General complaining and stewing

[velvetpage]

I ate crap all day yesterday and paid for it in the evening and all night long - not enough to keep me awake, but more than enough to make sleep slightly uncomfortable and to delay it an hour past when i went to bed. So today's diet is going to be much, much improved, starting with the glass of milk currently sitting next to the keyboard.

V for Vendetta was an excellent film, but I'm getting to the point where certain things trigger a response out of all proportion to their importance in the movie itself. I know from experience that this only gets worse. In a few weeks, I won't be able to read the newspaper at all in case I see stories about kids getting hurt. Right now I can still read that stuff, but it stays with me longer and affects me more deeply than it used to. The triggers in the movie: a father throwing a baby picture of his daughter in the garbage; a little girl of perhaps eight or nine, getting shot; the little girl watching from under the bed as her mother is arrested brutally. When I'm not in full hormonal mode, these things will increase the impact of the movie, and then I'll go home and put them out of my head. I'm at the point where I can't do that anymore, so it's time to stop watching movies that are designed to provoke that kind of reaction. That's most of them. I think I'm moving on to rereads of books I know won't have that effect, for my entertainment over the next few months.

I'm still stewing over the scheduled section thing, and I really, really hate that I found out about it late on a Friday afternoon. I've decided that there's exactly one question I need answered before I tell them to take their elective c-section and stuff it where the sun don't shine (or rather, give it to someone else who wants it:) if my labour pattern should be similar to what it was with Elizabeth - broken water, no labour, induction, failure to progress, c-section - are my risks for uterine rupture any higher on the 18th than they would be on the 8th, given the exact same events? If the answer is no, or only a tiny bit, then I don't want the elective c-section. I'll wait till I go into labour, as eventually I will, and take it from there. The ob/gyn will not be impressed, but that's okay by me. She's a surgeon. All she has to do is cut me open and sew me back up. She doesn't have to watch me/help me as I am unable to lift car seats, strollers, and preschoolers for the six weeks following.

I also need to know if my midwife will support that decision, but I think she will. If I had wanted an elective c-section on or around my due date, I would have been seeing an ob/gyn from the outset. My midwife told me all the risks back in the winter, and I accepted them and opted for the trial of labour anyway.

Oh, there is one other question I want to have answered: what percentage of uterine ruptures during VBAC lead to loss of fertility? My understanding is that it's a very small risk - most of the time, if I'm labouring in hospital, they'll be able to patch me up sufficiently to have another child if I want one - and that's if the VBAC doesn't work to begin with. But I want some hard numbers.

I'm going to see if I can get another half hour's sleep on the couch before Elizabeth wakes up.

Comments

[catarzyna.livejournal.com]

I ate crap all day yesterday and paid for it in the evening and all night long - not enough to keep me awake, but more than enough to make sleep slightly uncomfortable and to delay it an hour past when i went to bed. So today's diet is going to be much, much improved, starting with the glass of milk currently sitting next to the keyboard.

Sometimes you have to eat the wrong things to remember why you eat the right ones.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Too much cola, too much caffeine, not enough (in fact, almost no) veggies or fruits - bad idea. It could have been worse, though. In a few weeks, that much caffeine will give me more than a fussy digestive tract, it'll also give me a fussy baby. It's amazing how many new moms never make the connection between their baby's fussiness and their own caffeine consumption, but it's one of the things that has a profound and immediate impact on breastmilk.

[catarzyna.livejournal.com]

I personally do not handle caffeine well so if/when I have child(ren) I won't have any trouble giving it up. I drink next to none now! I drink decaf black teas, which have very small amounts of caffeine in them.

http://www.stashtea.com/caffeine.htm

If I do have caffeine and it hits me in a good way the house will be very clean or I'll get a lot of crochet done!;-)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Throughout my pregnancy, I've been limiting myself to two cups of black tea per day - a total of less than 100 mg of caffeine, well under the 300 mg suggested limit for pregnancy. I often had more on gaming days because I would have a glass or two of pop, but that was about it. Yesterday I actually went over the limit, and the rest of my diet was just as bad.

I will be buying decaf tea in the next week or two, and I'll go back to my one-cup-a-day limit on regular tea - right after the first morning nursing session, probably, since that's when I need it most and when my milk supply will be at its best and therefore least affected by it. No pop for the next several months - it's not worth the fussiness.

Oh, and if you hear a new mom complaining about her breastfed baby's fussiness, ask her how much caffeine she's getting, and how much chocolate. That information didn't show up frequently in the breastfeeding support pamphlets I read, but I found it to be the single biggest factor in how happy my baby was. (The days right after Mother's Day that year were tough - it wasn't until Tuesday that my mom asked if Piet had gotten me chocolates for a gift, and we figured out what was up.)

[catarzyna.livejournal.com]

Have you tried decaf pop? I know you might skip the diet variety but I usually drink diet decaf soda/pop when I get a serious craving. It satisfies my brain because I feel like I've had soda/pop but I don't suffer the ill effects from it.

Oh, and if you hear a new mom complaining about her breastfed baby's fussiness, ask her how much caffeine she's getting, and how much chocolate. That information didn't show up frequently in the breastfeeding support pamphlets I read, but I found it to be the single biggest factor in how happy my baby was. (The days right after Mother's Day that year were tough - it wasn't until Tuesday that my mom asked if Piet had gotten me chocolates for a gift, and we figured out what was up.)

Will do!

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

At the time of day when I'm drinking pop, I need a bit of caffeine, so I don't usually. Also, it's hard to find caffeine-free pop that isn't also diet, especially of discount brands. Grocery stores sometimes have it, convenience stores almost never do. I think I'd rather just go without for a few months for the most part. I drink Sprite sometimes as an alternative to the caffeinated colas, and that satisfies my craving for fizz.