Groaning Cheese: The Most Awesome Baby Present Ever

For the birth of Baby Woww, my friend Caitlin got all old school on me and aged a wheel of cheddar cheese.

That’s right! She made Baby Woww a wheel of cheese basically out of thin air (which is what I call it when cheese appears in your kitchen without cellophane and a price-per-pound sticker).

Caitlin is amazing: She drew up plans and made a cheese press for apartment use. She experiments with mozzarella and camembert and all kinds of arcane varieties of the good stuff. She considers ricotta elementary.

You can read about her adventures over at Milk’s Leap.

Due to Caitlin’s cheese awesomeness I conveniently overlook the fact that she loves the University of Oregon (Boo! Booooo!! Go Beavs!!). Plus, before she became a Duck in grad school she was my undergrad roommate.

Given the choice, I would always rather live with Caitlin than alone. She’s that good. We’ll overlook a questionable goldfish suicide incident and just mention her awesomeness in the areas of literature, architecture, and fromage. Particularly fromage.

[Here are the contents of the box she sent for Baby Woww (ignore the duck).]

Caitlin discovered this Medieval-era tradition of making Groaning Cheese for pregnant women. Basically, this particular cheddar has the same gestation period as a baby. And after delivering her baby, an exhausted mother would be thrilled to have some food around to feed her guests (and herself!).

The cheese was eaten from the inside out to leave only the rind, which the baby would be passed through for good luck. Baby Woww was too big for that, but…

Baby Woww is now officially baptized by cheese (which is something I know a lot of my foodie friends will think is really freakin’ cool!).

Plus this cheese was good. Really, really good. We made it into part of some lovely antipastos, created delicious and melty dijon-grilled-cheese sandwiches, and even used it to add some class to beans and rice.

As K-Pants would say, “Deeeeeeenummy!” Thank you, Caitlin!

Practical Tips for Drug-free Childbirth

A couple of weeks ago I told the story of Baby Woww’s drug-free birth. As I was getting prepared for labor, I searched for blogs and stories from women who had gone all the way with no drugs. There are lots of great stories out there, but not too many practical tips and clickable links for natural childbirth that weren’t associated with signing up for a class. I didn’t have time for that!

Here’s what I did to get prepared, and I would recommend these things to anyone trying to do a labor with no drugs. Even if you decide to have pain interventions (no shame in that–I did the first time around!), these techniques can still help.

Read Hypnobirthing by Marie Mongan. This book has relaxation strategies and breathing exercises that I used practically the whole time in labor (unlike the random techniques from the catch-all hospital birthing class we did with K-Pants). Mongan’s big focus is bringing you out of the fear-stress-pain cycle and getting your endorphins up. Sounds good, right?

I really liked her affirmations and deep breathing techniques. She tries to get you to sign up for hypnobirthing classes the whole time, but if you waited too long like I did, you’ll still find the book on its own really helpful. For more info on hypnobirthing, try these sites:

Hypnobirthing

Hypnobabies

Read hypnobirthing, hypnobabies, and natural birth blogs. Reading other women’s experiences with drug-free childbirth gave me confidence that I didn’t have to be an Amazon woman or a yogi to do it. My nurse said to me as I was going through contractions, “You must have a really high pain threshold.” My husband can attest that this is not the case. (Stubbed toe? Illness? I’m the one complaining the loudest.) So I loved hearing other people’s stories as an affirmation that real women who aren’t superhuman can have kids with no drugs.

I especially liked the Enjoy Birth blog, and its author Sheridan has a free downloadable book and newsletter.

Download relaxation audio. I liked hypnotist Andrew Johnson’s pregnancy and pain relief apps that I got from iTunes. I used them at night before I went to bed, and then alternated them with the hypnobirthing techniques during labor. Andrew has a lovely Scottish accent that adds to the appeal. I also downloaded Pacific Ocean wave sounds because the beach is my favorite place. (Bonus: the wave sounds are great as white noise for Baby Woww.)

Use a good midwife or supportive practitioner. After we moved from the Bronx, I happened upon a great OB/GYN practice that has a group of midwives who practice alongside them. I had a midwife for my care with Baby Woww, and it was wonderful! My midwife for labor (YES, it was the milkshake midwife) was great at suggesting different positions and even getting me into the jacuzzi. Since I was trying to go without drugs, the midwife allowed me to eat breakfast and lunch before my intense labor phase started. Having food and water was soooo helpful! This girl needs to eat!

In Oregon? You might try looking for a midwife through the Oregon Midwifery site.

Think about getting a doula. You certainly don’t need a doula–someone whose job is to support you through labor–but they can be really wonderful. My husband and I used a doula with our first baby because we figured neither one of us had done this before, and we wanted someone around who had. The second time we felt more confident and didn’t use a doula. If you are in Oregon, the Oregon Midwifery website has a doulas section.

Work consciously on your fears. I don’t know about you, but I was afraid before labor. Labor is completely unpredictable and hard to fathom. It would be much easier if a stork actually did bring your baby. Marie Mongan talks about fear quite a bit in Hypnobirthing. I also talked with my midwives, my husband, and worked a lot of visualizations of a positive birth experience into my nighttime relaxation time.

Treat your preparation for labor like training for a marathon. With K-Pants, I felt like birth was pretty much just what happened at the end of pregnancy. I thought that my healthy lifestyle and positive attitude would be all that I needed. Well lifestyle and attitude aren’t enough to get you ready for 26.2 miles, and they probably won’t do it for birth either.

I needed to actually do some training. Nighttime before bed was my chance to practice different techniques and visualizations. This practice time allowed me to actually remember the techniques I was comfortable with during labor. (I pretty much forgot all the information on my handouts when I was in labor with K-Pants!)

Good luck, moms! May God/The Force/The Universe be with you!

***

Experienced moms, please share techniques that have helped calm and soothe you in labor! Your birth definitely didn’t have to be drug-free to be a positive experience. What worked for you? What blogs and material have you found helpful?

A Birth Story (No Drugs, No Furbies)

Having a baby is unpredictable, which is pretty cool, if not totally nerve-racking.

There aren’t too many things in our lives that are truly unpredictable. No matter what, there’s mystery in childbirth: How much will the baby weigh? What will she look like? Will he be healthy?

Not to mention the labor. I’ve found that no matter how “prepared” you are, it still seems impossible that you will come out of delivery with a little human being. It’s more likely you’ll leave with a monkey or a bag or marbles or four little mechanized stuffed animals.

But then there he is: Baby Woww!*

*K-Pants can’t say the baby’s name so he calls him Baby WOWWWWW, and I think we’ll stick with that, though I was personally torn between L-Socks, Lil’ Fuss, and Le Milkshake.

o

I delivered Baby Woww with no drugs, which was a totally awesome experience (the oxytocin-fueled amnesia is already kicking in). With K-Pants I got an epidural at eight centimeters–my overall calm had just left on a motorcycle and I was about to eat off my husband’s shoulder.

But K-Pants’s delivery left me with doubts: Could I have gone all the way?

I wanted to see.

My first labor was less than twelve hours so I knew I had a fighting chance with number two: likelihood was low that it would be long. And I was serious about getting ready: reading, prayer, tons of exercise and stretching, and envisioning the experience.

A week before labor started I was at three centimeters, and by the time labor started in earnest, I was at five. With that head start it took just under five hours to get Baby Woww into the world.

Now if you talk to Jessica Alba or Gisele Bündchen, you’ll hear that drug-free childbirth is very zen, pretty much like yoga. I think they did more preparation than me. Also, they are famous. But I try not to beat myself up–I mean you are pushing a baby out, so it’s hard for that to feel like yoga the whole time.

However, I did maintain quite a bit of calm with the help of my support team (I’m not sure how long the calm lasted because labor is a time warp–it could have been twelve minutes or four hours).

There was one point toward the end when my mind tried to bail on my body. Here’s how that went down:

Mind: Hey! Body! Can we be done now? I’ve definitely had enough.

Body: WHAT DID YOU SAY?

Mind: I said, we’re done. That’s enough. I tried.

Body: That’s nice, but YOU ARE ALONG. FOR. THE. RIDE.

Mind: No. I make the decisions! And I might get the anesthesiol…

Body: OMFG! SHUT UP: WE’RE PUSHING A BABY OUT HERE!!!

Mind: Are you sure it’s maybe not Furbies…?

By this point my course was already charted: this baby was coming. From my vantage point three weeks later, it’s nice to know that sometimes things just have to get done, and your mind will move aside.

The biggest difference this time around when the baby came was the sheer fact he was here. I was afraid that the last stage of labor would go on…and on…and on. But no! Eventually something has to give. A real baby arrived. And he started nursing right away.

Welcome to the world Baby Woww!

***

Furbies courtesy of Tumblr.

Oh Baby, Baby!

It’s a wild ride over in the Momsicle household right now because guess what came last Monday?

Daddy is already back at work, the toddler is getting molars, and Mommy looks like this most of the time.

Each day is baptism by chaos (today the car battery died, but mercifully we were right next to Burgerville).

Yet we feel incredibly blessed by our growing family and the new addition. Thank you to family, friends, and readers for your amazing support! Especially family. You’ve saved us.

There’s a lot I’m excited to write about but it might come in the form of a few choppy sentences and some strange photos over the next few weeks. Please stay with us, and help think of a blog name for little brother.