Welcome to the world Brijin Joy

I'm so sorry for keeping you all in suspense...

We returned home from a family of two to three from hospital with our new, baby girl Brijin Joy Wednesday night and have been tending to her needs since. I finally feel like I have a moment where I will choose five minutes of blogging over five minutes of sleep... Amazing.

She arrived at 9:04 p.m. on Memorial Day at a long and skinny 7.0 lbs and 20.5 in.

The first thing I noticed were her big lips. :) Later, with help from our friends and family who visited, we awed at her long fingers and gigantic feet! Not long after, my husband and I realized just how precious and scary taking care of this delicate, little life is and will be.

I have so much to catch you up on. I'd like to document so many things from the past week, if Brijin will let me sleep enough to think through it and have the time to type it out! LOL!

I want to share the following:

• My birth plan compared to my labor story - how meditation and presence helped me through it
  
• Naming our baby - Brijin is pronounced like Bridget but with a "jin" at the end (it's the Swedish version ... will tell you more about it later.
  
• My hospital stay
  
• My breastfeeding journey - boy, is it one! definitely a LEARNED experience and your first team effort with your child
• Bringing home baby
• Adapting our dog Charlie to our new bundle of Brijin Joy
• Continuing to learn and feel confident taking care of our daughter

Please comment (hit comment button beneath post) and let me know if I left anything out that you want to know, and I'll fill you in on the details.

I've truly enjoyed sharing my pregnancy through my blog and plan to continue Yoga Mama as I journey through motherhood. My yoga practice will have to focus on meditation and breath for several weeks as my body returns back to normal, and I will try to incorporate yoga into my posts. However I'll have to admit I may be very baby focused for a while. :) And particularly on one special lady.

Preparing Dad for Birth

With our baby's arrival becoming more imminent, I'm growing a little more concerned about the labor and how hubby and I will handle it together. "B" has expressed numerous times how he is nervous about seeing me in so much pain, which I understand. However, I want to make sure he doesn't miss such a miraculous moment in our lives.

As I was reading a pregnancy magazine in the doctor's office a few mornings ago (now seeing my midwife every two weeks), I discovered a book to prepare expectant dads for d-day - not like the war, but as in delivery day. Don't Just Stand There: How to Be Helpful, Clued-In, Supportive, Engaged & Relevant in the Delivery Room is the title and received rave reviews on Amazon.com.

From the editorial review on Amazon: Dads get clear direction on what to bring, how to calm and soothe, what to say and, more important, what to definitely not say. A chapter on the stages of labor makes it easy to track what's happening when, while blank lists provide space for mom to fill in her personal preferences ahead of time.

Sounds good to me. We'll see what "Dad" has to say - calling the hub Dad sounds good to me too. :)

Birth plan - realistic or nonsense?

Since beginning my third trimester, I've been trying to prepare more and more for the baby. Having a written birth plan upon arrival at the hospital seems to be all the rage these days, but it just doesn't seem realistic to me...

Here's my birth plan so far:

• Soothing music - check.
• Baby out within five minutes of first contraction - check.
• Nothing rips or tears - check
• No odd or embarrassing bodily fluids leave my body - check.

Deep down, I just don't believe labor is an experience one can really plan out. Type A mothers-to-be must have invented the "necessity" of a birth plan (not that I haven't be labeled type A, but I have parameters). It seems to be out of my hands how this miraculous process will flow, and I'd hate to set myself up for failure or disappointment.

Where does one even begin a birth plan? Yes, I want it to go well and smoothly ... okay, birth plan is complete. Guess the hospital staff and my midwife are probably looking for something more detailed, huh?

My next appointment with my midwife is this week, and I found a blog post with five questions to ask the doctor before going into labor. Seems like a good way to help me formulate a birth "outline" versus a detailed plan.

Five questions to ask before giving birth:
1. What is your c-section and episiotomy rate? How far past my “due date” can I go?
2. If all is well with mom and baby, do you allow intermittent monitoring (freedom to move around as you please)?
3. May I labor in any position I find comfortable and effective?
4. May I push my baby out in any position I find comfortable and effective?
5. What is your philosophy on birth? If I choose not to take pain medication, are you fully supportive of natural birth? Or do you prefer your patients to have a medicated birth? If I have had a previous cesarean, do you support VBACs?

The following poll about birth plans was posted on babycenter.com: If you wrote a birth plan, did it make your labor and delivery a more positive experience?

• 46% Yes, it helped me get what I wanted.
• 54% No, it went out the window once the contractions started.

Aha! The ladies are split 50/50 on the importance of a birth plan - thanks for confusing me even more!

Perhaps I should have a few bullet points written down so I'm not completely dumbfounded during the process. Babycenter.com also had a handy dandy birth plan checklist where I can select what I would like to include in the special day. This seems like a good way to get started, and I can also bounce it off my midwife - thank goodness for sites like babycenter!