A friend's battle with an arrogant doctor.

  My friend from high school is expecting her third child. She had an emergency c-section with her daughter and through out this pregnancy she has told her doctor she is planning on doing a VBAC. Luckily for her, her doctor has been mostly supportive of this decision. That is a rare thing to find, since most doctors do not suggest VBAC to their patients. She has had numerous moments of preterm labor and has been in the hospital to stop it multiple times. At one of her most recent doctor visits, her physician said since she is at 37 weeks and the baby is measuring on the larger side for 37 weeks that he would no longer stop her labor if it started. She has been hoping for over a week that her labor would start naturally since she wanted to avoid having another c-section. Her physician said he would not start labor for her since it was a VBAC, it was all up to when little man felt ready.
   She has been in pain all week and last night she was about to give up hope for her VBAC. Her labor actually started last night and she went to the hospital expecting to be seeing her little boy this morning. Her physician was not the one on call at the hospital. She tried to explain to the physician on call everything that her physician had said to her. He did not listen to her, and even worse he did not attempt to call her physician. Instead he ordered the nurses to administer the shot which would stop her labor! She was in active labor and this doctor stopped it. She left the hospital this morning. Her contractions have started again, but they are sporadic and nowhere near as strong as they had been last night. She is distraught because last night could have been her one chance to avoid c-section all together. She called her physician this morning and had a discussion with him about what happened. To say he is angry is an understatement. He knew how badly she wanted a VBAC and he wanted that for her as well.
   She is now at home, cleaning the house top to bottom and using her exercise ball to encourage her contractions to continue to strengthen. I am hoping she is able to have the birth she wants. Situations like this are the reason us women need to demand to have doctors more educated about VBAC. We need to speak up and demand that they listen to us in situations like this. Our voices matter, especially since we know our own bodies better than anyone else. We need doctors that listen and consider everything we are saying before rushing to decided they know what is best. I understand they went to medical school, but when they do not even consult with our physicians who have been with us for nearly 10 months through this journey they are not doing their job.

Snow baby

   In January we had that wonderful week of snow and arctic temperatures that kept us all locked up in the same house for days. Luckily I was able to keep the majority of my sanity intact without murdering my children....or my husband. In fact it felt nice to spend extra cuddle time with my husband since usually we work alternate schedules. Of course snuggle time turned into sneaking away from our bed since Milk Monster bedshares with us. After the storm, BatGirl returned to school and slowly our routine went back to normal. There were still days of subzero temperatures and snow, but nothing like that one week.
   As our routine went on, small changes began to occur. These changes were only noticeable to myself, and involved my own body. I noticed I was beginning to produce much more milk and this was causing Milk Monster to nurse more than he had in months. At first I thought my body might have been responding to the beginning of a growth spurt in my son. Then my body just felt, well different than it had in a long time. I don't know how to describe it, but it felt as if something within me had changed. I told my husband my suspicion, that perhaps our week of snow had resulted in another baby. He knew I had baby fever and that I had been wanting another child, but he didn't want to get my hopes up. So he tried to calm my suspicions, but it was impossible. I waited weeks before allowing myself to take a test. It was roughly the week my period was due when I bought a pack of tests. I took a test and it seemed negative to me, so I went to bed without saying anything. The next morning, I happened to glance at the test and realized there was a faint second line. I knew of course that it could have been just an evaporation line. So I waited a day before taking the second test. Again, there was a very faint line. My husband wasn't convinced that it was positive, I think partly because he wanted a baby more than he was letting on. So I waited until the end of the week and bought a set of digital tests. The first one was negative, which at first crushed me inside. I waited until the next night to take the second test, and it was positive. I took a picture of it and sent it to my husband while he was at work. There was no denying it now, I was pregnant.
    So we waited until just a few weeks ago to announce to our families that we were expecting. For the most part they seem excited, and we are happy about it. BatGirl wants the baby to be another girl, and Milk monster doesn't really know what's going on. He kisses my belly when we talk about the baby to him, and it is the cutest thing in the world. The interesting part will be when the baby arrives. I wonder how well he will do with sharing mama's milk with the new baby. Oh lord...that's going to be scary.