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The Let’s Talk Blog Top Ten – Ways to Achieve a Normal Birth

TEN: Allow labor to begin on its own. Getting induced with Pitocin tends to lead to further complications and more painful contractions. Inductions should be reserved for medical indications only. NINE: Allow yourself movement. You’ll be more comfortable if you are able to move freely during labor. Your labor will most likely progress quickly if you are able to keep active and respond to your labor pains by changing positions. EIGHT: Say no to routine interventions. Ask for intermittent, instead of constant, fetal monitoring. Having belts, cords or wires on your person can tie you down and won’t allow you … Continue reading →

Pregnant: Am I Doing It Right?

During my pregnancy I’ve felt a couple times like I wasn’t “doing it right.”  Not that I wasn’t taking care of my body or baby properly, but that I didn’t care enough, and that meant I wasn’t going to be very good at this whole mothering thing.  I didn’t feel that way in response to serious events, or in the face of friends with children, or anything like that. It started when I was asked “what’s your countdown?”  I had no idea what the person was talking about.  Apparently it meant how many days left until my due date.  I … Continue reading →

Pregnancy Apps for Smart Phones

I’ve blogged about a few apps that are available for iPhones, but did you know there are many pregnancy apps for other smart phones as well? Android phones are becoming very popular these days and offer quite a few apps via the Google Marketplace. This month I had the thrill of test driving an EVO 4G for the purposes of trying out some of the pregnancy apps, courtesy of the generous people of Sprint. (Can I just note that I am in love with this phone and I’m already mourning having to mail it back this week? It’s a fun … Continue reading →

My Ultrasound Experience

As promised, a report on my ultrasound adventure! I went to an imaging center for a pelvic ultrasound. The prep is different, depending on which body part is being scanned. My prep was pretty easy: drink five glasses of water in the hour prior to your scan. (For ultrasound scans of other areas of the body, you may be asked to fast, or drink only clear liquids.) There was only one hard part: I couldn’t use the bathroom until AFTER my scan. This inspired nightmare images of me having an accident on the exam table! But as it turns out, … Continue reading →

What Is an Ultrasound?

I’ve got ultrasounds on the brain at the moment, since I’m having one on Monday afternoon to confirm my doctor’s diagnosis of fibroids. Also known as sonography, ultrasound imaging uses sound waves to create pictures of the inside of the body. One big advantage of an ultrasound over other kinds of imaging is that an ultrasound does not use ionizing radiation (like an x-ray does) and is generally non-invasive. Ultrasound images are captured in real time, so they can even show the movement of blood through vessels! Conventional ultrasound displays the images in thin, flat sections. There are also 3D … Continue reading →

Your Baby’s Personality

During the last weeks of your pregnancy, pay close attention to how your baby moves. After your baby is born, those adorable movements will be the same for the first few weeks. You’ll recognize the way your baby kicks and moves her arms. It’s incredible to make that connection between the baby you knew in your womb and the baby you cradle in your arms. From the beginning, from those first kicks and throughout my pregnancy, I began to get a sense of my son’s personality. Pressing my fingers into the side of my belly, I would be kicked repeatedly. … Continue reading →

The Joy of Feeling Your Baby Move

Something I miss about pregnancy (among other things) is the feeling of my son moving around in my belly. I remember the first time it happened. I was talking and suddenly I stopped mid-sentence while my friends looked on, wondering if something was wrong. “Oh my gosh, I feel the baby moving!” I exclaimed. I thought I had felt something in the car just minutes earlier, but I wasn’t sure if I was feeling the baby or the vibration of driving through bumpy road construction. After a pause, I felt it again. A small helicopter was buzzing around in there, … Continue reading →

Pregnant Buddies

I would love it if I could time my next pregnancy with my sister’s first. There is just something so special about being pregnant at the same time as a close friend or a sister. I tried timing my first pregnancy with a couple different friends, but ended up sandwiched in between their due dates. As most women know, there’s only so much planning you can do when it comes to picking a due date. Babies are born when they are meant to be born, regardless of our efforts to synchronize their birthdays with cousins or friends’ babies. Still, there … Continue reading →

Worrying During Pregnancy

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There are certain symptoms of pregnancy that are simply classic. Morning sickness, sore breasts, frequent urination and fatigue are all hallmark indications that you are expecting. But there is another symptom of pregnancy that is equally common: worrying. Worry is one symptom you won’t get, however, until you already know you’re pregnant. Once it hits, it hits hard. For the remainder of your pregnancy you find yourself worrying about everything from how much weight you are gaining to how much the baby is moving. Surfing the internet can make a pregnant woman crazy with all the stories of diseases, birth … Continue reading →

Baby Kicks

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Feeling your baby move for the first time is a moment you’ll never forget. The first time I felt my son move around, I was only 13 weeks along, which is pretty early. Typically, you should feel your baby move between 16 and 25 weeks of pregnancy. It felt like someone had let a bumble bee loose in my abdomen, and he was bumping into the walls of my belly. As he grew, he started to feel like someone was flicking me. Flicks grew to kicks, which could be seen from the outside. Kicks became rolls as he outgrew his … Continue reading →