Month: October 2017

Breasts are Amazing

David Pierre   ·  

Breasts Are Amazing

Have you ever walked past a car dealership and marveled at the beauty of the vehicles in the show room (I’m not talking about the Ford Fiesta S); the curves, the roundness of wheels or the vehicle’s headlight positioning? Vehicles are everywhere in North American culture; on billboards, on television, and on the Internet. We use them to sell movies, music and even pizza. Honestly though, behind the heavily marketed veneer of paint and curves, you’ll find processes that are simply amazing! It’s a shame that more people don’t appreciate how incredibly complicated a vehicle is.

I’m not talking about vehicles.

I’m talking about breasts.

Pre-Baby Breast Thinking

Before I had Benjamin, I fell into the ignorant category of thinking “Boobs are, well, boobs.” Growing up, I knew nothing about them other than that they made all the Sean Connery movies my parents watched slightly more tolerable. I grew up in a rural area with only three television channels, so yeah, I watched the Sean Connery movies with my parents. Really, though, Sean Connery is 87… would those twenty something girls in the movies actually like him? Umm, I don’t know.

Anyway, once we had Benjamin and I started reading about breasts and breastfeeding, it was like I popped the hood of a 1921 Helica de Leyat (Google tells me this is a rare car) and realized … “Hey! There is something amazing going on in there!”

Now I know the benefits of breastfeeding have been written to death by media, bloggers, and medical experts. From increasing your baby’s immunity and health all the way to giving the baby the ability to see though walls, the benefits are undeniable. The subject is also wrought with opinions and feelings and I am not trying to write that article again.

Breasts are more than Boobs?

When I realized just how incredibly fine-tuned these puppies are (pun intended), a sense of guilt washed over me about how I have viewed boobs my whole life. I’m not sure how to feel about the guilt. Am I mad at advertising? Am I sad? Like the time I found out that there is a lot more to Macaulay Culkin than the crafty little boy thwarting bad guys in the Home Alone movies? I just don’t know!

All I know is that when Benjamin arrived into this world, without even seeing a single Bud Light commercial, he instinctively knew that boobs are amazing.

He knew how to find them by the visual cues of the darkened areola and by the smell of secreting milk and colostrum. When Benjamin latched, his saliva sent information to the boobs about his nutrition and health needs. A Science News article that I read explained it best.

“Part of the immunity that breast milk imparts, it seems, may depend in part on a mixture of milk and baby saliva flowing upstream. This backwash may actually cause a mother’s body to create made-to-order immune factors that are delivered back to the baby in milk.” *

The information didn’t stop there. Because Benjamin was born with a lack of understanding between day and night, my wife’s breast milk apparently has “naturally occurring chemicals called nucleotides that have previously been linked to sleepiness and only reach their highest concentrations in human breast milk that is expressed at night.” **.

Thankfully, this stage is over but Benjamin used to use his mother’s breasts for comfort when he was upset and to calm himself to sleep. His mama’s breasts detect his body temperature and adjust accordingly to heat him up or cool him down.

They are, in a word, amazing!

Final Thought on Breasts

After witnessing all the wonderful things breasts can do, I’m closer to understanding why it has been so easy for the media to manipulate my mind into buying ridiculous things. It’s instinctual for a newborn baby to look to breasts for all the wonderful reasons mentioned above. So, as a teen and early adult, perhaps it was instinctual to seek breasts again when considering which loaf of bread to buy or which restaurant to patronize. Come to think of it, my favorite post-hockey place to eat when I was younger was Hooters! Case. In. Point.

Anyway, I know breasts can’t talk and I don’t even have any of my own. However, I enjoyed telling their story and I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Let me know about your feelings on breasts in the comments below and, remember, this is a family blog!

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* https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/growth-curve/backwash-nursing-babies-may-trigger-infection-fighters

** https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17908-evening-breast-milk-means-a-good-sleep/

My Birth Story … The Dad’s Version – Thursday

David Pierre   ·  

Part 2: Thursday

If you missed part one click HERE.

20 Hours in

So, here we were, 20 hours into our birth story and my wife and I were feeling encouraged! The frequency and duration of her contractions had increased. The app I had downloaded earlier also continued to feed us encouragement and so, feeling confident that progress was being made, we called the midwives.

The midwife I spoke with on the phone was Nicole. She asked me what Krista was doing. I told her that Krista was alternating between kneeling on the bed, leaning over the counter in the bathroom, and throwing up in the toilet. Nicole then asked me to ask Krista what her contractions felt like. Krista told me that they were extremely sharp, painful pains in her lower back.

“Oh, back labor” Nicole said, “does she feel any pain in her lower abdomen?”

“No”, I replied after asking Krista.

Side note: From what I gathered reading books, watching videos, and from our birth class, back labor is the least desirable of labors. It seems to me that it’s sort of like visiting your local Ford dealer with the intent of getting their worst car in the best trim (Fiesta ST), but ending up with the worst car in the worst trim (Fiesta S).

Ford, if you’re reading this, please send me either version (ST preferred).

Call the Midwives

Anyway, Nicole told me that she and another midwife, Carol, were coming over to assess Krista and that we should also contact our doula, Heidi.

I called Heidi and told her all the same things that I had told Nicole.

Another side note: Midwives always work in teams of three to make sure two of them can attend the birth. One midwife is always assigned to the mother and the other is assigned to the baby.

Heidi, Nicole, and Carol arrived at our place shortly before midnight. Heidi came with snacks, massage devices, heating pads and, best of all, a warm positive attitude which we desperately needed after so many hours of labor. Seriously, such a great Calgary Doula!

Nicole and Carol arrived with midwife things; you know, like, 3 raven feathers and a bottle of witch hazel. I’m joking, of course, but I know for a fact that this is how some people view the practice of midwifery. Such a misconception. Midwives are highly specialized in all aspects of the birthing process!

Right away, I could tell from their body language that they didn’t think our birthing process was very far along but they offered us comfort, encouragement and peace of mind by making sure that Krista and the baby were doing well.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Checking the blood pressure and heart rates for both mom and baby adds a certain level of comfort, but we all know that the real business in birthing is the cervix opening… I would come to hate those checks.

Carol checked Krista’s cervix and, unfortunately, it was still slammed shut! Or as she put it, “Still a ways to go, honey. This is all part of the process”.

Now, I’m sure its normal for the midwives to see this little progress over 22 hours of labor but, after reading so many birth stories, this news was deflating for us. So many women describe waking up, hopping out of bed, feeling some liquid on her legs, going to the hospital and, 8 hours later, a baby.

Carol suggested Heidi draw Krista a warm bath and that I get a little bit of rest. The midwives left instructing us to contact them if anything changed or if we needed them for support.

Get Some Rest

So I lay down in the spare room which is separated from the bathroom Krista was spending the majority of her time in by a 4-inch thick wall. Needless to say, the rest wasn’t all that productive.

I sort of just lay there switching between feelings of guilt, for even getting to pretend to relax, feelings of anxiety, wondering how much longer this would go on, and feelings of complete uselessness, wishing that I could somehow bear some of the pain and struggle my wife was going through. In any case, this wasn’t an ideal state of mind for rest.

After finding a way to rest for some amount of time, (possibly 3 hours?) Heidi came into the spare room and said that I should call the midwives again. I got up and went to the bathroom. Krista was in visibly more pain than she had been when I saw her last. She was growling and clawing at her back during every contraction, which were coming every 4 minutes and lasting for over a minute. I consulted with my app which informed me that, if we weren’t almost to the hospital, to call 911.

I called the midwives again.

This time, when I spoke to the midwives I added guilt to my list of feelings. I don’t know why but I started to feel like our birth was becoming a nuisance to our midwives. They did absolutely nothing to make me feel that way; it’s just how I felt.

Anyway, I told them that Krista was feeling a tremendous amount of pain and wanted them to come back. So Nicole and Carole got back out of bed and drove to our house.

I’m Coming Undone

When they arrived, I apologized for the situation as though I had any control over it. They told me that visits during the night are normal with birthing. They stated that because oxytocin levels are naturally higher during the night, a lot of babies are born during this time (I didn’t bother to fact check).

Once again, they checked both Krista and the baby. They found that both heart rates were good, that Krista’s blood pressure was good and that her cervix was thinning, but still completely closed. I didn’t even know it was possible to be deflated any further, but I was.

We Need Relief

By this point, Krista hadn’t slept in 26 hours so I asked Carol what our options were. She suggested a small dose of painkillers to help her get some rest. I had reservations about going down this path because I was aware of the risks that it posed to both Krista and the baby, however, Carol and Nicole talked me through it and, ultimately, left the decision to us.

Krista was in favor of the painkillers and I came around to the idea, but it meant that we had to drive to the hospital since they couldn’t be administered at home.

When we got to the hospital, we went right into triage. At 6 in the morning on a Thursday, there were some interesting people in there and, of course, we could hear everything going on with them. One lady was having a baby but was also high as a kite on crystal meth. Another lady was having a baby and screamed as loud as she could during every contraction.

Nicole new What we Needed

Nicole was the midwife that was going to give Krista a dose of morphine to help her relax and hopefully get some sleep. Unfortunately, though, we first had to go through a gauntlet of checks to make sure the baby and Krista were in perfect condition. This took a long time and only added to our frustration. At times, the tension was thick between Nicole and us. Nevertheless, Nicole showed us patience when needed and was a stern voice of reason when needed and I respected that about her. She was there to make sure both Krista and the baby were healthy and refused to deviate from her plan of double checking everything.

When all the tests were cleared, Krista received a dose of morphine and we went home to rest.

Now What?

When we got home, we both just lay in bed not knowing what to think.

We had already been through so much and there wasn’t any real end in sight. We talked about stuff that I can’t quite remember. I do remember that it was nice. We would both fall asleep for a few minutes between contractions. When the next one would come along and wake us up, I would massage Krista’s lower back for the duration of the contraction and then we would sleep again. This went on for several hours.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep and missed some contractions, but I woke up to find Krista on her hands and knees on the bed, humming, eyes closed, making small circles with her body. She seemed to be in a good place so I remained still and quiet so as not to disturb her.

Eventually we started talking and, with the sun having just come up and shining cheerfully through the window, we decided that we were ready to have our baby today.

Our spirits had been lifted and we felt the strength to move through this process and begin the next chapter of our lives as a family of 3.

Even though Thursday had only just begun, I’ll take a break here and finish the story in Part 3.

Back to Part 1

My Birth Story … The Dad’s Version – Wednesday

David Pierre   ·  

Part 1: Wednesday

Around 2am Wednesday morning, March 2nd, 2016, my wife nudged me in bed and said, “I’m in labor!” Astoundingly, our beautiful baby boy, Benjamin, wasn’t born until Friday, March 4th, 2016 at 7pm … Settle in and pour yourself a cup of coffee. This is a long story.

We Planned and Planned

The months leading up to our “guess date”, we got as prepared as we could. I don’t call it a “due date” because, statistically speaking, not many births happen on the due date. So what happens if you go past it? Unnecessary stress! Here are some numbers:

“Normally, women are given a date for the likely delivery of their baby calculated as 280 days after the onset of their last menstrual period. Yet only four percent of women deliver at 280 days and only 70% deliver within 10 days of their estimated due date, even when the date is calculated with the help of ultrasound.” * 

Prior to our guess date, we did all the recommended things. We went to birth classes, got a midwife, and hired a doula. Okay, I guess we did all the things Ricki Lake recommended in the documentary, Business Of Being Born. Her ideas jived with us and, after eating a hot dog and fries while buying a poorly made side table from IKEA, we were feeling very Swedish (75% of births are attended by midwives in Sweden **

Dad Planning

The preparation didn’t stop there. Skimming through books like The Birth Partner and What to Expect When You’re Expecting. I read a book about what the first days with our baby would be like and books about how not to mess up our kid mentally in the first 10 minutes of knowing him. I glanced at my wife’s computer screen from time to time, seeing one of the hundreds of birth videos she was watching … It went on and on.

We ate at IKEA

We met with our doula and wrote down our birth wishes. Our wish was to give birth naturally at home, or at IKEA. Either way, it just had to feel Swedish. It’s called a birth wish, because calling it a “plan” can lead to regret and depression if things don’t go according to “plan”. We, of course, remained logical about the idea of having a home birth. Our midwives were especially trained to handle any birth issues and there was a room held for us at the hospital close to our home, should the need arise.

Maybe all this preparation somehow helped but nothing could prepare me for the emotional, mental, and physical (mostly my wife on this one) turmoil that comes with delivering a baby.

Okay, What Happened Already?

Okay, so, after my wife told me that she was in labor at 2 am on Wednesday morning, I mostly just fell back asleep. Not because I’m evil, but just because I’ve trained myself to fall back asleep quickly after my wife tells me something in the middle of the night.

You see, my wife likes to lie in bed at night and think about stuff going on in her life. I, on the other hand, try to think of nothing. Often, I’m woken up with comments like, “Do you even watch Netflix? We should cancel it.” Or “I wish we lived on acreage.”

Anyway, for the rest of that night (Wednesday morning), I slept while my wife laid in bed thinking about the day(s) to come.

There’s an app for That

When I woke up, things were still quite upbeat as we shared our excitement over the reality that we’d be meeting our baby boy soon. I had time to make a coffee, make breakfast and download an app for my phone that would make counting contractions easier.

The contractions were making progress but we tried to keep our mind off of them as much as we could. We went for a walk and had a bath. This is all recommended during early labor.

It just so happened that we had a midwife appointment that day at noon. So, the contractions, walking and bathing continued until then. We called the midwives and they determined that we were fine to come in to the clinic.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

When we got to the clinic, the midwives decided to check my wife’s cervix. For those who don’t know what a cervix is, its a magical door that needs to open for the baby to come out. Think “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”. On one side of the door is your normal pre-baby life. On the other side of the door is a mystical, dream-like world filled with bright colors (kids toys) and weird creatures (hallucinations from sleep deprivation).

The cervix starts out closed and gradually (and from what I hear – unpleasantly), opens to around 10 cm. This is when the pushing starts and the baby makes his grand debut.
The midwife checked and before she said a single word, we knew that we weren’t going to like the news. No progress. After 10 hours of pre-labor, my wife’s cervix was still closed shut. So deflating!

Our midwife reassured us that this was fine but wanted us to get an ultrasound to make sure the baby was in the correct, head down position. The ultrasound revealed that our baby was head down, but looking towards my wife’s right hip.

So we went home.

So we Laboured

As the afternoon and evening progressed, so did the frequency and duration of my wife’s contractions. I continued to consult the app I had downloaded earlier and was provided with useful advice like “Make sure your bags are packed to leave for the hospital at any moment” and “Your baby will be arriving shortly”.

Feeling quite encouraged by the app and the now 20 hours of labor that had passed, we called our doula and midwife to get further advice…

Continue to Part 2: Thursday

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* https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130806203327.htm

** http://www.who.int/pmnch/media/membernews/2011/2011_sowmr_en.pdf

Who Takes the Photos? My Instagram Story

David Pierre   ·  

If You’re in the Photo, Then …

One of the questions I get asked a lot on Instagram is, “who’s taking the photo?” My standard response is, “sometimes my wife takes the photo and sometimes I shoot off a tripod.”

That statement really understates the struggle that I often go through to get a photo for Instagram! But I love photography and writing stories, so I push on!

Summer Vacation

My Instagram story began about 6 months before I posted my first photo. We had just come back from a trip to the Okanogan, British Columbia (6-hour car ride with adults, 9 hours with a baby).

We stayed with some friends in the Okanogan who happened to have a new DSLR camera. After they showed a few photos from their DSLR of Benjamin and us, I was hooked! I loved how deep and rich the photos looked with a DSLR camera compared to my phone camera.

When we returned home (11-hour car ride, because the highway was closed for an accident for 3 hours) I quickly found a DSLR camera on Kijiji and did what most people do when they get a DSLR, put the camera on AUTO and started snapping!

I Lost so many Friends

It didn’t take long before I alienated myself from everyone by constantly trying to show him or her photos of Benjamin. I couldn’t even catch people off guard because anyone that owns a DSLR knows that these cameras aren’t exactly stealth. When you walk in the door with a suitcase, backpack, and computer people instinctually know you are going to try to show them photos.

So I went searching for a larger audience. Enter Instagram, the largest photo sharing thingy out there.

Instagram to the Rescue

I knew that most of my friends that didn’t want to look at my photos of Benjamin were on Instagram. I also knew that Instagram would give me back the element of surprise. Sure a suitcase is hard to hide, but when my friends are scrolling through Instagram they are bound to see my photos of Benjamin!

So I signed up for Instagram and added all the same friends I had on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+ (just kidding, no one uses Google+).

Early Days of Instagram

My first photos were of Benjamin only or Benjamin and our cat. An easy one-liner as captions and done! These were very easy to shoot! He was barely walking and didn’t notice the camera. I would try to take photos with an interesting perspective or create depth to the photos by having a foreground and background subject. All the sorts of things I read about on photography blogs.

It wasn’t long after posting a few photos on Instagram, that I started reading about Instagram on blogs. You know, how to get better at Instagram type stuff. As a side note, if you currently enjoy Instagram as a fun app that lets you post pictures of your cat or food, I highly recommend you don’t read blog sites about Instagram strategies.

The Instagram Hustle

Seriously! Behind the fun pictures of cats and food, is a giant marketing machine filled with algorithms, conspiracies, hashtag strategies, page designing, follow loops, interaction pods … and on and on!

It doesn’t take long after reading the Instagram advice pages that you are researching hashtags, and designing your content to what your followers are responding to!

And what were the followers I had responding to? Not my interesting perspectives and foreground and background subjects. My followers responded to photos of Benjamin and I struggling with everyday issues. They also responded to that I was a stay at home dad and told a story in the caption about my struggles, as a stay at home dad.

So obviously people started wondering if I am in the photos with Benjamin and I am talking about being a stay at home dad, struggling to manage chores, naps, and grocery shopping, who’s taking the photos?

Tell me Already, Who is Taking the Photo?

Well, until a couple of months ago, it was easy to set up my tripod while Benjamin was doing something “toddlerish” and walk over to where he was, make a face that tries to capture the mood of what he is doing, and push the camera remote button. Done!

That was a couple of months ago. Now, when Benjamin sees the tripod come out, he runs over to it, slaps it, and laughs. Not exactly an ideal workflow. So I had to recruit my wife.

So when my wife is home and Benjamin is doing something of interest. I say, “quick! Get the camera and try to get a picture of Benjamin and I while he is putting our shoes in the toilet”. This helps! But I still miss many “toddlerish” behaviors.

I hope after all that, you get a better idea of, “who takes the photos?” and why I always say, “sometimes my wife and sometimes I shoot off a tripod”.

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