Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Pelvic Types

Last night at Panera, I managed to complete the Pelvimetry worksheet from Module Two of my midwifery school coursework. I read chapter 8 in Myles Textbook for Midwives, about structures of the pelvis and differences between pelvic types.

www.healthline.com describes the four types of pelvic types this way:

The bony pelvis has four general shapes, which may occur separately or in combination:

  • Gynecoid. This is the most common pelvic shape and is best for vaginal delivery. It has an oval-shaped inlet (wider from side to side than from front to back) with parallel sides, dull ischial spines, and a pubic arch that is 90 degrees or wider.
  • Anthropoid. This shape has an oval inlet but is wider from front to back than from side to side compared to the gynecoid pelvis. The sidewalls are parallel or flare outward, and the back part is roomy enough to accommodate the back of the fetus's head. This may result in the baby being born face up.
  • Platypoid. This type of pelvis has an oval-shaped inlet that is compressed from front to back. This may result in a fetus that traverses the pelvis with its head in a transverse or sideways position.
  • Android. This is a male-type pelvis, with a small inlet that is somewhat heart-shaped. The sidewalls converge, the ischial spines are prominent, and the pubic arch is narrow.

This youtube video explains basic pelvimetry pretty well:




Monday, August 22, 2011

Doula Weekend

I think I've managed to piece together my weekend. Friday evening, Mandy Walters and I staffed our doula group's table at the Sweet Little Repeats consignment sale from about 3:30 to 8pm. We got to talk to a lot of moms. The theme Friday night seemed to be Cesarean and VBAC, and we ended up giving away all of the ICAN brochures that we had with us.

Friday night, I did not have to work at Walmart, so I was actually able to sleep from about 10pm to 4am. My intention was not to wake up at four, but working nights has done strange things to my sleep schedule. I alternated watching taped episodes of Juding Amy until about 7:30am, when I went back to the Sweet Little Repeats sale to hang out at the doula table with Chris Herrera. Got home around 5pm and did things around the house, napped, saw the family until 9pm, when I had to be at work at Walmart.

2:20am Sunday at Walmart, my phone rang and it was my doula client who was due Monday. I told her to try to rest and give me a call back soon and in half an hour I got another call from her saying that things were moving along. It ended up being a very quick birth of a gorgeous baby girl and I was back at our doula table at the consignment sale by 8:30am (and I didn't rush out after the birth, I stayed for a couple of hours after).

I got home Sunday afternoon around three, showered, went to bed and got up at seven o'clock this morning. I feel like I've recovered from the hours of sleep I missed over the weekend and, unless the lady due at the end of the month goes into labor, today is looking like it'll be a normal homeschooling mom/doing midwifery school homework sort of day.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Homeschool Weekly Report

Tim did look at me funny for this one, but last night when the kids were whiny and sniping at each other, I emptied a can of shaving cream onto the dining room table and told them that it was time to practice writing letters. James has been doing 'M' this week in homeschooling, so he worked on 'M' and words that start with M. Delilah made the entire alphabet and Ben pretty much just played with the shaving cream. It was totally worth it, as it bought me twenty-five minutes of happy children and only took a minute to clean up.

In history, we finished up chapter one in Story of the World II. Both of the older kids read library books about Rome.

Patrick and Delilah both did lessons on www.time4learning.com in Math and Language Arts. I am really enjoying using the Memoria Press kindergarten with James. Honestly, the checkboxes are a big help to me.

We're headed out to the park this afternoon and then I'll be spending the weekend at the Sweet Little Repeats consignment sale. It's one of the biggest consignment sales in the area, with over 11,000 items this year. To find out more about it, you can go to www.sweetlittlerepeats.com

Monday, August 15, 2011

Privacy

Privacy makes it easier to relax. Relaxing makes it easier to give birth. I love this video because we go "Why are they all going in the bathroom?" the same way that maybe we should go "Why are they asking to check her cervix during labor? or Why are there six people in the room when she's birthing the baby?"

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Photojournal- Food 8/14

10:30pm Saturday: Rockstar and Rolos (just 3) at the Register

2am Sunday: Baked potato, broccoli, cheese w/tea

6am: Banana, Larabar, water

10:30am: Coffee, bagel sandwich

9:30pm Sunday: Crab bisque, wheat Ritz crackers, baby carrots
As a side note, I have been waiting for weeks for the copy of Women's Sexual Passages by Elizabeth Davis that I ordered from amazon and it still hasn't been shipped. If anyone has a copy I can borrow, please let me know.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Photo Food Log 8/13

Friday night "breakfast:" Coke Zero, Gnu bar, Late July crackers

11:45pm- Banana

12:10am- Coke Zero, Baked Ruffles

3:30am "Lunch:" Lean Cuisine (pasta & chicken), cantaloupe, Fiber One brownie

2pm- Yogurt

3:40pm- Wendy's Apple Chicken salad

7pm- Turkey avocado burger, broccoli, zucchini


My thoughts about the "snap a picture" concious eating plan is that it did make me more aware of what I was going to put into my body. Plus, I didn't want to have to post anything embarassing; that's why I ended up getting a salad at Wendy's instead of something fatty.

I have a lot of reading about nutrition coming up in my next modules for midwifery school. I'm going to plan to continue keeping a photo log for the rest of this week. The only time I envision possibly skipping a day is when my next doula client has her baby.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Better Eating by Camera

I remember reading in some magazine last month that there was a study where they learned that snapping a picture of your meal before eating it made participants more likely to eat healthy food. Stopping to think about what they were eating made them more concious of what they were consuming.

Since starting working full-time, I feel like my diet has left a lot to be desired. There's been way too much convenience food of the unhealthy variety.

The picture above was taken at 5:30am in the Walmart break room. I noticed that, for me, the idea that I would be taking a picture of breakfast and possibly sharing it publicly did make me want to avoid having Coke Zero and Combos (it would have been embarassing).

My goal for the next week is going to be to do a pictoral food diary here on the blog, probably at the end of the day. I'll snap a picture with my phone and email it to myself to post here.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Free Reusable Lunch Sack from Annie's

You can go here: http://www.annies.com/bts11 to find out how to get your free lunch sack from Annie's Homegrown. I'll be mailing ours' in today.

For my Syracuse area readers, you can get Annie's macaroni for a dollar at both Price Chopper and Target this week. I got ten boxes for nine dollars at Price Chopper by using two .50/1 coupons on top of the sale price. Annie's is our favorite macaroni and cheese, so getting it for ninety cents a box made me pretty happy. 

Monday, August 8, 2011

Homeschooling at the Libraries

Ben and James on the couch in the children's section.

Last week, we managed to end up visiting four different libraries. Monday, we went to the North Onondaga Public Library in North Syracuse after James' speech. Then on Tuesday afternoon we had a "Wii Tournament" at the NOPL in Cicero. Wednesday, we hung out at the Liverpool library with another homeschooling family and on Friday we made a trip to the Manlius library to pick up a book called for in James' Language Arts book.

This week, the plan is to be slightly more effective and go just twice.

Friday, August 5, 2011

My Bag is Confused

My doula bag has turned into my doula/assistant/student midwife bag. Where I used to just have my labor support stuff, I now carry:

"Doula's Checklist of Comfort Measures for Labor"
Nukkles massagers
A turtle massager
Calms- A Guide to Soothing Your Baby
Rice socks
Vinyl gloves
Expanding file with client folders
Stethoscope
Sphygomomanometer (blood pressure)
Fetoscope
Change of clothes
Snacks
Essential oils (lavender, clary sage, peppermint, cypress, sweet basil, Texas cedarwood)
Almond oil (for massage)
Cough drops
Tic tacs
Hand sanitizer
Deodorant (for me)
Air pump for birth ball

That way, I'm ready no matter what kind of laboring woman calls, a doula client, a midwife's assistant or someone letting me student midwife. For now, it all fits in one bag.

I do still have space for a doula client or two in October and November, so if you're looking for a doula, shoot me an email at naturalparentingsupport@hotmail.com

Monday, August 1, 2011

More Shopping Fun!

I spent about an hour at the Y this morning clipping the coupons from yesterday's paper, putting them away in the binder and making up our shopping list based on the Price Chopper sale ad (coupon + sale).

My new binder is a Case-It. It has a carrying handle and when you open it, there are two 1 1/2" binders inside. I saw it on Lauren (I Am That Lady)'s blog:

www.iamthatlady.com


The kids and I went to Price Chopper from the Y and did our shopping for this week. I split our order into three transactions because I had a bunch of the Tops dollar coupon doublers and you're only supposed to use 4 per customer (and I ended up counting the kids as customers).

Here's what the money ended up looking like:

Original Cost: $174.52

Spent $94.61
#1 $67.96
#2 $17.68
#3 $8.97

Savings $79.91
#1 $50.87
#2 $18.88
#3 $10.16

A couple of things where I was really happy about the prices were:

Tom's of Maine Silly Strawberry Toothpaste $ .99 after sale and dollar off coupon that doubled
Whonu Cookies $ .99 after dollar off coupon that doubled
Simply GoGurt $1.69 after sale and dollar coupon that doubled
Organic Orange Juice FREE after coupon