OHH hai.

So I’m deciding to take my “maternity leave” from my blog for a while.

As the weeks stretch on, I’m finding myself increasingly uncomfortable, irritable, completely forgetful and with total negligence of grammatical correctness (which irks me greatly) or any sort of polite decorum.

See what I mean: polite decorum? Isn’t that kind of redundant? Whatever.

Its just best that I stay away from writing about much other than whining about my pregnancy. I can’t collect my thoughts on the normal things I like to write and read about. So, to some this may be a good thing. But don’t be too excited, I still wish to at least post good articles to reference from time to time. And I’ll be back in full throttle soon enough.

It’s taken until my third pregnancy to decide which part of it I enjoy the least. I’d have to say the last trimester is it.

Not only is my body very uncomfortable, I’m anxious about everything. I see dust everywhere. It needs to be GONE RIGHT NOW. The mountainous tasks that are rolling around in my head feel so urgent that I sometimes feel a rising panic if it’s not getting done quick enough.

Having restless leg syndrome (RLS) in combination with a searing heartburn has never been as forceful as it seems to be this pregnancy. I could see someone using it as a method to torture top-secret government information out of me, if I had anything to tell. Just affect my body with RLS and heartburn, and I’ll do or say anything to stop it.

I’ve been becoming a huge fan of Apple Cider Vinegar and just vinegar all together. I always see vinegar listed as a home remedy for all sorts of ailments: from blemishes to heartburn to sore feet to allergy relief (http://4life4life.tumblr.com/post/19573669446/the-neti-pot-saga-i-as-well-as-most-in-the)! Then I’ve seen it listed for all sorts of housekeeping solutions: from bug repellent to fabric softener.

It is one of those things that finally, after seeing it repeatedly praised for its many uses, I decided to try it and now I am in luuuurrrve. I use it in some form, almost daily: to clean or to self-medicate.

Epsom Salts is one of those things as well. I’ve always seen containers of them at the store or read about their uses, but never given them a try.

I was reading that soaking in a Epsom Salt bath can help relax and ease muscle pain.

Number one: I’m not a bath-taker. To me, taking a bath is just soaking in my own filth. Mmmm. Relaxing with my dead skin cells sloughing off of me and floating all around. Sounds sooo calming.
Number two: I don’t have time for a bath. By the time we’ve wrangled our children into bed, I want to be in bed too.

Buuut, desperate times calls for…

An epsom salt bath.

I tried it and I’ll say one thing. Well two: I was so relaxed and sleepy after soaking for 20 minutes that I wondered how legal epsom salt baths should be.
And then I made note that I shall use them as another instrument for coping with my labor when the day arrives.

I slept really well. Minus the necessary nighttime potty trips. But I woke up less for those even.

I am always amazed at the wonders of an old natural remedy or an old trick that lays forgotten while we constantly search for the miracle drug or miracle cleaner.

I am more shocked that some of the more basic homeopathic treatments are completely to the ignorance of my doctors.

I was talking with my OB about my discoveries of some heartburn remedies that have been around for ages. He was about to write me a prescription and looked at me with wide, unblinking eyes, “oh wow! I’ll have to get some Aloe Vera juice! I get terrible heartburn, myself.”

I’m thinking, really? How does a doctor not know this?
I was talking to my nurse about how baking soda can be drunk in water (minimally, watch that third trimester swelling!) to reduce heartburn and that if you sit in a shallow bath with a half-cupful mixed in, it can help relieve the pain of and reduce hemorrhoids.
She looked at me, puzzled, and said, “that’s crazy! I’ve never heard of that one before!”

…and I go to an OBGYN practice which specializes in promoting the natural birth approach.
This doesn’t make any sense to me!

If they’re promoting this natural way of labor and childbirth, shouldn’t they be knowledgeable about some of the basic, natural remedies to ease pain or any of the symptoms a pregnant woman experiences throughout her pregnany?

All I’ve been offered by them is prescriptions for medicines. I’ve had to do my own homework to know what I now know. And it’s taken me three pregnancies to get where I am— and I’m STILL learning!

Woe to the mother of her first baby who never knew better, simpler, safer solutions to her discomforts! …that was me!

I can’t help but to continually refer to The Birth Book by Dr. Bill and Martha Sears. In the book, Martha gives a history of how the birth scene has progressed -or should I say medicalized- over the decades. Birth has become a “condition” inwhich nature and it’s processes are too slow, or not good enough.

Women have become less confident in themselves, and completely distrustful of their own body and the map that it lays out, plainly for us to read. We need the doctor to tell us what to do and how to do it, as if we weren’t born with the natural equipment to begin with.

A nice personal example would be during my second son’s labor, after I’d received my epidural (which later failed), my labor slowed and didn’t progress. (hmm, wonder why?) So my OB, offered to break my water for me. My husband and I considered it and decided to give it a try.

After three unsuccessful attempts, my doc had not broken my water. He left to go see a movie with his family as my husband and I sat there, mildly frustrated.

I shifted my extremely limited position in my birth bed, and immediately experienced the rush of water. …and panic as the epidural then began to wear off and I started feeling things I knew I wasn’t supposed to…

It was not until I kissed the forehead of our little Emmett that we noticed a huge gash on the top of his head from the water-breaking-instrument.

He still has a scar under his baby hair.

If I had just trusted my body to know what to do in the first place, to have the patience that my doctor did not (hey, his family wanted to go see a movie for crying out loud.), my labor would have progressed. Emmett would have been born on his own if I’d let him- without being cut by a foreign instrument.

But with advanced medicine today, how can we argue with it? Without it, surely the death rate would increase as would disease.

For modern medicine, I am thankful. And Dr. Sears’s book acknowledges that was well: doctors and hospitals and medical interventions are truly a gift.

But the book challenges a mother to know her options. No, not just to know ABOUT her options: “I can have an epidural or I can go without. There. I know my options.”

But to really KNOW her options: to know the risks involved with an epidural. How an epidural affects the baby and consequently, the baby’s ability to breast feed. To know alternative pain medications that are available instead of the epidural, and their risks.

To know, to fully know what entails having a natural, unmediated birth. To know that being unmediated does not mean that the mother just lays there screaming her brains out through the pain, just blundering blindly through it. There are better ways.

We just have to exercise our responsibility to equip ourselves with the knowledge to know better, to have a wholesome balance with nature and medicine -if needed.

I’m hoping and praying that this birth is the turning point for me. It’s taking courage and hard work: reading and a lot of networking with other, wiser mommies.

And that’s why I won’t be writing as much for the next two months. I keep up more with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram— and even those, I’m laying off, save for picture postings: the quickest and easiest of it all.

Until my next prego strife, all mommies are in my prayers (as much as I can focus them) and I ask my Christian bros and sisters to pray for me. Peace and love!