#ive felt this intermittently throughout a lot my life i think. but most of the time i can distract myself from it enough not to notice it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thejoshuaglenn-blog · 3 years

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You're a Good Boy, Charlie Brown

The key purpose of a Tumblr blog here is really a brain dump: logging thoughts, feelings, narrative and such is easier in long form than via a brief Facebook post that generates half a dozen "oh no, what happened" comments. As I'm writing this, most of it seems like bullet points and organized timelines. If you're looking for a TL;DR or current state of thoughts, it's the last section titled The Day After, and the Day After That.

A few days ago, Niko and I said goodbye to our first dog, Charlie Brown.

I'm not keen to chat about it a lot. There's more to process than I have time to type; most of it centers around being fair to myself and to Niko, taking the time to appreciate his life without beating ourselves up, and avoiding the overwhelming mire that grief can become.

Joining the Family

CB was a rescue, a hapless victim of the 2016 Louisiana floods and a happy-go-lucky participant in a "dog for a day" event hosted by a local shelter. I fully expected to rent him out for a day, give him a few great experiences, and return him. For myriad reasons, we never did bring him back to Pet Rescue by Judy, and he's been with us ever since.

At adoption, he was estimated to be around 4-8 years old. With a kicked-in shoulder that offset his collarbone and ribcage, some assorted dental issues, and other little signs of damage (cigarette burns, what the heck is wrong with people), it was tough to really gauge his age. That means he left this world at the ripe old age of something like 9-13, which isn't terrible considering all he'd been through.

Charlie Brown was the iconic good boy. He seldom barked, he never licked or jumped, and just wanted to be in the same room as his favorite people. He had a few toys that he cherished, never ripping them up, just carrying them with him from room to room and whining a bit, unsure of where he could store them for safekeeping. Apart from some separation anxiety issues and an occasional urge to bolt out the door and book it as far as he could, CB was by all accounts an easy first dog: more like a low-effort cat than anything else.

Slowly Falling Apart

Over time, the health issues increased. Intermittent but predictably regular upset tummy. Bad gums, bad teeth. Random gooey skin lesion. Eye ulcers. Since October, we've been averaging 2-3 unplanned vet visits a month — many incurring some hefty bills. We'd take out another credit card, find another financing plan, but it adds up. So does the emotional toil on the family; so does the anxiety toll on the dog.

You start to think about quality of life for the dog, you know? He'd had a few teeth removed to sew up his gums after they kinda detached and fell apart from his jawbone — so he couldn't chew anything hard. Couldn't even chew a tennis ball, which was the only toy he took interest in anymore. Couldn't have any fun treats like peanut butter or other soft chews, as his tummy would have bad flare-ups that usually ended up with him attached to an IV bag. After finally settling in and learning to play well with Atlas, Charlie Brown started to get pretty irritable whenever Atlas got frisky.

He still loved running around outdoors, and was in otherwise great health.

I can't tell you how guilty that makes me feel, even now.

Moving to Waltham

Before we left Orlando, there were so many crisis moments in emergency vet offices where Niko and I talked about how long he could ride this roller coaster. CB obviously was not a fan of vet visits: loved the staff, but was notably anxious and panicky when separated from us, and he had grown very loathe to the process of poking, prodding, and whatnot.

Shortly after moving to Waltham (he was a champ in the U-Haul), Charlie Brown had a severe colitis flare-up. He was losing so much fluid and was growing very lethargic over the day. Vets are hard to get into these days: with the sweep of "pandemic puppy" adoptions, the vet industry as a whole is saturated with demand, and practices are responding as best they can. There were just no emergency clinics available to us within 20 miles, except one that noted "we have no availability, but you can come and wait, and we might be able to see you in 4 or 5 hours." So we did.

It was a very late night. Charlie Brown came home with us with another round of the same antibiotics he'd been taking almost regularly since December for his assorted ailments, and some probiotics. The next day, CB seemed a bit better and brighter, and Niko and I went into the city for part of the day. We came home to find he'd had an accident, but it was just... blood. So so much. And he looked so in pain, so ashamed, so guilty, so anxious.

So we went back to the vet ER. It was another very late night. I didn't know how many of these late nights we could afford; neither of us knew how many of these late nights it was fair to expect Charlie Brown to endure.

Do you plan on letting a pet go after an extended crisis visit? Do you plan on letting a pet go in a time of relative peace?

Camping Analogy, and a Best Last Day

When you're off on a long hike, and you see daylight start to fade as the sun begins to set, you begin to think about finding a good place to set up camp for the night. It's abysmal to do this after the sun has already gone down: where you could have had preparation and structure, you have chaos by flashlight.

A dog's life is in your hands. You're his whole world: all food, adventure, pampering, challenge, treatment, and care come from you. More than anything, we wanted Charlie Brown to have a peaceful, restful life. Now that we started thinking about it, we wanted to be able to give him a peaceful, restful passing as well: not as the climax of another overnight crisis with injections and yelps and beeps and cowering and anxiety and fear, but in the still quiet of familiar sounds and smells.

His very last day was a great one. Fresh Pond in Cambridge: a massive stroll around a colossal lake with an absurd bounty of new smells, kind people, happy dogs, and a brisk New England breeze. He got to swim in a little side pond — that boy lived for jumping into random lakes. He ran around the broad field that is Kingsley Bowl, chasing a thrown ball the very very farthest his sad pop could throw it — and he brought it back. We bought him a steak. We told him how much he brought to our lives.

And then we waited.

Lap of Love is a sort of home delivery service of dignified passing for pets. There's more to say on that hour than I care to pen, but throughout the procedure, we never left him. Charlie Brown passed enveloped in our arms and laps and sobs and hugs.

The Day After, and the Day After That

The rest is just thoughts. Your head starts to feel like a coffee shop where your grief comes in, sits at a table with you, and unloads. You nod, listen, and wish them well. I hope I can keep processing this way — I find it helpful, and less overwhelming.

I wish he had been able to play with his tennis ball more. Since his jaw surgery — even out on Kingsley Bowl, nearly a month and a half after he should have been fully healed — any kind of chewing would cause renewed bleeding and pain.

I wish we had hugged him more. But truth be told, he didn't like hugs. They made him uncomfortable. So we gave him a hand to lay his head on, or a knee for him to pop his head upon, as often as he liked.

There were so many times I felt inconvenienced by owning a dog at all. They weren't the majority, but... now each remembered time feels like a splinter of selfishness.

I miss how familiar the back of his neck felt under my hand, just behind the ears, where the waves of fur meet and crash and make a long cowlick of foof and fluff.

His happy smile and his stressed smile were very similar, but you could still tell which was which.

I loved being there for him in thunderstorms.

When you think about it, we sort of were hospice care for him. We weren't his original owners; we just wanted the rest of his life to be painless and fulfilling. He had so many trust issues when he first came to us. And in the end, he loved anyone he met.

I miss feeling around with my feet to make sure I don't step on him on my way to bed. I miss setting my feet on the floor as I wake, stooping down, and giving his head a good squishy rub.

He never did get to see Boston snow. I mean... thousands of dogs never get to see snow. But I was really looking forward to sharing that experience with him.

I wanted so badly to bring him to a point of health, and then say goodbye when he was feeling well. Seeing him have his Best Last Day, part of me whispered "murderer" with cold accuracy, and I have a hard time shaking it. He was so happy — but between jaw bleeding after playing with a tennis ball, seeing him scratch his eyes that were starting to ache with ulcers again... I know the unbridled happiness came with the reality of his declining health.

Atlas was the best thing that ever happened to that boy. I know Charlie Brown was at least a little disgruntled that his easy-going day-to-day had been interrupted by a chompy puppy, but Atlas brought out the young pup in CB: ripping palm fronds to shreds, playing tug, playing tag, meeting new dogs with confidence and assurance.

I used to get so mad at my mother-in-law for feeding Charlie Brown cinnamon donuts. I wish I'd given him more. Heck, I wish I'd given him more peanut butter. I'm frankly surprised he hadn't died of peanut butter overdose years ago.

Where Charlie's health had limits, we kept going with Atlas. That might mean taking Atlas out to play with a ball or a tug toy, because CB couldn't. It breaks my heart now to think of Charlie at the glass door just watching it happen, all because he physically couldn't play the same. I know he didn't understand that.

We took him out to Park Ave maybe once or twice. I wish it had been more. Truth be told, it was the same as the dog park, though: he was kind of a loner. Loads of people or dogs made him anxious. So while I might idealize the past and wish he had sat at our legs for lunch after lunch at an outdoor thoroughfare, ... I think he would have been miserable. I think he would have rather just curled up at the base of the couch and dozed while we watched a show.

He was so trusting. I could just drag him onto his back and onto my lap for cuddles and a good tummy rub. No complaints.

He looked so gaunt these past few months. I keep looking at earlier photos, and I really didn't realize just how grizzly and drawn he had become lately.

I miss seeing him randomly waiting for me outside the bathroom door — or curled up on the bath mat while I was in the shower, having sneakily nosed the door open and wanting my company while I was rinsing.

For his first few years with us, he was incredibly playful. I've been going through old videos — it's like going outside just blew his mind, and toys were either for cherishing daintily, or thrashing about and throwing to oneself and gnawing. He lost that after a time. He regained it a bit when Atlas joined the party. But it still faded. I'm sure that's inevitable, but it makes me sad to see the early vibrant puppy in those old recordings, and how different he had been in recent months.

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softtofustew · 4 years

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an odyssey | afterword

rating: T

pairing: Hwang Hyunjin/Han Jisung

summary: Somewhere in the galaxy of the Stella Primum, Lieutenant Han is the best fighter on his team, a real ace shooter, with five gold stars to show. Too bad Second Lieutenant Hwang is not only great at battling the Ordinem, he’s also got disgustingly perfect looks to match, and now Jisung’s stuck in the same spaceship with him for possibly the most impossible task of their lives. Or the one where a rivalry is brewed across the skies and stars, until Jisung realises what there is to flying beside Hyunjin on a mission to save the galaxy.

if you haven’t read it yet, read here.

this is an afterword to ‘an odyssey’, where i write about the origin of the story, the characters, and my struggles of writing :’)

(i) The Origin

I’ve had this work in my WIPs since, believe it or not, January of this year. I’ve had this idea for so, so long. I wrote it intermittently throughout this year, with a scene or two in September, then October.

Due to my exams, though, I couldn’t write as much as I wanted to. That’s why I only really started writing ‘an odyssey’ back in mid-November. The good thing was that I had more time to plan this out, because frankly, this is perhaps the heaviest fic I’ve written in terms of plot so far.

I can’t for the life of me remember where this story idea planted itself in my head. All I knew was that I like space AUs, I adore Hyunjin and Jisung’s friendship, and I love enemies to lovers. Realising there weren’t any fics out there that combined the three, I knew it was my time to shine. Or something.

(ii) The Plot

The plot was the trickiest to pull off. I’ve written an urban fantasy here and there, but I’m pretty sure if I reread them thoroughly, I’m bound to find a couple of plot holes.

There were a lot of elements to cover: the Prophecy. The five gems. The push-pull relationship between Jisung and Hyunjin. The journey to discovering the whereabouts of the last Gemma. The last boss fight with a Governor who could wield the Force. There was!!!! So!!!! Much!!!! Going!!!! On!!!!!

Perhaps if I reread ‘an odyssey’, I might find another plot hole or two; who knows? For now, though, I feel quite contented with this work of mine. Considering it’s my first time writing something as long as this (50K+ are you kidding me?), I feel this is a first step for me to continue expanding my horizons when it comes to writing, to continue to challenge myself to write something different, something bold. Something new.

(iii) The Characters

I rewatched the Two Kids Room and One Kid Room episodes so many times, over and over again. There’s a reason why this story is centred around Jisung and Hyunjin, and why it’s written from Jisung’s perspective.

Their relationship is, after all, something coherently interesting. They really said “enemies to friends but make it irl”. I guess I took that concept and sort of exaggerated the extent of their ‘hate’ for each other, which isn’t exactly hate to begin with. The further you read on, the more you’ll realise that they don’t exactly hate each other — they just got off on the wrong footing, and have never tried turning back to start over once more.

It’s written from Jisung’s perspective because personally, I wanted the story to be told from the eyes of someone who was prideful, who was eager and determined, and who wanted to show his worth to everyone else. I feel like perhaps I didn’t expand on characterising Jisung to the fullest advantage possible, though, which remains a slight regret of mine.

Another reason why I wanted this to be written from Jisung’s POV is because we can find out how Jisung feels about Hyunjin throughout the story. When he realises whose son Hyunjin is, he’s torn between wanting to pity Hyunjin and keeping things between them the same as they always have. (If I were in his position, though, I don’t know what I would have done lol.) It was hard to try and interpret his emotions, but there’s that.

Someone commented once asking if we’d ever get Hyunjin’s POV. Sadly, one of my biggest turn-offs is the switching of POVs in stories when it’s not entirely necessary haha. As much as I would want to know what Hyunjin is thinking when they’re arguing, or when they’re fighting, I like to keep on the suspension line. It gives you the feeling of immersing yourself as the Jisung in the story, of only seeing things from one perspective.

As for the other characters, there wasn’t enough time to expand on all of them (for example, I mentioned Seungmin several times throughout the story, but really, he speaks only once haha). And as your fellow StayDay, it was definitely fun for me to include a few members of Day6. (please don’t ask me why I thought of ‘PJ and Honey’ while writing. I was probably hungry.)

I don’t know if I’ll continue to expand on the characters in this same universe, but it would be fun to think of the other relationships, for example Chan and Felix, or Changbin with Minho and Seungmin. (someone please save the seungbinho tag!!!!!!)

As far as characterisation goes, I’ve still got so much to learn. For now, though, I hope you enjoyed the dynamics between the characters and how Jisung and Hyunjin learnt to grow within a span of six chapters.

(iv) The Writing Process

Granted, the writing bit was a little easier in the beginning, but as I delved myself deeper into the story, I found it harder and harder to express the emotions I wanted to deliver in the story. One of the hardest chapters for me to write by far was the last chapter. I wrote two versions of the last chapter, simply because I felt the first version was too lacklustre for the ending of such a long story haha.

I had a clear outline of my story, but I did end up extending it from the initial 5 chapters to 6. For the first time, though, I didn’t add any random elements to the story, unlike how i wrote this story last year haha. The lesson I’ve learnt is that I should ALWAYS have a brief outline of the plot — detailed enough to cover the entire story, but brief enough to give me some creative freedom mid-writing.

The excitement of writing honestly wore off near the last few chapters. I’ve realised the importance of reading unfinished works in this way. Writers really need some form of motivation to keep them writing their chaptered works. So if you’re one of the real ones who started reading this even before it was completed, kudos to you. I really appreciate it.

Overall, writing this was fun. Hopefully I don’t need to do this again though; I absolutely hate writing chaptered fics because of all the time and effort put into them. I’d much rather be a ‘One-Shot Hotshot’ lol.

(v) The End (?)

I left a bit of wondering for the readers in the last chapter. If Atkins was able to wield the Force despite the false pretence that there was no longer any Force-wielders left in the universe, how many more of them could there be?

That leaves an opening for me if I ever wish to return to this alternate universe sometime in the future. The Universe is ever-expanding, and so is our imagination.

(vi) The Inspiration

Obviously, I need to thank Star Wars. I also need to apologise because I absolutely butchered their universe. Fun fact: there was one huge plot hole I had to cover up halfway through writing.

If you’re observant, you might remember the scene where Hyunjin asks Jisung why they didn’t just jump into hyperspace to reach Ilsanis. That’s because I was watching an episode of The Mandalorian where the Mando was forced to fly a ship without a hyperdrive engine, and I almost freaked out right there in the middle of the living room realising how weird that would be if I left the issue unattended in my own work (yikes).

Long story short, I drew elements from the Star Wars universe and created a story of my own. I’ve been asked how I came up with the idea of the Prophecy. Frankly, I don’t know. My brain farts sometimes, I guess. Brain Farts = weird ideas that somehow make sense sometimes.

(vii) Lastly

If you have any more questions you’d like to ask (or plot holes to tell me about *shudders*), do leave me a question in my CC, or holler at me on Twitter (I’m hardly alive here on Tumblr haha). To anyone and everyone who has read ‘an odyssey’, I thank you.

This year has been a funky year, and even worse, it’s the year I had to take my IGCSEs. Writing has always been a way for me to create my own universe and release my tension and emotions, so not being able to write as much as I used to was a little tough.

Writing will continue to be a medium for me to express my emotions and my thoughts while creating stories of my own, so simply by giving my fics a read, you’ve already fuelled my reason to continue to write. Thank you for all the support in ‘an odyssey’!

(why did i write this entire monologue like i’m giving a speech at the Oscars or something lol im so dramatic :”))

#mycommentary

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parentingtheoryandpractice · 6 years

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Maya’s birth story (and reflections on previous births)

My third pregnancy felt like a pretty long and hard road, overall. But by the very end of it, I was actually feeling pretty good, most of which I chalk up to having finally resolved my iron-deficiency anemia. As I passed 39 weeks, I was pretty energetic, getting excited to meet the baby, and also quite focused on and nervous about labor.

Labor is pretty different from most things in life because on the one hand, it’s active hard work. It’s not the sort of thing I just have to suffer through, like being sick. And on the other hand, there’s no way to stop it. Most hard or painful things that tend to come up in my life are either passive or the type of thing I could in theory stop doing.

I wasn’t anxious that anything would go wrong with me or the baby during labor, but I was worried that would be painful and overwhelming. I didn’t feel like I wouldn’t be able to do it, but I did feel like I didn’t want to do it.

I’d been having Braxton Hicks contractions a bunch during my pregnancy, but at some night maybe around week 38 I remember noticing that they were coming pretty regularly, even though they weren’t intense. I mostly ignored them, but took them as a sign that things were starting to move in the right direction. At around the same time every night, I started to get semi-regular contractions that didn’t progress in any particular pattern and sometimes went away when I changed positions. The next noticeable ramp up was on Wednesday, when the contractions were strong enough to wake me up at night. I think that was when I first lost some of my mucous plug. But they mostly went away the next morning. Thursday night, again, the contractions were strong enough to wake me up. And then Friday I intermittently had fairly strong (meaning easily manageable, but very noticeable) contractions throughout the day, anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour apart.

We had our regular babysitter that evening, so once she took the kids, I was hanging out with Will. We had watched the video of the end of my labor with Zeke, where I pushed him out at the hospital with an epidural, earlier in the week. Friday night, we watched the video of me pushing out Lydia without medicaition at home.

That night, I did a bunch of talking through and processing both my previous labors, and I identified some things that I didn’t feel great about.

I had a vivid and mildly unpleasant composite memory of some of the hardest contractions I had in the tub during my labor with Lydia. I think there were two distinct memories stored with these contractions. One was my conclusion that moving during a contraction seemed to prolong it instead of helping. (There’s some nuance to this—I’ve had only positive experiences swaying while leaning against a counter, for example, but there was a way I had been moving around in the bath that was motivated by trying to escape the pain that seemed entirely counterproductive.) The other memory was that at one point during Lydia’s labor I promised myself that I would let myself seriously consider getting an epidural next time, now that I knew what it felt like. I assume that these memories were salient because they included information I was supposed to remember.

I had a memory of walking up and down the stairs during my labor with Lydia that evoked some dread. My midwife had encouraged me walk up and down near the end of labor. I think I was pretty much dilated by then, but my water hadn’t broken and I wasn’t feeling the urge to push. I also remember sitting on the labor stool as being pretty bad, though the experience with the stairs was more vivid.

I also remember how I had felt during the long part of Zeke’s labor where I was fully dilated but not experiencing the urge to push, before we went to the hospital. I didn’t want people telling me what to do, I was exhausted, and I was generally feeling crappy.

And after watching my birth videos, there were some other parts I didn’t like, but hadn’t consciously remembered as much, that stood out to me. When I was pushing Lydia out, my midwife was doing some perineal massage and stretching, and it seemed like her doing that was one of the main things I was complaining about. And after both Lydia and Zeke came out, I didn’t love seeing how I seemed sort of helpless, and there were a lot of people who seemed to be doing things to me and my babies that I didn’t necessarily want to be happening.

I want to include that I don’t think it’s anyone else fault that things played out in these ways. Insofar as I communicated with my birth team, people did what I wanted. I asked my midwife, Maria, about the stretching she was doing as it happened and once she explained that it was to prevent tearing I told her to keep doing it. At the end of labor with Lydia I was looking for direction, so I ended up doing what Maria told me to do. And when I was at the hospital with Zeke, whenever I was clear that I didn’t want the staff to be doing something, they didn’t do it.

And yet despite my consent, I think a bunch of the things that happened were mildly traumatic, in the weak sense of being stored in an unprocessed, “stuck” sort of way.

Notably, various of aspects of my previous labors that were actually more painful or adversarial than the ones I listed above didn’t seem to be stored as trauma. The car ride to the hospital during Zeke’s birth was pretty brutal, with all the pain of labor and none of the ability to choose my own position. We also ended up taking a wrong turn, so the car ride was longer than it should have been. And when we got to the hospital, it took a bunch of tries for the nurses to get an IV in my arm. And then when I did eventually get the epidural put in, I had to sit still for it despite still experiencing very strong contractions. All of those parts just seemed like stuff I had to put up with to get what I wanted. When I remember them, I feel distant from the physical experience, and I identify more with the self who chose the overall plan.

As far as I can tell, the stance where I have a plan and I’m trying my best to execute it despite obstacles is quite protective against trauma, and the stance where I’m letting things happen to me that I’m not really on board with because I’m feeling helpless and out of touch with my values is very likely to lead to trauma.

As I was meditating on all this in early labor with Maya, I was clear that I wanted to avoid trauma. I called up Sue, my midwife, and asked her to talk me through what would happen if I wanted to go to the hospital. She told me that they probably wouldn’t take me until I was 6cm dilated. That when I arrived, they would put me in an intake room with a fetal monitor for about 20min, and then someone would check my dilation. At that point, if I was far enough along, I could go to a labor and delivery room and get an epidural when the anesthesiologist was available. I still wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go to the hospital or not.

Around that point, having done a bunch of emotional processing about my previous births and what I wanted for this one, I told Will I wanted a change of context and asked him to walk around with me outside. We paced around our block, and he started to time my contractions. Once I noticed him doing it, I started telling him when they were starting and stopping. They were fairly regular at that point, but still under a minute and usually at least five minutes apart. They were manageable, especially if I were standing up and leaning against something or pulling down on something, but they mostly required my full attention. (I remember having one while I was sitting down outside and not liking it at all.)

I’d been working through the Pink Kit labor preparation materials, and one of the things it recommends is using your pain management techniques during early labor to get into the habit, so that by the time things got more intense you would be using your techniques more automatically. I did try to follow that advice. My basic procedure was to try to relax, and visualize my uterine muscles pulling my cervix more open. Thinking of the actual muscles involves helps me contextualize the sensation and short-circuits exaggerated thoughts about what’s going on, like “I’ feel like I’m going to break in half”. I would remind myself to let go of physical tension, and practice diffusing my awareness. There’s a tendency when experiencing intense pain to let it take over my entire awareness, and I tried not to do that. I would try to note other perceptions that weren’t the pain intermittently.

And my verbal loop was mostly busy reciting the Litany Against Fear from Dune:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

I remember reciting this to myself sometimes during my first labor, but this time I said it to myself multiple times during almost every contraction. Insofar as I had thoughts about how I didn’t want to be experiencing labor, I told them to wait until I wasn’t having a contraction. I had a pretty visceral understanding of the fear/tension/pain feedback loop, and I was very strongly motivated to avoid any thoughts that would lead to me tensing up.

We had our nanny that night until 11:30pm, and I told Will that when he took over with the kids I would want the labor support woman we had been working with to come by and be with me. At that point, I was trying to mentally prepare myself for the long haul. I was pretty sure I wasn’t in active labor yet, and I didn’t want to wear myself out either physically or mentally by assuming things would ramp up soon.

We went back inside, and I got in the tub. I have always liked laboring in the tub. The water feels great, and I like the way my belly gets buoyant. With my second labor, it was when I got into the tub that things really ramped up and I started actively dilating, and as far as I can tell the same was true with this past labor. By the time it was 11:30, and my birth support person with me and Will was with the kids, the contractions were much more intense. I remember wanting to actively push against something during them, and I think I was pressing my feet up against the side of the tub. Still manageable, but quite painful. And around that point I would say I was pretty far into labor land, and my awareness of the passage of time got fuzzier.

Not so long after 11:30, I got out of the tub and checked my dilation. I could feel that I was quite dilated, though not fully dilated. I figured that if I wasn’t 6cm, I was close to it. I would say that I was coping okay, but I wasn’t liking labor and I decided I wanted to go to the hospital and get an epidural. We told Will to take the kids to our friend’s place for the night. Between contractions I got dressed and packed some things in a hospital bag. I asked my support person what she thought I should bring. I grabbed a robe, and a change of clothes for me. I thought I grabbed a baby wrap and a baby outfit, but I later realized I left those things on the bed. I also grabbed a teething necklace I had bought recently and put it on. I knew I was going to want something to bite down on. During contractions, I mostly stood up and leaned against whatever counter-like thing was closest.

I remember my birth support person saying to me that I might be further along than I realized. I told her that I realized I could be pretty far along. In retrospect, it seems odd to me that I didn’t mention to anyone else that I had checked my dilation. It’s funny to me how being in labor seems to shift my sense of what’s private. I get pretty unselfconscious about people seeing me naked, for example, but information about what’s going on in my body and how I’m relating to it can feel oddly private.

Once I felt ready to go, i went downstairs. I put some food in my bag and ate some of Zeke’s old sandwich that was sitting on the counter.

Pretty soon (though it felt longer at the time) we were ready to drive to the hospital. Will called Sue, our midwife, and told her to meet us there.

I remember asking the baby and my body to please give me a break and slow things down while I was getting to the hospital. I took one look at the seat and realized there was no way I was going to sit down in it, so I got on my hands and knees and hung off the back of the seat while Will drove me to the hospital. I think I only had two or three contractions during the drive over. We got there quickly, checked in, and went to the intake room. A nurse got me fitted with a fetal monitor. I took one look at the bed in the room and had the same reaction I had had to the idea of sitting down in the car—I was completely unwilling to do that. Instead, I labored over by the counter in the room. I was glad that I brought the teething necklace, because it felt very satisfying and helpful to bite down on it hard during my contractions.

Before too long, Sue got there too. I remember her, Will, and my birth support person experimenting with the lights to try to make the ambience a little nicer. I was pretty internal at that point. I mostly had my eyes closed during contractions, and I didn’t want anyone to talk when I was having them. They were very strong at that point, and getting closer together.

After a while, a different nurse came to the intake room and said that there was an emergency on the floor, I think as a way of explaining why we had mostly been on our own in the intake room. She also then asked me a bunch of questions about my pregnancy, which was the most weirdly dystopian part of my whole birth experience. I insisted on only answering between contractions, which I think in a sane world would have been a given! Most of the questions were definitely things the hospital would have had in their records anyway, since I went there for some prenatal appointments. I’m normally pretty scrupulous about not saying stuff that isn’t true, to the point where I stress get stressed and want moral support filling out medical history sections of forms because they don’t usually specify which relatives they are asking about. But I guess now I know around where my limit is. I remember the nurse asking if I’d had any problems during my pregnancy. I said “no”. She then asked if I’d had any gestational diabetes, and I said I had. She said that was obviously a problem. I knew that, and I also knew that anemia was a problem. But I really didn’t feel up for discussing any of that stuff. Around the time I was answering these questions, I was in transition. What was left of my mucous plug was falling out at this point during my contractions.

At some point, I remember noticing a very strong desire to pull down on something during my contractions, and thankfully the pulls for the hospital cabinets were high quality and attached very securely! I think around the same time, though again, the timeline is pretty fuzzy, I remember hearing my vocalizations change to something that sounded more like I was starting to push. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from that change on what timescale, since I hadn’t experienced a spontaneous desire to push in either one of my previous births. I went with it though, and pushed along with the contractions insofar as it felt natural. It felt good to do that. I wasn’t at all sure how effectively I was actually pushing. I remember reaching down to try to feel what was going on, and I think I felt a bulging bag of waters.

And soon it became quite clear that I was pushing effectively, because my water broke. I might have kneeled down for this contraction. I know I kneeled down for one of the contractions around this point, though I guess then I stood back up again.

As with the pushing, on some level I knew that my water must have broken, but on some level I was confused because with both of my other births, someone else had eventually broken my water after I’d been fully dilated for a while. I knew that once my water broke, I was going to feel way more pressure, and I did.

I think it was with the next contraction that I said that I was worried I was going to have the baby right there.

Sue, my midwife, assured me that right there was a fine place to have a baby. I trusted her, so I took that as a green light. I wonder how my body would have responded if Sue had told me that right there wasn’t a good place to have a baby, but I guess now I’ll never know! With the next contraction, I felt a very classic and unmistakable urge to push, I went with it, and I pushed out the head. I announced that I had pushed out the head, and I’m glad I did, because I hadn’t registered that no one could see the head hanging out behind the birthing gown. I think I said something to the effect of how I didn’t like how it felt, having just the head sticking out. Sue came over, saw the head and told me that the rest of the baby would come out with the next contraction. I don’t know if it was then or a little before when I announced that I didn’t want anyone taking the baby away from me.

I’m not quite sure where the nurse who had been asking me the intake questions was at this point. Maybe around when I said I was going to have the baby she went to get more people?

The next contraction happened pretty soon—maybe within a minute or two—and Sue caught the baby and handed her to me under my legs, and I sat down on the floor of the intake room with the baby. And right around then, there were around six people who hadn’t been there before. I had been excited about the idea of catching my own baby this time around, and I feel like I got what I wanted in that regard. I was very happy that Sue was there, since I didn’t have to worry about the baby falling on the ground, but my hands were right on her the whole time.

They gave me lots of warm blankets, which was nice, and were trying to do some other things that I didn’t like so much and mostly told them to stop doing, as I remember it. Sue shared some thoughts about putting Maya’s head lower to help drain any fluid, and at some point encouraged Will and me to rub her feet some. I’m mostly of the opinion that unless something is truly an emergency, medical professionals should ask before doing things, and I remember telling them that this didn’t seem like an emergency. A pediatrician also came and wanted to take Maya’s blood sugar immediately. I had thought about this before hand, and I declined, saying I would think about doing that later.

I also tried to get Maya to nurse, mostly because it just seemed like the most natural thing to do. One nurse said something to me about how I shouldn’t expect the baby to nurse right away, but I ignored her and kept trying, and Maya did in fact latch.

Having now given birth three times, I feel justified in making some generalizations about how I give birth, and one of the ways I give birth is that once the baby is out I have a mental todo list of what needs to happen. And one of the very next things on the list is that the placenta needs to come out too. The first time I thought of this, the cord was still pulsing. A nurse told me that it was fine to cut it as long as it had been a few minutes, but I wanted to wait. A little while later, once it had stopped, Will and the hospital midwife (I think?) clamped it and cut it. At that point I gave baby Maya to Will, and wanted to get the placenta out.

I was worried it would hurt to get it out. I find it abstractly amusing how having experienced something very painful recently doesn’t make other things less painful, at least not straightforwardly.

My original plan had been to get Pitocin after I pushed out the baby, but for whatever reason I wasn’t really feeling it once it happened. I didn’t end up losing very much blood, so that worked out okay.

Someone brought me a pan to push the placenta into. I tried squatting over it and just trying to push, which didn’t seem to be working. I asked if it was okay to pull on on the cord, and the midwife said it was. The combination of squatting and pulling a little did the trick, and I delivered the placenta.

I think it was around then that they wanted to move me into a labor and delivery room. It felt pretty weird to get up and be wheeled somewhere else, but I didn’t feel up for walking!

In fact, ever since I had pushed out the baby, I had been shaking intensely—another birth experience I had read about but I don’t remember experiencing with either of my other two. I wasn’t particularly cold, and the shaking wasn’t aversive. I’m not sure what to say about it other than that it was a very interesting experience, and according to what I understand of Peter Levine’s model of trauma, probably one with very positive effects.

Once we got to the labor and delivery room, my focus was very much on wrapping things up and getting out of the hospital as quickly as possible. I knew from my experience giving birth to Zeke that if we signed some forms we could leave AMA within a few hours. I got stitches for a second degree perineal tear, which was no fun at all, though I liked the midwife who stitched me up. I got my blood pressure taken a whole bunch of times. I signed some forms, declined a bunch of stuff, peed, got dressed, ate some of a banana, drank some water, chatted with Will, our birth support person, and Sue, and waited around to hear whether the cord blood was positive. Eventually we found out that it wasn’t, so I didn’t need a Rhogam shot, so we were ready to leave. It was around 3 hours after I’d given birth, which I’ve since been told is quite a fast turnaround.

My second least favorite part of the hospital experience, after trying to answering intake questions during transition, was trying to leave with the baby. They told us we would have to bring the carseat up and carry her down in the carseat, which we didn’t want to do. It seemed nonsensical to us, particularly because we don’t have an infant carseat—we have a convertible one without a separate base that we would have had to fully uninstall and reinstall. So then they told us that it would be acceptable to wheel Maya down in the huge hospital bassinet, because they couldn’t risk us dropping her…while walking through the hallway to the elevator.

I get about liability and why hospitals have policies like this, but I don’t like it at all because the message it sends is that it’s not safe for parents to carry their babies! What could be more disempowering, especially to first-time parents! What exactly do they think we’re going to do as soon as we get home—not carry the baby around???

Anyway, Maya didn’t mind being in the bassinet for a bit, so we went with it. I like to think I would have picked her up if she started crying, but she didn’t.

And pretty soon we were home to start life with our new baby :-). I found the wrap and baby outfit that I had left on the bed while attempting to pack my hospital bag. I tried to sleep that night, because I was super tired, but predictably I spent a bunch of time awake and staring at Maya

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armyhealth9-blog · 5 years

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Episode 405 - Robb and Nicki Q&A #9

We're back with Q&A #9 with Robb and Nicki.

Remember to submit your own questions for Robb and Nicki to answer on a future show here: https://robbwolf.com/contact/submit-a-question-for-the-podcast/

Show Notes:

1. [2:06] Kidney Stones

Krisztian says: I've been mostly Paleo for about 5 years now based on one of your piror books. Overall, it has worked well for me, with one exception. I started to develop kidney stones on a regular basis. I finally had them analyzed and they turned out to be calcium oxalate stones. Upon reading up on this condition, it stems from a high amount of oxalate in the diet. Unfortunatley, most of the foods I liked on Paleo happen to be super high in oxalate... spinach, nuts, seeds, dark chocolate, sweet potatoes. The other wammy here is that I was initially avoiding dairy on Paleo which turns out to be worse for stones because one way to counteract high oxalate intake is to match it with high calcium to avoid stone formation. I've since gone back to eating plenty of cheese and high fat dairy in my diet.

I'm curious if this is a common issue that you've seen and I'm wondering if this is something that might be helped by going to a keto diet.

2. [5:33] Sugar addiction Kathryn says: Hey Robb, I am really hoping you can give me some insight into why I can't seem to fully recover from sugar addiction. I have had a sweet tooth my whole life, but in recent years I have learned that I have a true addiction to sugar. In the last four years or so, I have studied a lot of nutrition, functional medicine and ancestral health perspectives and gone on a strict paleo diet for months at a time. In almost every way, a clean diet of whole foods makes me feel amazing (better sleep, clearer skin, joints and movement feels better, etc.), except, I become very depressed. It's not a mopey, weepy kind of depressed, it's literally a depression of all feeling, like I feel very little at all. But I do sometimes feel really, really irritable, or sometimes bouts of rage that don’t match the situations they arise in. But most of the time, I just feel blah. I thought this would go away after a couple of weeks or even a month or two of eating clean, but it didn't. In happy or exciting moments, it was like I just couldn't feel those emotions fully. I also noticed that I didn't crack jokes like I usually do or feel like being social. All my feelings were dulled. Even sad ones. And when I did fall off the diet, and eat sugar, I immediately felt cheerful again. To me, it seems that the years of sugar abuse have altered my brain enough that without sugar, I can't feel normal emotions anymore. So my question is concerning healing my brain. Is it possible to reverse these effects? The longest I have gone on a strict paleo diet is three months. I admit it was hard to keep going when I just didn't see myself ever feeling happy again. If it's possible to heal my brain and increase its capacity for proper dopamine signaling again, are there certain therapies or supplements that can precipitate and accelerate that healing? Perhaps I am ignorant of some other factor or mechanism at work here. I would be grateful for any insight or help you can give. Thanks for the incredible work you do to bring to light the truth about human health and nutrition.

Notes:

Carb 22: https://carbsyndrome.com/nutraceuticals-new/

STEM Talk Episode 69 (David LeMay): https://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode-69/

3. [11:32] Metabolic Flexibility and Weight Loss/Maintenance Julia says: Robb and Nicki, I am very interested in the concept of metabolic flexibility and eagerly waiting to hear your upcoming lecture on this topic. Intuitively it makes sense that given variation in season and climate that humans would have relied on a menu of macronutrient combinations. My question is: how can developing metabolic flexibility be used as tool for weight loss/maintenance? I have been about 90% ketogenic for the past 28 months; the other 10% would be high carb meals which I have allowed as a metabolically flexible person. I can swing in and out of ketosis with ease; however, I have noticed that if I go through periods of higher carb, it does result in weight gain which is tough to lose even when reentering ketosis. I do crossfit almost daily and practice the 18:6 IF schedule, and I don't notice either of those things affecting my performance. Thanks!

4. [16:31] Low afternoon energy

Laura says: Hi Robb and Nicki, Thank you both for all you do! I've been a huge fan since 2010 and admire your relentless pursuit of the truth when it comes to health and nutrition.

My question is about my extremely low energy in the early afternoons. I know it is a common complaint, but I feel like I've done everything I can to fix the common mistakes that lead to the afternoon slump, and I also feel like my exhaustion is too extreme to be normal for my age and health status.

I'm 32 years old, I eat low carbish (75-100g most days), have toyed with keto, eat mostly paleo with the addition of some dairy and occasional non gluten grains. I do crossfit 3x/week and spend most of my time chasing my 2 year old around. My sleep is good most of the time, and I do not have any major life stressors that effect me currently. No diagnosed health conditions, no rx meds.

I had bloodwork done recently, and my doctor was very impressed with the results, especially my blood lipids. A1c was 4.8, C-reactive protein 0.8, no thyroid antibodies present. Fasting blood sugar 78. The only things that were slightly out of range were homocysteine (slightly low at 4.6), Uric acid low at 2.4, serum iron slightly high at 148, and my free T3 was a little low at 2.5. Another Doctor years ago prescribed me naturethroid but I never took it.

Ive tried changing my diet in every way imaginable to try to combat a possible hypoglycemic or food sensitivity related slump after lunch. I've eliminated various foods that people can be sensitive to,and ive even tried more carbs in the morning, but that leads to blood sugar imbalance and cravings all day. As a result, my breakfasts and lunches would fall under the keto umbrella, as I feel better when I eat carbs later in the day.

The only thing that seems to slightly help is not eating at all, but I just get so hungry! My activity level is fairly high and I don't feel like I'm a great candidate for intermittent fasting at this point.

My mom, who has had MS for about 30 years, does not eat all day and only eats dinner because she's says eating makes her tired. I just can't handle not eating at all, and I do feel fatigued and hypoglycemic if I try to skip meals.

Thanks for reading and for all you do!!

5. [23:08] Carb test and ketosis

Carl says: Hey Robb,

I read Wired to Eat while I was pretty deep into a ketotic cycle, so I didn't immediately get to the 7-day carb test. Years of self-experimentation have led me to a relatively low carb (<50g/day) Paleo diet with an occasional 48 hour fast, an occasional ketotic cycle, and a very occasional carb re-feed. Genetic testing revealed some SNPs that predispose me to insulin resistance, and others that positively affect my fat metabolism, reinforcing the fact that I look, feel, and perform better eating in this fashion. I do enjoy my occasional carb binges, so I'd like to perform the carb test in order to whittle my food selections down to those least damaging to my metabolism; but I'm concerned that my postprandial blood glucose readings will be skewed upward because I don't regularly eat more than ten or fifteen grams of effective carbs at a time. Should I bring my daily and per-meal carb intake up for a certain period of time before starting the carb test, or is a 50 gram bolus of carbs small enough to give me a true measure of glucose tolerance for the purpose of food selection? Thanks in advance.

6. [27:30] Creativity and Writing Process

Peter says: Robb,

I hope all is well. I'm a big fan of the Podcast and excited about the Q & A return. I have a two-parter both within the same general idea.

FIRSTLY: I'm a writer and I am alway curious about how others approach the creative process. I was curious if you could elaborate on how you approach writing and creativity in regards to balancing an active lifestyle? And how a typical day when writing might look.

For example -- Do you do things like meditate? What time of the day do you write? Where do you write? If you write in the morning how do you reconcile with hanging outside first thing in the morning to get some sun? If you do Jujutsu around noon and roll for 2 hours how do you write around it? You've mentioned eating big meals in the morning, if you're in a heavy writing period, is this a habit you stick with? Oh by the way, you have a wife and kids... how do you balance it all?

Do you still do caffeine? Do you force yourself to take breaks during writing? How do you avoid sitting for 5/6 hours straight?

Sorry for all the questions, I've just been thinking about this a lot lately as I enter into a career pursuing my passion as a writer while trying to balance and prioritize my health. As I am sure you can attest, writing can be all consuming if you let it and setting boundaries is vital -- though difficult, especially if you're in "the zone." So I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[33:18] SECONDLY: I'd love to get your thoughts on the mechanisms at play when writing or doing anything else that requires intense mental focus in regards to willpower. Correct me if I am wrong, but it feels like for me, many aspects of writing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle (choosing healthy food over shitty stuff, hitting the gym, walking, etc.) can drain from the same willpower tank (if not just psychologically, and physically -- physiologically as well). This isn't to say that both can't exist -- rather does one need to be given priority based on ordering of events throughout the day?

For example, I feel my creativity comes to me first thing in the morning. If I were to wake up and hit a Metcon first thing, I feel my creativity gets depleted from the shared willpower tank. I feel this to be true with little things that chip away at my early morning start time as well. For example, taking the time to make a big healthy breakfast, sitting in the sun, even a short walk, all delay me tapping into when I feel I am creatively primed -- but is it worth the sacrifice of my health?

I was curious if you have any thoughts on when or how you prioritize creativity. Or maybe this is all just a bunch of bullshit like Robert Rodriguez says -- and our creativity is totally out of our control.

Anyways, love the show and everything you do. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

Regards, Peter

Source: http://robbwolf.libsyn.com/episode-405-robb-and-nicki-qa-9

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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