great for the mother.  This I already knew and had experienced.  What I also discovered was mothers who received massage regularly throughout their pregnancy were less likely to go into labour prematurely, had easier labours (now who doesn’t want that!) and were less likely to have post natal depression (another bonus!).  WOW!  Also, because the mothers have been happier and healthier during their pregnancies, their babies were also less likely to have a low birth weight and were less stressed.  Hmm.  Happy and healthy mum equals happy and healthy baby.  I don’t think there are many pregnant women out there who don’t want a happy and healthy baby do you?

Which makes me wonder why this information isn’t being shouted from the heavens.  Granted it’s great for my business to have this kind of study results, but you’d think midwives and doctors would almost be prescribing it too.

So start spreading the word.  Massage during pregnancy has the potential to make labour easier, baby’s happier and gives mum a chance to feel great.

Yes, this is the kind of research I like to hear about.

Enjoy!

Em.

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Preggi brain & mummy brain

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

Hi again.

We’ve all heard about pregnant women putting handbags in the fridge and seeming to be a little bit muddled right?  Apparently this is a myth or so some scientists say.  I personally wonder if they actually interviewed women who were pregnant but that’s another post about research.

What I wanted to tell you about is my brain.  Once upon a time, I was able to remember phone numbers, birthdays, anniversaries, places, events and muscle names.  Then I got pregnant.  Not only was I unable to remember my own phone number and what day it was, I found I couldn’t construct a sentence.  Simple words were lost.  As some people who know me will tell you, I’m verbose.  I talk lots and was a walking thesaurus for a while.  But with pregnancy, I lost my ability to be articulate.  I would also walk out of my office to go to the photocopier and forget what I was doing and where I was going as soon as I stepped through the door.  I also started dropping everything which wasn’t anything new but I was dropping things more often.

It’s been three years since then and I have improved.  Most of my vocabulary has returned, I have some idea what day it is but I still get stuck with remembering things.  I’ll sit down at the computer to look up something or email someone and forget what I was doing.  Muscle names are slowly coming back to me too.

There are many theories why this happens and here’s mine.  It’s exhaustion.  In the first trimester, all you want to do is sleep.  The growing bub is using up your energy.  Second trimester isn’t as bad, but by the time you get to the third trimester, your sleep is disrupted by needing to use the loo or bubs doing the merengue all night.  Once bub’s in born, sleep deprivation is cruel.  Bub’s will wake for a feed, a fresh nappy or cuddle whenever and what ever time it is.  Sometimes hourly.  Your brain is doing it’s best to just keep you functioning to remember what day it is and it’s your cousin’s birthday.  Information you learnt at school gets deleted as baby care takes up the space in your memory.  By the way, if it’s really, truly important, you’ll remember.  Eventually.

So, get the sleep you can, write everything down, keep a diary and if all else fails claim mummy brain.

Em.

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Why am I crying?

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

Hello again,

Today I’ve decided to tell the story of how I came to have PND. 

For those out there who don’t know what PND is it stands for Post (or now Peri) Natal Depression.  It’s a form of depression association with pregnancy and new motherhood.  My doctor described it as an imbalance of hormones, my osteo said it was caused by a combination of sacral (tailbone) misalignment and stress to the spine during active labour.  Other mums say its from extreme sleep deprivation.  I’m sure there are other explanations for the condition and as I’m no expert I can only tell you what I experienced.

I can tell you exactly when my depression started.  It was the 23rd of January 2007 at about 3:30pm.  Precisely the same moment my then doctor (I have since changed and you will soon see why) declared me pregnant.  This was followed by me swearing.  The doctor then asked if it wasn’t my husbands (it better be!!!) and that we hadn’t planned the pregnancy.  Ah well NO!!!  She then raced into why I had to have an ultrasound immediately as I could be anywhere up to 5 months along and we needed to decide if the pregnancy was going to proceed.  Also because I’d had bleeding, this wasn’t a good sign.  WHAT?!

Still reeling from the revelation of being pregnant, the doctor then asks if I’ve been taking pregnancy vitamin supplements.  No I hadn’t.  Apparently I should have been on them for at least a month prior.  She asked if I had had any alcohol or soft cheeses or deli products.  I had and was then told how that could have caused issues with the baby too.

So there I was sitting alone in the doctors office having gone because I was tired all the time and not feeling quite right thinking I probably had glandular fever only to find out I was pregnant and having a guilt trip dumped on me.

In a state of shock, I sat in my car in the car park trying to call hubby.  He wouldn’t answer the phone, kept going to voicemail.  Left a message along the lines of why doesn’t he answer the phone when I really need him.

Start to drive home in tears.

Get home to wait for my parents to arrive from the airport.  Hubby rings.  Wail down the phone that I was pregnant.  He then had to find someone to drive him home.  Was told to keep parents from leaving before he got home.

About an hour after all this my parents arrive to find me sitting on the couch howling.  Tell them I was pregnant.  Mum starts crying, Dad sits down.  The rest of the day is a bit of a blur but the folks stay the night instead of heading straight home.

The next morning, I somehow manage to get in to have my first of many ultrasounds.  Hubby couldn’t attend as he had walked out of work without telling anyone what was going on.  My mum came with me and held my hand.  On the screen was a 10 week old foetus.  10 weeks old.  Um, how did I miss that?  My mum was saying things like, how lucky I am that I didn’t have to worry for the first trimester and how lucky I was not to have any morning sickness, but I wasn’t listening.  I had a printout of my scan and I was freaking out.

I also need to tell you about my family history.  When a pregnancy is discovered, the whole family holds their breaths.  Our track record isn’t great.  So not only did I have the guilt trip from the doc, but I also had a family waiting to see if the pregnancy and I survived.

To cut a long story short.  I spent most of my pregnancy crying and feeling really bad.  But I didn’t tell anyone just how bad I was feeling.

After Little Miss’s difficult birth, I was being watched very carefully by the ward nurses and when I started to see the health centre nurses, I was being monitored closely.  I didn’t really realise this until later.  It wasn’t until I was going to mums group every week and crying that the health nurses sat me down and said it was time I started counselling.  I didn’t think they had noticed just how bad I was.  I was wrong. 

After 18 months of counselling and eventually agreeing to meds, I’m much better.  Still have bad days but not as bad or as long lasting as before.

So the question of whether I would have had pnd if the pregnancy was planned?  Dunno.  Probably but it might have started later.

Thanks for reading this.  Next time I’ll pop some of the recommended ways to start feeling better that I’ve used.

Em.

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