Belly Tales

Just a quick note to say that the spam track-backs on this website have become a bit unbearable lately. I’ve increased the security on the comments so that no comment can be posted without first being approved, so if you comment and it doesn’t appear immediately, don’t worry—it’s just because I haven’t gotten around to approving it yet. This is in no way a judgement on any of the comments—I promise I’ll approve every comment I get, even if I don’t agree with it. It’s just…I’m sick of comments advertising cell phones, travel packages, or xxx this or that, which need to be erased and moderated at least three or four times a day. It’s becoming a full-time job, and one I just don’t have time for atm. So, my apologies if the new policy on comments is upsetting to anyone. It’s not my intention to deter user comments in any way whatsoever, I just want tto make sure they’re real comments, that’s all!

Oh, and I nearly forgot: a year ago today I wrote the inaugural post for this website. Wow. Was that only a year ago???

Huge congratulations to my dear friend K who just gave birth to a gorgeous baby boy on Thursday, 4/13/06 at 12:09 pm at home, in a kiddy-pool (I’ve only heard a brief account of the birth, but it sounds as if the baby was born into her husband’s arms)!!! He’s a gorgeous chunk of a baby, too: 9 lbs, 7 oz. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there as I had originally hoped, but I’m SO glad everything went so smoothly for everyone involved. Hopefully there will be birth stories and pictures to come. Sooo happy for you, and so proud of you, honey—he’s absolutely beautiful. Congratulations!!!

It’s been awhile. Where has your intrepid student midwife been, lately?? Good question! I’ve been trying so hard to get some writing done for Belly Tales, but lately I’ve been so exhausted at night that all I do is crawl into bed around 1:00 am after finishing my homework, only to wake up the next morning for clinicals, and the day starts all over again. I’ve been squeezing work in whenever I can…and a life? Ha!

However, some really incredible things have been happening lately, and I have so much to write about and share with all of you. I’ve been making lots of notes about things I need to write about just as soon as I have a chance, and I’m really hoping that this summer will allow me an opportunity to get some good writing done. In the meantime, I’ve attended a few really nice births at work (and one not-so-nice birth which really deserves a post…see above). Clinicals are getting slightly easier, which is not to say that I have any more of a clue, but only that I’m finally learning the routine at the clinic, so things are running a bit smoother. So much more I could say about that, but again, I’ll have to leave it for a seperate post. Plus, there’s the news to contend with, most notably the soaring cesarean rate in the US, and the NIH State-of-the-science recommendations for elective cesearean sections, along with all the attendant press coverage. Soooo many posts needing to be written about that.

On the school front, here’s the quick run-down: three weeks ago, Well-woman Gynecology exam (did very well), two weeks ago, Antepartum exam (did well enough), last week, 3rd chapter of my reasearch proposal due on monday (stayed up very late, got it done on time, grade still to come), a case study due for Antepartum on Wednesday, and a presentation on the Midwifery Practice Act for Professional Issues in Midwifery, also on Wed. (both of which went quite well, especially the one for Professional Issues, where we performed a small skit for the class that presented the pros and cons of the Act. And, of course, speaking of the Midwifery Practice Act, that’s a pretty major piece of legislation which also deserves a post all its own).

As the semester has gotten more intense, I’ve quickly discovered that blogging is a full time job. Which is difficult when one already has a full time job (school), plus a part time job (work), plus clinicals (does that count as part of the full time job?). And someone please remind me to do my taxes and fill out my FAFSA, both of which are due very very soon. Good lord, how did it get to be April already?? Where has the time gone?

In conclusion, please don’t give up on me! At least the semester will be over soon. The weather is gorgeous, my beloved boy has finally gotten his visa, and has moved from London to live with me here in New York, and life, though busy, is really really good. Can’t complain, just bear with me if the posts aren’t coming quite as fast and furious as I wish they were. At this point, I feel like I’m just hanging on as best as I can, and counting down the days to the summer.

This is going to sound somewhat strange, but sometimes a few of my posts are inundated with spam track-back comments, which just mucks up my inbox and dashboard, and requires deleting massive amounts of spam comments/e-mails all at once. Which I just finished doing. However, right as I hit the delete button, I noticed that one of the e-mails in my inbox that I was in the process of deleting was not in fact spam, but a sincere e-mail from a reader. Something about Doula Certification. Aaack! To whoever it was that sent me that e-mail: my most sincere apologies for accidentally deleting it. Please send it to me again!!

Thank you!

If I could wish for anything for this site this year, it would be a brand new, shiny banner that actually features a belly, or something pretty and birth-related like that. I think I’ll make that a goal for this year: get thyself a new banner! Enough with the daisies already.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Kwansa, Solstice and New Year! It’s been awhile. The end of the semester sort of caught me in a sudden blitz of work and stress, and I wasn’t able to find the time to update this site as I had hoped. I stayed up late, ate a ton of ice cream, studied my ass off, wrote the second chapter of my research proposal (a whopping 19 pages), and then, as soon as the semester was over, I worked three exhausting nights in a row, then got on a plane bound for London, to spend as much of the holiday as possible with my beloved boy, who is currently living there (although hopefully not for much longer…he’s due to move to the US any day now, just as soon as his visa comes through, so that we can live together like we’re meant to, huzzah). Wheeeeeeee! I am the Queen of Run-on Sentences.

The good news is this: the holidays were lovely! Such a welcome break from work and school and books and computers and internet access. I’m also pleased to report that even though there was a fair bit of cramming at the end, I managed to finish my first semester of midwifery school with straight As. Hot-diggety. Now, let’s just see if I can continue the trend this semester. That would be quite an achievement.

And speaking of this semester: ooof x 12. I think last semester, difficult as it was, was probably just a warm up for this semester. I’m taking 15 credits, 3 credits more than I was taking last semester, and an additional two classes: Well-Woman Gynecology, Antepartum, Obstetric Pharmacology, Professional Aspects of Midwifery, and Research II. Antepartum (AP) and Well-Woman Gyn (WWG) are two pretty major classes—classes that will be the backbone of our practice, and material that we will be using again and again as midwives. Clinicals will also be much more hot and heavy this semester, longer and more demanding, however, I also suspect they’ll be a lot more fun. We’ll actually be taking care of pregnant women this semester! (Well, to be fair, we did take care of pregnant women last semester too, but it was at an abortion clinic, where the women were very interested in NOT being pregnant any longer, and we were only doing quickie pelvic exams.)

Let me repeat that: we’ll actually be learning how to give prenatal care to pregnant women! As in…actually doing what it is that midwives do.

Last semester seemed so abstract and academic and surreal…unrelated to our actual future jobs as midwives, in so many ways. This semester…I have a feeling we’re finally going to be learning meat and potatoes: the filling, juicy, delicious part of our jobs. So very exciting. A little bit nerve-wracking, and I must admit, I am a wee bit apprehensive about all the work and stress in store for us. But mostly just excited. Maybe this is the semester it will finally hit me; maybe this is the semester when I’ll finally begin to feel like I really am in midwifery school.

Just a quick post to say that the Week of Swampedness is upon me. I am now officially *swamped*. Finals are in two weeks. I have a TON of work to get done, including my presentation on Hyperthyroidism (tomorrow), my second research chapter (due next monday) and my first final exam in Physical Health Assessment of Women (what we fondly refer to as PHAW…also due next Monday). In my copious free time, I’ll be working on my take-home final exam for Primary Care, which will be distributed tomorrow. Soooo, I’ll be blogging a bit sporadically, but will do my best to keep somewhat on top of things. I have another lovely birth story to post for you, but I’ll have to do that tomorrow. I wish I had more exciting things to write about right now, honestly, but this is it: the reality of being a student means that, mostly, all you do is study. Funny how that goes.

In the meantime, feel free to amuse yourself by reading about Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood, which is due to come before the Supreme Court next week, and may be the first skirmish of the looming War on Choice. For something a bit lighter (but only a bit), check out CodeBlog, which I only just discovered today. Otherwise, go buy pretty holiday cards from the Syracuse Cultural Worker, visit any of the gazillion links I have painstakingly assembled on this site for your viewing enjoyment, or work on your spitwad technique. I’ll catch up with all of you soon…

I’ve been a bad blogger, lately, and haven’t been writing posts nearly as often as I should. Which is not to say that nothing has been happening lately (in fact, I’ve been quite busy, and have been having a hard time finding a moment to write), but none of it has seemed particularly news-worthy. School continues at its steady pace. We’ve gotten through our first round of mid-semester exams, which was stressful and is thankfully over, our check-out exams are done, and clinicals start next week for me. We had a spectucular 4 hour lecture on urinary tract infections in Primary Care last week, which was very cool, but didn’t seem to merit an entire post. Although I will mention this cute little factoid: did you know that a woman’s urethra is approximately 2.5-3.5 cm long, while the male urethra is approximately 16.5-18.5 cm?? I mean, obviously the male urethra is longer, but I had no idea it was that much longer. No wonder women get so many more UTIs than men! It seems a bit unfair.

On the work front, I’ve been doing nothing but postpartum lately, which has been a bit depressing. Not that there’s anything wrong with postpartum—it’s fabulous to see all the women and their babies, and to take care of them during a time when they so desperately need nurturing, and you can make such a difference in a woman’s life by helping her with the breastfeeding—but even so, postpartum is a bit more routine and repetitive than Labor and Delivery, and you end up taking care of 8 patients at a time, which can be stressful and frustrating, since you never feel like you get nearly enough time with any of them! Sadly, as a per diem nurse, I don’t have much say in where I end up working. If L&D is well staffed, but they need nurses on postpartum, I am always the first person to get floated. It’s been weeks now since I saw a birth, and that makes for one very very grouchy student midwife. I’m working tonight, tomorrow night and the next night, though, so hopefully I’ll get to see a birth again fairly soon.

In other news, I’ve found yet another really cool website which is well worth checking-out (there are so many of them out there!): Spinning Babies. I’m going to post it as a link under the Labor and Birth –> Vaginal Birth sections, since the information here is really helpful for women trying to turn their babies, or learn about the optimal positions for birth, and ways to help get their babies into these positions. Gail Tully, the homebirth midwife (CPM) and doula educator who is the driving force behind Spinning Babies, offers workshops on her techniques, and there’s a workshop in Boston next Feb., which I would really like to attend. There are so many conferences and workshops I’d like to attend next year! Guess I’d better get saving…

Anyway, more posts to come, I promise. I’ve been working on a doozy of a post on premature rupture of membranes, and I discovered some amazing birth art just a few blocks from my house, so stay tuned.

A little administrivia. There are a few topics on this website that have no posts at all yet, or are otherwise a little thin. Which I would happily amend, but I need a few suggestions. I created the new products section because I thought it would be neat to review and discuss new products that have come out on the midwifery/parenting market, such as breastfeeding aids (pumps, shells, nursing bras etc.), the latest baby wrap that can keep the kiddo strapped to you in fashionable papoose style, the newest/bestest cloth diaper, or fastener etc. etc. The problem is, I don’t actually have any kids of my own yet, so I don’t really know what to review, and buying a nursing product when I’m not nursing is going to be sort of like a man trying to test out the latest greatest new tampon. So, does anyone have any suggestions for products which I can review? Alternately, if anyone would like to write up a review of a new product, feel free! You can e-mail your reviews to me at TheStudent@studentmidwife.org.

Additionally, there are still NO birth stories up in the birth stories section. And sure, I could certainly write about any of the amazing, beautiful births I have seen and attended, but I really was sort of hoping that other people would share their birth stories as well, either their own personal story, or the story of a birth they’d seen and attended. So, if anyone’s willing to bite the bullet on that one, we’d love to hear it! Send your stories to moi@studentmidwife.org, and I will post them sharpish (posts can be annonymous, using your first name only, or with your full name, it’s up to you). Otherwise, I will have to write up birth stories myself, which is fine by me, and it’s certainly nice to share the births I’ve seen with other people, but don’t you guys ever get tired of listening to me yap all the time? Yeah, I thought so. So, contribute!

Finally, if anyone has some lovely birth art they’d love to share, or any questions they’d like me to tackle, again, you know where to find me, and I am ready and eager to try to find answers to your questions, or post your artwork with loud praise. Full credit will be given to every artist, of course, and I can host the pictures on my server, so you don’t have to worry about bandwith.

Consider this an official call for submissions.