Sometimes I end up doing posts here on Mommies Home.net that come from me researching questions this Mommie has. This is one of those posts, as I ended up with one heck of a headache yesterday. I was in more pain than labor:-) That being said, what can those headaches be caused by after child birth?

Well, one of the first things is an epidural headache. This is when the epidural needle goes to far into the spine and punctures the dura of the spine. I saw one of these on that show Bringing Home Baby, it looked horrible! As the chances of getting this are 1 in 200, and my headache didn’t start up until around 10 days out, this obviously wasn’t the cause of my problem.

Tension headaches could be the next culprit on my list. Stress (and I have stress!) coupled with lack of sleep, caring for a newborn and being overall overwhelmed could definitely be taking a toll. As I am proud to report, our newborn sleeps very well, waking about 2 times during the night to get a feeding. His feedings are quick, so my lack of sleep sure feels minimal. Not sure if this is what my throbbing headaches could be from, but I know stress definitely doesn’t help.

The last easily identifiable cause for the near migraines is the lack of water. We were told in the hospital that some high percentage of all headaches are caused by lack of hydration. Even though I’ve been trying to get a good amount of water in me, as I need it to keep my milk up, it’s not always the easiest thing in the world to do.

That being said, I think it’s probably a combination of stress and hydration that are at the core of my headache problems. Hormones also have a large role to play, as they always do with any new mother. All of these factors need to be kept in check after a pregnancy in order to take care of yourself properly. Guess I have to go drink some water while listening to Enya….

Well, we had thought he was coming last Tuesday, only to hear it was just bad Braxton Hicks. We then canceled our next prenatal appointment in anticipation of an induction on Monday. The doctor had originally said she would induce me on Friday, but I was one day shy of the required 39 weeks so she moved it to the following Monday.

That wasn’t the news we wanted to hear! I was quite saddened by this, as I kept thinking I was in labor and the wait was over. I wanted to go into labor at a certain time so my doctor could deliver me, but the closer it got to the end of the week the more my hopes for that were fading.

On Friday morning I woke up about two am to go to the bathroom and even thought to myself “Wow, I feel pretty good. All my pain is pretty much gone, there’’s no way this baby is coming soon.”

At 4:30 that same morning I was awoken by a POP and knowing by the results that my water had broken. I was very excited, as was my husband. The day had arrived. After taking a quick shower and getting Grandpa over to our house to watch our other two children, my mother, husband and I took off for the hospital. Actually, we stopped at McDonalds to grab a quick bite, as I knew they wouldn’t get me anything at the hospital.

After waddling into the hospital at 6am, we were on our way. I was having some contractions, but nothing impressive at all. They started Pitocin right away and the contractions started coming more frequently. We all expected the baby to be born fast, as my son was born very quickly after I was admitted. Your second is supposed to be faster, so we all had bets around noon or so, even my nurse.

At around 9am, the nurse came in and let me know that if I wanted an Epidural, I had better get it now. The anesthesiologist would be in a scheduled C-section from 10-11, so if my contractions picked up there would be no relief for a while. I wasn’t keen on getting it so early, so I told her I’d let her know. The second she walked out I started having some harder contractions and had my husband go hunt her down and let her know that we’d get the epidural as soon as they could administer it.

I’m not scared of needles, so I wasn’t to worried about the epidural. My last one, the only thing I remember is that I had the mother of all contractions when they were putting it in, horrible pain. This time was a little different. I could handle the contractions, but the medicine going in was another story. That was horrible this time. I wish I could sugar coat it so someone who finds this page through a google search on epidurals wouldn’t freak out, but I really can’t. It hurt like hell. I was mad at the anesthesiologist, that is, until the medicine kicked in.

Once the medicine kicked in, I couldn’t feel any pain. I could feel the pressure of the contraction but there was no pain associated with it. I was very happy with the results. That was about 9:45am.

From that point forward, it was a waiting game. By noon I was 5cm and 80% effaced. It was moving much slower than anyone expected. They turned the pitocin up constantly it seemed until we hit about 16 out of 20. That’s when things started turning south. The baby wasn’t handling the contractions well, his heartbeat kept dipping pretty low. At 7 cm and 90%, they decided to give me a shot and stop my contractions.

The second they gave me the shot, the contractions stopped. My son was no longer in any distress,
his heart rate was now normal and steady.

I was happy he was ok again, but my labor had been brought to a stand still. After about an hour, tthe doctor gave the ok to start labor back up. The pitocin was cranked up every 15 minutes or so, starting at the lowest setting.

Slowly, labor progressed again. I was waiting for the “pressure”, the need to push. I kept thinking it was coming so the nurse kept checking. 8cm, 90%, it was stuck there. A little while later she checked me again and I was at 9cm. Finally we were close. She went to go call the doctor when an alarm went off in the room. My husband rushed to go get the nurse, turns out my epidural was out of medicine!! Are you kidding me!!! I’ve been in labor all day, no one thought to check the epidural?
So the nurse told my husband there was 2 hours left on the medicine and not to worry…

That’s when they hit…the medicine didn’t have 2 hours left, it was out and I could tell by the contractions that were coming. That baby was sure as hell coming out. The nurse quickly checked me again and I was ready to push, the doctor wasn’t there yet. Medicine gone, me yelling in pain, baby coming, no doctor. Then the anesthesiologist came in quickly and gave me some medicine. Thank god! The medicine worked quickly and the crazy labor pain went away as my lower body was numbed.

In came the doctor, she set up and I began to push. About 5 pushes and my baby boy was born. I heard his cry and cried. He was perfect. 7 lbs, 7oz, 20 inches. It seemed like eternity until they gave him to me to hold. He was just perfect.

More updates later, but I thought I’d get this posted so people know where I’ve been. I’m blogging as he sleeps soundly (as soundly as you can with a 2 yr old screaming).

I had another prenatal today. 70% effaced and 1 1/2 cm, not what I was hoping for. She stripped my membranes to see if that would get things moving, but as of this morning it was a no go. She also talked about scheduling an induction. Honestly, I’ve never even thought about it, I just figured he’d come whenever. So we have some thinking to do on that subject. I better think fast, as she could do it ass early as Friday.

The baby has now moved lower and it’s causing me severe pain in my left leg. It’s hard to walk at all now. This is what happened with my first baby, it just started much earlier than the 37th week. He’s so big now that it is very hard to sleep at all. I’m waking up about every hour to roll over, usually gasping in pain when I do from the pain in my pelvis and legs.

The pain is making normal things, like cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping almost impossible. I just sit. My little 22 month old runs wild these days, as I can’t chase him and I can’t carry him around either. I feel bad because I can’t walk to the park with him or play with him on the floor anymore.

The baby has also gotten so low that I can’t go to the bathroom as much as I could before. This is annoying, but expected. As he moves lower and lower, things like that are bound to happen. I mean there’s a kid in there!

But, as I recall, the second that baby comes out, all the pain will be gone! I’ll be left with a perfect baby boy instead of pain.

I’ve been wondering if my first sons crying effects the new baby? He can hear him of course, but I wonder how that effects him. If I heard screaming like that, I wouldn’t want to come out either!

Thinking they were just Braxton Hicks, I drank tons of water and then laid down from about 4 pm on. They kept coming. All night I was up, I’d go to sleep for half hour only to be woken up by contractions. They still weren’t painful though. At about 10:30 yesterday I finally called the doctor and they had me come in for a labor check. No change for me.

But those pesky contractions kept coming. They finally stopped around 7pm last night. The doctor thought I was in early labor, but I’m not so sure. He still has a while to cook, so we’ll see I guess!

We are getting there! Seems like time passed so fast getting to this last month and now it’s just c…r…e..e..p..i..n…g along.

I went to the doctor today and everything is going just fine. The baby is still head down, so I’m happy about that. I have to go see her every week now, as we are in the home stretch.

I’m cleaning more, must be the nesting thing. I’ve cleaned my fridge, which is just weird because I don’t think I’m a big one to do that. I’ll be cleaning the freezer today.

The only thing that isn’t set for the big day is I haven’t packed an outfit for me to come home in. I guess I just can’t decide what ugly post maternity outfit I’d love to wear home with the new baby.

I’m also waiting on an Aimee nursing gown I ordered from Amazon. I’m not sure about this purchase, as it got mixed reviews. Some people love them and some hate them. I e-mailed them directly to figure out what size I should order, once I got their response (within a few hours) I ordered the gown. I was expecting faster shipping, as it still hasn’t been shipped. One thing I’m going to be more prepared for will be breastfeeding. I breastfed my son for about 10 and a half months, so now I know what to expect. Hopefully this nursing gown will live up to my expectations!

Stay tuned!

As strange as it sounds, I’ve begun to become more worried, apprehensive and stressed than I was with my first one. I thought I’d be carefree because I know what to expect, but I’m definitely not. I worry about things like “Three kids might be to much for me”. I saw a woman with the same space of kids as I have (except her baby was born) in the grocery store the other day and it was almost humorous. Her 2 year old was in the basket of the buggy screaming, her baby was in a carrier in the front crying and her 6-7 year old was walking next to the cart begging for a cookie. The mom looked exhausted and you could tell it wasn’t a happy day in that family. I almost cried. I hope I figure out how to do it, my mom did! I never hear her talk about it being hard, so it must be doable!


I’m also worried about labor. Having such a long labor with my son just brings on dread feelings when thinking about this one. The closer it gets the more I can remember the feeling. I begged my doctor to take my son out, ugh, it was not fun. I guess I need to remember that every pregnancy is different and every child is different.

But speaking of “every child is different”, I also worry about the fact that this one may be just like my son. Don’t get me wrong, I love him more than anything in the world, but he cried. He cried a lot. Like all day long, and all night long. My husband would come home and want to immediately leave. It was hard on everyone. A colicky baby is seriously no fun. So I’m worried about this one doing the same, as I know how hard it was on our family.

I guess all these fears are normal, but they are definitely getting worse as the time nears.

Anyhow, things have been doing quite well. I don’t have many complaints, except that sleeping is becoming harder and harder. Rolling over is excruciating, but honestly, that’s one of my only complaints. Oh, and I feel insanely fat, but that’s to be expected I guess. Now that Christmas is over I can get back to my regular diet!

The baby is moving a ton and is feeling quite in there. He is pushing out more and I can see him moving across my stomach many times a day. I have found out that this kid gets startled by loud metallic noises. Forks hitting plates and a metal rack hitting our stove really have that kid jumping. It’s kind of funny because my other son wasn’t phased by anything like that. He didn’t jump or react to anything, this one definitely does.

On my little countdown ticker it says 53 days to go, so here’s to a great 53 days (give or take a few weeks!)

After my sister-in-law had her last baby, now 2, her and her husband decided that was it for them. When I asked them why they didn’t want one more, I was surprised by the answer. It wasn’t that they didn’t want one, or that they couldn’t afford one (the normal answers), it was that her husband couldn’t stand another round of his wife pregnant. They both agreed, it was a bad idea to have another one just based on that fact alone. At first I thought he was just being mean until I heard the stories from my sister-in-law…

It turns out she basically hated her husband for the nine months she was pregnant. She was just angry at him all the time. Funny, I couldn’t imagine it before, but now I understand.

The hormones in a woman’s body when she becomes pregnant are very powerful things. HCG, progesterone and estrogen all work together to enable a woman to conceive and carry a baby for nine months. One huge side effect in the rise of these hormones is the havoc that is wreaked onto the mother in the form of fluctuating emotions. A woman pretty much has no control over these, striking in a moments notice, erupting in terrible projected spew. A normal happy woman becomes something much different.

I’ve heard my husband say, as recently as this morning, that he can’t wait until I’m done being pregnant. My moods are truly astronomical. I’ve often wondered how many pregnant women end relationships during their pregnancy and how much of that can be contributed to the rise in hormones. If they would have just waited until the hormones leveled, would the ending result have been different?

About 10% of woman experience depression during pregnancy associated with hormone levels. That’s fairly significant when you think about it. So is there a way to ease the hormone effects? Sorry, but not really until after the baby is born, and it takes up to three months after that for hormones to get back to their original level. If your breastfeeding, it takes way longer.

So suck it up and make the best of it. I hate that answer, it sure doesn’t help my husband or kids who have no idea how to handle my outbursts. But the good news is that it does go away!

I had my most recent prenatal visit yesterday. Things look fine I guess. I had my glucose test and my anemia test, so I’m awaiting the results of those tests. I do have a suspicion that I will have gestational diabetes. My sister had it when she was pregnant and this pregnancy has been filled with sugar cravings I have no control over. While I shouldn’t worry, I still seem to. I should have the test results today or tomorrow.

Other than that, I was SHOCKED when I got on the scale and saw the weight of 160 come up. I guess I knew I was close to that, but honestly it didn’t really hit me until I got on that stupid scale. That’s about a 30 pound gain. It made me want to eat salads for the rest of my pregnancy! Sadly, as I’ve said before, when I try to control what I eat it ends up making me eat a whole pizza (actually I shared it with my son for lunch today, but he’s 1 and a half so I’d be lying if I said he ate half and I ate half).

I have this picture up on my desk of my husband and I on our honeymoon. I’m straight beautiful. I was tan, I had nice muscles, I fit into my size 5’s…Ugh, 160, it’ll take some work to get back to that again (if ever). I’m looking forward to feeling as healthy as I did right before I got pregnant. I was eating a very healthy diet and exercising about once a day. Now I’m lucky if I can catch my breathe going up the stairs, much less walking around the lake!

Actually, it’s off to go walk to get the first grader from school (which every time I do that contractions start up and it ends up hurting, but I was told to exercise so that will be the exercise for the day)!

UPDATE!! Both tests came back normal, so all is well!!

After 28 weeks of pregnancy bliss, it all fell down today when I woke up, basically unable to walk. I started out my 3rd trimester in some major pain. I can’t put that much weight on my left leg at all and now I can’t seem to find a position, ANY position, that makes the pain go away. I was having some other issues, so I ended up going in to be evaluated, as I wondered if maybe my water had broken…

Lucky me, there’s nothing that can be done for my back pain. We are thinking it’s Sciatica, which I didn’t have with my son. My son gave me a whole different set of pains, including my hip popping out of place on a regular basis. I couldn’t walk with him either and wore a brace on my back for the whole end of my pregnancy. Honestly though, it was nothing like this.

This is quite the pain. I hope it eases, as I’m pretty sure I can’t take three months of this. On a brighter note, my water didn’t break. We had to check though, as my day seemed to be going worse and worse.

So treatment for sciatica include:

1. Getting as much rest as possible (obviously whoever said that doesn’t have a 19 month old who likes to shatter Christmas tree ornaments)

2. Heating pad

3. Stretching (I do yoga, not sure why that’s not helping)

4. Tylenol (if recommended by your doctor)

Many say that you’re not doomed with it for your whole pregnancy, although with my luck I’m sure it’ll get worse everyday! Also, the added weight doesn’t help much. I’m not going to be using diet supplements anytime soon, so I can be confident in the fact that if it’s the added weight causing it, I’m in for one hell of a ride!

My back is hurting a lot at night now and Braxton Hicks have started up. My husband says I had them with my last pregnancy for the last 3 months (I don’t recall), so I guess I’m on schedule. I had a call into the doctor last night, as the contractions were getting a little harder and they kept coming. She told me to lay down and rest…to bad she told me that when both kids were in bed, why not when I really need it, like when my son decides to throw all his legos down the stairs! Anyhow, I laid down and they went away.

I’m getting big now, my body seems to be blowing up like a balloon. I feel like I’m just all swollen, just way bigger than I my internal self image is. As I recall, from about this point on I no longer will think the pregnancy look is a good look, as I feel so big.

Trying to watch what I’m eating isn’t working too well. I do good at breakfast, but then lunch ends up being a pig out fest, as I’m so hungry I just keep eating. I’m good for dinner, but then I’m hungry before bed again. I swear my belly expands with every single mouthful. I’ve tried to limit my food, it just makes me more hungry, so that’s not going to work. I love when the doctor says “just eat some fruit”. Well, if I had any desire for fruit, I’d eat tons of it. But I crave carbs, bread and cereal. Eggs and cheese!

All is well though and I’ve been blessed with a wonderful pregnancy thus far! I’ll keep you updated.