So, these are “practice” contractions?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Dr. Harvey Karp has got this great video The Happiest Baby on the Block, which really explains The Swaddle, The Shhhh, and The Sway. Hie thee to the library & check him out!

You’ve probably heard people talk about the “fourth trimester”? That human babies really aren’t quite finished when they pop out & most of them spend the first 3 months wishing they were still in utero.

So, MOST newborns (but not all) really love to be wrapped up tight, like in little papooses. As mentioned above, there’s a trick to it. You need a really big (but thin) baby blanket. Hospital blankets are perfect, it’s a shame they don’t sell THOSE in the gift shop. Get your teacher to show you the technique, nurses know how to do it.

And there’s The Shhhh – newborns who are screaming their heads off will often stop if you go “shhhh” right in their ear, fairly loudly. They get a funny look on their faces, it’s actually pretty cute. Apparently it sounds a lot like Mom’s whooshing heartbeat did when they were inside.

I’ve forgotten what the other 3 tricks are, he has 5 of them. But they saved our sanity! My family couldn’t believe it, they were all like “Oh, just let the baby cry, it’s good for his/her lungs. There’s nothing you can do anyway.” Only, we COULD. It worked.

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One of 'em is “swinging”. We got this nifty swing to put the little guy in, it calmed him down a treat.

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I’ll see if our library has a copy of The Happiest Baby on the Block. Anything to help us stay sane (ish) during the first few months would be a great help! :slight_smile:

We have a baby gift registry and Spouse added a swing to it after talking to a friend with two kids.

The hiccups seem to have stopped for now. There are other odd things: seeing movement, an “alien throb” I notice when I’m laying down, the super-sensitive sense of smell and taste has returned. I’m drinking mainly water because everything else tastes to strong.

We survived our first birthing class. When instructor held up a chart that showed dilation from 1 to 10 cm, I must have looked quite shocked because Spouse laughed out loud! The birth flim will be next week. This class was for introductions, some basic information and start on relaxation techniques.

As an ice breaker, the class was split into partners and pregnant and told to write out our fears. Turns out, many of my fellow mothers-to-be had the same concerns I did, with one exception: pain. I’m more worried about what happens after the baby is born than the pain of delivery. (Great. Now I have that Princess Bride scene in my head. Torture? I can cope with torture. ::Albino shakes his head:: )

Turns out that Mouse_Spouse is worried about birth defects. We have talked about this several times, and had tests done, but he’s still concerned. He lost a brother to SIDS :frowning: and his youngest brother was born premature. (He’s a prefectly healthy grown man now.) We had a long talk after class about his concerns. My family history doesn’t help matters much, but I think its more environmental than genetic. For the sake of sleep, we skipped the Nature vs. Nurture debate.

Also, of the seven couples in our class, I’m the only bottle feeding heathen. Even Mouse_Spouse thinks I should consider breast feeding. Hay! Aren’t you supposed to be on my side? I have lots of fears about nursing: medication changes I may have to make (stronger antidepressants), bleeding nipples, our sex life.

Maybe be TMI

Spouse is a breast man. I’d DIE if milk came out during an intimate moment. Also, I don’t know if Spouse would be up to sex with a “hands off the tits” rule.

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Mouse_maven, please don’t let anyone bully you in regards to breast feeding. Yes, breast feeding is best, but not by a whole lot. And there’s a definite, well, lobby about, that makes it seem like bottle feeding is one small step above beating the baby in the head with a blunt object! It’s not! Bottle fed babies do just fine, and the newer formulas are formulated to be more like breast milk than ever before!

However, thinking that not breastfeeding will keep stuff from leaking out during sex. . .well, it don’t work that way. In fact, stuff will start leaking in the last trimester! Yup, before you even give birth.

Seriously freaked out my hubby, and I used it to my best advantage! See, I’m ticklish, he’s not. So, for those last few weeks, whenever he’d tickle me in bed, I’d point, aim, squeeze, and squirt! :eek: Cut him right off at the pass, it did! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Don’t even worry about the breastfeeding (but stay out of breast vs. bottle threads if you go on any parenting boards or you’ll have no one to blame but yourself). However, do expect to start leaking any day now. My sister is due two weeks before you and it’s started for her. It won’t be a huge amount, if I recall correctly from my own experience - I didn’t ask and won’t be asking sis about that.

But, anyway, sounds like hiccups to me too. I recall my son hiccupping all the way through “Beloved” starring Miss Oprah Winfrey. Well, whatever it was, it wasn’t applause, that’s for sure! The Toni Braxton-Taylor Hicks are fun too. For weeks I thought it was just a persistant kick.

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Liar. (I mean that in the most affectionate way possible.) The worst part is just *after *the head, when they make you STOP pushing while the neck is stretching your bajinga wide open and the shoulders are pressing down from the inside and they make you stay like that, burning searing pressure for, like, 10 minutes while they wiggle the shoulders out slowly so you don’t break the baby’s clavicle. (Okay, no, it’s just a few seconds, but great googly moogly that was a nasty surprise!)

MM, Braxton-Hicks contractions feel like…contractions. Like menstrual cramps, or even a charley horse in your gut. I agree that this sounds more like hiccups, which are very, very strange to feel. I always thought of it as feeling like a hummingbird was flying around in my uterus and bumping into the walls.

One other thing you might be feeling already or soon is round ligament pain. Basically as you get closer to your due date, the ligaments that surround the pelvic floor start to loosen so your bones actually move apart a little bit to widen your outlet and let the baby out. Unfortunately, this slightly destabalizes your skeleton, making you more prone to losing your balance or pulling something funny. Sometimes you feel them as a dull ache, a sharp stabbing, or a “popping” sensation low in your body.

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That’s how I would describe it, too. At about the 36th week, I remember telling a co-worker that I was having some mild contractions, so I spent about 15 minutes lying on the floor of my office on her exercise mat. I didn’t get them very often, or I at least didn’t notice them. I only called my doctor once when I had them, thinking they were the real thing.

I wish mine had been like that. Every time we tried to swaddle her, she kicked her way out of it, despite being perfectly content to spend the 3rd trimester permanently lodged in my ribcage!

Anyway, the hiccups are fun. You’ll probably find that after delivery, you’ll miss the sensation of your baby moving around inside you.

28

First baby: breast-fed her like a fanatic, till she was 10 months old. But–she had formula her first week of life, because I had severe complications and was in the ICU on a ventilator and couldn’t feed her, so they sent her home with Grandma and a case of soy formula. And me there, left behind in the ICU, groggily insisting on a pad of paper that they bring an electric breast pump and pump me so I wouldn’t lose my milk…

Second baby: breast-fed him for the first six months, then started bottles along with solid food.
Third baby: breast-fed her for the first four months, then started bottles along with solid food.

All of them turned out fine; none of them have weight problems.

The biggest danger in bottle-feeding–the reason why people push breast-feeding so hard–is that it’s awfully easy to overfeed a baby with bottles. You prop the bottle up, you read your book with the other hand, the baby keeps on drinking, you don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the subtle signals that indicate that she’s “about full, thanks”, and thus she ingests more calores than she really needs, and presto! you’ve got a fat baby.

Or you feel obligated to “finish the bottle”, because formula is damn expensive, and you don’t want to waste it, so you encourage the Mouseling to finish just that last ounce or two, that she doesn’t really want. And again, presto! Fat baby.

Also, formula flows into her mouth faster than she’d be able to get breast milk out of a breast, so there again you have the potential for her to ingest really more calories than she needs at every feeding.

But it’s hard to overfeed a baby on the breast. When she’s full and/or tired of suckling, she lets go of the nipple and turns her face aside. And when it’s empty, hey, it’s empty, and she’s done.

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I have to butt in here because I don’t think everyone experiences pain with Braxton Hicks contractions. I never did. Very tight hard contractions but no pain.

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Oh, boy, is he shit out of luck.

31

Totally Unsolicited Advice Warning!

I love, love, love these bottles from The Early Years called Breastflow for just this reason. Of all the gazillions of bottles out there promising a “closest to the breast!” experience, this is the hands down winner. It makes the baby chomp, chomp, chomp sluuuuurp, just like the breast does, instead of suck swallow suck swallow dribble spit burb like a standard bottle, or even Dr. Whatshisnames or the Playtex disposables (which I was all about until I found these.) Caileigh’s speech therapist was ecstatic when I showed her how Caileigh was drinking from these bottles - she says the movement they force the baby into exercises the mouth, tongue and lips the way they are “meant” to develop. Once I switched, it took just one month on them and Caileigh’s speech delay went from seven months behind to three months behind.

32

Bingo! I caught my Mom trying that on my daughter once. And while I was SO grateful for any and all assistance that I rarely quibbled on technique, I DID put the kibash on that one. Immediately. When the baby’s finished, s/he’s finished and that’s that! I don’t insist they “finish their plate” now, either. Hunger cues, that’s it.

Babies do plump up a little from time to time anyway, mine were quite round right at 6 months I think it was, but that preceded a big growth spurt and didn’t last long.

33

MOUSE!! This means you’re next! or not! sorry. couldn’t resist.

My wife said that the nurse told her if you thought you were having a Braxton-Hicks contraction and you wanted to know, try moving (ie. from laying on side to sitting on back) and then see if it stops. If it did, it was not a regular contract, but a B-H one.

I know nothing about medical schtuff, but I figured the nurse wasn’t wrong. Unfortunately, when my wife told the doctor she was having contractions, on a semi-regular basis, and they didn’t seem to be false, the Dr. explained that many women have B-H contractions and went on with her day. This happened up to the point that her water broke. Now, Dr. did think that the due date would be in mid-August, which made some sense, but that was based on my wife’s first visit and never changed no matter what.

According to them, she delivered at 35 weeks. Her new doctor (the one that delivered the baby, not the one she had all along) thought it was probably 37 weeks, or 36 and some days, but not 35. We don’t really worry about it now, because we gots our baby, and he’s great!

Keep us posted though! I told Mrs. Small and she was like, “hmm, well, it is a doper-baby month and all, maybe…” heh

Brendon Small

34

Personally, I think the hardest part of the delivery is before they start coming out, anyway. I hated contractions, but when it got to pushing time it was like “woo-hoo, nearly there!”. And I had biiiig-headed babies (just like their mum! :eek: )

35

I found the opposite to be true! Until I was fully dilated, it was just a matter of breathing through the contractions (with a little Entonox to help). Once the pushing started, it was REALLY hard work! Complicated for me by the fact that I apparently have a shallow pelvis, so between pushes, my OB had to keep her hand in my vagina to stop baby from slipping back around the corner (which meant it hurt ALL the time!). But once the head was out, I didn’t notice anything else, 'cause I was too busy caressing her beautiful little head!

36

It also depends on whether it’s the first time you’ve given birth, and how big the baby is. My first baby, pushing took two hours and I finally ended up with a forceps delivery because she was a big baby and it was my first, but with Two and Three, who were smaller, pushing went very quick and was very satisfying, like, “Contraction! Yesss!! [bear down]… Contraction! Yesss!! [bear down]…”

37

Would like to point out to the Maven (lest she be frightened) that it isn’t like in the movies, where the woman is screaming her head off, “ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod make it stop!!!”

It’s more like an immense charley horse that comes and goes. This is where the breathing exercises really do come in handy, because they really do work (I still use them at the dentist office and in other tense situations).

The contraction begins, you take your deep cleansing breath, the contraction builds, you focus 100% on doing your breathing pattern, and your “focus object”, whatever it is (I brought a nice color photo of a mallard duck with that shiny green head, which did it for me).

And since your attention is totally focused on (A) breathing and (B) picture of a duck, the immense scary charley horse in the middle of your abdomen recedes into the background. (Because it is kinda scary–your body is totally out of control, it’s doing this gonzo thing “down there” that’s outside your previous experience, and you can’t make it stop. Yeah, that’s scary.)

And then the contraction tapers off, and you lie back and rest. Until the next one, then you do it all over again.

This is why it’s called “labor”. It’s a lot of work. Imagine spending 8 or 10 hours digging a ditch in 60-second increments.

But as far as hours and hours writhing in agonizingly agonizing agony–um, no. Melanie Wilkes had a narrow pelvis and was giving birth in the 19th century. If your OB here in the 21st century says you have a narrow pelvis, you’ll have a C-section, no sweat, and all you’ll have to worry about is popping stitches.

The actual delivery part is the part most likely to make you say, “Ouch”, but it goes VERY fast, really, and by that time you actually don’t care whether it’s a watermelon or a baby, you just want it OUT of there, and you will bear down with all your poo-excreting muscles (because those are the muscles involved, go ahead and go for it) to make that happen.

And then–suddenly there’s her little head. Magical.

38

So, moral of the story - pay attention if you bottle feed.
Oh, btw, my sister who is two weeks ahead of M_M was up all night with B-H. I can’t help but wonder if it’s her status as head drama queen that’s making her feel them so accutely or what. She is a severe diabetic and is nervous about everything - not that she waited to get her sugars stabilized or anything.

39

Good point, Duck Duck Goose. It should also be noted that what you describe is only one way of doing it. It’s pretty textbook Lamaze - the idea being that if you focus on something out THERE, then you won’t be so bothered by what’s going on in HERE (here being your body, of course.) Some women find this works really well. Others, not so much.

Bradley childbirth takes almost the opposite approach, and it works for many of the women that Lamaze doesn’t. Bradley teaches you to bring the focus inwards (in and down, actually. In and down and open.) Relax the throat (intone a deep, low pitched “ahhhhhhhhh” if it helps to keep your throat open), relax the diaphragm (don’t hold your breath), relax the cervix, relax the toes. Open and down, open and down, open and dooooooown and now rest, but keep that focus inside. Don’t look at the clock, don’t squeeze your partner’s hand (squeezing is tension, and tension anywhere in the body means tension in the cervix) and above all, keep breathing. Ride the waves and sink into your body and it will get you through this.

But whichever method works for you (Lamaze, Bradley, or copious amounts of drugs), know that the Hollywood Labor is just ridiculously laughable.

40

I really liked our Bradley classes, which we took back when I was pregnant with our first, lo these many years ago. (Okay, it was only 6 years ago, but it feels like forever now!) I did feel like they helped me a lot in early labor with my first and second babies, although ironically enough I did wind up with a C-section with my first, and an epidural (although not a C-section!) with my second. Then with my third, labor progressed a lot more quickly than anticipated (understatement) and all my Bradley lessons just flew out the window and I wound up doing a lot of moaning/yelling, although I will point out that it is difficult to remember your Bradley lessons when you are in the passenger seat of your minivan hoping desperately that you will make it to the hospital before the baby emerges.

Anyway. I digress. You’ll be fine! Labor doesn’t last forever – keep telling yourself this, it helped me immensely – and at the end of it you’ll have an adorable new little one to keep you occupied.

Second the recommendation on the Harvey Karp book, by the way. We’ve never had particularly fussy babies, but the swaddling/swinging/etc. feel good to babies even if they’re not all that fussy.

And I mean this in a completely non-pushy way, I swear, but I can attest from personal experience that there are a range of antidepressants that you can take very safely while breastfeeding. Can send you links to info if you want. (And if not, that’s cool! Just thought I’d mention it!)