CycleKore

Today’s post is not on one specific topic. I find my thoughts bouncing around in my head and not really focusing on one thing or another.  First up, parental guilt.  This morning I had told Lilly that tomorrow is Daddy Daughter day!  I am off work and Karry has to work a half day.  When I was leaving this morning Lilly starts screaming and getting upset.  She says “No daddy stay!  Don’t go to work.  Today is daddy daughter day!”.  She then breaks down into tears.  That is so heart wrenching.  It brought tears to my eyes.  By my actions I am hurting my sweet little girl and she does not understand.  She always asks “Why do you have to go to work?”.  I would love to be a stay at home dad.    That is the point of this blog.  I would love to make enough by blogging to offset our income so I could either stay at home with Lilly and our future child or to work reduced hours.

Now a different kind of guilt.  I got my Bicycling Magazine yesterday.  It is not that great as a cycling mag goes.  It is like the Cosmo for bikes.  The model they put on the cover is not even a cyclist.  You can tell by the build of the person.  They have small legs and big upper bodies.  That is the opposite build of top riders.  Reading through that magazine always makes me feel guilty for not riding more.  It also makes me want to ride more!  I get to road ride anywhere from 1-3 days a week.  I will have to be happy with that for now though.  Being a father, husband and having a full time job takes a great deal of time.  When you meet strong riders in club rides they are guys who are either single, divorced or middle aged and their kids are in high school or have gone to college.

I have been using WordPress for a week now and I am getting pretty comfortable with it.  I am going to take the next day or so and start playing with the look of the site.  You might see some drastic changes to the site during this time as I play with different looks.  Watch out PHP here I come!

Within the next few years Karry and I want to add a second child to our family. We both agree that we want Lilly to have a sibling.  We think it would be good emotionally and psychologically for her.  Also I have one brother and we are very close.  I cherish my relationship with him and want Lilly to have that opportunity. Plus Lilly has brought us such joy that we want to bring a bit more of it into the world.

Upon talking about the second baby Karry has made it very clear that she wants a different kind of birth experience this time around. With Lilly she was induced only 3 hours into her stalled labor which lead to having to get an epidural. Her labor stalled because they forced her into bed after we arrived at the hospital an hour after her water broke (Karry wanted a shower). She wasn’t feeling any contractions so the nurses decided she needed to be put into a bed with a fetal monitor instead of letting her walk around. Karry was contracting and in labor when we arrived (witnessed by the monitoring) but instead of determining this and letting her up right away they made her lay there not moving for 2 hours. Her labor stalled and they let her walk for about 30-45 minutes before deciding to start her on pitocin. Fourteen hours after the pitocin started and 4 hours after finally getting an epidural Lilly was born. Karry has nothing nice or pleasant to say about those 10 hours before her epidural and don’t even get her started on the nurse. Did I mention that Karry was one of 2 patients in the maternity ward that day and the other had delivered before we even arrived? After pushing Lilly out Karry ended up with a retained placenta and had to have it surgically removed immediately after giving birth. Karry got to hold Lilly all of a minute that night. After her surgical procedure they doped her up on ketamine to “help her sleep”.  She could not even nurse Lilly that night and in fact Lilly spent her first night on this earth in the hospital nursery. At the time I was thankful they took her so we could rest. Looking back I am deeply saddened.

Karry wants to use a midwife this time around and go to a birthing center and not a hospital. My first reaction to this was rejection. Lilly’s birth was very scary. 5 minutes after Lilly was born she was taken to the nursery for oxygen treatment. She was “singing” when she was born.  This is what the nurses called it. She was making noise while breathing indicating she was working harder than necessary to breath.  However her oxygen levels were fine. Then Karry was whisked away to the OR for surgery. Before they wheeled Karry out of the room her doctor explained to us that she could hemerage, and if that happened she would have to have an emergency hysterectomy. I also watched the anesthetist put an IV into Karry’s neck because the nurses had blown the veins in her right hand and elbow and her left hand had the pitocin drip.  He said she could lose a great deal of blood and this was “just in case” they had to put her completely under very quickly.

I have never felt so alone, worried and scared as I did when I had to drop Karry’s hand as they wheeled her into the OR. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life waiting for the doc to update me on Karry while I watched the natal nurses rushing around and doing all kinds of things with Lilly. So when Karry brought up midwifes and birthing centers my gut went cold thinking about the terror of that night and what would have happened if we were not at a hospital.  I was also biased by the medical industry itself.  In this country we are enculturated into believing that only MDs can deliver babies, and only at hospitals.  It should come to no surprise that the American Medical Association passed a resolution to support legislation to outlaw home births.  You can find the actual resolution here.  The AMA is a trade organization fighting a turf battle for labor and delivery, a multi-billion dollar industry.

Karry and I have had a number of arguments talks about this subject now.  She has asked me to go out and do some research on my own about the state of birthing in this country and then come back so we can talk about it.  This will be a multi-part blog entry about my findings and my change in attitude towards hospital births.

Part 2 can be found here>>