The Memory of My C-Section

I agree with home birth and advocate for it although I have never given birth at home. My husband and I had planned to have a home birth with our first and only child. Until 38 weeks of gestation, that was our plan. The baby, however, had other ideas. Breech was not what I had in mind but that was the position of our little girl when the midwives checked me at 38 weeks. She remained in a breech position up until 40 weeks, at which point we had a c-section planned and completed. The midwives and OB consulted each other and recommended a planned c-section without labor so as to eliminate the possibility of an emergency c-section which would be more rough on my body and Ruth’s body.

I mourned the loss of an all natural birth the night prior with many tears. The preparation for the surgery beforehand was easier than I had anticipated then the first cut into me was felt. I was shocked. Should I be feeling this? It felt like someone’s fingernail sliding across my lower abdomen with a deep intensity. Pressure and movement could be felt but it was all with dull pains. However, surgery became a nightmare once our baby was removed from me. I felt severe cramps and shooting pain and wondered if the drugs from the spinal were beginning to wear off. I asked Lawson what the doctor was doing to me and he stood up to look briefly. “It looks like he is taking out your uterus and and doing something to it.” My uterus?! I did not know that this happened during every c-section and was a routine part of the surgery. I made a mental note to research what happens during a c-section once I got home.

I told Lawson to walk over to the bassinet to see Ruth and he did. He came back with her in his arms. He attempted to show her to me but I did not want to look at the baby or anyone. It seemed like the duration of the “sewing me up” time took 10 years with all the pain I was experiencing. The anesthesiologist had no idea I was in such pain. I asked her if it was normal that I feel cramps during the surgery and her voice faded away as she walked away to consult with someone. It took all I had to breathe and try to visualize myself in a happy place to help with the agonizing pain. I said over and over again in my head; “Oh God, help me!” I wondered if the pain I was experiencing was like anything women had when they gave birth without pain medication.

Tears came to my eyes. I thought; “At least women having babies drug free can move around. I cannot even move. I am strapped tight to this table and cannot escape.”

Relief flooded into me when I realized they were finished. I was never so happy as to see my room again once I was wheeled in. Andrea, my midwife was waiting for me. The room filled with my husband, the doctor, Ruth in her bassinet and some nurses as my fuzzy brain tried to understand the intense pain in my abdomen. Despite feeling like my lower half was on fire, I was given the baby and Andrea said it would be good to start feeding her. I thought; “Feeding this child while feeling like this is going to be a challenge.” I didn’t know what to do but I relied on the far distant memories of my mother feeding me and watching her feed my brother and sister. Ruth took to nursing like a champ. I didn’t have to do anything special.

Later I realized that the spinal must not have administered a ton of drugs into our bodies. Ruth was interested in eating and I was in pain. If we had been more drugged, nursing could have been very delayed on not happen at all.

Ruth and I bonded during our first nursing session. If I had not had the opportunity to nurse her right after the surgery, it would have been very difficult to bond with my little girl. I was saddened that oxytocin never had a chance to flood our bodies during a drug free birth but we had the next best thing - breastfeeding with smaller amounts of oxytocin flowing through me and relaxing me.

Making Homemade Baby Food

We bought a baby food grinder at Target and ground up chicken, turkey, burger, steak, steamed/baked vegetables, cooked fruits, noodles and home made soup. My husband and I started Ruth with eating some solids using the food grinder at nine months in conjunction with breast milk. It saved us money. I usually just ground up what we were having for dinner and did not add salt or a ton of spice to our food until after I had ground up her portion.

When you first begin making home made baby food, you want to start out the first couple of months with easy mild foods like baby oatmeal, apple sauce, carrot, spinach, broccoli, avocado, banana and sweet potato. Make sure everything that is hard to begin with is steamed or baked to softness before grinding.

We introduced a new food every five days or so and watched her carefully for allergic reactions and diarrhea. We used fresh whole foods and avoided processed foods as well as food colorings, aspartame, BHT, phen junk, sugar, salt etc.. If we went out for a meal, we'd bring a banana, applesauce, avocado and grind it all there at the table.

I recommend using the Munchkin hand held baby food mill. It is easy to clean and portable. The only thing that is hard about it is I didn't always have the strength to turn the crank when we put in meat. Lawson turned the crank for me. We also sometimes used our Magic Bullet to pulverize food especially meat when we were home. We would experiment and add a little plain yogurt or water to the pulverized meat to make it more runny.

Introduce one food for a whole week before a new one. We only allowed Ruth to eat one solid at a meal, especially for the first couple of months of introducing food before giving her two solids to eat and then three. It is a definitely a process you take your time and have fun with.

Spring and Summer Accomplishments

 As a teacher in the past, status reports were quite necessary to keep track of student's accomplishments and it helped me keep remember what my students still needed to learn. The following is a "Status Report" of our little girl. 

She is currently 17 months to the day, is 25 pounds and wears a size 6 shoe and 18-24 month clothing. 

Ruthie learned to walk on her own the week before Memorial Day. We thought it would never happen. All of the kids her age at church seemed to be walking by 9 or 10 months old! People said once she learned to walk there is no going back and they were right. I have lost weight by trying to keep up with her.

Our little girl bends over and picks up objects, enjoys gazing at her reflection, holds out arm or leg to help me dress her, combines words and gestures to make needs known, rolls a ball back and forth, eats with fingers, empties containers of contents like her Leggo's, imitates others, points to body parts when asked, responds to instructions (e.g., "give me a kiss"), uses a spoon or fork but only momentarily before she resorts to using her hands.

She pushes and pulls toys while walking. Plays with balls, walks backward, scribbles with crayon and "Helps" around the house by cleaning up her toys or tries to sweep the floor. She turns the pages of a book, has temper tantrums when frustrated and has shown love towards her doll by signing the word love and hugging it. Uses the signed word "Please" to ask for something. Recently has discovered the joy of climbing up the stairs, stacks three blocks one on top of the other, uses spoon or fork, has learned the correct way to use common objects (e.g., the telephone). Has gotten finicky about food and takes a solid 2 hour nap in the afternoon. Ruthie enjoys pretend games such as "tea party," riding toys and feeding her doll with a cup or spoon.

Will "read" board books on her own, scribbles independently, takes leggo's apart and puts them back together and shows signs of toilet training readiness by letting me know when she is about to go. 

We have spent the last five months taking trips to church, Target, the zoo, botanical gardens, the spray park, taking walks, walking the river park, visiting, Georgia, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, listening to music, playing the piano, swinging on her swing in the back yard, exploring the front yard and hugging our dog, Kit.

February - March Happenings...

Ruthie - you are 12 months old and 22 pounds, 8 oz! You wear 18 to 24 month size clothing and size 4 shoes. We celebrated your birthday on March 19th with a giant cupcake which you ate a piece of. You loved the Radio Flyer wagon given to you by your maternal grandparents, the wooden activity center cube given by us and your walker given to you by your paternal grandmother.

On March 19th, we held a birthday party for you at our home. Your paternal grandparents, three great grandparents and one grand uncle came. Mommy made a WW veggie chili soup for lunch and a big yellow duck cake that you loved! You enjoyed the stuffed lamb, duck and bear as well as the bike trailer we tried out together last weekend. We blew bubbles for you outside while you swung in your swing on the swing set. The day was warm and sunny.



You still hold your balance standing up for at least 20 minutes at a time or longer by holding on to the coffee table and the side of your pack and play. Walking along the side of the table or couch is favorite pastime and you have just recently managed to transfer yourself from holding on to one item to another.



At dinner time with us you sit in your high chair. We have given up on bibs unless the meal will be really messy. Since the beginning of February, you have eaten turkey, chicken, applesauce, cottage cheese, a plethora of vegetables and fruits. You are now an expert of drinking milk and water out of sippy cups all by yourself. Water is favored much more than cow's milk but that is OK since you are getting calcium in other ways such as broccoli, yogurt, cottage cheese, tuna, white beans and the like.

You have reduced your nursing intake from six nursings to two nursings in the past month. One nursing takes place at 8am and the other a 8pm. Just recently, within the past three weeks you have transitioned from waking up a couple times a night to not waking up at all during the night. Mommy and daddy are grateful for uninterrupted nights of sleep!

At your one year checkup, we learned you are 30 inches in height, 22lbs, 8oz, did not have anemia, and you received 2 scheduled vaccinations from the delayed vaccination schedule.



You say the words Da Da, do(g), du(ck), boo(k), boon (balloon), hi, hey and ma ma (only when you want to go to bed at night). You understand most of everything we say to you. Separation anxiety has kicked in and you throw a little crying tantrum when mommy or daddy go out of your sight. Your head snaps back and you cry. Sometimes daddy calls you a "Velociraptor."

I have childproofed all the cabinet doors in the house and you spend some of your time during the day trying to break into them. Just this morning, you utilized your walker to get to the toilet paper roll in the bathroom and had a blast pulling what was left on the roll into your arms and onto the floor! You bunched it up and let toilet paper fall to the floor. It was a wonderful mess I had to clean up!

Yesterday, I blew bubbles for you in the kitchen. Surprisingly, Kit decided to "eat" as many bubbles as possible which made you giggle and laugh uproariously. The sound of you laughing made me laugh and it was soooooo cute, I just had to blow more bubbles!

In the area of "crawling," we watched you "army crawl" for the first time on our bed while we were on the cruise. You just army crawled straight ahead from point A to point B, no problem. Since then, you have given up rolling as your main form of transportation and instead army crawl to get to your destinations, quite quickly, I might add! This past Sunday we promoted you to the "crawlers" class. You had a hard time since you did not know any of the children or teachers. When we picked you up at the end of church, you were such a sad little girl. :(

For months now, your favorite thing to do on the changing table is to pull as many wipes out of the wipe warmer as possible before mommy or daddy can stop you. Another fun joke on mommy and daddy is to grab as many items on the table that you can find and drop each one in the space between the table and the wall. Your body is so long now, that with a little push, your feet are able to kick over the small lamp! It won't be long before we'll have to remove the lamp or change you in the floor.

On Tuesday nights (for many months now), Daddy prints out a coloring page devotion for you to "color" after dinner. He brings child safe crayons to you and demonstrates coloring for you. You haven't caught on yet, but by 18 months, you might. After daddy tells you a brief Bible story, we gather together in the office and sing praise songs to God while Daddy plays the guitar and you shake the "egg shaker" to the beat of the songs. Your smile and enthusiastic shaking of the egg shaker is a sight pleasing to God.

Your daily routine goes something like this: Breakfast at 8am, play time, music time, lunch time, nap time, music time, book time, outside time, dinner time, play time, book time, bed time at 8pm.

Changing Ruthie!

Ruthie - you are 10 months old and I'm guessing still 23 pounds! You wear 18 month size clothing and size 4 shoes.

You have learned to hold your balance standing up for at least 10 minutes at a time or longer by holding on to my finger, the coffee table and the side of your pack and play.

At dinner time with us you sit in your high chair with a bib around your neck. Since you were 10 months old, you have tried; mini bunny shaped macaroni, cheddar cheese, Cheerios, cream cheese, chicken and Yo Baby Yogurt. You aren't a fan of the jarred baby food so much, freshly prepared foods are yummy! We have tried feeding you expressed milk with a bottle, but you don't know what to make of it. Drinking out of a cup will be the next thing we try this week! You still like to nurse and keep cozy with your mommy.

Since you were four months old, we have had the same "going to bed" routine which consists of Daddy reading you two or three books and getting your diaper changed by Daddy. He dresses you in a light weight t-shirt and then helps you put on your cream and brown butterfly sleep bag before kissing you Good Night and handing you over to me for nursing time. Afterward, I swaddle you and hold you before you drift off to sleep. You still wake up around sometime between 11-12am but go right back to sleep with some binky time.

At the end of December/beginning of January, you got sick with Bronchiolitis/RSV and it took two weeks for you to get well again. Listening to your rattling lungs and praying for you to breathe was not fun for us!

You have learned to turn off light switches when given the opportunity and enjoy "kissing" the air by puckering up your lips and making kissing noises at people.

Whenever mommy leaves the room, you cry wishing mommy would stay. When distracted with a favorite toy, person or book, mommy can get some things accomplished while you are busy!

When you are asked; "Where is the duck?" you are able to find a duck on a page and point to it with your finger. You know that wet wipes are used to wipe your bottom, you have shown us with a wet wipe where it is used!

Given a blanket, you love raising it up and down to play, "Where is Mommy?"

In the area of "crawling" we have noticed that you make it from place to place by rolling and scooting. At this time it does not seem like you are going to crawl. Rolling and scooting seems to be an acceptable method for you to be mobile. Unfortunately, the "Crawlers" class at church will not accept you as a "roller and scooter" since you have not met the definition of a "crawler" but that is fine with us. You will be skipping classes and moving on to the "Walkers" class when ready!

You have gained two middle bottom teeth and four upper teeth look like they are about to come through soon!

You say "Da"for Daddy and say this word to mean mommy too. Whenever daddy comes home through the back door, you look up at him with a big grin on your face and say; "Da!" and giggle! You know the words for Dog and Book and say; "Do" with the long short O sound and say; "Boo" with the long O sounds.

On February 19th, you will turn 11 months old and will embark on your first trip "out of the country" the very next day!

Movement and Sleep

Movement has become very fun and entertaining for our soon to be 9 month old. I think Ruthie just might enjoy roller coasters in the future since she smiles and laughs when Daddy plays "Super Baby" by holding her trunk with his hands and moving her around the room like Superman does in the movies. When music is playing, I'll hold Ruth in my arms like "we're dancing" and we'll sway and twirl around the room together. The movement makes the little girl smile and giggle. She may be slightly dizzy by the time we're finished spinning slowly in our living room. She loves it when daddy tosses her slightly out of his reach in the air. In addition, instead of carefully turning around to examine each play station on her exersaucer, Ruthie loves jumping up and down using her feet to pop up and make the little plastic balls inside of the station containers shake with noise.

Sleep has been interrupted every night by Ruthie waking herself up. By utilizing her sheer "baby strength," Ruthie manages to escape from the blanket around her lower body and roll over the sleep positioner wedges only to get one of her legs trapped between two slats of the crib. I hear her cry softly to begin with and then a very audible scream is heard that increases in intensity by the time I hurry across the house to reach her. I carefully remove her trapped leg and roll the little girl back into place, directly center of the crib mattress. What is infuriating for me is that Ruthie continually wakes up in a crawling position and being "half asleep," cannot return to her sleeping position independently. So I dutifully help her out with a smile on my face. She looks so cute with her eyes shut, crying piteously, helpless and not a baby for long.

I looked online last night at one in the morning for a solution to Ruthie's waking up problem. By perusing parent's posts on various sites, I discovered that if I wrap Ruthie's bottom and legs together tightly with a light blanket, it will eliminate Ruthie's ability to utilize her legs to roll over. In a last ditch attempt after the third wake up last night, I wrapped Ruthie's legs and went to bed praying for Ruth to sleep until at least 6am. The wrapping of the leg thing worked. Ruthie is still asleep and it is 8:30am. I have checked on her at least four times throughout the night and early morning hours due to my worry and fear that "something must have happened to her" since she was miraculously still sleeping. Now excuse me, I am going to wake up our daughter to begin our day. We have to make it to the Winn's house by 10am this morning. So much to do in so little time.

Ruthie Update

Ruthie update: Many thanks to the Witcher blog which this entry is based upon. Ruthie - you are eight months old and 23 pounds! You wear 12-18 month size clothing and size 3 shoes.

You learned to roll in October but have yet to crawl. When we place you on your tummy, you complete some push ups but cry and whine when you think you have been on the floor too long!

At dinner time with us you sit in your high chair with a bib around your neck. Since you were six months old, you have tried; peaches, sweet potato, pear, banana, brown rice cereal (organic), carrots and peas. You weren't a fan of the pear or peas that much since you spit those up (vomited) but you look forward to trying other foods in the future. You like to nurse and keep cozy with your mommy.

At night time you have been sleeping in a light pink sleep bag and we swaddle your arms with a small white blanket. The temperature in your nursery has been rather chilly so mommy and daddy bought you a self-standing heater that drives the chill away!

On Tuesday nights you enjoy the devotion and praise/worship time with your parents. Daddy plays the guitar and you wave your arms; sometimes shaking the egg shaker.

Every night daddy reads you your board books and your favorite is SkippyJon Jones followed closely by Look at the Animals. You enjoy flipping the pages as quickly as possible when you are in a "flipping the pages mood." However, the pictures cause you to voice your opinion with the loud noises you make.

Your favorite companion besides mommy during the day is Kit the family beagle puppy. Your arms reach out to touch her and Kit never complains when you get a handful of skin and fur. When Kit shakes her bed or runs around really fast, you sometimes think it is funny and giggle and shout with delight. Kit enjoys licking you when mommy isn't looking.

At the beginning of this month, you have learned to reach your arms up to indicate you want to be picked up. Just last week you squeezed your hands open and closed like mommy and daddy showed you.