photos from my fourth labor

Our sweet daughter number four is five months old. I'm thinking today about how it's almost Valentine's Day, and that last Valentine's Day we announced that I was pregnant. Five years ago on Valentine's Day we had a newborn who was hospitalized for a few days with bronchiolitis (she's been through some tough experiences including a broken femur last year). Twenty-two years ago on Valentine's Day my husband and I met! . . .

I'd forgotten about these photos from the days before Fourth Girl was born. I had used the camera on D's old phone that we also had the contraction-timing app on. Then I was happy to find the photos during a road trip last weekend. I fell in love with the ones of my belly with the baby lower (I don't like the word "dropped" very much) as she was working on coming out. 

We almost had a home birth and it was wonderful. I just wouldn't use that word to describe the c-section, but they wouldn't let us take pictures until the baby was born anyway. My doula sent me the last photo, showing D and me soon after we arrived at the hospital. This baby is a perfect baby. And my recovery was good -- yay placenta encapsulation!

38 weeks (compare to below):

A little past 39 weeks and in labor, less than two days before the birth:

About 12 and a 1/2 hours before the birth:

In triage. I love him for the way he supported me that week.

my third birth story

When does this story begin? The way a birthing time begins and the point at which a woman says, "that's when it started" seems to vary. With our third baby my birthing time felt both longer and shorter than the approximately thirty hours I experienced with each of our other children before their Cesarean births. This time it was longer because of prodromal labor. One evening I felt mildly uncomfortable pressure waves (contractions) that required my attention, instead of Braxton Hicks. They started ten days before Third Girl was born and seemed to be more noticeable each day from about 5 PM on. Sometimes they were ten minutes apart or closer; then they would space out in the morning. There was no reason to tell anyone that anything was happening, because it was not consistent, I have a history of slow dilation, and we planned to not go to the hospital until pressure waves were three minutes apart. After a couple of days my husband or I did tell a few people that I was having a lot more contractions, but we also told them not to get excited yet. We had plans for the Christmas weekend. As it got closer I hoped I would not still be pregnant then, partly because my sleep was getting interrupted so much.

My mom came to take care of our older girls while we went to our last Hypnobabies class. This was nine days after the pressure waves had become more serious and at least five days after I felt that the baby had dropped lower into my pelvis. I didn't lose my mucus plug or anything, but I was pretty sure that she would be born before the due date. We spent class time pretending that each wife was having pressure waves and she and her husband practiced various techniques and positions to help her through them. The difference was that I really was having pressure waves.

The next morning I took a long shower before the kids woke up, and our four-person family went to my scheduled midwife appointment at 11:20. I hadn't met this midwife before. She was really good. I told her I thought I was in labor because the contractions forced me to stop was I was doing, and for almost the last hour they had been coming every eight minutes. I was able to relax well as she gently checked my cervix. She asked me to guess how far dilated I was, and I said, "Oh, two?" She said, "You're at five, no, I'll say six centimeters." I said, almost crying, "That makes me really happy."

I was also fully effaced and the baby was at a 0 or +1 station! I felt even more confident about having a vaginal birth. We were definitely surprised to hear her say six cm, since I had never been dilated that far before. (With our other two babies I was at two or three cm when we arrived at the hospital, and eventually progressed to four or five. This time, we don't know how long my body took to get six cm dilated, because I chose not to have my cervix checked at previous appointments. That's why this birthing time felt shorter; I didn't have anybody checking on my progress during the first part of it.)

We got ready to leave the clinic and the midwife congratulated me. "I think you're going to have your VBAC. You're going to have your baby today!" She said it was up to us whether to go right to the hospital or to go home first. She thought things could happen fast and recommended that if we go home to get our bags we shouldn't "dilly dally." She called the hospital to tell them we would be coming.

We headed for home since we knew it would be more peaceful and pleasant there. (Plus it takes less than half an hour to drive from our home to the hospital.) In the car I called our doula -- the same one who helped us with our first baby's birth. She was excited to hear the news, and she agreed that we should go home.

My mother-in-law came and got our other children. Without them at home my husband and I felt like we were on a date, even though we weren't always together. At first I didn't need him during pressure waves. He spent a lot of the day watching the news and using his computer. I ate whatever I wanted and made sure to drink a lot of water as well as some Powerade. Throughout the day I listened to several Hypnobabies tracks on my iPod. I put more things in our suitcase to take to the hospital, did some housework, and walked on the treadmill for half an hour. I also took a nap. It was so nice and quiet.

I timed most of the pressure waves, using an app on my husband's phone. They weren't real close together -- usually six to eight minutes apart, I think. During pressure waves I used deep relaxation and other Hypnobabies tools I had practiced each day for five weeks. I'm really glad we took the course because it made a difference. I felt best being vertical and leaning forward. (Lying down was more painful.) Depending on where I was I either straddled the birth ball and rested my arms and head on a stack of pillows on top of our bed, or leaned on a piece of furniture or a wall.

As the pressure waves started to get harder for me I liked to have my husband come over so I could put my arms around his neck and feel his arms around me. We had decided ahead of time that I would just say "wave" to let him know when one was starting. My exhalations turned into louder "ohhh" sounds during the peaks of the pressure waves. At 7:55 PM I told him I felt like we should go to the hospital, and he called our doula to have her meet us there. I just felt a little different, with more pressure (sometimes pain) by my tailbone and a little nausea. Even though the pressure waves weren't really consistent or closer together, they were lasting for a minute or longer.

We arrived at the hospital about 9 PM. I had to have a nurse assess me before admitting me. She told me to put the gown on but I said I would rather wear my own clothes, and she was okay with that. She put a fetal monitor on my belly. It immediately showed decelerations in the baby's heart rate (the same thing happened to our other daughters). At 9:15 the nurse checked me and found that I was dilated six to seven cm.

We went up to a labor and delivery room. We had requested the room with the best tub, but the staff suggested that we be in the room closest to the operating suites. I changed into just a shift (like a full-length slip) with a short-sleeved maternity shirt over it. The nurse put in an IV. There was talk of releasing the bag of waters to help things along. It could let the baby's head move further down the birth canal and also we would be able to place an internal monitor on her head to better track her heart rate, which the staff was pretty nervous about. The attending physician came in and met us at 9:40 and talked with us. This was probably when he said he thought the baby wouldn't be able to handle the labor, which would likely take at least four more hours to dilate fully, and the pushing that would take maybe two hours or more (since I have never pushed a baby out).

There are a lot of details that I don't remember but our doula had written them down. Labs were drawn on me at 9:50 and I felt shaky. My husband and I wanted to wait for the midwife (another one I had never met) to come, but after talking with our doula we decided to release the bag of waters to help the baby move down and encourage dilation.

At 9:55 the doctor released the bag of waters. I do remember that, because it seemed like he was in there for a long time, and it hurt! There was meconium and some light bleeding. Someone had me lie on my right side to try to relieve pressure that might have been on the umbilical cord. I had ear buds in with a relaxation script playing, and our doula provided comfort with massage.

Our midwife arrived at 10:10. Now when the baby's heart rate decelerated it sometimes got as low as the 50s before coming back up to normal. With my doula's help I moved to hands and knees position, again to avoid pressure on the cord. At 10:20 my husband discussed my preferences with our midwife and asked for me to be given every possibility to give birth vaginally, because it seemed that from the moment the doctor arrived he was preparing for a Cesarean birth.

At 10:35 I stood by the bed; I didn't always know how I wanted to be, but I did not want to be on the bed anymore. Now some of the decelerations were happening even when there wasn't a pressure wave, and some dropped into the 40s. My husband offered me sips of water, and I put my arms around his neck during pressure waves, which were coming anywhere from three to thirteen minutes apart. I felt really hot, so my doula and midwife helped me get my shirt over the I.V. cords so I could take it off and wear the shift only. I also put my hair in a ponytail and they turned a fan on.

I sat on the birth ball for a little while. My midwife was in the room when the doctor returned at 11:00 and said he felt "absolutely obligated to do a Cesarean." My husband continued talking with the midwife until 11:20. He also talked things over with our doula and requested time alone with her and me. We agreed that we had done everything we could and the baby needed to be born by C-section. When the midwife had checked my cervix for the last time she had said that the dilation was the same and now the baby was transverse. My sweet husband gave me a wonderful Priesthood blessing. Then the anesthesiologist and other women came into the room to prepare me for the surgery.

At 11:55 they had me sit in a wheelchair to go to the operating room. The midwife came, too. The anesthesiologist was very kind as she gave me the spinal epidural, and I enjoyed the numbness that made it feel comfortable to lie on my back. I think my arms were still shaking, as they did during the other Cesareans, but they were in a more comfortable place. I remember warm blankets over my arms, and I remember feeling more calm and happy compared to the disappointment of my first "failed" VBAC. My husband called my mom to tell her that we would have our baby soon. He put on scrubs and a mask and joined me at 12:05 AM.

Our daughter was born at 12:06 AM, only 11 minutes after I entered the operating room, so he got there just in time! She weighed 5 pounds 13 ounces (1 ounce less than Second Girl) and was 18.5 inches long (1.5 inches shorter than both First Girl and Second Girl) with a 35 cm head circumference. She looked like her sisters did as newborns, except she had a lot of dark hair.

Her Apgar scores were 9 and 9. As I found out later, the cord had been tightly around her neck, twice. Also, she pooped in three diapers within ten minutes. Before I could hold her for the first time, she had to have some help in the nursery for about two hours. She had swallowed meconium and she was retracting as she was breathing. My husband went with her and took some pictures and videos, and he came back to room 8 at 12:48, just before I did. Our doula stayed with me while he returned to be with our cute baby in the nursery.

I would have preferred not to have surgery, to be able to feel our baby come out, to be one of the first to hold her. But, knowing that we were doing what our little girl needed, I actually smiled during the operation. I was grateful for the way everyone treated me before, during, and after the birth. They knew what my preferences were and they were patient and respectful. I had no pitocin, and no drugs until the spinal.

The doctor came in later and kindly explained that he thought the need for a Cesarean may be related to the shape of the inside of my pelvis. We don't know about the shape because we have not had x-rays done, but we do know that our little babies are not "too big" to fit through my pelvis. He said he had put stitches, not staples, in my incision so that we could leave the hospital early to spend Christmas morning at home with all our kids.

At 1:30 my husband called my mom again to tell her about her granddaughter. Soon after that, our baby was able to join us, now that she was breathing much better. She learned how to breastfeed pretty quickly and she has been perfectly healthy. We LOVE having this girl in our family!

 

(two different cameras)

 

This was so sweet . . . pure adoration.

"BIG sister" shirts

my first birth story

In 2006 -- before I started blogging -- I had nine lovely months of pregnancy (Really.  I didn't have complications, and I loved being pregnant. Both times, in fact.). Then we welcomed our first child into the world. I wish I would have journaled more of my thoughts and feelings at that time. Now that I am writing about her birth in detail, a little more than four years later, I can only do my best to remember.

I have always wanted to be a mom. I know I had small impressions, several times over a period of probably eight years, that my first baby would be a girl. During the pregnancy, I never felt that it was boy. (My husband and I checked the gender during the 19-week ultrasound anyway, and we were very excited to have a daughter. We had conceived her during his leave from Iraq, and this ultrasound was right after he returned home to stay.) We chose her first and middle name but, when talking to anyone else, we referred to her as "Top Secret," or "Topsy" for short, until after she was born. Later my husband began calling her "Shboogoo" -- the name I chose for my blog's URL.

****

Late on the night before my due date (which was actually 41 weeks, not 40, because my obstetrician changed the date after we had the ultrasound) , my contractions seemed to feel slightly different than the ones I had experienced during the previous week or so, but I didn't really know. Without telling my husband, I began writing down start times. We went to sleep looking forward to the next day: some friends were coming over for breakfast, and later in the day we would eat dinner with family.

At 4:00 a.m. on my due date I woke up and my contractions were more regular, coming every 15 minutes. Around 5:00 I woke my husband and told him what was happening. Later we called our friends to cancel the breakfast, but now I'm sure that we could have still done it.

Some time during our childbirth class my opinion -- that I would get an epidural if I needed it -- had changed. I planned on a drug-free hospital birth with a doula, and my husband was on board with that.

One of us called A., our doula, at 9:25 a.m. (according to her notes), to tell her my contractions were 12 minutes apart and 45-60 seconds long. She didn't need to come over yet, but it was nice to have her expertise over the phone.

Although it was cold, we walked outside, probably once around the condominium complex. A shower helped the contractions get closer together. I loved sitting on the birth ball. My husband was with me every second as I quietly breathed through contractions, and on his laptop he made a really cool spreadsheet with charts and graphs to track them. Nerd! By 3:20 p.m. they were 5 minutes apart and at least 80 seconds long, and at four I thought I felt a trickle of amniotic fluid releasing.

We asked our doula to come, with her counter-pressure and other doula skills. When she arrived I was on all fours. My contractions were spaced the same as a couple of hours earlier. She was impressed by my husband's spreadsheet; I don't think she had seen anyone do that before. Nerd! She was really helpful to me, which of course helped my husband, too.

My mom and two of my siblings came to visit, and brought leftovers from dinner. I remember eating a little four different times, and each time I threw up a while later.

After my husband took a nap we decided to go to the hospital, and we and the doula all got there around 9 p.m. (This was seventeen hours after labor began.) During the short drive there I actually told my husband I felt like I could be pretty dilated already.  When the RN checked me I was 3 cm dilated and 90% effaced -- some progress since being at 2 cm two and a half days earlier. I don't know why they didn't send us back home, but it was probably because with the external fetal monitor they could see the baby's heart rate decelerating pretty low with each contraction. Apparently I was wrong about the trickle; I don't remember this, but the notes say, "waters are released." I guess that means the hospital staff talked to us about breaking my water for me, and we must have agreed to it.

We met (for the first time) the doctor who was on call. Because of the holiday weekend, the nurses' shifts were shorter, so the first one I had was off two hours after we arrived. Then it seemed that there was a new nurse every three or four hours (instead of every twelve)! I think the frequent changes and meeting new people slowed down my labor. By 11:20 p.m. the doctor wanted "change in an hour's time." I had the monitor on my belly again, and the baby's heart rate was still decelerating with each contraction, then returning to normal.

After midnight (Friday now) the new RN found that I was 3 cm or slightly more dilated, 95% effaced, and the baby was still at -1/-2 station. I ate flavored ice chips. We followed my doula's suggestions. However, the baby wasn't ready to come out. An hour later my contractions were 8 minutes apart. The nurse placed an I.V. in me. She started pitocin at 1 mL per hour, and we watched Finding Nemo. She increased the pitocin about every half hour. The contrations were getting slightly closer -- and maybe more intense because that is one typical effect of pitocin -- but I think I felt fine.

The next RN checked me at 3:30 a.m.: 4 cm, 100% effaced, and +1 station. She turned off the pitocin at 4:15. Our baby's heart rate dropped into the 70s during contractions but she recovered well. The doctor came in and I was given antibiotics. At 5:30 I was still laboring without pitocin. I enjoyed slow dancing with my husband (being vertical can let gravity help a baby descend). Unfortunately, my contractions were 8 minutes apart.

At 6:30 another new RN told me I was 4 to 5 cm dilated and +1 station. A new obstetrician came in a while later -- still not the one I had been seeing throughout my pregnancy, but I did think he was the friendliest of the three. The nurse placed an internal fetal monitor and IUPC to show more information than the external monitor gives. Almost an hour (not very long) after I had been checked, the OB checked me and in his opinion I was at 4 cm, 80% effaced and +1 station. He talked about the possibility that we would need a cesarean section to avoid infection because my membranes were ruptures. Twenty minutes late, they gave me pitocin again, followed by another IUPC (I think my movement from going over to the bathroom made this necessary), and amnioinfusion to cushion the cord.

I had written in my birth plan that I preferred not to have these specific interventions. My labor was not how I had anticipated it, and in many ways you cannot plan a birth, since you do not know what problems might occur. Still, the interventions are more ridiculous to me now that I have done even more research on childbirth. Does it make sense to say that the baby needs to be born within 24 hours of the water breaking or he/she is at risk of infection, but to do frequent vaginal exams (which also increase the risk of infection)? By the way, if they broke my water the night before, it had only been 10 hours (not close to 24) and the doctor was already recommending a c-section.

My mom came at 8 a.m., partly to let my husband get some sleep. She's a wonderful mom. She felt bad that my labor was going on for so long (hers were only a few hours each). They gave me some oxygen. At 8:55, IUPC #3 was placed, and the pitocin increased to 2 mL per hour.

Around 9:15 the nurse was concerned about our baby's heart rate going down into the 60s; it was still recovering, though. She paged the doctor, stopped the pitocin, and we decided to have a c-section because it seemed that the doctor thought it was necessary. It looked like the baby wasn't handling this very well and for some reason my cervix was not dilating. Also, we did not want her to have an infection, and I was tired and starting to get hungry since they only "allowed" me to have flavored ice chips.

They gave me Terbutaline to "turn off" the contractions, and we waited for the doctor to return from delivering a baby at the other hospital. Meanwhile, they did the other (not fun) things to prep me for surgery. I was happy to know that we would definitely meet our baby within an hour. We had someone take our Wayne Egan CD into the operating room. The anesthesiologist walked to the operating room with me and my husband, and the spinal anesthetic (which has a quicker onset than an epidural) and the entire surgery only took thirty minutes. I chose to have a curtain in front of me instead of watching. I'm sure my husband talked a lot to make me feel comfortable. The doctors liked having the relaxing piano music there (I did, too); I was their first patient to request that music play during a c-section.

I'm not sure if I wanted to smile.

Our daughter was born at 10:59 a.m. (This photo may gross some people out, but we like it. The hospital staff told us my husband could take pictures of the surgery.) We were more emotional than we thought we would be. We loved her immediately. She was beautiful!

The umbilical cord was long, and had been around her neck, shoulders, and waist, and tangled in her legs. Apparently that explained why her heart rate was dropping. She must have been grateful to be free of the cord squeezing her. Her Apgar scores were good, though -- 7 and 9 -- so had she really been in distress? She weighed 6 pounds 3 and a half ounces, was 20 inches long, and had brown hair.

They reassembled my body and stapled the incision in my skin.

The first non-blurry photo of our first baby. She had a good cry!

  First picture of our faces together; I couldn't hold her yet because of the anesthesia.

I wanted to see what was happening and longed to be part of it.

I remember the strangeness of having an operation (having done it twice now makes it easy to remember): the cold room, shaking, feeling them touch and pull without causing me pain, and my arms being straight out away from my body.

After the doctors lifted my baby above the curtain to show me, and after my husband and I looked at each other when she first cried, I wondered when I would be able to have her near me. That picture of her and me above was just a short sweet moment. I know we went to our room at 11:30 and she was in the nursery (no, I don't know why) until 11:45. We are not sure when I first fed her. I think I slept most of that day. She didn't nurse correctly right away, but thankfully, we did figure out breastfeeding and continued for over thirteen months. She has been very healthy, and she is one of our greatest blessings.

 Held by daddy, having her first bath.

 Family of three!

Nursed to sleep (probably her second or third day of life). This has always been my favorite baby picture of her, partly because it was my idea -- my husband took it from my perspective.

 My doula for this birth, holding Shboogoo a few weeks after.

my second birth story, day two

Still awake at midnight (Saturday morning), I sat on the birth ball and then was lying on my side while D got some sleep on the couch. Surges came every 6 minutes. For the next few hours I was able to rest between surges. The baby's heart rate looked great.

3:40 a.m. The midwife came in to check my cervix. The dilation was the same as the last time I was checked (4 cm) and the baby had descended to a +1 station. The midwife talked about my options; one was to go home to get some sleep. I chose to stay at the hospital and sleep with the help of medication. Until then I had done it drug-free. They gave me a combination of Morphine and Fentanyl, S went home for a while, and I slept for about 3 and a half hours. During that time my contractions were 6 to 13 minutes apart (which we know because of the fetal monitor).

At 8:00 the midwife asked if I would like her to break my bag of waters to see if that would help get the baby out soon. "No artificial rupture of membranes" was in my birth plan, but I said yes, hoping it would be a good thing. Feeling the hook breaking the bag was so strange, and so was the continuing hot gush of clear fluid.

S returned at 10:45 after about six hours spent at her home sleeping, showering, etc. My surges were now 6 to 8 minutes apart, and I was still feeling them in my back. The pain usually started there and moved around to the front. I was very tired.

When midwife #3 arrived and checked me at 11:15 a.m., there had been no change. (Yeah, in seven and a half hours.) A little bit later we started a low dose of pitocin; we wanted to get the surges closer together. D left for about an hour, for some fresh air and a drive by himself. S had me do more exercises to encourage the baby to rotate.

At 12:35 p.m. the nurse increased the pitocin to 4 ml. The surges came anywhere from 3-5 minutes apart, sometimes with spacing of up to 7 minutes. D and S were wonderful. When they knew another one was starting, they rushed to do hip squeeze or other counter pressure to help me. I really benefited from S's words: "Let the pressure be there," and "You can do anything for one minute." At some point, as the peaks of the surges were more intense and I made louder sounds, I understood why women ask for drugs. I'm very glad I was able to experience it.

When I got down on my hands and knees at about 1:20 p.m., the baby's heart rate decelerated dramatically. With help, I moved onto my left side and the heart rate went back to normal. During the next surge the baby's heart rate again dropped a lot lower than it should. The nurse turned off the pitocin and the midwife had a discussion with D and me. She did not know why, with the baby being low, my cervix had not changed (in almost sixteen hours), or why the baby still preferred a posterior position. The midwife said if I wanted to I could keep going for a while, but because my contractions weren't effective, she was unsure of what would happen. The other option was to have a cesarean section.

She and S left the room so D and I could talk about it. I don't remember him saying much besides asking me what I thought. I said that if my body would dilate more, we had no idea how many more hours it might take to get to 10 cm. I cried. It was hard, but we knew what we wanted to do. The ladies came back in about fifteen minutes later. Starting to cry again, I told them, "We think that it's not working, so we want to go ahead with the section." They thought this was a wise decision and I had done the best I could. Here I am with the midwife before she went to call the anesthesiologist.

S reminded us what to expect in the operating room. We borrowed her CD of relaxing music to listen to in there, since we hadn't remembered to bring the music Shboogoo was born to (piano solos played by Wayne Egan). The anesthesiologist (Dr. H) and then the resident (Dr. Z) explained to us the risks and benefits of the surgery. We both loved Dr. Z's personality. She and Dr. D would perform the surgery.

I used the bathroom one more time, D put this oh-so-cute outfit on over his regular clothes, and we were ready to go get our baby out!

As D, the midwife, and I walked into the operating room, I thought, "This is the worst I have felt in my entire life." It was hard both physically and emotionally. I wanted a VBAC so badly and did not know why I was unable to dilate. Dr. H was impatient. And he was a man. So he couldn't know what it was like for me to get onto the table, form a C shape, and hold still while my uterus was still contracting. During the surgery he wanted me to keep my arms up in precisely the right place, which I simply could not do. I couldn't keep my arms from shaking (a common problem during c-sections; I also had pain in my shoulders due to trapped gas). My sweet D never let go of my hand. He told me later that it was really hard for him to watch me. I would not want to have to go through it without him.

Finally, the baby was born at 3:51 p.m. One of the doctors told D to announce the gender, so he said, "It's a girl!" I was a little surprised and disappointed that it wasn't a boy, but I got over that quickly. I saw her briefly above the drape, and she looked healthy and beautiful. D cried. I couldn't see much of what was going on and I don't know exactly what happened when. He said that when she was lying on the table she got to hold his finger. He got to hold her very soon after she was born, and when he brought her to see me I liked that she still had vernix on her. I felt so much love for this child whom I had already done so much for over the last nine months. D told me (I must not have heard) that he was pretty sure they said she was 5 pounds 14 ounces and 20 inches long, and her Apgar scores were 8 and 9.

We went back to our room with L in my arms. D called our families. By 4:40 our baby girl was breastfeeding perfectly! All but three of our many immediate family members visited us that evening. They probably wanted to hurry because we made them wait to find out the baby's name in person. A bunch of them, plus our good friends Katie and Sam, arrived at almost the same time. I made this video while sitting on the hospital bed, happy with my baby and my loved ones.

I agree with my husband's words, written in an email to me a few weeks later:

I remembered how impossibly happy I was to see L for the first time. I thought that the experience couldn't be as powerful as [Shboogoo's] birth . . . but I think it was *exactly* the same: celestial.

taking things for granted

It's been a while since I blogged, but I am alive and well. Life (gatherings with family and friends, a laptop that won't be fixed until several days from now, and a sick Shboogoo) has kept me from spending much time online.


During the weeks since sweet L was born, I have thought about things that I had taken for granted -- things that I was appreciating being able to do now that I wasn't able to do them. If you can do these, be grateful.

• driving
• lifting things heavier than a newborn, like an older child who wants you
• getting up easily from a lying-down position
• vacuuming
• sneezing without pain in your abdomen
• running
• living with your spouse
• talking to your spouse whenever you want to

Now I can do all of those (except the last two), because it's been six weeks since my c-section. I actually only took the percocet for a few days, because I wanted to be able to drive. (My recovery was good, but I think any woman who wants an elective cesarean is crazy. It's faster than a vaginal birth, but that doesn't mean it's easier or better. . .) Well, besides feeling good myself, I'm thankful that the baby is so good and already sleeps seven to eight hours each night! And now it's time for me to get some sleep, too.