#iron infusion clinic

[parkmoremcaus]

What to Expect at Your First Visit to an Iron Infusion Clinic

If your doctor has recommended iron infusions to treat your iron deficiency, you may be wondering what to expect at your first visit to an iron infusion clinic. This blog post will walk you through the process so you can feel prepared and confident.

Before Your First Visit

Your doctor at the skin clinic in Keysborough will likely order blood tests to confirm your iron deficiency and check for any underlying conditions. They will also review your medical history and any medications or supplements you are taking. If you have any queries concerning the process, now is a good time to ask them.

During Your First Visit

When you arrive at the clinic, you will be greeted by a friendly staff member who will check you in. You will then be taken to a comfortable treatment room. An IV line will be inserted by a nurse into an arm vein. Through the IV line, the iron solution will be gradually administered. Depending on your specific needs and the kind of iron solution utilised, the infusion process may take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours.

A nurse will be keeping a careful eye on you throughout the infusion. You may experience some mild side effects, such as a metallic taste in your mouth or a warm sensation in your chest. These side effects are usually temporary and will go away once the infusion is complete.

After Your First Visit

After your infusion, you will be able to go home and resume your normal activities. You may experience some mild bruising or soreness at the IV site. This is common and will pass in a few days.

To restore their iron reserves, the majority of patients will require many follow-up iron infusions. Depending on your unique kind, your doctor will decide how many infusions you require. If you are considering iron infusions, talk to your doctor to see if this treatment is right for you.

Source

[wiltking]

im free. im free. im writing and im free

[perfectblve]

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[pochapal]

i keep trying and nobody is there lol

(time sensitive) on a scale from 1 to 10 how yelled at will you get if you were apparently meant to call the hospital to confirm an appointment that's due to take place tomorrow and also you were given the letter telling you to do this two weeks ago and you failed to realize this was allegedly what you had to do

[yakultii]

how to get unsick (except low phosphate from iron infusion and trying to avoid the rural clinic cos I have beef w all the drs from like 8 years ago)

[cbk1000]

I'm also going to request a copy of my medical records from the clinic, both because I'll want to give them to my new doctor when I get in, but also because I think there's a slim to none chance he didn't put something in his clinical notes about how I was injured by the Covid shot. (I also need to get the exact dates of my appointments off my documentation, because I know approximately when they occurred, but I don't remember the exact dates because I've had many doctor's appointments over a period of three months.) At the very least, he DID put it on the medical certification I had to submit for my medical leave from work, so I'll be attaching that to my complaint, and I think I'm going to include my vaccine record as well so I can show that my last booster was in 2021. I kind of think he's too nuts to deny saying that because he's so doggedly certain that the Covid shots are the biggest evil on this planet, but in case he tries to do a he said/she said thing because he realises he might get in trouble, I can show that he did indeed blame it on the vaccine, and that my last documented Covid shot was in 2021. (I can't prove I told him that I had it so long ago, obviously, unless he noted it in my file, but if he really thought I had been injured by it, he should have asked when I had it anyway, so I think being able to show that I'm telling the truth about when I had it and that he really did say my condition progressed and worsened after the shot should be sufficient.)

I also think I should probably note that he suggested looking into a hysterectomy too while telling me that the low dose iron infusion I asked for was unnecessary. Women who are still of child-bearing age who have actual severe gynecological issues where a hysterectomy might be indicated struggle to get necessary surgeries, and he just casually suggested I, a woman in my 30s, look into having major surgery without even knowing my medical history, asking me anything about my periods to see if they were even heavy enough for that to be a reasonable suggestion, or recommending any other less invasive options to lessen the bleeding while I'm trying to improve my iron levels, like an IUD, birth control pills, tranexamic acid, etc. That might actually be the wildest part of this for me. "A 100mg iron infusion for iron deficiency? Are you crazy? Why haven't you just looked into having major surgery with a recovery time of six to eight weeks?"

[melonlthawne]

Back from ER. IUD did not move or perforate anything but the cyst on my ovaries got slightly bigger although the doctor wasn’t sure if that could’ve caused the pain. Either way they gave me some strong pain meds and discharged me. Not gonna lie it takes a lot to get me dopey and I’m pretty knackered. I was so worried we wouldn’t make it home within 12 ish hours cause I have my clinical (lab) tomorrow and I fail if i miss it but I should be okay. My professor is pretty cool so as long as I show up and try my best even if I’m still a little slow and painful I should be fine. Gotta retake one of my skills too. Overall pretty shitty day but it is what it is. Just laying with my cats til I fall asleep. Got an iron infusion Friday too so that’ll definitely tire me out more on top of an exam Monday. Still rly hope to get some baby bart content out bc he helps me relax and I love my little boy soooooo much

[simslegacy5083]

NSB (Straud Legacy) Gen 9 Ep 26: Luigi's Struggle

Cullen returned to the townhouse as a new man and found his cousin Luigi shambling around the place like a zombie.

When his relatives pressed him on the problem, he confessed to suffering frequent episodes of headaches and lightheadedness. His symptoms didn’t seem to respond to over-the-counter medication, leaving him exhausted and unable to focus. It was clear that he’d like to rest and recover, but the ambitious young sim refused to skip any of the classes, homework, papers, or e-sports practice sessions he had crammed into his daily schedule.

Everyone pushed Luigi to take care of himself. He promised to get checked out at the clinic, but as one day bled into the next the grind never stopped and that trip to the doctor became just another well-intentioned promise he didn’t follow through on.

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One evening after coming home from practice nursing another exhausting killer headache, Luigi’s body decided to make him listen.

Hunter heard a loud thump as he was getting ready for bed and discovered Luigi lying in an awkward heap near the stairs, unresponsive and clammy.

He rushed to his cousins’ side, calling his name and shaking him gently until he finally came to. Luigi didn’t argue when instead of seeing him off to bed Hunter led him down the stairs and out the door towards the medical clinic, phoning Peachy on the way.

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He remained barely conscious in the exam room, leaving it up to Hunter to fill the doctors and a worried uncle Peachy in about Luigi’s recent lethargy.

Luigi dosed fitfully on the hard mattress, fading in and out of clarity as techs drew blood and prodded him with tools and confusing questions. Peachy looked on with growing concern as his boy barely roused himself when the doctor finally came in with answers and a treatment plan.

The blood tests had diagnosed Luigi with anemia, just like his Uncle Paul. His symptoms had worsened as his blood had grown more and more iron deficient, and he wouldn’t improve unless he made a serious effort to correct the shortfalls in his diet and overall health.

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Luigi didn’t quite need a blood transfusion, but the doctor warned the infusion of iron that would accelerate his recovery might still leave him feeling quite rough.

Peachy thanked Hunter for taking care of his boy, doing his best to make Luigi comfortable before settling in to watch over his treatment and discharge. Luigi would need to start taking iron supplements and incorporate a long list of dietary suggestions into his grocery buying plans, but if he did, like his Uncle Paul he should be just fine.

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Luigi had barely gotten back home and into his PJs when the nausea the nurse had warned him about sent him scrambling to the toilet instead of his bed.

When he finally made it to his room, he found his dad waiting for him. Peachy watched him get settled and then sat down beside him for a little chat.

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Peachy told his son that he was so very proud of his achievements in school, but this night had been a wake-up call to take better care of himself.

There was no shame in not getting straight As, or even in not getting a college degree at all! None of their ancestors that Papa Jack had held up as “legacy heirs” had earned a university diploma, and many of them had gone on to reach the top of their careers without one, just as Peachy had.

He was sure Luigi would do great things with or without a degree, but no matter what life brought him Peachy wanted him to be healthy and happy.

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A chagrined Luigi told his father that he fully intended to finish school, as playing on the university team was the best way to launch into his dream esports career. However, he agreed to pay better attention to what his body was telling him and find a good school/life balance.

Peachy promised to check in with Luigi and his cousins to make sure he did just that before kissing him on the forehead and making his way home.

As Luigi drifted off to sleep a picture of Isra flicked in front of his mind’s eye. A night at the clinic wasn’t the only thing his singular focus on his studies had cost him, and he silently resolved to keep his promise to his father, and himself, this time around.

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View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

[girlactionfigure]

ISRAEL REALTIME — Oct 27 morning war updates

— MISSILE STRIKE… Taba, Egyptian city opposite Eilat, striking (depending on report) either a residential building or a medical clinic. Egypt's Al Qahera News TV said five people were wounded in the blast.  Source of missile? Unknown - possibly Yemen or Egyptian Sinai. According to reports, even at this time it is not known what the source of the missile was.

— IDF RAIDS… Brigadier General Hagari said there was a ground raid taking place in the Gaza Strip. IDF spox: “Similar to ​​last night, our fighters have been operating for hours in a similar and significant activity in the territory of the Gaza Strip.”

— HAMAS RAID? Thwarted. The Air Force tonight thwarted a security incident in which Hamas terrorists tried to advance towards the border of the Gaza Strip from the east.

— KALKILIYA & JENIN (Shomron, West Bank)… (Arab city) IDF forces destroyed shops in Kalkiliya and hung signs on them that read "This shop supports terrorism and is therefore closed”. Jenin, firefight, IED’s, 3 terrorists eliminated.

— US ATTACKS… Fox: US military carried out airstrikes on IRGC (Iranian) weapons depot and terrorist proxy forces in El Mayadeen, Syria in response to recent attacks on U.S. bases. A Biden official told Reuters: We did not coordinate with Israel the attacks in Syria. After the attack, the Iranian proxies attacked the Al Amr gas field with a barrage of rockets.

— CHANGE OF POLICE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT… for a vote on Sunday. New rules to allow police to use live fire in event of riots or blocking of traffic that interferes with movement of IDF forces, puts residents of a city in real danger, prevents movement of emergency equipment or evacuation for medical treatment. With the approval of the commissioner, the commander may permit live fire at rioters. It awaits legal review.

— PENTAGON SAYS… deployed 900 troops, Patriot anti-aircraft/anti-missile batteries, and THAAD laser anti-missile batteries to the Middle East, not Israel. Additionally 2 Iron Dome batteries bought by the US are being sent back to Israel to increase defenses.

— US PRESIDENT SAYS… “It is important to continue providing humanitarian aid - food, water and medical supplies - to innocent people in Gaza. This flow needs to increase, and we are working hard to make it happen.”

— US NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL SPOKESMAN SAYS… “What’s harsh — what’s harsh is the way Hamas is using people as human shields. What’s harsh is taking a couple of hundred hostages and leaving families and anxious, waiting and worrying to figure out where their loved ones are. What’s harsh, is dropping in on a music festival and slaughtering a bunch of young people just trying to enjoy an afternoon,” Kirby says.

— US FORCES… video of US forces arriving in Israel and, spoken on the video, being deployed to southern Israel and setting up equipment. No announcement, just the video (not shared here). Related by CNN, “a rapid response force consisting of 2,000 is deploying, joining the warships and US forces converging near Israel.”

— FLORIDA SENDS? (The US state of Florida) Florida Governor DeSantis announced his state will send a shipment to Israel, including weapons, ammunition and armored vehicles. Previously, Florida sent emergency assistance for hospitals, including bandages, patient gowns, PPE, infusion kits, needles, syringes, inhalers and toys for children.

— EU SAYS… EU leaders agreed to call for humanitarian corridors and pauses to get aid to Gaza.

— AT THE UN… Israeli Ambassador Erdan presented on the stage of the General Assembly a video showing a Hamas terrorist beheading the head of a victim in the massacre. He also showed the audience photos of many victims who were burned alive. Erdan: It's not Auschwitz, it's Hamas. We do not fight against humans. We are fighting monsters!

[nozoroomie]

my ps4 controller has shat the bed. While I don't really play any games on my ps4 anymore, it's still great for watching movies.

But finding a new controller or even a refurbished controller for this thing has been so difficult. I try not to shop on Amazon unless I have to (c'mon, we all know why) but even the small gaming shops in my city don't really have anything.

Maybe it's just cheaper for me to buy a bluray and dvd player??

Anyway, more fun life updates under the cut!

We'll start with my health. It's been a while since I've posted about it. In that post I made in April, I made a joke about "probably have to wait until 200 days of bleeding until I actually see a specialist."

It literally did take that long. I was bleeding from late January (around the 19th-22nd area,I'd have to go check my calendar but im typing this in bed and lazy.) until August 9th. There were two very brief breaks of nothing in April and June, but the grand total of days I bled and bled heavily was roughly 180 days. Crazy right? and I met MANY people with uterus' in this time who have had it worse.

I got to go to a specialist on August 6th and then when they tried to do an examination, they couldn't. There's a number of reasons why what happened happened but to put a long story short- my hormones are insane and likely not distributed evenly around my junk, so insertion causes immense pain and they just couldn't do a thing without putting me under anesthesia. Which they did! on August 9th I had a procedure to give me a biopsy, a polypectomy, and then there was one other thing they did -I believe it may have been called a DNC but honestly, they told me everything that happened while I was still under the affects of anesthetic so I have no idea the exact term or how the process goes- but since August 9th, I haven't had heavy bleeding. There's been some minute bleeding that all my recovery paperwork says its normal, but god. The menstrual cramps. The polyps forming and bursting. It's been painful.

The exact diagnosis of my biopsy and examination happens next Wednesday, and there's a few ways it could go over all, but the thing is I KNOW they're going to push the IUD or some other form of Birth control on me because that's what they did the first time I met and had a consultation with them. and with the way my uterus is and the horror stories I've heard about the pain of them and how they're -at most- 5 years of period relief... I'm saying nope. If I have to do birth control temporarily, I'm going towards the arm implant if it's going to be as effective as an IUD. If not? I'm going down the partial hysterectomy route and I'll try to get referred to an OBGYN that will respect that. But things I also had to do for my health while I was just slowly bleeding out and becoming more anemic by the day:

two iron infusions. On the second one they had to send me to the hospital to get an IV put in and then I had to travel across the city to the clinic I got my iron infusions don't at. Most stressful 2 days I've had to be quite honest. They poked me with different needles 11 times until someone finally got the iv in properly.

One of my ribs shifted just slightly out of place and I had to go to a chiropractor. Now I take stretching way more seriously. Folks. if you're not active, still make sure you stretch and you're hydrated. It's fucked.

Chronic fatigue and uterus cramping. if I wasn't at work or doing necessary chores (litter box, walking the dog, showering, laundry, etc.) I was laying down and doing my best not to take too any pain killers.

24/7 bloating. full disclosure- I 'm Fat. before all of this, I was comfortably between 175 to 185 pounds (and I didn't mind! I was born fat, I've grown up fat, it's not something I've ever cared about.) Carry most of it in my stomach and chest. At 5"1 ish, it makes me look pretty chunky. Imagine blowing up around 20 pounds more. at my worst, I was around 215 pounds. My body HURT. I felt like I was a bubble that could pop. I bought work shorts that fit me perfectly at around 185 pounds and the bloating got so bad, the button for the shorts just popped off while I was at work. It was so embarrassing.

Anddd that's the mega long health update.Right now I'm still recovering from my procedure. I have about a week and a half until I get have a bubble bath again and I do see the OBGYN on Sept 4th to find out just what my options are. Some other misc things to tie the post up into a more positive update:

Blue's reactivity is getting better! We haven't met many new dogs but he's getting so much better at ignoring every dog we pass. We do still have to cross the street, but he's more inclined to look to me than to stare down the other dog so that's always great.

Menma turned 12 and she's still on that vet prescribed diet. It's great for her kidneys but bad for hairballs. We're working on trying to get her interested in some hairball relief stuff but the old lady is picky with her food and sometimes she'll touch it, most days she'll turn her nose to it. And work is. Work. But you know how that all is. Capitalism is a shitty thing and I hope we see something better sooner rather than later.

That's about it! Thanks for reading if you got this far. It's storming and I gotta get Blue out to at least try to pee but knowing him, he's gunna protest so we'll see how it works out.

[ivebeenmade]

Doctor's appointment yesterday. Had a long talk, and a blood draw. They are now thinking I could have 1 or 2 other autoimmune disorders, along with fibromyalgia and hashimoto's. They are referring me to a neurologist, sleep Study clinic, and a rheumatologist.

We've been googling the blood test results as they came up on the app. Some things are definitely off- at least my thyroid is still on track.

Processing, and trying to find ways to make day to day life bearable until these follow-ups.

Update: Late in the day I got an email from her. She still wants me to see the rheumatologist and neurologist, but she is also going to start getting me scheduled for Iron Infusions. This could potentially do a lot of good- ease the fatigue and brain fog and muscle cramps...but it's also gonna involve one of my weirdest phobias.

Ever since I was a kid and watched my grandma get treated for cancer, I have had an extreme fear of some kinds of medical equipment. Not what you'd think; not needles, or the machines...but the plastic tubes, containers, etc. Even in their sterile packaging. I just feel my skin crawl around them. And if you know how IVs work, well....

[imsodishy]

so I got blood work yesterday and my hematologist called me today like, "hey do you want some iron??" and I said yes please and then the infusion clinic called me like 20 minutes later and booked me in for tomorrow... so I assume my numbers really were in the toilet lmao

for reference this process usually takes like 2-4 weeks

[simmer-until-tender]

Your sims are so cool!! How do you go about making them? Do you come up with a concept, or do you base them on a piece of CC? Are you making your own recolors? I love them, they're so unique 💕

Thanks for your sweet words.

Yes, I do recolor stuff often for a sim I'm making, and I usually create sims based off of something going on in my real life.

Like, I created Ketamine because I did Ketamine infusions at a pain clinic and after 5 hours of injecting buttloads of Ketamine the doctor was like "k bye now." So I stumble into an uber but the Ketamine made me so motion sick that I had to keep my eyes closed the whole ride. Then like a couple blocks from my house I open them to see where we are and immediately start dry heaving. I couldn't vomit because I hadn't eaten for 24hrs but the driver doesn't know that so he starts freaking out and leaves me at a gas station. Which wasn't ideal since I couldn't keep my eyes open or walk. Then I couldn't sleep for like four days. I did keep feeling the urge to tell myself that I loved myself though so that was nice.

I created Beeatrice because I booked a flight to go see my sister who is a bee scientist. Ironically, when we were kids, she once sat on a wasps' nest and got stung like 35 times, which I assumed would have turned her off of bees. But years later she ended up on the team who was tracking the populations of murder hornets in North America during the pandemic.

[pandaspwnz]

TLDR: went to the hospital today because I had all the symptoms of a heart attack.

Thankfully though it was not a heart attack!

Most of my symptoms were explained by my low ferritin (iron storage) levels, which the doctor described as "basically completely empty"; It's at 12 µg/L (it should be 15-120, with anything under 30 clinically considered low), and she suggested I talk to my doctor about iron supplements, and when I told her I've been taking 2 a day for 6 months she legit made this face and said "and it's still so low?"

same bestie

The low iron and ferritin doesn't explain the chest pain or extreme nausea I've been having, but I'm assuming I've maybe just caught a cold or something, and it being an added stress on my body AND just after my period is maybe why I'm feeling so much worse than normal, because I went back and checked my last 3 blood tests, and though my ferritin levels are at 12 today, they were lower the last two times: yet I still felt worse today than I did then. My iron level however is currently the lowest it's ever been at 4 µmol/L (should be between 9-34). But I had an ecg and my heart is normal, and I do have slightly high blood pressure and a high pulse (usually both are normal although last month I did also have a bp test that was a little too high) but I'm sure some of that can be attributed to the stressful situation I was in.

So most likely I'll need iron infusions because my body clearly does not absorb iron correctly (IBD, heavy periods, and being a vegetarian definitely not helping babes) and honestly I'm so fucking excited. It actually feels like there is a solution, or at least a help for why I've felt so bad for so long and only gotten worse, and it's at my fingertips. It explains so much from my daily life, the fatigue, the body pains, the headaches, the difficulty forming sentences, it could be exacerbating my ADHD (like what if my ADHD isn't actually as severe as it seems but I just have a severe iron deficiency that's impairing my cognition?), how my hands and feet are always cold, how often I feel physically weak, my brittle hair and nails, etc and like imagine if these things could get better. What a wonderful life that would be, to feel almost normal?

But yeah I was very unsure about going to the hospital because I was pretty certain it wasn’t actually a heart attack even though I had all the symptoms because I already knew I had low iron and that it can cause arrythmia (I did not know my ferritin level though), and I even felt silly when I called the emergency room to ask if I should come in, but I figured it was a better safe than sorry situation. I felt so horrible earlier in the day and almost fainted when I was out shopping with my mom, and we talked about it and agreed that if she had been the one with my symptoms, I would want her to call in and make sure she was okay, and I feel better about it now. The nurse and doctor were very kind, and nobody made me feel like I was being silly, and they agreed it was better to check one time too many than one too few.

Also, kind of a sidenote, but when I was waiting for mom to finish up at the bakery at the mall (this was before I was concerned it might be a heart attack, I didn't think about that til I came home just to clarify), I had to sit down on the floor and cover my eyes while I tried to breathe right, and this older gentleman came up and crouched down next to me and asked if I was alright. And ya'll this man had the kindest face, he looked and seemed so compassionate and genuinely concerned for my - a total stranger's - wellbeing, and I actually almost burst into tears. I told him I was okay, I just had low iron and was feeling dizzy, and he asked if he could get me anything, and he was just so unbelievably sweet. I have never in my life had that experience before, and it just, as small a gesture as it may have been, really made me feel better about humanity as a whole. I don't think I'll ever forget that man for as long as I live, and even though it was like a 20 second interaction, it really meant and means so much to me.

[parentingtheoryandpractice]

Violet's birth story

So, fair warning—this is going to be a drawn out, high context version of what ultimately could be a very short birth story. And if you want to really understand the progression of how I have related to labor and birth over the years, I’ll link my previous four birth stories below.

Lydia’s birth story

Zeke’s Birth Story

Maya’s birth story (and reflections on previous births)

Alexander’s birth story

This pregnancy was not an easy one for me. Will and I decided to have our (almost certainly) final baby closer to our next youngest than we have ever spaced before, since we were pretty eager as a family unit to move to a different life phase that was less pregnancy, baby, and toddler focused, in large part because we wanted to have a different type of focus and energy for our older kids while they were still kids. We knew it would be more work in the short term, and I would be leaning on Will a lot for a while, which has proven true.

We also moved while I was pregnant, which I overall very much stand by as a decision, but that was pretty brutal. We tried to time it so that we’d be moving when I was in the second trimester, since that seemed like it would at least be easier than the alternatives, and that almost/mostly worked out, but of course the timeline got pushed back some. 

And then the second trimester was also a bit less of a smooth period than I had expected, since I had three episodes of nerve pain that meant I was pretty out of commission for a few days, which was itself inconvenient, but also led to a bunch of uncertainty on my part, since I didn’t know what was going on, or that it was only going to be three times. (All that could be a full-length post of its own, which I may try to write up at some point. As far as I can tell, not only did it all fully resolve, but maybe my body map and body mechanics are actually improved relative to my previous baseline, and I am better at something like Focusing in a body way, thanks to my friend James who explained to me how to do that.)

That said, compared to how things can go, I would still call my pregnancy pretty uncomplicated. I thought I had some blood sugar issues (which could again be its own whole post), but I got a cgm, tried some other blood sugar monitors, paused my Vitamin C since it turns out that can make glucose monitors read a little higher, and my eventual conclusion there was that my first blood sugar monitor was reading too high. I did somewhat limit my carb intake, but after an initial period of lots of tracking decided (in consultation with my midwife and the doctor she works with) to treat it as non-clinical, and I stopped taking measurements. 

I also had some iron-deficiency anemia, as I have had every pregnancy, and taking a bunch of iron pills didn’t seem to be working at first, but just as I scheduled some appointments to pursue an iron infusion, my numbers came back up. 

And for most of this pregnancy, especially as I was approaching the end, I had a lot of anxiety about birth. With that too, there’s a lot I could say, but I think the high bit is that, while I didn’t anticipate any bad concrete outcomes—I never seriously worried that the baby wouldn’t be born healthy, or that I would be physically at risk—I did have a visceral sense that it wasn’t going to “be okay”, and that the experience would be a bad one for me. And “bad” not just in a fleeting sense, but in a way that would leave my mental structures worse off than they were before. 

I never found a concise way to verbalize exactly what I was worried about, but I’m very grateful for all the people (especially Will, Kenzi, Anna, Steph, and James) who listened to me talk at length in repetitive inarticulate ways about what my issue was. And for all the people who wrote up and published their birth stories, since (as has been my habit), I read a ton of them in the weeks leading up to my birth. And at the end of the day, I think the anxiety eventually worked as intended. I processed enough and set the right sort of intentions that it was pretty much gone. I remember a conversation with Anna right around my due date where I expressed that I figured birth would be unpleasant, but in an accepting way, and my desire to keep talking about it was largely gone.

Some of the more legible takeaways I had from all my birth processing were:

-I was pretty willing to let go of some things I had previously been (mostly implicitly) aiming for in service of having an easier birth.

-One such thing was accurately tracking what the experience was like for me. (So… I expect my written recollections to involve mostly the right amount of error bars anyway, but that’s part of the epistemic status of all of this.)

-Another one, somewhat to my surprise, was caring about the timeline. Talking it through, it became clear to me that I had few to no concerns about having a long labor per se, as long as the intense and overwhelming part wasn’t long. (My understanding of Kenzi’s later summary of this, which I liked quite a bit, was to think of early labor as for positioning, not dilating, and that moving to dilating before the position was good often wasn’t desirable.)

-Related to that, one of my conclusions was that during my labor with Xander in particular, after having gained a more explicit model of how my muscles worked during labor over the course of my previous labors, I was expending a lot of wasted effort trying to make things go faster, and my guess was that it didn’t speed things up and probably did lead to it feeling harder. So my plan was to not do that.

-I can’t remember if this was explicit, but I think another constraint I let go of was having other people be able to track much of what was going on for me in realtime during labor, which iirc I’ve written about mattering to me in the past.

-And, somewhat presciently (spoilers), partly since I found a great collection of unassisted birth stories to read, I made my peace with the idea of a delivery that was fast enough that the midwife wouldn’t make it, and talked Will about that some too. 

-I also tried to consider which of the painful sensations it would be helpful for me to be especially aware of during labor, and which I could essentially safely tune out. My conclusion there was that anything that was telling me how to move my body seemed important, and that it was probably good to be pretty aware of any potential tissue damage from tearing during the pushing stage, but that microtears that were happening because of muscle exertion, and general muscle fatigue type sensations probably weren’t that actionable or important to pay attention to.

The one concrete and mundane-feeling anxiety that remained was that we would all get sick. We had all been sick multiple times recently, and then Xander had gotten sick  shortly before my due date, and right around when I did give birth, Zeke was also just getting sick, which was not a surprise to us given all of our sick friends and his recent exposure. 

But I am very grateful to report that (per my questionably effective request to my immune system) I didn’t get either of those sicknesses!

For a while, I had been saying that I didn’t want to make any plans at all for Thanksgiving, since it was two days after my due date, but as that week got closer, my sense was that I wasn’t having a baby anytime soon. And my midwife’s sense was similar. She said the thing she mostly goes off for her brith timing predictions is amniotic fluid levels, and that mine were high for someone who was going to give birth soon. So we decided to host Thanksgiving after all (with a backup plan in place for if I was in labor or if I had a baby by then). 

And indeed, my due date came and went, Thanksgiving happened, and I continued to have the impression that I wasn’t very close to having the baby. It wasn’t that I was never experiencing contractions, but I’d been having intermittent regular contractions (which I suppose ought to be called Braxton Hicks, but I don’t tend to experience them as painless…) for months, and the ones I was having didn’t feel different. My energy was pretty good, and I started talking more walks. And I stopped taking my iron pills, since it takes a few weeks to make red blood cells from iron anyway, and I wanted to give my digestive system a break.

And then Saturday night, I felt something happen with my bag of waters. I’m still not totally sure what it was, and I didn’t find the ph strip my midwife had given me in the middle of the night to check whether it was for sure amniotic fluid (all the plausible alternatives are acidic instead of basic), but I think it must have been. That said, it wasn’t a huge amount—I’ve always had my bag of waters break near the end of labor before, and I know it was nowhere near that amount of fluid. Maybe more like a cup’s worth, most of it all at once, and then with a little more leaking out after that throughout the night. My midwife’s guess when I texted her about it was that it was only my forewaters, which wasn’t a term I had known until she mentioned it. In any case, her conclusion was that it didn’t sound like a “frank rupture”.

But I do think it kicked off something, and at that point at least I no longer had the subjective sense that the labor didn’t feel close!

At 9:46am I told my midwife there was “not much happening in terms of contractions since I got up”, and whenever Will got up I told him about the same thing, but he took over with the kids anyway, and I proceeded to spend most of the day resting, relaxing, working on a jigsaw puzzle, hanging out in the bath, and intermittently experiencing contractions that felt “real” enough, but weren’t in any sort of consistent pattern. For example, I’d have a few in a row that were about 7 min apart, and very noticeable but not at all overwhelming, but then I’d change positions and go 20min without feeling much of anything. This went on for most of the day, and I made sure to keep eating and drinking, and resting, though I am pretty sure I didn’t end up sleeping at all. 

A little after midnight, I sent a message to our friends that were going to take Xander if we needed that during labor saying “I think Will has already given you an update, but I think I’m in early labor? […] I think there’s some chance things speed up and it’s tonight, but also easily could slow down and then speed up again at some point tomorrow. I think given what I’ve been feeling labor will not totally stop until I’ve given birth though”.

At that point I’d been timing my contractions for about an hour, and they were pretty variable. Most of them around a minute, but some shorter or longer, and a few that were under five minutes together but a bunch that were longer too. 

By then, I had been back in the bathtub for a while, after being in and out all day, and I think it was around then that Will set up shop in there with a backjack and joined me. I mostly had my eyes closed, and I remember not noticing that he had come in, in part because I had put Faur��’s Après un Rêve on repeat—which I think was the only time during labor I had music on. I think I picked that song because my midwife had mentioned a few times that the way she thinks of labor is (my words not hers), was kind of like that I had to go to a journey to a different dimension to go get my baby. At some point a few keep earlier I’d made a playlist of some music I’d felt somewhat inspired by (this song was on it), and I’d been enjoying music a lot in the past few weeks, but once I realized Will was there, that seemed both better than music and like I was no longer inclined to have the music on. 

And some more about my headspace around then… Until around that point in labor, I hadn’t been very focused on labor between contractions, and had been watching little bits of reality TV on my phone, but after about midnight that changed. I got the idea a couple of labors ago, I think from The Pink Kit, that it was good to use coping strategies even during early labor so that reaching for them became more automatic when I needed them more later on, which I was doing, but this time (for the first time, I think) I basically found it helpful to use my coping techniques between contractions too, starting around midnight (which, having discussed it afterwards with my midwife, is what we decided to call the start of my active labor). 

My main coping techniques were deep breathing (in part because I figured oxygenating my muscles was going to make everything work better and hurt less), trying to tune in to exactly how my body wanted to be positioned (leaning on the sort of body type focusing I had practiced during my episodes of nerve pain), and reciting words to myself m. The main words I was relying on almost the whole time, as I have in the past, were The Litany Against Fear, but I’d decided when I was making the music playlist to also include this Irish blessing, which I first heard of because the head of school I attended used to say it to graduating seniors. It had more of a gentle, relaxed vibe—more about things being easier for me instead of me coping with something hard—and I wanted that to be in the mix. 

Overall, it became increasingly clear to me as I was laboring that I was aiming for as little sympathetic nervous system activation as possible, and with that goal in mind, a bunch of my cognition seemed pretty counterproductive, in much the way that meditators I have known often talk about it. Basically all of my thought about the future seemed notably tinged with anxiety, in a way where I wanted to let go of them. And the same was true of a bunch of my self-referential thoughts, even about what was happening right then. Same with analysis. I had some pleasant hypnogogic type thoughts about the different patterns from the jigsaw puzzle I had been working on earlier that day, and some other ones about the reality show I had been watching between contractions earlier. I also remembered something Steph had told me about seeing each contraction as a spiritual journey, and I tried to learn into that way of relating to it some, which seemed good too.

I also started doing a pulling down type thing on the side of the bathtub that felt right, and I think I was mostly squatting at that point. The house we moved into recently has a wonderfully massive bathtub, and while I had also borrowed our midwife’s birth tub, in large part because I found the birth tub I used for Xander’s birth really helpful (it was bigger, softer, had lovely handles), I hadn’t asked Will to blow it up. The place to blow it up would have been the bedroom, but Xander was asleep in there. And while we did have friends who would watch him, not only did him sleeping as much as possible seem even better, those friends (and also a bunch of our backup options) were all sick, so I was somewhat invested in him sleeping through the whole birth if possible.

And partly to that end, partly because it felt right overall, unlike with my other births, I was pretty much not vocalizing at all. If that had seemed like it was making labor harder to cope with, I think I would have made whatever noises seemed good to make, but the way I was relating to it was more that noises would have been wasted effort, so it worked out. 

The main thing my more logistical brain was still doing at that point was trying to track where labor was enough to figure out when to call the midwife. I had texted her a log of my contractions around midnight, but since she hadn’t responded to that I (correctly) assumed she was asleep and I’d have to call to reach her. So I got out of the bath, had a contraction or two on the birth ball (that I had ordered at the last minute), and called her at 1:25. I told her the contractions seemed to be about five minutes apart at that point. She asked how long they had been like that and I said I wasn’t sure. Then she asked if they had a clear peak, and I said they did. She said didn’t I think she should come since she was an hour away, and I remember saying something about how I wanted to defer to her about that. She told me she was coming, and to tell Will to make up the bed with the waterproof liner and extra sheet and fill the birth tub. I knew I wasn’t going to ask Will to do either of those things just then, but I was in a pretty internal place, it didn’t seem worth saying that out loud.

I got right back in the bath after that, and at that point my conclusions was that there was nothing more to plan, and I could more fully relax into wherever labor wanted me to do. I think Will had mostly been with me pretty continuously for a while, but at some point I think he left to go pack a bag for Xander in case he needed to go to our friends’ house. At a different point, I remember telling him not to go anywhere. I don’t remember whether he was even thinking of going anywhere at that point, but I think I must have had an intuition that things were getting close.

Almost everything from here is increasingly hazy in my memory, but I do remember things getting more intense, though still not exactly overwhelming—more like reaching the edge of it during the peak of the contractions. I also felt some nausea, though not enough that I was close to throwing up, and did have a “hmm could this be transition” type of thought in response to the nausea that I didn’t focus on much. 

I was intermittently checking my cervix, as I had been all day, and I felt pretty dilated by then—definitely active labor—but I couldn’t have quantified it. I could feel the head very distinctly though! I’m still not sure when the rest of my waters broke. I think there was one moment where I thought it might have happened, and since that was the only one I registered I assume it did happen then, but since I was in the bath it wasn’t an obvious dramatic thing.

But at some point I do remember feeling a different sort of pain, more like a potential tissue damage type, and one where I was inclined to vocalize. I picked up the washcloth in front of me and bit down on it, which felt right, and around then it became obvious that the baby was moving downwards. I can’t quite remember what if anything I managed to communicate to Will, and I’ll have to find out from him exactly when he realized what about what was going on, but from there things happened very quickly. 

I couldn’t have said how long between that first pushing sensation and when I could clearly tell that the head was coming out, but it wasn’t long. I did try to pause a little with the head somewhat out, and not rush that part, so as to prevent tearing, but I think the pause was maybe on the order of seconds. 

And by then I’m pretty sure the midwife was on speakerphone. I think what happened was that she had called on her own for an update, but maybe Will had called her? Maybe even I had asked him to call, though I don’t remember doing that, and I don’t think I did. In any case, having her there on speaker was exactly what I wanted, so I was very happy about that part, and also in a quite nonverbal place. I remember her asking some question about what was going on with the head, and me thinking “well, right now it’s not out, but I can distinctly feel her ear”, but it was totally beyond me to actually say that part out loud. I did have in mind what she had reminded me, which was to make sure the baby’s head stayed under water until she was all the way out, since once the baby is exposed to the air and likely starts breathing, at that point it’s not safe for her head to go under the water again. 

Once her head was fully out, I may or may not have said anything, but I was very much remembering Xander’s birth, where it seemed to take forever to then push the rest of his body out. (It didn’t actually take long at all with him—but I do think I didn’t do it until I waited at minute or two until the next contraction.) This was faster though—basically once her head was out there was a brief pause, and then I kept pushing and her body was too, which was a massive relief. A massive relief, but then I also wanted to make sure she was breathing as she was supposed to. She seemed to me like she was breathing right away, but also like she was pretty much asleep, so I didn’t feel totally sure. I did some amount of rubbing her, blowing on her face, and talking to the midwife. Before too long I remember her producing at least one cry, and me asking if that meant she was for sure breathing now. I remember our midwife saying that if her muscle tone was good, that was what I should pay attention to. And it did seem like her muscles were working fine, and I remember noticing her hands opening and closing, but also in general newborns are so floppy at first!

In any case, I would say that I pretty quickly felt settled about her breathing, in part because the midwife didn’t seem concerned at all based on what we were saying. And the part after that is also somewhat of a blur, though I think I was already in a quite different and clearer headspace than I had been during labor, and was communicating with Will in a more straightforward way. He was getting me towels, and I was mostly keeping Violet out of the water so she didn’t get cold, but I wasn’t quite ready to move out of the bath yet. I also didn’t want to drain the water yet, since I figured it might be good to let the midwife’s look and see how much blood I had lost. I think I had Will take a picture of that. (I could tell by looking myself that it wasn’t much though, so I didn’t feel worried about postpartum hemorrhage.) Violet also pooped some meconium around then, but it wasn’t too messy—it was mostly on the towel I think. Though later there was a bunch of it on the floor of the bath, and I’m not sure if that was the same poop, or whether it came in stages. 

I had been trying to get Violet to latch ever since she came out, but it took a while for her to do that. She was pretty sleepy! But at some point before the midwives arrived, she did end up latching, which seemed to me like a good sign that I could probably get the placenta out soon.

I also asked Will to bring me the large metal bowl we had set aside for the placenta, since I felt some urgency about getting it out. And I think it was around then that Will left to go let the dogs out and the midwives in. I think since he had already taken the picture, I did drain the tub a bunch, and once there wasn’t much water left I decided to try pushing the placenta out. I used some gentle traction on the cord, since in the past I had had midwives tell me it was okay to do that, and tried seeing if i could push on purpose, and I felt it move! That part was definitely easier and more straightforward than I had remembered it being with my past two labors, which was neat. But then it got a little stuck once it seemed like it was out, and I was pretty sure that was just the bag of waters, but not sure enough to want to pull on it. Once the midwives came, a few minutes later, they confirmed that the placenta looked complete, that was just the bag of waters, and it was totally safe to pull the rest of it out, which I did. 

And that was the birth! We put the time down as 2:20, and the midwives arrived around 20 minutes after that, shortly after I had pushed my placenta out too. We took around another two hours to do a bunch of post birth stuff, like getting the baby’s blood type from the placenta (negative, so I didn’t do a rhogam shot), checking me for tears (just a very small one that didn’t require stitches), weighing and measuring the baby (I thought she looked like she was about eight and a half pounds, and she came it at 8 lbs 6oz after she had pooped, and 20inches, which the midwife said was maybe a bit of an underestimate), and assorted other logistics, like me getting out of the bath, putting on a postpartum pad and some clothes, me taking some ibuprofen per my plan so the afterpains wouldn’t hurt so much, me peeing, oiling up the baby before putting a diaper on her so the next meconium poop wouldn’t get stuck on her as much, etc. The midwives also went though a chart with me that shows typical development and gestational age, and while my placenta was a little calcified, as is typical for an almost 41 week baby, some of Violet’s markers were closer to 39 weeks. So maybe that’s why she took her time coming out.

(As an aside, given Violet’s actual stats, which seemed fine and similar to all my other babies, I feel good in hindsight about the way I related to my blood sugars during late pregnancy. Her head was also a little bigger than her chest circumference, so that wasn't an issue either.)

Once the midwives left, we got Lydia and Zeke to meet the baby, Will managed to take Xander into his office to sleep with him there, and I had the bed for me and Violet. I didn’t sleep much that night, but I was very happy :-). 

Will and I are overall almost certain Violet will be our last baby, and I feel extremely grateful to have gone out on such a positive note with birth—this one was my clear favorite, though I also remember Maya’s birth quite fondly, and I believe I learned things and took away important insights from each of my births. Overall, before I had this last birth I would have said, as a summary, that overall I didn’t really like birth, and now I don’t think I can say that anymore. It’s probably worth anyone reading this taking that with a grain of salt, since I did explicitly let go of my desire to remember things in a precise way, but I think it captures something very real and quite important to me anyway. 

And aside from being a very cool experience, I like to think that this time I learned something that I can take with me about anxiety. Both from how helpful I think my pre-birth anxiety ultimately was in guiding my processing in productive ways, and from how helpful it was to relax and fully let go of even subtly anxious thoughts during labor itself. 

I used to be sort of baffled by some of the birth stories I would read or hear from people I knew by how easy they seemed, even though Maya’s birth had some aspects in common with them, but now that I had this last experience, I no longer do, and the range of labor experiences that seem intuitively plausible to me has expanded. I also remember after my first birth talking to the instructor of the birth class Will and I had taken somewhat incredulously about this video she had shown us of a Russian woman giving birth in a bathtub very peacefully, since it seemed so different not just from my experience, but from the experiences of pretty much everyone in the class. And the instructor had said, somewhat apologetically, “well, it was probably her fifth baby”. So now maybe I’ve come full circle by having a very peaceful labor with my fifth baby too. 

A cool thing about this birth that feels like a bonus to me is that because I think I succeeded at my plan to not expend a lot of wasted effort, partly due to my intentions, but maybe even more because it was my fifth time, and my body had a more targeted sense of which muscles were involved and not involved, my body felt way less sore than it ever had before postpartum. I’m writing this a little less than a week later, and while it is still my model that rest and recovery is important, I feel remarkably good physically. 

I was lamenting to a friend how it seemed sort of wasteful that I finally figured out how to do this birth thing just as I was never going to do it again, and she said that wasn’t this sort of the tragedy of life—we accumulate all this knowledge that’s ultimately pretty hard to transfer, and it’s very cool but also feels a bit like a waste.

If I have one regret from this birth, it’s that I don’t have any video footage of it. I would love to have more of a concrete record, and I really wish I could show Violet a video of her birth one day, but at least I’ve written this up while it was pretty fresh in my mind.

And if you got all the way here, thanks for reading a very long and drawn out story of a short birth! I’m very grateful for how it all played out. 

[cbk1000]

Also the complaint form asks if you've addressed your concerns with the MD/PA. Not really, complaint form.

When a doctor rants for like ten minutes at your first appointment about how bad the Covid shots are, and you keep reiterating that you had your shot years ago and it seems pretty unlikely it suddenly caused issues in 2024 when you had it in 2021, you don't have a lot to work with.

And when said doctor is told by a specialist who ran several tests that you don't even have the condition he blamed on the Covid shot you had years ago and he comes up with another couple of diagnoses that he can blame on the shot, and ignores you when you tell him that at least one of them doesn't seem to be applicable, because it's chronic fatigue, and your fatigue cleared up on iron supplements, that's a little hard to work with.

And when you report to him all the symptoms you've seen either improve or completely resolve on iron supplementation and he ignores that too, things get even stickier.

And when you're struggling to get your iron levels up because supplementation is very slow, and you're a menstruating woman who bleeds for a week every few weeks, and you bring him a paper (a real, proper, academic paper*, written by a medical professional with years of experience treating iron deficiency in women which clearly lays out that your patient is in clinical deficiency and the treatment course you should take) because you've been bedridden for three months and you're tired of making steady but turtle-like progress on supplements and you want to go back to your life and your job so you decide to ask for the lowest dose iron infusion you can get to see if that will help boost your levels a bit faster, and he tells you that's unnecessary and you should instead look into a hysterectomy, then how do you address it other than to tell him he's a fucking lunatic?

*I'm aware one academic paper is hardly the end all be all of research, but I knew he wouldn't read multiple studies, and this one really nicely encapsulated all the research I had read across multiple papers, so I figured this was the best one because it pretty much covered all bases. But he didn't read that either, because it wasn't about the Covid shot. If I had printed off an FB post from someone ranting about the Covid shot, that probably would have sufficed as research, though.