Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Day 32: Finding Freedom in the point of No Choice
So here I was, at home, feeding my little baby pretty much every hour during the day… and night. The first three nights were pretty horrid. I was still in a general state of fatigue from the whole hospital happening and not getting much sleep was quite the punch . The exhaustion and pain from the c-section combined reached a stage where I couldn’t keep myself together anymore and had a big cry-out, just from the physical intensity. I then changed my sleeping strategy as it was obviously not working out. I started lying down during the day when he would sleep and changed my approach towards sleeping. Previously I would lay down with the intention to now ‘get some sleep’. What would happen then was that I would be lying in bed and by the time I’m almost asleep Cesar would make noise to announce his next feed and I’d still be tired as no sleeping occurred. I then changed my starting point in lying down, to not be ‘to get some sleep’ – but rather ‘to get some rest’. I would just lay and apply the 4-count breathing method. By the time Cesar announced his next feed, I was immediately up and about and did not experience myself has being worn out and my body actually felt pretty good. It’s like I went to sleep inside my body while my body was still awake. This strategy worked out much better.
Sometimes when there was more than an hour between feeds, I would fall sleep after doing the 4 count breath for a while, and then I would suddenly wake up – and as I wake up and open my eyes, I am immediately here, wide awake and would experience a form of pressure and presence within my chest area – and then a minute later Cesar would wake up for feeding.
While my body was still recuperating from the c-section, I could feel myself getting headaches with every little reaction, every little thought that would come up during the day. Sunette explained that since my body’s resources were all being directed towards healing the cut, there weren’t many resources left to stand as a form of buffer for the mind, which made my body very sensitive to any mind activity which I would feel almost as the reactions happened. She also said that I did not want to experience any particular pain or headache for more than day, as this would mean that the point wasn’t sorted out. So as I spend my days in my room with Cesar and a reaction and discomfort would come up (which was usually something like “WHaaaaat – he’s hungry agaaaain??!!”)– I would apply Self Forgiveness out loud until the pain/discomfort was gone.
So the first few days to a week were very intense physically but at the same time also very cool to see how I was able to direct myself and assist and support myself through this.
Another point that was quite cool, was that with the baby almost constantly needing tending, was that my life was driven to a point of zero-choice. It was as if every moment was determined by the baby – and whether you like it or not, you have to walk every moment as it comes. The days that I centered myself quite effectively were very cool in this regard. It was quite fascinating really, that if you allow yourself to be here and make the decision to walk every moment as it comes and do what needs to be done, then there’s actually an experience of Freedom in the point of No-Choice. Because – here you are, leading a life where you have no choice whatsoever, yet you are able to fully direct who you are within every moment and you fully decide how you are going to experience yourself. So to then in every moment will yourself to be here and simply walk as things unfold – is actually quite enjoyable and some nights I really had a blast, because it’s quite entertaining to see that you can actually be quite fine and ‘normal’ in a somewhat abnormal situation and to see that you can actually go beyond your accepted limitations.
And it’s all in those little moments, where you for instance wake up from a noise and know it’s time for the next feed. Where you can either draw back within yourself, cringe and resist getting up – or – you hear the noise and you get up because it’s the common sensical thing to do. Either way – you’re going to be getting up to feed your baby, there’s no choice in that – what you do have a choice in, is how you’re going to feel about it and how you’re going to experience yourself, and this really, is the only decision that matters.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Day 31: Parenting Dogmas
My previous post was about breastfeeding and my experience with breastfeeding but this should in no way be interpreted in me advocating breastfeeding in contrast to formula-feeding.
Both have their strong points and depending on what situation you find yourself in the one might be a better option than the other. I am in a position where I can and want to breastfeed but I easily could have been in a position where I would have formula fed – it all depends on the context/situation you find yourself in.
In parenting circles there tends to be a strong conviction towards ‘doing everything natural’ (eg. Natural birth, breastfeeding). If you don’t follow this ‘natural’-doctrine you are made to feel like you have failed not only as a mother but as a woman in general. For me breastfeeding was painful in the beginning and then got better, but for some people it doesn’t get better. If I had stayed in pain I would have switched to formula feeding because there’s just no point to compromise yourself to that extent simply so you can keep yourself in alignment with your idea of ‘being natural’. You’d then easily secretly start resenting breastfeeding and back chat about it and every time you feed your child that’s exactly what the child will be picking up on. Not only are you then poisoning yourself with backchat but you will resonantly alter your breast milk which will then adversely affect your baby. In your mission to ‘do good’ you end up accomplishing the reverse. [For more perspective on this point, I suggest listening to Mind, Body and Food – Quantum Systemization] Having and taking care of a baby is a drastic change to one’s life and adapting to this change does not always come easy. To insist to someone who is for example going through post-natal depression to breastfeed the baby, can push them deeper down the deep end. When you opt for formula-feeding, feeding is not tied to the mother exclusively but anyone can feed the baby and thus assist in taking care of the baby. In the beginning a feeding schedule of a newborn baby can be really hectic with little space for resting. It would then make more sense to formula feed as you can spread the load and the baby will not feed as frequently since formula is digested slower. This would then allow more space for the mother to adjust and if she wishes she can always take up breastfeeding later or do a combination for the two or stick to formula. But since the mother is mostly the primary caretaker of the baby, it is of utmost importance that the mother is stable. Insisting on breastfeeding because “it’s best for the baby” while driving a mother mad – is not in the best interest of the baby. It’s only in the best interest of sustaining your conviction.
I for instance opted for a C-section and breastfeeding – and when this was shared with people (especially nurses and doctors), I got a lot of strange looks and faces. They thought it was weird that I had opted for an ‘unnatural birth’ while opting for ‘natural feeding’. As if you either do natural birth and breastfeeding or c-section and formula-feeding. You’re either a ‘natural mom’ or an ‘unnatural mom’. I mean, that’s like a really black and white view on childrearing and parenting.
So that’s just something I wanted to share – it’s not about ‘which one is right’ or ‘which one is wrong’, but for each person to assess in self-honesty what would be best considering both the baby and the mother.
Since my ‘sidenote’ turned out rather lengthy, I will leave this as a blog on its own and continue with my story in the next post.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Day 30: Baby Breastfeeding Delight
Once we got home and drove through the gate, we made our way quickly to the room as Cesar had been showing signs of hunger in the car. I wouldn’t be leaving my room much from that point onwards lol (It took two weeks before I even ventured out of the house!).
The first few days he would sleep a reasonable amount of time during the day (2-3 hour stretches) before he would wake up for a feed. He’d feed for about 30-40 mins. After that he was mostly awake during the day and having quite the appetite. He wanted to eat every hour – this ‘hour’ starts at the beginning of the last feed. So say, that he starts feeding at 12.00 and eats for 20-40 mins, after which I burp him and change his diaper as he likes to poo while feeding – then I have about 15 mins if I am lucky before he is hungry again and have to start the feeding, burping and changing cycle over again. Gian would change his nappies which gave me a few minutes for myself. Afterwards, his sleeping pattern changed to sleeping for an hour if he would fall asleep. I could swear he has his eating and sleeping time swopped around as it seemed that he spent most of his time eating rather than sleeping. The rocking chair became my new home…
I was still taking some pain medication in the beginning. They had given me a bunch of painkillers varying in strength and told me only to take it if I felt I needed it. I mostly used the lowest strength ones to take the edge of the pain from the cut for 2-3 days. Even though I was taking painkillers for my C-section – breastfeeding was hurting like hell. I couldn’t figure out why it was hurting so much. Everywhere I read and was told that ‘if it hurts, it’s because the baby is not latched on correctly’. But he was latched on correctly – and it was still hurting like hell. My nipples were so raw – each time my bra or my clothes would just *slightly* rub against them I would feel a pang of pain. Whenever Cesar would start nursing I would gasp, curl my toes, clench my jaw, sometimes bite down on my free hand and fervently rock the chair not for Cesar - but for me, to distract myself from the pain. It was absolutely horrible.
It came to a point that whenever Cesar would make the slightest sound awake or asleep – that my whole body would shiver in anticipation of the next feed and the next wave of pain. I broke down a few nights, just crying and crying as the pain and exhaustion got the better of me. Some days I wasn’t sure if I could keep up with this and whether I shouldn’t just switch to formula.
I had done some reading while breastfeeding (which became a new habit as I spent lots of time nursing and had enough space left of my breastfeeding pillow for my tablet – yay!) and some women had shared that after two weeks the pain would subside and that one would just have to ‘hang-on’ for the time being. At that point my days and nights consisted mostly of me breastfeeding in excruciating pain and agony – and reading that it would take ‘two weeks’ was like a punch in the face. It sounded like eternity.
Turned out they were right – Cesar had been latched on correctly, and it simply hurt because this was a completely new reality for my nipples. They got utterly destroyed during the first week and a half and then built themselves anew in the last part of the second week. Once they were reborn, breastfeeding had become painless and I stepped out of timelessness back into my regular time sense lol.
Thankfully, during my time of agony the people on the farm had been of great support. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were made for me. On more than one occasion Gian would spoon feed me while I was feeding Cesar lol. The latest gadgets and creams were purchased to alleviate the pain and promote healing and my little trolley next to my rocking chair/glider was stuffed with foods that I could eat for night and day. It was the best of a worst case scenario.
While I had been pregnant, breastfeeding had been one of the points that I had researched the least as I had assumed that it was ‘natural’ and that you just pop your baby on and voila – you’re breastfeeding. Boy was I wrong. There’s all these different techniques and holds and things to be aware of to prevent unfavorable consequences like say oversupply, clogged ducts, infections, thrush,… -- it’s like breastfeeding is a science on its own.
So I played with different holds and ways to be comfortable and got better at it. By the time the pain was gone I was comfortable with the whole procedure.
In my next blog I will go into the sleeping aspect of babyhood (or rather, the lack thereof) and also share some on how my body was being sensitive to my mind in terms of experiencing pain with the slightest reactions that would come up.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Day 29: A Baby is Born
I went to the bathroom to check what happened and change panties when I noticed that there was some blood in my panties and that I was ‘peeing without peeing’ – as fluids were running out without me actively trying to urinate. By now I figured my water broke but the blood point was new to me. All I had heard/read about was clear fluid or fluid that was yellow/green – where the latter would indicate that the baby had passed stools in the womb which would be a sign that the baby was in distress and that we had to move quickly. I went back to the room where Gian had just gotten into bed to go sleep and told him what was happening. From underneath the blanket I hear him take a deep breath in and then a deep breath out as he swung the blanket off of himself and jumped out of bed. Since we both didn’t know what to think of the blood point (should we rush to hospital or do we have some time) we did a quick search on the net and then called our doctor. She told us to go to the hospital as I was going into labour.
A few weeks ago I had done Self-Forgiveness on the various scenario’s the birth could take – placing myself both in the position of ‘how I planned it’ and then placing myself into the position of ‘it happening before the scheduled date’. What was clear from all the reading I had done, is that you could have a plan and a wish for your pregnancy and birth to go a certain way – but in the end your ‘choice’ is really limited and you just have to go with how things progress – which can be unpredictable. From that I learnt that I could have a preference, but that realistically I had to be okay with things not going the way I planned it. So I did Self Forgiveness on my scheduled plan as well as things not happening according to plan, so that in the end, no matter what happened – I knew I would be okay and just walk whichever scenario would take place.
So - as I was hit with the ‘surprise’, I remembered the Self Forgiveness I did and the Self-Corrective Scripts I had laid out for myself. I uploaded the scripts within myself and decided to walk them immediately. It was pretty simple: Walk and Breathe!
The baby bag had been ready but I hadn’t gotten to making my own bag for the hospital yet. I opened the door from my room and yelled out to Maite, saying ‘Now’s the time to come help me make my bag!’.
We got everything together and then I went off to the hospital accompanied by Gian and LJ.
We had already done our pre-admission just the week before so that on the day itself all our information would already be in the system and we could skip this administrative stop. So we went to the front desk, was guided to the maternity section in a wheelchair and was then transferred to a bed and into a hospital gown. It was nice to get out of the wet clothes lol. Once I got into the clothes I was also asked to pee in a little bowl so they could test the urine for protein/pre-eclampsia, which was all fine. The nurses asked whether I was experiencing contractions to which I responded that I didn’t. They then checked if I had started dilating which I did. This was very painful as they stuff their hand up your cervix and then kind of with their fingers check how far you are dilated (AUCH!). There seemed to have been some communication problems because somehow the nurse that ended up tending to me had not been informed by the other staff that I had arranged for a C-section with my OB Gyn, and so she hadn’t contacted my doctor to let her know I had arrived at the hospital and was waiting for me to progress in labour. This meant more checking for dilation (just awful). At some point then the information reached the nurse and then finally things got set in motion. A catheter was now also placed for my bladder (also awful). At first because I wasn’t dilated very far, the doctor had arranged to do the C-section around 6 in the morning. It then got moved to about 4 in the morning as I was progressing rather quick and was at 7 cm dilation by the time we got into theater. The funny thing was that I still hadn’t noticed that I was actually having contractions until they were very close together. The past week I had had such awful backpain that I couldn’t fall asleep at night until eventually exhaustion surpassed the physical pain – which was by the time everyone got up in the morning… Whenever you read about labour and contractions, it’s said that ‘you’ll know’ and ‘oh you’ll notice!’ – but I hadn’t since the pain of the contractions was only a deep discomfort compared the the pain I had been in with my back for the last week.
During my pregnancy I would dread looking forward at the time I would be spending at the hospital as I wasn’t keen on the whole zero-privacy aspect as you get inspected from every side and hole into your body. Though while it was happening it was actually ‘alright’, in that while it was happening I wasn’t making anything out of it which made it just another passing moment. It’s funny how people always say how life is ‘what you make out of it’ – while it’s actually quite in reverse, as it’s not about adding layers/dimensions to a moment as energy experiences but the opposite as not ‘making anything out of it’ and simply experiencing the moment bare, naked – as it is. So simply moving myself to be here with every breath made moments which I had imagined to be really uncomfortable to just be another moment / part of the birthing procedure.
Once in theater everything went pretty quick. The epidural was done which was a bit painful and a strange experience as it started to kick in. Luckily my OB Gyn held my hand and talked to me to distract me while the epidural was being done.
I don’t usually take much medicine or pain medication and it had been a long while since anything ‘major’ had happened to me which has required heavy drugs. So when the epidural kicked in I really had to breathe and stick to being in one breath at a time as I could feel the effects not just go down my rump and legs but also creep upwards a bit towards my lungs which was a very strange experience, and it felt like I really had to be here with every breath to make sure that the breaths took place. It was also a strange experience to have someone cutting into you and have their hands into you without feeling any pain but just a general experience of ‘something messing around’ in there.
They got to the baby pretty quick but had underestimated how big he / his head was and had to really pull the c-section opening open to be able to get him out all the way – which wasn’t a very fun experience either. Even though I couldn’t ‘feel pain’, I could feel my body was being strained and taking a hit.
When Cesar came into my eye sight, screaming and gooey with white stuff as he was just removed from the womb – I for a moment shifted inside myself. This was the first time I was seeing ‘my baby’ and I was not having any particular experience around it. Since I didn’t experience some feeling of ‘connection’ – I for a moment assumed that this meant that I was ‘disconnected’. I was in essence reacting to there not having been a reaction that took place. I could see how I started doubting myself as I started to interpret and analyze the possible ‘meaning’ of there not having been a particular experience and what this would mean for me on road ahead as a parent to Cesar. I then again remembered Self Forgiveness and Self Corrective Statements I had done on this point as it had come up as a slight fear during pregnancy – and I remembered where this trail of thought would lead me if I decided to follow it (into depression) so I immediately disregarded the experience and stopped myself as I wasn’t interested in setting myself up to be depressed and realized that I would be in fact sabotaging my own relationship with Cesar through interpretation and assumption of a single moment – which was frankly quite silly.
Cesar was born on the 30th of October at 05.14 AM weighing 3.51 kg, measuring 48cms and a head circumference of 38 cm.
I focused again on breathing and turned my head as far as I could so I could see Gian with him and see how they were cleaning the baby etc.
When I went over this moment again later on, I realized that no experience came up which resulted in me shifting inside myself, simply because I didn’t have any memories/experiences relating to babies at all, as I had never had any interaction with babies during my life – and in that moment of seeing Cesar, out of my belly – my mind had nothing whatsoever that it could relate to in terms of my recorded history inside myself – and because there was simply nothing there and my system kind of froze – I immediately went into an assumption of self-inadequacy to try and ‘make sense’ of what was going on and have at least ‘some type of meaning’ for the moment that was happening in front of me. So while I did not have a distinct experience – my mind went and made an experience about not having a distinct experience lol and so in the end got to make something out of it anyway. In these type of moments you really get to see the mechanical nature of the mind and how it’s just another operating system working with memory and data files. And it’s interesting to see how such a small moment of ‘malfunction’ where the mind couldn’t immediately match an experience to the picture that was presented in reality, a rift was created which could have real consequential outflows if one were to really go into that point of ‘oh no, I did not experience anything when seeing my baby for the first time – this must mean something – this must say something bad about me’. All the while all that happened was that your system couldn’t match a memory to the present moment and then we go about and make something personal out of it.
Cesar was being checked, cleaned and taken to the nursery while I was being sewn up and having my vitals monitored for a short while after the procedure was over.
I only got to see Cesar later and for only a few seconds. They brought him to me when I was placed in my room to check his sucking reflex on my breast. The moment I confirmed that the reflex was there they grabbed him off of me and took him away with great haste. His blood sugar levels were very low and he was getting cold very quickly so they wanted to keep him in the nursery where they could monitor him closely and keep him warm. This wasn’t a very nice experience but I was so tired and drowsy from the meds that I had to tell myself to just breathe and trust that whatever needed to be done to stabilize him would be done as I could tell I did not have any energy to waste ‘worrying’ and would be better off resting so my body would be a bit more restored when I would see him later. I loved the moments they would bring him to me for nursing and I would just sit there and hold him – even though it was quite painful on my nipples. He wasn’t with me all the time and was being topped up with formula while being in the nursery because my milk supply was low. The pain from the C-section was quite intense for the first three days. The first day was especially though since I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything besides sucking on ice-cubes after the surgery. Once I could eat again I could tell my body was getting into super repair mode and then I recovered quite quickly. The breastfeeding was painful but ‘okay’, which I think the pain meds I was on took the edge off. At some point my nipples started bleeding and then a nurse helped me to get a better latch with Cesar which led to less pain but it was still painful.
Driving to the farm was quite cool, especially as we drove by the fields down the road towards the gate and seeing the awesome environment that he would have the opportunity to grow up in.
In the next blog I will share how my first days were at home with Cesar… Stay tuned :-)
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