Elimination Communication

Matt and I had talked before Eden was born about the idea of trying out Elimination Communication (EC)--also known as diaper-free, or natural infant hygiene. Basically the premise is that you learn to recognize your baby's cues when s/he is about to go to the bathroom, and you put them on the toilet or another receptacle.

Well, believe it or not, we got busy during the first six weeks and didn't get a chance to try it. I'll admit I was also a little skeptical--on EC websites and message boards, moms are always singing the praises of how well it works. Come on, we thought--how well could it really work?

Really, quite well, as a matter of fact. We started last weekend with Eden, and we use an old plastic cereal bowl--now marked with a "P" on the bottom, for pee/poop/potty--because she's still too small and wobbly to comfortably hold over the toilet. Plus, it's easier to take the bowl wherever we are (the bedroom, the living room) as opposed to running into the bathroom every time we think she might need to go. We don't tend to bother with it when we're out and about, but when I'm home with her during the day, she probably does 2/3 of her pees and all of her poops that way. It was incredibly easy to get started, and while it's probably more work for me than just changing and washing diapers, she's always hated to be in a wet diaper, even for a little while, so it's cut down on the amount of time she has to do that. It's also significantly reduced our diaper laundry, but that was only a load a day anyway, so it was no big deal.

Here is a great article by Sarah Buckley called "Mothering, Mindfulness, and a Baby's Bottom," in which she explains more about various aspects of the practice. While it might seem new-agey and crazy to some, it's actually how native cultures have dealt with infant elimination for thousands of years. We enjoy the insight into what's going on with Eden--what we thought before was unexplained fussiness is actually almost always the signal that she's going to go to the bathroom. I can usually tell by watching her face when she's on the bowl whether she's done or not--watery eyes, flared nostrils, puckering her lips like she's whistling are all signs that she's still got more to go. I usually sit cross-legged with the bowl on my lap and either hold her under her arms or cradle her (sometimes nursing her), and both work well. When she's done, I dab her off with a cloth wipe, rinse the bowl into the toilet, and dry it out for next time.

Here are some other good sites if you're interested in giving it a try:

Elimination Communication Positions
Diaper-Free Baby
Potty Whisperer

Postpartum: Life AFTER life after birth control

One of my midwifery professors calls it "the forgotten period," due mainly to the fact that in traditional obstetrical management, a new mother doesn't see her care provider again until six weeks after giving birth. Plus, it somewhat lacks the excitement and novelty of pregnancy and birth. Rixa at Stand and Deliver, who had a baby herself not long ago at all, recently opened an honest discussion of feeling "dumpy and frumpy in one's postpartum body." I was still pregnant when she posted it (5 days before I had Eden), and so I admit most of my attention was taken in by this excerpt:

For the first few weeks after giving birth, I feel incredibly attractive. Every day, especially during the first week, I look thinner and more shapely. My breasts get bigger, my stomach gets smaller, and when I see myself in the mirror each morning, I think, "Wow! I look good!"

I find newly postpartum bodies incredibly beautiful. Very feminine--or perhaps the better word is womanly. I love the empty, rounded belly; the soft bread-dough skin; the flush of hormones.

It seemed too good to be true. But like a prophecy, that was pretty much how I felt in the days after giving birth. Losing 32 pounds in under a week (10-lb baby, 3-lb placenta, and evidently about 19 lbs of fluid) didn't hurt at all, and neither did getting back those ankle bones I'd been pining for.

Rixa went on to say that a few weeks later, the dramatic body changes hit pause for awhile, and she's left feeling less than pleased with her appearance. By way of perspective, though, she posted a link a couple of days later to an article entitled "Maternity leave--or reprieve?" in which the author calls for the "need to respect the time parents spend with newborns." The author notes, "It would be a shame to lose reverence for those gentle, maddening months after a child is born, when you are in a sleep-drained reverie, stitched to a baby's rhythms and sweet suckling; when you watch them unfurl, watch their eyes focus on the world, their lips curl into smiles, their startled limbs jerk and then grow strong."

So, right now, are the days of our lives. While I am getting past the honeymoon stage of no longer being pregnant, and I am struggling a little to come to peace with the idea of all the things about my body that will never quite be the same, I'm also inclined to marvel that the price of creating human life--of suddenly producing into our living room a whole new ten-pound being, our daughter--isn't in fact any steeper. And I try to remember to be amazed, as well, at what my body can do: create a baby, efficiently discharge a baby, and now continue to feed and nourish a baby (no less, after being up all night with said baby).

And on the whole, I've felt remarkably good: despite the exhaustion, optimistic and energetic the majority of the time. The day Eden was born, we took her for her first walk outside; my coworkers are still surprised that I haven't felt at all teary or bluesy since she was born. The closest I've come was a surprising torrent of tears when we buried the placenta, when she was a little over a week old. I think in large part that was because of the sense of closure it gave me, the feeling that this pregnancy and birth--which were such a wild and beautiful and spiritual adventure--were really over. As Matt put it, "You've put so much work into this pregnancy and this birth, and growing such a good strong baby--and now all of that seems like it's forgotten." Not that I'm not overjoyed to be moving on to the next step, because I am, but goodbyes, for me, are always hard.

Other than that, though, I'm doing my best to identify with and take comfort in the final sentence of the previous article:

When you delight in the life you have created, it becomes a lot less important to get your own life back the very next day.

Then here's to delight.

Ode to my cloth pads

I have a lot to catch up on with this blog--Eden's birth story, for one, but also all of the postpartum-y things I've become intimately aware are part of "life after birth control"--but I can't help myself from taking the quick opportunity while Eden is sleeping to share my deep and abiding passion for cloth postpartum pads. Matt and I were actually cutting them out (loosely following this pattern, but there are tons of others out there) before we went to bed the night I went into labor, so obviously we didn't have time to sew them ("we" meaning "Matt" because I can't sew) by the time I gave birth. I was almost ready to throw in the towel and just keep using disposables, as my motivation was largely environmental and I figured the planet would understand, just this once--but Matt, bless his heart, sat down a few days ago and finished them, and I am now the proud owner of about 16 of the softest fleece-backed flannel pads with snaps on the wings that I have ever seen. The comfort is absolutely out of this world--to go from feeling like I was wearing a crinkly, sweaty, leaky plastic diaper and being constantly aware of that fact to being essentially unaware of the whisper-soft flannel lying absorbently next to my skin is one of the closest things I know of to postpartum heaven. They're slim, they're soft, they breathe, and they don't leak!

I'm sure the next question on everyone's mind is what you do with a used cloth postpartum pad. We've rigged up a nice system wherein we have a 1-gallon bucket under the bathroom sink that has several inches of water and a splash of Biz thrown in (upon my mother's recommendation, Biz is about the only thing we can find that gets out tough "human" stains like blood, sweat, and ring around the collar; we figure that in our largely chemical-free lifestyle, it's a concession we can make). I put the used pads in there and then dump the bucket in the wash when it's full. A little Biz and laundry detergent gets them sparkling clean again.

Plus, at $16-23 a pop to buy cloth pads (which you can do on Etsy or many other places if you don't have a sewing-inclined husband), we've saved literally hundreds of dollars by making them at home from a flannel sheet we got at Goodwill for a couple of dollars, a fleece blanket we picked up at KMart, and snaps we got for under $2. Plus, they were custom-made by my loving husband. It just doesn't get better than that!

38 weeks: Here she is!

And not a moment too soon, considering that Eden Leah weighed 10 lbs and 2 oz at birth--following one of the fastest and most intense first-time labors I've ever seen! More on that later, but in the meantime, we're resting up, cleaning up, and enjoying our little girl.

37 weeks: belly casting!

One of the members of my birth team was kind enough to bring things over yesterday to do a belly casting (as well as an aromatherapy foot bath)! We had a great time doing it and I think it turned out really well. Here's a photo of the process, plus front and side views of the finished cast:

36 weeks: On the home stretch

Here is the updated progression, with my 36-week picture on the right. Notice how despite cheating and switching to a maternity tank top last picture (at 32 weeks), the tank top can still no longer contain me? Yeah, neither can most of my maternity clothes, either.

It's hard to say much about being 36+ weeks pregnant in June without sounding like a whiner. So, I'll just let it rip.

The heat doesn't bother me all that much (though that's easy to say when one spends most of one's time indoors these days), but the now-permanent swelling has gotten a little old. My (c)ankles are like grapefruit, my fingers and toes like sausages, and my face, well, I feel like one of the Munchkins or something. NOT FLATTERING. (Other people are afraid of having their neither regions caught on camera during birth--I'm totally cool with that, it's the idea of a head shot that makes me cringe.) My blood pressure is still good and everything else is fine, so no true concerns--I'm just massively bloated, and no amount of drinking water or cranberry juice or herbal tea or keeping my feet up seems to help (though plenty of things seem to make it worse). And just when I thought I was home free in terms of the final indignity--hemorrhoids--all of a sudden one day my rear end looks and feels like a cluster of grapes that somebody, somehow, for some reason decided to attack with a piece of sandpaper. Because I'm all about solutions on this blog, I'll admit I have finally gotten a decent amount of relief with warm and cool compresses and frequent applications of Florasone (thank you to my helpful husband for the suggestion, as well as the sympathetic ear), but I'm haunted by the thought of what these bad boys are going to be like after birth.

Being on my feet for very long is exhausting, but you know how good it feels to fall into bed at night when you're really exhausted? Well, that respite is now soured by a) how stiff and uncomfortable I am after spending more than 15 minutes in any given position, b) how incredibly uncomfortable it is to try to CHANGE positions, and c) the prospect of getting up to relieve myself of a tablespoon of urine approximately every hour and a half. Nighttime is not the right time, anymore--at least not where rest is concerned.

Besides that, and gaining 45 pounds despite eating more healthfully and remaining more active than the majority of pregnant women that I know, well, besides that I'm doing well and I do know that I have a lot to be thankful for. Though crabby and uncomfortable, I'm healthy. The baby is big and active and we're getting so excited to meet him or her. I have the world's most loving and helpful husband. We have another baby shower coming up on Saturday and things are already pretty well set. (You can see our crib, changing table, and diaper stash here.) I'm anticipating the kind of birth that many women can only dream about, surrounded by a few cherished loved ones and warm water and familiar things. Matt and I both have downright heroic birth stories in our families, and so despite the concerns voiced by everyone from my coworkers to checkout clerks, I'm not worried that this baby is too big to come out the old-fashioned way. I have faith in birth, in myself, and in my birthing team. It's late pregnancy that's the challenge!

New angles

Something besides the standard white tank top/belly shot.

Or my grapefruit ankles, which was the other option.