I had the big appointment today at the OBGYN to determine if my pregnancy is “viable” or not. Before my appointment I went to the gym to de-stress and kick up my happy endorphins. I hate when you go to the doctor’s office and they call you in right away, and you get undressed, but then you sit there FOREVER- naked, cold, & bored. At least there’s magazines in the waiting room. Well, that’s what happened this time. Because I was nervous to begin with, sitting there doing nothing made it worse. So I started to visualize seeing a heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor, and even tapped the machine and said, “show me good things!” My nervousness was getting the best of me though, so I finally just laid down and sang the song “Dizzy” in my head from the band Ours. That song always does the trick–I was relaxed and happy. The doctor who I like came in and said my blood work from last week looked good, so he’s going to do the ultrasound which will be the final determining factor–I guess the factor of whether it’s a miscarriage or not. I noticed he didn’t turn the monitor towards me in order for me to see the results immediately, which I was grateful for, because I didn’t want to look. He then turned it towards me and said, “We have a baby, and a heartbeat.”  Yay!! I was ecstatic, but as usual I played it off like I didn’t care and said calmly, “oh good.” Inside I was freaking out though! He said I have to get a Dating Ultrasound to determine my due date, since I’m “sizing small,” based on my last menstrual date, but we both acknowledged that it’s because I have a crazy cycle, so I know I got pregnant later than a normal cycle would.

As for my pregnancy symptoms this time around, I do get morning sickness (and evening sickness), but as with my last pregnancy, it’s not too bad. At least not enough that I vomit. I only get nauseous, especially if I have an empty stomach, so once I eat it goes away. I have a “beautiful” pregnancy mask. Ugh. Actually that was one of the reasons I took a pregnancy test to begin with. Nothing like looking like a freak to tell the world you’re pregnant! Haha. I have killer sinus headaches that make me miserable. The other day at the food store I actually had about 10 minutes of blurred vision, which freaked me out a little bit, but once I went outside it was fine (followed by a terrible sinus headache). My blood pressure is really good though, so the doctor said no biggie. I’m already urinating a lot and already have a belly, which is crazy to me. It must be bloating since I think I’m only about 7 1/2 weeks, but it’s weird since I didn’t show at all until I was about 5 months pregnant last time. They say it happens with 2nd pregnancies though. One symptom I DON’T have, which made me nervous about going into this appointment, is breast pain. With my last pregnancy, it was the most obvious symptom to me…but with this one, I have none at all. That’s fine by me. I told my husband the good news, and I started “telling” my 15-month old daughter by pointing to my belly and saying, “there’s a baby in there.” Hopefully she doesn’t start saying the word “baby” and repeating it to her grandparents because I don’t plan on telling them yet.

After about 3 days of being home from the hospital, my daughter would start to cry constantly. Yes, I know that babies do cry and that’s expected, but she would cry inconsolably and nothing would get her to stop except for eating, and then once she was done eating she’d immediately start back up. At first I thought it was because I was still trying to get used to breastfeeding, and that maybe she was just having a growth spurt, which is when babies want to eat non-stop for maybe up to a week. But after the 2nd week of this she still continued to cry and cry and cry. I thought maybe it might be gas pains, because that’s what my mom suggested, and my baby seemed to never burp no matter how much I tried to burp her. So I bought some of those infant gas drops, Mylicon, which other parents I knew swore by. I eagerly put the dose in my baby’s mouth and waited until the heavenly bliss of silence set in. She kept crying. I next tried to do these infant massage techniques that I read about, which are supposed to help babies with gas and to calm them. I did all the famous strokes, such as the “I love you,”  and the “around the clock,” but that only helped during the actual massage. The second I stopped she would start screaming again. Oh let me explain her cry. It wasn’t the normal baby cry like I would hear from other babies. She had this really really loud, piercing cry that you could hear outside and down the street. I’m not exaggerating. Our neighbors were walking outside and they said they could hear the baby from 7 houses down, and we had all the windows closed. This child is LOUD. You can’t even tune her out. We had many names for it: the cat cry (because she sounded like cats do when they fight with each other), the banshee wail, the shriek. And my daughter’s name became, “The Diva.” The nights were horrible. She still didn’t sleep and I had to feed her every 2 hours, so sleep didn’t exist for us. She would just cry all night long.

I wondered if she could be allergic to my breast milk, so I looked online and I read that some babies can be sensitive to certain foods that the mom eats. It seemed that for most people the culprit was dairy products, so I cut that out to see if it made any difference. It didn’t. When I brought her to the doctor for her check-up, I asked about the crying and they said it’s probably gas and that I just have to wait until her digestive system develops more. They gave me a list of foods that I should avoid, which are most likely to cause gas in babies through the breast milk. I actually laughed when they showed me the list. Were they serious? The list had about 40 items, and I think every possible food known to man was on this list. What was I supposed to eat? It seemed very hypocritical to me because they say you should eat healthy when breastfeeding, but the only thing I was allowed to eat was basically meat and pasta. No vegetables, no fruit, not even ketchup. What a joke. Regardless, I tried following it as best as I could, but I didn’t see any difference in my baby’s crying.

What was wrong with my child? I thought maybe this was just how all babies are, since I never had experience with babies before. But after seeing some of our friends’ babies who were born around the same time as ours, I realized that our daughter was definitely different. These other babies were quiet majority of the time, and when they cried from hunger or a dirty diaper they let out this little yelp, which sounded pretty pathetic compared to my daughter. My daughter cried majority of the time, and was quiet for maybe a few moments in the day and that’s all. Her crying times outnumbered her quiet times. I was jealous of the other parents and babies. Not only was I jealous, but I was mad and disappointed, and that made me feel like a crappy person. A year ago I was  trying my hardest to get pregnant and have a baby, and I was given the miracle of actually getting pregnant when I thought I couldn’t, so why was I complaining?! I felt ungrateful and that in turn made me feel even more horrible. Her inconsolable crying would make me cry because I didn’t know how to help her. The worst part was not the crying itself, but the fact that I couldn’t help my daughter with whatever it was that was making her cry. I was a bad parent, even though all my good intentions were there. I thought maybe that I shouldn’t have had her to begin with. Don’t get me wrong…I never wanted to harm her or myself or anything like that, in fact I would have done anything for her to help her, but because I felt so powerless, I thought I might have made the wrong decision in wanting a child so bad. Not to mention I was still really down about not having my natural labor go as planned. Could anything with this pregnancy/baby go right? My parents, in-laws, and friends would try to come over and help, but the baby would scream non-stop for them also. And the only thing that made the situation worse was their “advice,” which was basically everything that I tried already, so I would just get angry. I felt like I couldn’t bring the baby anywhere, and I hated that because our friends would get to bring their babies to restaurants and stores. The few times I tried to go out with her, I got stares from people wondering why I wasn’t doing anything to stop my child from crying. She could go hours without stopping, every day. I believe that her constant crying is what gave me the Baby Blues. I felt so helpless and upset all the time. Motherhood wasn’t fun at all. I actually missed work.

Finally, the doctor said she could be categorized as having Colic, since by their definition, it means crying for 3 hours, at least 3 times a week. And they said there wasn’t anything I could really do except wait for it to end, which usually happens when the baby is around 3-4 months old. This was the point when I started to research colic and what I COULD do to help my baby (and my husband and I) because not doing anything was NOT an option for me.

I was just about 37 weeks pregnant and the baby was still breech. People stopped saying to me that she has plenty of time to turn, because we were running out of time. The doctor mentioned that if the baby was still breech for the next appointment, then he’ll try external version which is when they try to turn the baby from pushing on your stomach (which I hear is pretty painful and doesn’t always work). My hospital doesn’t attempt vaginal births for breech babies. I began to get desperate and didn’t want to play the waiting game any longer so I started to research what I can do. I found a list of a variety of things and I pretty much did ALL of them. The funniest of which were the different physical positions, like laying on your back on the floor with your legs up against the couch sticking straight up in the air (breech tilt). Or getting on all fours and laying your arms and top-half of your body on the ground, so that your butt is sticking up to the highest point possible (cat stretch-ah, how I hope the mailman didn’t see me those days). Or laying on your back with your knees bent and putting 3 huge pillows under your butt (pelvic tilt). Or trying to do this choreographed “crawl” around my entire house on hands and knees (on hardwood floors), which gave me a lovely array of knee bruises.  I also sat on my exercise ball and would rotate my hips around in a circle for about 30 minutes at a time.

The less physical methods included meditation and focused thinking, such as picturing my baby turning; putting an ice pack on my stomach; very light self-massages in a circle motion on my belly. I would shine a flashlight on my belly from up high and slowly move the light down to where the head _should_ be; the idea being that the baby wants to follow the light with its eyes/head. I would sit at work and do this in between my work assignments. I would also do the same thing with tapping my hand, instead of using a flashlight, hoping the baby would follow the noise. My husband would talk to my pelvic area in hopes that the baby would follow the sound. But the method I used the most was playing music from my mp3 player and putting the headphones up to my pelvic area. I found myself using a set mix of about 10 songs, mostly softer-sounding alternative rock-type songs, and a few slow pop songs.  I tended to use higher pitch songs since I heard that babies seem to like high pitched voices. My song list included “Dizzy”, “Meet Me in the Tower”, and “Places” by Ours (these became my “staple” songs throughout my pregnancy), “The Frail” by Nine Inch Nails, most of the “Ok Computer” album by Radiohead, “Angel” and “I Love You” by Sarah McLachlan, “Turn My Head” by Live, “Angel Standing By” by Jewel, and “I Grieve” by Peter Gabriel. I also put some original songs from my husband on my mp3 player, one which included both of us singing, and played them to the baby down low, since she would prefer our voices over anyone else’s. One day I finally got some validation that the baby could hear the music. I didn’t realize that my mp3 player was up on full volume and I started to play a song to her, while holding the earbud down very low in the pelvic area. When the music started (very loudly), I felt the baby jump. I scared her! I felt bad, but then I was elated, because I knew for a fact she could hear. After that day I made sure the volume was on a better level.

I had read that being so far along in my pregnancy, you can feel if and when the baby turns. Some women said they totally felt the baby flip, and that it was the biggest baby movement ever. My baby had always kicked/moved a lot and you could see her moving if you looked at my belly. But during this period of trying to get her to turn, I felt nothing like a huge movement and was convinced that she was still breech when I walked into my Week 38 doctor’s appointment. I was shocked when the doctor felt my belly and said she turned! I don’t know which of the 20 or so methods did it, or if it just happened anyway, but I was thrilled! So to all those women carrying breech babies…don’t give up. And keep trying these methods you hear about, because I am one case where it DID work, so stay positive and get on all 4’s girl! haha.

A few days after I found out that my baby was breech, I had my final Childbirth Preparation Class. I felt a little defeated going into the class since I had spent the last 4 weeks psyching myself up for natural childbirth and practicing my Lamaze techniques, squats, etc. Ironically, the beginning of the lesson was about unplanned issues during labor & delivery and how we always have to be ready to “flip our cards” of what we expect or want. They briefly talked about Breech presentations and asked if anyone knew if their baby was currently breech, so I raised my hand. The instructor could tell I was disappointed, and she tried to make me feel better by telling me more about laboring positions that can sometimes help turn the baby during delivery. I didn’t want to stay breech up until delivery though…I was hoping to flip my baby around before that point.

The second half of the class covered the topic that all Middle School and High School students dread most in Health class: the delivery video. Only this was worse because back then you just said to yourself you’re NEVER having kids. Now the issue becomes real and you know you’re indeed having a baby and that everything you see in that video might just happen to you. Yes I did want my delivery to be natural (which was the case for a few women in the video), but what made watching it unbearable wasn’t the look of pain on their faces, or the graphic nature of the video…..it was watching the video WITH my husband. I don’t think I’ve ever been more embarrassed. There were about 10 other couples in the class, and only my husband was the one to squeal like a little girl, gasp loudly, make jerky movements, and physically cover his eyes with his hands. You would have thought we WERE in Middle School. The rest of the class couldn’t stop laughing at him. There was even a point when he kept repeating like a chant, “omg, omg, omg,” and he stood up and paced around his chair! Ah..I remember thinking that if this is foreshadowing to what the big day was going to be like, then I was in trouble. What a good coach, huh?

The time had come for my follow-up appointment at the ultrasound place to get a second look at the baby’s heart, since they couldn’t get good pictures last time due to the baby’s curled up position. I was happy I’d at least get to see another picture of my baby and hopefully get a confirmation that the baby is indeed a girl–especially because everyone said it looked like I was having a boy since I was carrying so small and in front. I have to admit, I looked pretty good pregnant. No one could even tell I was pregnant unless I turned so they could see my profile. I was still hitting the gym 3 times a week, but just doing mild exercises.

I was now 7 1/2 months pregnant, and at the appointment I saw that the baby had grown a lot since the 20 week ultrasound. In fact you couldn’t even see the baby that well anymore because whereas before you could see the entire profile of the baby’s body, now you can only see certain parts of the baby very close up. I asked the tech if the baby still looks like a girl, and she said yes, so that made me feel a lot better since a lot of people got me “girl” clothes. This is the same tech I had for the past 3 visits, and I really like her a lot.  She got the heart pictures she needed, and I asked what certain pictures on the monitor were of, because I sure couldn’t tell (being that they were zoomed in so close). She then zoomed in on the face and switched the machine from 3D to 4D and WOW..there was my baby! It was wild how clear (and freaky) the 4D pictures were. She printed them out for me and told me not to tell anyone since they’re not supposed to use the 4D feature. I know that some people pay big money for 4D ultrasounds, so I thought it was really nice of her to do that for me as a courtesy. When I got a chance to really look at the 4D pictures I got a little nervous. The baby looked weird! The tech explained that shadows occur on the pictures which can distort things, but man, I was getting scared that my baby was going to look like an alien. The nose looked huge, the chin looked too small and almost like the jaw was missing…I was beginning to regret seeing these pictures at all! In the back of my mind I tried to reassure myself that the tech and doctors never said anything about the baby missing her chin or anything, so I guess everything was ok, but I was still a little nervous. Great; another thing that made me feel like a bad mom already: being worried about my baby’s appearance. Isn’t there ever a time when a woman can just relax during pregnancy and not be paranoid about something?

The biggest shock of all during the ultrasound was when the tech told me that the baby was currently in a breech position. Even though she was head down (vertex) about 10 weeks earlier, she was now breech. She said not to worry since there is still time for her to turn, but that I may want to consider different delivery options with my doctor. Oh no, add another thing to worry about during this pregnancy. To make matters worse, I had just sealed in my mind that I was going to have an all-natural labor. If the baby didn’t turn by my delivery, I would have to have a C-section, which I did NOT want. It was time to do what I do best: research like crazy for answers and try to turn this baby around!

My husband and I began taking Childbirth Preparation classes, aka Lamaze, which were once a week for 4 weeks. I didn’t know much about what to expect from labor except for pain, so I felt this class was pretty important to educate myself so that I’d be better prepared. On the first day of class they asked how many of us wanted a natural, drug-free, labor- I didn’t raise my hand. I didn’t know what I wanted at the time and that was part of the reason I took the class. The first class involved a lot of physical stuff like stretching and the breathing exercises that you see all the time. They also showed us different labor positions you could do, some of which are better for back pain, to speed up labor, to slow down labor, to turn a baby, etc. The second class was about our expectations about childbirth. We had to play this game, kind of like the Newleywed Game, where you see how you and the baby’s dad’s answers matched up.  One of the questions asked what would be the first song that mom sings to the baby. My husband got this correct- “Dizzy” by Ours. It’s not a baby-related song at all, depressing actually, but the music from it kind of sounds like a lullaby. Another question asked how long mom would be in labor. My husband said Two Hours. The instructors cracked up. Oh, did he have a lot to learn! 

 The class also started to talk about the different medications that are used for pain relief, inductions, and emergencies. THIS was an eye-opening class for me. I had no idea all the side effects that these drugs could cause, and how they can affect the baby during the process. I was especially concerned about the ever-so-popular labor inducing drug, Pitocin, or as I like to call it, “the Devil drug.”  I personally know at least 4 women who have been induced, only to wind up needing a C-section because of the baby’s heart rate dropping from the drug. No thank you. If I could control or prevent the chance of something bad happening to the baby, you bet I would do everything in my power to prevent it. By the time the class was over, I was convinced that I was going to have a Natural Labor. No epidural, no pain relief drugs, just breathing, meditating, focusing, and of course music. My friends laughed at me, my family didn’t understand me, and they both didn’t believe me. I’m a very headstrong person, so the fact that I felt like I was being mocked made me even more determined to have a natural birth. Who are these people to judge me? Who are they to say I can’t take the pain? I have always had a very high pain tolerance. I think it may have happened from years of dealing with severe migraines since I was 14. They would be horrible and I couldn’t open my eyes or walk when I had one, but eventually I got to the point where I hated having to depend on medicine to make me feel better, so I just stopped taking them. It was agonizing, but it made me feel like a stronger person. This is horrible, but I think it made me also start to view people who needed pain medicine as “weak,”  and this now included needing drugs for childbirth. So people laughing in my face and telling me there was no way I could go drug-free during labor pissed me off royally. Game’s on.

It was time to get the anatomical ultrasound where they check to see if everything looks ok so far, and to see if they can tell the sex of the baby. I definitely wanted to find out what I was having. When I was in college I used to think that IF I were to have kids, I’d want a boy. But now I wanted a girl more. I’m not sure why; I think I could just envision a little girl running around my house more than a little boy. Like most men, my husband seemed to want a boy more. He’s the total “anti-jock,” so it wasn’t about sports or anything. He pictured teaching his little boy how to play guitar, computer stuff, and other random things. But I just FELT like I was carrying a girl and I told him this to prepare him, just in case I was right.

The appointment day came. I was actually pretty nervous about the test because I wanted to make sure everything was ok, so I wasn’t really thinking about the baby’s sex that much.  Plus, I didn’t have too much faith in the results being correct anyway. I have a friend who had multiple ultrasounds and they all told her she was having a girl. So EVERYTHING was pink at her baby shower- bassinet, clothes, quilts, etc. Delivery day came and out came a boy! She was doing returns for months after that. So I went into the ultrasound thinking that if they say “boy,” then I’m having a boy. If they say “girl,” then I’m having a girl or boy. During my ultrasound everything looked good and the baby was in a head-down position, so I was very relieved. After you have a miscarriage and after trying for so long to get pregnant you tend to get a little paranoid about everything. I was like this my whole pregnancy. In fact, I didn’t tell any of my family I was pregnant until I was almost 4 months along, just in case something went wrong. I didn’t tell my job until I was 5 months pregnant (I was barely showing so I got away with it).

Now that the anatomy stuff was out of the way, it was time to find out the baby’s sex. The technician said my baby was in a curled position so she couldn’t get a good view. She kept jiggling my belly around, had me turn to my side, etc. Finally she said, “Girl!”  I looked at my husband and laughed. Could this be my first case of “mother’s intuition?”  Maybe! I asked the tech how sure she was that it was a girl. She explained that there were 3 dots, and that means it’s a girl. I still was hesitant though, so when I told my friends/family that I was having a girl, I told them that I would prefer gender-neutral items because the baby’s position wasn’t ideal. (Did I get neutral items at my shower a few months later? Nope. No one listened and gave me dresses, pinks, etc). When I went to my next doctor’s appointment, they went over the ultrasound results with me in more detail. The doctor said that the ultrasound place recommends a follow up scan in a month because they couldn’t get good pictures of the baby’s heart, due to the baby’s position. I immediately got really nervous, but the doctor told me it’s only because of the position so they just want to double check. Since my insurance was going to cover it, I made the appointment for a month later and tried to relax and focus on the fact that at least I’ll get a 2nd opinion on the baby’s sex!

It was time for my appointment at the fertility specialist to see what they could do about my blocked fallopian tubes. I was nervous, but excited because I read a lot about this specialist and how he does non-surgical clearing of the tubes. Plus, I was going to a concert in Hoboken that night, so I was feeling pretty good. At the appointment they did more tests, blood work, ultrasounds, and he said that when my time of the month came (which was due in a week), I had to come in to get another Hysterosalpingogram (HSG). As I was leaving he said I was sitting in the “lucky chair,” aka the pregnancy chair, so that made me smile. I went to the concert that night and felt awesome. I had good vibes about this doctor, the vocals at the show were amazing, and I had my two best friends with me which put me in even a better mood.

And then the waiting game began. Why is it that when you’re trying to get pregnant you always hope that your time of the month never comes, and when you’re anxiously awaiting for it to come, it takes its sweet old time? I was hoping for it to show up quickly because I wanted to get this HSG and start the process of fixing me. (If this were a movie, I’d totally put in Coldplay’s “Fix You” right here.) I was now 2 weeks overdue, but that didn’t concern me because for the past year my cycle was totally messed up. You see, from using ovulation tests the past 6 months, I discovered that I ovulate late (around Day 20 instead of Day 14) and I even totally skipped a period 2 months before this time.  So I’m thinking, “Great..I’m anxious to try to get pregnant, and my cycle decides to skip another month NOW. Right when I’m trying to get this HSG done. Just wonderful.”  Some of my coworkers were planning on going out for Happy Hour one Friday after work, and I couldn’t wait to go and get hammered because I was so stressed from all the stuff going on. That Friday morning when I was getting ready for work, I thought that since I was planning on drinking a lot, maybe I’ll just take a quick pregnancy test so that I didn’t feel the slightest bit hesitant or guilty for getting wasted (nice, right?). Besides, I had plenty of tests laying around, so I might as well waste one for peace of mind.  So I took the test, jumped into the shower, totally forgot about the test (this happens when you’re used to taking tests just about every month for almost a year), got dressed, and then remembered about the test. I glanced at the test quickly, about to throw it out, and literally gasped out loud, because it was positive!  What the??? I remember thinking HOW is this possible?? I have TWO blocked fallopian tubes!! I was excited and happy, yet also doubtful and wary because the last time I had a positive test telling me I was pregnant, I soon had a miscarriage.

A week later, the specialist confirmed I was pregnant and everything looked good, and said that I could go back to my regular OBGYN because I didn’t need him since he didn’t do anything. I had later found out that the HSG itself can sometimes clear blockages, even if it doesn’t clear during the procedure. I guess for me the tubes cleared a few days later on their own. Or I like to think it was a combo of the HSG, my massages, my music, and my positive thinking. I was ecstatic to find out that I really was pregnant, and one of my first thoughts was how my unborn baby already went to its first concert, even if it was only 3 weeks old at the time.  Hey, they say you’re never too young for music.

I’m a 31 year old married woman who recently became a mom. When I was in my early 20’s I swore that I never wanted to have kids, even though I was dating my current husband and knew I would marry him. I was going to be that hot, young career woman who is independent and self-sufficient, and would spend my free time doing what I love most: going to concerts. Music is not just an interest of mine–it’s a passion. Specifically, I love alternative rock music, if that term is even still around. Whereas most people leave a show feeling pretty happy that they got their money’s worth and start thinking about their drive home, traffic, work the next day…I feel a great sense of sadness, even if the show was amazing. It’s a feeling of loss because what I love most has now ended. For those 2 hours or so it’s like I’m put in a different world and become part of something huge, and everyone in the crowd is along for the ride with me. Being a Scorpio, when I find something I like I become very loyal to it (ahem-obsessed), and that goes for bands also. No, I’m not a groupie, but people like to call me that when they want to annoy me. I guess you can say I’ve formed a few acquaintances with some of the musicians I admire, but that’s it, and that’s how it’s gonna stay. It’s honestly all about the music and nothing else. People who aren’t music lovers can’t understand that. I could do a whole separate blog about my experiences backstage, but for now I’m going to try to focus more on how the music and bands I love have influenced my pregnancy and my daughter, who is now 3 months old.