Mommy-hood "Sacrifices"

I always knew that the day I'd decide to have a child it would change my life forever. I never gave it much thought past that general feeling though.

Mike and I are pretty much still children ourselves. We watch cartoons while eating breakfast, play video games, read comic books, treasure our action figures/stuffed animals and we are just overall lighthearted fun people!

I'm 15 weeks pregnant (yay!) and am already noticing changes or "sacrifices" that will have to be made once our little peanut arrives. I'll clarify that the word sacrifice is in quotation marks because I feel it has a negative connotations since I truly am open and excited about the adjustments I'll be making.

Ever since we became vegan I have taken active interests in volunteer organizations, animal sanctuaries, documentary screenings and other events promoting this healthy compassionate lifestyle. As it happens, most of the events that I want to attend, like Farm Sanctuary's Thansksgiving Feast FOR the Turkeys, NYC 3rd Annual VegFest, and Walk for Farm Animals are all done in October/November at which time I will be busy at home with a precious newborn. Also this year New York Comic Con will be 4 days and of course, held the day after my due date.

There are other events coming up in the midst of my pregnancy, like Veggie Conquest's Veggie Prom, Forks Over Knives Screening, and the most painful one for me to miss-Jack's Mannequin will be performing in Central Park.

Even with all of those events I'll be missing, I have so many wonderful things to look forward to. Soon I'll start feeling my baby swish around in my belly, we'll know if we're having a boy or a girl, I'll be celebrating my first Mother's Day with my mom & grandma, we'll paint our room and start decorating for peanut's arrival and oh yeah, in October we'll be HAVING A BABY!

Yes, a lot of things will be different, both on our social calendars and behind closed doors. But this is something I've always known I wanted.

Some of my single friends look at me like my life is over. My life is just now beginning. I have never been a party girl, I don't care for clubs or happy hour. Being a full time mom is not going to be much of a stretch for me. I've already started making changes, among them taking a serious interest in learning how to cook a variety of healthy, vegan meals. Next on my list is to learn how to knit or crochet. It goes without saying that I have a lot of love to give. Besides, Mike and I will finally have an excuse to be in the toy section for hours without getting weird looks from people!

Also, what better way to enjoy those events next year with our child and show them first hand what living a green, compassionate life is all about. And you know, how fun comic book conventions and cosplaying is. ^_^

100% Natural Pregnancy

My choice to be vegan has not been only about my dietary habits. I have incorporated a compassionate choice in every thing that I do. Compassionate for our planet, compassionate for me and now compassionate for baby as well.

In my pregnancy I have encountered obstacles finding products that work for me. For example, instead of having a "pregnancy glow" my face is all blotchy but I have yet to find natural, organic, chemical free makeup. I continue to go sans makeup because I'd rather my skin be naturally blotchy than covered up with products that might further irritate it.

I am only now beginning my second trimester but I feel my skin stretching out and I immediately began to search for a lotion that I could use. The extra obstacle in this case would be my current sensitivity to anything that is scented. Luckily my boyfriend found this amazing fragrance free, biodegradable, vegan lotion by Desert Essence. It has been the best pregnancy item so far that we've purchased.

They recently posted a contest on Twitter: "Share the story of why you switched to #natural & enter to win a year's supply of your fave DE product!" Enter here there is still time to win. :)

Below is my contest entry:

Not using natural beauty products is simply not natural in my opinion. Like most women, I never thought twice about what was in my body lotion, shampoo, lipgloss or any of my other "must have" products that were part of my repertoire. Until I did. Last year due mostly to health reasons, I made the decision to go vegan overnight. Once my research led me into the ethical reasons, the impact that we consciously choose to make in our everyday decisions, I realized I would have to change more than just my eating habits. As drastically as I changed my dietary lifestyle, I made the same choice with everything else. Makeup, perfume, lotions, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, you name it. If the ingredients list sounded like a sophisticated science project that I would not be able to complete, it was tossed or given away. Luckily I made all these changes before becoming pregnant with my first child. I am proud to say that I am having an all natural, ecoconscious pregnancy filled with compassionate choices and I intend to raise my child with the same values. With this pregnancy, I discovered Desert Essence's fragrance free lotion. Thanks to baby's aversion to chocolate and other sweet scents, I was determined to find a shea/cocoa butter whose smell would not make me lose my breakfast. Desert Essence to the rescue! It has truly made a huge difference in my day to day routine, no more itchy belly for this mommy to be! I hope that more people decide to realize what it is they're using on their bodies. We have the power to make a difference simply be becoming aware and amazing companies like Desert Essence make it possible for the changes to be compromise free.

MIdwife Meeting #1-possibly my last!

Today's meeting with my first prospective midwife went so much better than expected. I am still giddy and warm inside from how much I connected with this woman!

She became a midwife after having a negative experience birthing her daughter in the hospital and she has been advocating for women's rights ever since. She is vegan which is just the best news ever, I thought it'd be impossible for me to find a vegan midwife. In fact, that was my Hubby's only requirement! She only takes on a handful of clients at a time so that she is always available to them and she just relocated within walking distance of where I live. How perfect is that?!

She's willing to work with me while I wait for my insurance to go through which is great because I am extremely eager to make the switch. She seemed to really click with me too and at one point even said I had balls and that I would do great in my pregnancy. I am telling you, I love this woman!

I will still meet with at least 2 more midwives because that is what logic dictates and Hubby won't have it any other way. Plus I learned that she isn't a package deal so I'll also have to start searching for a doula and that might be an out of pocket cost for sure.

All in all it was a gorgeous spring day to spend walking around in Manhattan with dreams of the blissful, peaceful natural birth that I want at home. :)

Midwife Interview Tomorrow!

I am so fed up with the runarounds that I'm getting at the clinic where I'm currently going for my prenatal visits. I still have not received word about Medicaid application and I feel like I'm in limbo. Unhappy with my current doctors (they change every time I go) and unable to start seeing a midwife without insurance (I'm looking at an out of pocket bill of anywhere from $5k to $12k).

I've decided to be proactive and in the meantime I am going to start "interviewing" midwives who do accept Medicaid to see if any are a good fit. Ideally Hubby would be participating in these little meet and greets but he feels we should wait to hear from Medicaid. However, I have been told it could take up to 90 days from when I applied to get an answer and that leaves me with another 62 days of waiting.

I have my first meeting tomorrow and I'm very excited. Below are the questions that I plan to ask, some of which I found here thanks to twitter friend @twopinklinez. I've organized them in the order that I feel I'll actually ask them.

If anyone has suggestions of what to add or things I should be looking for in a midwife I'd love to hear them. This will be my first midwife experience and I'm excited but a little nervous because I don't quite know what I'm doing!

I will of course blog tomorrow about how my first interview goes. Wish me luck! :)

QUESTIONS I'LL ASK MY MIDWIFE

Why did you become a midwife?

What does your fee include? Prenatal, birth, postnatal care? Postnatal for how long? Lab work, sonograms?

What kind of Medicaid do you accept? What is your fee if paying out of pocket? By when would it have to be paid in full?

Will I ever need to go anywhere besides your office for lab work, sonograms or other testing/consultations?

How many patients do you usually have at a time?

When would I start coming to you? How often will we meet? What can I expect at our visits?

How many births have you attended?

Have you ever lost a mother or a baby at a home birth?

Do you work with a doula or birthing assistants? How many? When will I get to meet them? What role do they typically play?

If you don't work with a doula or birthing assistants, how do you feel about me hiring one outside of your practice?

What are your normal guidelines for weight gain or do you just stress good nutrition?

What do you normally do while I am in labor? 

During labor, how active would you be in checking me and the baby? What do you use or how do you check us? 

How do you feel about me eating, drinking or showering while in labor?

How do you help manage pain?

What medications, if any, do you bring?

What supplies and equipment do you bring? What should I have ready at home? Birthing stool, birthing ball?

Do you perform water births? Will you provide the tub? Where can I rent or buy a tub?

Are you affiliated with a hospital and/or a medical consultant? What is your recommended hospital to transfer to?

How often have you had to transfer a mom to a hospital?

Under what circumstances do you transfer?

Do you stay with me after the transfer and offer support for my decisions the best you can? 

How familiar are you with procedures in the hospital? 

What conditions make me high risk ? How would you treat these conditions before they make me high risk? 

If I develop a condition that makes me high risk, do you have a doctor you normally use to transfer my care to? 

At what point would placenta previa make me high risk?

Do you also try to use this doctor for transfers during labor? 

What is your cut-off for considering a baby to be premature and requiring a hospital birth? 

What happens if I go past 42 weeks? 

How do you feel about episiotomy? Under what circumstances do you do them? 

How do you work to prevent tearing?

How long are you willing to let a client push, or do you base it solely on the baby's stress level? 

If my water breaks before labor starts,  how long will you wait before trying to start labor, or transfer to the hospital?

What would you consider to be urgent or an emergency? Do I call you first or go straight to a hospital? WIll you meet me there?

Have you ever performed a natural, vaginal breech birth? What is your method of turning the baby?

What happens if you are unavailable to meet me? Who will attend to me?

Are you ok with someone video-taping and/or taking pictures throughout the entire birth?

What do people do with the placenta and the "mess" after giving birth at home?

What procedures do you do after baby is born? Weighing, mucus suction, cutting the cord, fingerprints/footprints?

Can daddy-to-be "catch" the baby and/or also cut the umbilical cord?

How soon after giving birth do you re-visit?

Listening To My Inner Mom Voice

My mom and I have a wonderful relationship. We talk every single day, sometimes for hours if time permits. I share pretty much everything with her and she is the first one to know about 98% of what goes on in my life. We don't always agree on everything, but we are able to listen to each other's opinions and agree to disagree if in the end that is what it comes to.

That is not to say that our relationship is perfect. We do have heated conversations, especially now that I am pregnant. She doesn't fully understand why I do certain things, like why I'm still vegan now in my pregnancy, and I always do my best to explain it to her, but since it's not the "norm" she continues to not be 100% on board.

Right now there are a few things that I am really trying to get her to agree with me or at least leave me alone about:

1. I won't stop being vegan in my pregnancy or after I give birth (or ever).
2. Our baby will be raised a vegan until he/she is old enough to form his/her own opinion.
3. I will breast feed exclusively for as long as I can.
4. I will co-sleep with our baby and not use a traditional crib. (disregard "dream crib post!)
5. Our baby will use cloth diapers. No ifs, ands or butts. ;)
6. I will have a natural birth with as little medical intervention as possible. 
7. We will use a sling with our baby.

I can probably think of more things but these seem to be the ones we touch on the most. Since my mom and I are so close, I do seek her approval a lot and I really need to stick to my guns now more than ever. I can't start compromising how I want Mike & I to raise our baby just because my mom has a different point of view. The most I can do is allow her to voice her opinion and then share mine and let her know I won't be changing my mind.

After talking for hours about the crib (which she even hated our "dream crib" because it was oval shaped), I finally got her to stop pushing the idea of a traditional crib on me. When I showed her a picture of the Arm's Reach Co-Sleeper that I like, she actually offered to be the one to buy it for me.

That's the great thing about my mom. At the end of the day, I know that everything she says, she says out of love. She means no harm because she really just doesn't know any better. I really can't wait to see her when she comes visit me with my Grams for Mother's Day. I haven't seem them in almost a year. My mom's love for me is unconditional and I know she will always support me no matter what I do. I just need to have a little more patience with her and more confidence in my decisions and we'll continue to be just fine!

Nutritional Stress

I have been vegan for 6 months. Well, it'll be 6 months exactly tomorrow. It was a decision that I made mostly for the health benefits and I've never looked back. In the past 6 months my energy has increased, I've learned how to cook and I am overall more involved with what goes into my belly. My decision to continue on my vegan journey is no longer limited to just the health benefits, but it involves ethical reasons as well. Now that I'm pregnant, I get a lot of extra attention to my choice of eating habits.

There is absolutely no medical proof that I need to eat animal products for the well being for my baby. Everything I need I can get from a vegan diet so long as I eat correctly. Same can be said for non-vegans. Stuffing your face with a double cheeseburger from a fast food joint doesn't mean you are meeting your protein needs for the day.

I have zero intention of changing my lifestyle now just because the majority of society seems to be close minded about the way I choose to eat. I struggle with this when I go to the doctor or every time I tell someone new that I'm pregnant. The only nutritional value that I cannot obtain from a vegan diet is vitamin B-12, which I compensate for in my daily multi-vitamin.

With all of that said, I have never been so aware of everything that I eat as I have been since the moment I found out I was pregnant. The first few weeks I did exceptionally well, eating fresh fruits and veggies every day in between meals. The further I've gone into my pregnancy with the nausea and the discomforts kicking in though, the more I worry about if I'm eating well enough.

Since this pregnancy was a surprise (a good surprise of course) I didn't get to prepare my body for pregnancy. Unfortunately, I am overweight to begin with and I've never been a super active person. I make it a point to walk as much as I can now to ensure that I am not sitting on my butt all day, but I feel that isn't enough. At the same time, I am scared to try jogging or other forms of cardio (which I've done before), since I'm still in my first trimester.

All of this is just stress building up which goes against my trying to stay positive throughout this exceptional journey I'm on. I am somewhat of a perfectionist when I want to be and this is definitely one of those times where I want everything to be perfect. I don't want to do anything that may cause my little peanut to be hurt in any way.

In the mean time, all I can do is try my best. Eat fruits & veggies, take my vitamins daily and walk around the block for 20 minutes. If I can do more than that I will but I shouldn't focus on it too much because it's emotionally draining!

My next prenatal appointment is in exactly 2 weeks and my next sonogram in 3 weeks and 2 days. I will occupy the time til then reading my new book and researching more earth friendly baby products. :)

Our First Registry - Our Dream Crib!

Hubby & I made a huge decision yesterday. We have agreed on a crib! This might not sound like a big deal to most people. I am going to safely assume that most people choose their crib and nursery set from whatever main corporate store they are doing their baby registry at, such as Babies R Us or Buy Buy Baby. However, Mr. Daddy-to-be has made it very clear that this entire process is going to be very untraditional. Just the fact that he has opinions and wants to be a part of everything has me excited (and relieved!). We are eco-conscious in our everyday lives, so it makes sense to make earth friendly decisions with the products we will use for our baby. The moment I realized how toxic some of the cribs from the corporate stores are, the sooner I was able to get on board with Hubby's "bamboo crib" idea.

This was until I saw the prices of said cribs. Bamboo is one the fastest growing plants, making it a renewable source, not to mention that it regenerates on its own. The bamboo cribs we saw online are gorgeous, such as the ones here in New York City from DucDuc with the added benefit that they are made locally. Sadly, we are in no position to purchase or ask for $1,500+ cribs.  My family has been more than supportive and keep telling me not to stress the big ticket items, like the crib, bedding, stroller, car seat, etc. But surely they say this with the average corporate store prices in mind.

That being said, I began researching other earth friendly materials and price-friendly nursery furniture. I took into consideration that our baby will be in our room for the first few months and we don't have space for a crib in there (not yet anyway). I will be breast feeding so I definitely want the baby as close to me as possible for the convenience of late night feedings as well. With everything taken into consideration, I finally found and immediately fell in love with the STOKKE SLEEPI System Crib. Yes, the price is still more than what I would like it to be, but Hubby was right (yet again) when he said that if we start compromising our values for things now, it's going to eventually compromise our entire lifestyle and how we ultimately want to raise our child.

With that said, here are some of the reasons why I LOVE this crib: Bassinet and crib in one without the need to purchase them separately. The bassinet is good until the baby is 6 months old, giving us time to figure out the space issue once we need to convert it to the full size crib. It's made of cultivated beechwood and uses non-toxic finishes, eliminating chemicals and the worry that our baby will be exposed to them. It converts to a toddler bed or even 2 chairs once your child has outgrown the crib which is realistic because it has a 7 year warranty. They expect you to have it until your child is 7 and they actually cover the parts for that long which I think is pretty incredible. On an aesthetic note I love that the crib is oval, which to me simply made it look different and modern. Once I saw the video demo and heard that it's oval because it's imitating the shape of the mother's womb, I was completely sold. I love love love the canopy option, which I definitely plan on using. I think it makes it look so soft and innocent. Really I could go on and on about this crib but really the best part is the fact that Hubby agreed and so I registered for it right away. :)

I am sad however that Baby Earth doesn't have a physical store here in NYC, I would have preferred to have my registry at a single store and I love that they actually have an entire section of their store devoted to eco-friendly baby products. I hope it won't look crazy when people ask me where I'm registered and I end up giving them the names of about 5 stores (I have a funny feeling this is what will end up happening).

I should also mention that I finally purchased my first pregnancy book. Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. After downloading a sample of every conceivable pregnancy book on my NookColor about a month ago when I found out I was expecting, this is the only book that I felt was worth purchasing so that I may read it in its entirety. It was recommended to me by a good friend of mine that I've known since middle school who had 2 natural births and knows first hand what a beautiful and empowering experience natural birth is. I feel like I am slowly fading out of the "I can't believe I'm pregnant" phase and really just embracing this miraculous journey I'm on. I am opening my heart and my mind to all of the positive things that are coming my way thanks to having this little peanut growing inside me.

I intend to cherish every second. Even the times when I have to hold my breath because we are passing by a chocolate shop or the 5 times I get up in the middle of the night to tinkle. These are all my rites of passage into motherhood.

In the mean time, I have begun a piggy bank to save up for our dream crib in the understandable event that no one gets it for us. Donations are always welcome. ;)