Thursday, September 20, 2007

Birth #2: Welcome! Welcome! Little One!

This morning at 1:12 am, my second doula client gave birth. The labor was very fast. I got to the hospital at 11:50 pm. Mom was having steady contractions and wanted the epidural.

I could tell that the contractions were very intense and very close together and mom was showing signs that she was in transition. I thought it might be wise to check mom before administering the epidural to see how close we were to pushing. I asked mom what she thought of the idea and when she asked the nurse, the nurse said that they would check again in a few hours but there was no need for that right now! I wanted to shout, "In a few hours, there won't be a need to check because she'll be busy breastfeeding!!" I could feel that this baby was coming fast.

As the anesthesiologist was prepping for the epidural, the nurse was moving the external monitor around on mom's tummy trying to find the heartbeat and I noticed the baby's head between mom's legs. I did my best not to sound like a smarty-pants and just mentioned that it looked like the baby might be arriving. A few minutes later a beautiful, healthy little boy was born.

I'll post pictures once they're available.

Community College, Improv, In-Laws, and Worms!

I have all sorts of excuses for not posting recently. I am extremely busy!

I’m taking classes at Santa Monica College in an effort to fulfill prerequisites to apply to midwifery schools next fall. I am currently taking Human Growth and Development and Nutrition. The Human Growth and Development course is extremely interesting. I wasn’t sure how interested I would be in the topic, but the teacher is very nice and I find that the topic has been of interest to me for a long time, I just didn’t know what it was called. What a nice discovery. The nutrition class will start in a few weeks so I’m getting ready for things to get even busier. I know that I can handle it. Also, I considered taking an anatomy class but then I realized that I would be taking 10 hours of class while working 40 hrs/week, attending births, and working Doula and Childbirth Educator Certification. That’s just too much so I’m waiting to take anatomy until next semester when I will hopefully be able to work less and study more.

As well as taking classes at the community college, Rollo has persuaded me to enroll in an improv class at Bang! Studio. I’m having a really great time. I’m a very playful personal in my everyday life and I love to joke and talk to people. To me, improv class is just a chance for me to play with people who have no choice but to play along. I thought I would just take the one class and then be done with it but I’m hooked and I think that I’ll continue on through the courses and go all the way to the performances. Wanna see a doula do improv? Mark your calendars for late next summer and you might just get a chance.

Along with all of this busy-ness, my in-laws are coming to visit next week. They are lovely people and I always enjoy their visits but with everything that’s going on, certain standards around the house have slipped. So, I am spending all of my free time trying to get the apartment ready so that we can at least pretend that we don’t live in squalor for the week they are visiting. The exercise has been very good for me and I’m slowly accumulating items to have a little yard sale sometime in October or early November, I just have to find a place to put all of the crap while my in-laws are here.

Rollo and I are trying to be more environmentally conscious and our most recent project is vermicomposting. We are already avid recyclers and pretty good about not wasting things. We take our own grocery bags to the store, we try to reuse things when possible instead of busying new, etc. Finally, we have decided to try our hands at composting with worms. I put in the order for the worms today and we will build our little worm hotel this weekend. I’ll post photos and information once the project gets started. I don’t really like worms but I hate to waste, so I think that I can learn to love having worms on my patio if cuts down on our household waste.

I hope that you are well and that you are happy. I promise that as I get used to my new fast-paced schedule, I will get better at posting.