The uninformed patient

Two years ago, October 21st, I gave birth to my beautiful daughter. I truly enjoyed my pregnancy with her, the good, the bad, and the ugly. In some strange way, despite all of the "ugly" that happened during my labor and birth, I enjoyed it as well. The pain was excruciating, but it had a purpose. I was about to meet the most precious gift I had ever received.

Fast forward to today and I still hold onto a lot of the trauma that occurred during my labor and delivery. Some things happened that absolutely should not have happened. One of the midwives who did not know me from Adam acted like an OB instead of a midwife. She didn't seem to care what I wanted and didn't even bother introducing herself to me. It would take a very long blog and maybe even a chapter in a book to explain what all went wrong; the unprofessionalism, lack of knowledge, lack of care. But for right now, I need to get one thing off of my chest about the delivery.

I had a prenatal appointment for my current pregnancy a couple weeks ago. My midwife, one that I really respect and trust and have connected with the most, sat me down to talk about my last delivery and strong desire for a natural birth. She informed me that my firstborn had shoulder dystocia, meaning that her shoulder got stuck under my pubic bone and they were close to having to break her collar bone. This could have caused my child nerve damage, paralysis, or brain damage due to lack of oxygen from being constricted. It all happened so quickly that I had no idea her shoulder was that stuck. The midwife should have told me what had happened while I was in the hospital. I should have known for my own sake, but also to look out for any nerve damage/lack of movement in her arm. But I wasn't informed. My midwife, during the appointment, also needed to let me know that because it happened with my previous child, it is more likely to happen again.

I was heartbroken and I spent the most of the next week or so crying. This was my labor and delivery. This was my body. This was my child. I had the right to know what happened and that it might happen again. Instead I had to wait nearly two years to find out. It makes me sick to think that a medical professional would not take the time to tell her patient what had happened to her and her child.

Exposed

Hi. My name is Danae and I am a perfectionist. I also have pride tied into my perfectionism which is not a very good thing.

Let me start by saying this...

My house is probably only clean clean 1za0% of the time. It's probably mostly clean 50% of the time. (Mostly clean meaning it would take less than an hour to straighten up the entire house.) The rest of the time it's messy.

I can't imagine anyone with a toddler can keep up with their house every day. Even though every single time I have been to a few people with young children's homes, they've been immaculate. They must have cleaning fairies or hire someone. I just don't think it's possible.

So a friend needed to pick up something from me today and I cringed at the thought of her seeing the piles of clothes or the random assortment of who-knows-what scattered across the floor from my toddler. I was just not feeling up to cleaning today after a busy day yesterday and she was at my house within 10 minutes.

I was exposed. Someone besides my husband and toddler saw my house in it's messy state. Once my friend was in the house, I was calm...but the parts leading up to it were incredibly scary for me.

I am not sure why I have this issue. I've always been the type of person who would tell people how I really am when they asked. I don't feel the need to hide emotions by saying "I'm great." If I say it, I probably mean it.

So why do I have this issue with people seeing that I can't always keep a clean house? I don't think anyone else really cares except me.

Apathetic

If you know me at all or you have read my posts, you have probably figured out that I'm pretty high strung. I stress about pretty much everything and anything. And if I run out of things to stress about, I find something else. It's really quite awful and annoying. Lately, it's been worse than usual for no particular reason. Just ask my poor hubby who tries to tell me how ridiculous it is that I stress about the most minuscule things.

Today, for the first time in a long LONG time, I feel apathetic. I don't care that there is a laundry pile, half a couch wide stacked higher than the couch. I don't care that my lovely offspring has pulled apart the drawers in the bathroom or has found toys and has thrown them all over the living room. Or about the pile of styrofoam that used to be in the form of a cup when I gave my child popcorn yesterday. I don't really care that I haven't actually done dishes since yesterday or that it's already 7pm, and I haven't started dinner.

I'm not stressed for the first time in months. It's a beautiful thing.

Now if I could only bottle up this feeling and take a sip whenever I needed it. ;)

This mommy needs a break

I don't want to sound ungrateful. I love my little girl. And she is usually a really good baby. However, monster child keeps appearing and I REALLY don't like it. You know that whiny, everything needs to go my way or I will throw a fit behavior? Yeah... about that. I've tried ignoring, simply telling her that it was bad behavior, raising my voice a little, and the hand smack. Nothing works. She doesn't care. And this sort of constant behavior is enough to make me want to seclude myself on an island for a few days. Or in my case, my bedroom. Or maybe even the bathroom.

Am I the only one who finds the bathroom peaceful? I feel like even if I can just get in there for a minute, I can have complete silence. I guess this is something I never understood until I had a baby. When you're pregnant, the bathroom is sort of a place of comfort; a place to relieve that early nausea, a place to sit and not feel back pain for a few moments. It's where we run every hour or so in the middle of the night to relieve the pressure on our bladder. And it's a place where we can light a candle, listen to music, and not feel pain or pressure as we soak in a tub full of steamy water. You don't really ever think about how much time you spend in the bathroom until after your pregnancy or like me, when you just need those 3 minutes to catch your breath.

My sister stayed with me for a little while and she thought it was insane that I liked being in the bathroom or that I would go there to escape. My hubby still does not understand. But I guess it's one of those things only I have to get.

Do you have a strange place you like to escape to for a few minutes or more? Am I the only one who finds the bathroom peaceful?

I'm in love

CSA

After years upon years of contemplating whether or not to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), I decided it was time. Because of the price, we decided our best bet would be to split a full share with friends of ours.

Even though our farmer keeps telling us, it will get much better, I am SO happy with our decision to join. We are getting a variety of veggies that we eat often and a few that are different.

Can I just tell you that the taste of fresh veggies directly from the farmer is unlike anything I've experienced? I took some of the zucchini, summer squash, garlic scapes, and onion from this week's share, put them in a pan with a little olive oil, and let them do their thing. It didn't need anything else. The veggies were so flavorful and fresh. Mmmmm!

As for our garden...It is sadly filled with weeds that are taller than me; and I'm 5'9". My hubby and I agreed to go to town on it on Sunday. Since we're a part of the CSA, we've decided to only plant things I will can. So we will plant green beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I'm excited, but not looking forward to the weeding part.

Good week

This week, overall, has been surprisingly good; aside from some major back pain and laziness earlier in the week. I found out some great and exciting news from one of my closest friends, and I hit a goal today that I had no idea I'd hit!

I have not been eating very well lately and my workouts have been thrown out the window. Between our trip to New York and then some major back pain, I haven't been able to do much of anything. It stinks, but that is just how it is right now.

So, I begrudgingly decided to step on the scale. And to my surprise, the number had dropped. In fact, I have reached 20 POUNDS of weight loss! I feel like I have reached the other side. I still want to lose about 16 more pounds, but I know now that I can do it! I'm over half way there! I have all the right tools and I know what I need to do to get there. I'm able to make realistic goals for myself and keep off the weight!

The working out and losing weight also offers up a good distraction for other things that are going on... like the changes I talked about in my last post. I don't think I look that much different, but I feel leaps and bounds better than I did before I started losing the extra weight. Yay!

Another reason this week has been so good is because we were able to make another good size payment on my student loans, and after sitting down and doing some calculations I realized that we will definitely be able to pay them off by the end of September. (barring some sort of large and unexpected expense) That's just 3 months away! 3 months until we will be DEBT FREE! (minus the mortgage which we look at as an investment and not debt)

I'm feeling much lighter these days. ;)