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Hi guys! Please welcome Desmond Quinn NGO to the world! Born 4/4/16 (square root birthday!), at 1:55am by C-Section. He was 8lbs 3ozs and 20 inches long. I originally had a home birth planned but that obviously didn't happen. More on that below.
Here is a little bit about his birth, if you are interested:
I woke up at 6am Sunday, April 3rd and had noticed a gush of fluid when I got up. Obviously, my first thought was that my water might of broken but it wasn't a ton of liquid so I wasn't sure. So, I sort of passed the time trying to figure out if it was and in that time I noticed a few instances of bad hip pain that came and went. I knew that Desi was posterior/sunny side up (which means his face and body are facing towards the front of my body. The ideal birth position is to have his face facing my back) so I knew I would probably have back labor. So, I finally decided to just call my midwife around 7:30am and after I explained everything to her she said "it sound like we might be having a baby today!" And told me she would stop by my house shortly to check on me. When she came by an hour or so later, I was having 30 second contractions about 6-7 minutes apart. She checked me and I was 4cm dilated and 80% effaced. She left and would come back when my contractions were longer, stronger and closer together. Around 10:30 am, my contractions were 60 seconds long and 4-5 minutes apart so my husband had my midwife come back and she arrived around 11:30. I spent the next several hours laboring naturally at home. At first, the pain was manageable by deep breathing but at some point I had to moan to get through them. We also set up a pool for me to labor in and that helped quite a bit. Again, it was all back labor so the pain was the absolute worst lower back and hip pain that you could imagine, like someone is putting them into a vice. It was so bad that I could only labor on all fours or lying down, I tried to stand or squat but my legs would give out during contractions. I also barely ever opened my eyes the whole time I was in labor, I was very much in my own world and I was also managing to snooze the tiniest bit between contractions. Around 5 or 6pm, my midwife checked me again sand I was 6cm and 100% effaced. After this, my contractions got extremely intense and also irregular. I would have a smaller contraction and then a break (where I would manage to fall asleep) that would be followed by 2 or 3 extremely intense contractions, back to back. So, I would be having essentially a 3-5 minute contraction. Around 10pm, my midwife gave me the option to check my progress again and I decided to go ahead and do so. I was only 7cm at that point so I hadn't progressed much in 5 hours. At that point, my midwife laid out some options for me: she admitted that she felt that I had a pretty large baby and a small pelvis and that she was hoping that my body would adjust and that nature would take over as it often does. She said that she could break my water (it never did actually break) and we could wait an hour or so to see how I progress from there or we could head to the hospital and use pitocin to try to speed things along and there I would have the option for pain medication as well. My pain was already an 8-10 on the pain scale and breaking my water would just make my contractions more intense so I wasn't willing to do that without medication since I was at my limit after 16 hours of natural labor. My husband said after the fact that he was super scared for me and even cried a few times because he could see how much pain I was in and was worried about me. (Not that I ever knew, he was completely calm in my presence) So, we opted for the hospital.
When we got to the hospital, I was asked if, since I was a home birth, I would want pain medication. They offered me Fentanyl or an epidural. Fentanyl is a shot but only works for 30 minutes at a time and also has to be stopped at some point close to delivery because it can drug the baby. I didn't want that because it would only work for a short while and I would be screwed when I progressed because I wouldn't be able to take any more and I'd be too far along for an epidural. So, I opted for the epidural and my husband said there was an immediate change in me. After the epidural, they broke my water, put in an internal fetal monitor and observed the baby and my contractions for an hour or so. They saw with several of my contractions that Desi's heart rate was dropping so they were not willing to use pitocin for that reason. They checked me again and realized that Desmond did not have his chin tucked and was looking straight forward instead, also he was -3 station. (Station works as follows: a 0 station is when the baby's head is all the way in the pelvis while +2 station is when the baby is crowning. So, -3 means he was no where near being ready to come out.) So, really, my only real option was to get a C-Section.
So yeah, my labor did not exactly go as planned but I'm kosher with that. I knew going in to labor that there are no guarantees and even though I wanted a natural, unmedicated home birth, I always knew that circumstances change and that a C-Section was never out of the picture. I am really proud of the 18 hrs of labor that I did do naturally, I was pushed to my limit and came through and I also have a beautiful son because of it!
Here is a little bit about his birth, if you are interested:
I woke up at 6am Sunday, April 3rd and had noticed a gush of fluid when I got up. Obviously, my first thought was that my water might of broken but it wasn't a ton of liquid so I wasn't sure. So, I sort of passed the time trying to figure out if it was and in that time I noticed a few instances of bad hip pain that came and went. I knew that Desi was posterior/sunny side up (which means his face and body are facing towards the front of my body. The ideal birth position is to have his face facing my back) so I knew I would probably have back labor. So, I finally decided to just call my midwife around 7:30am and after I explained everything to her she said "it sound like we might be having a baby today!" And told me she would stop by my house shortly to check on me. When she came by an hour or so later, I was having 30 second contractions about 6-7 minutes apart. She checked me and I was 4cm dilated and 80% effaced. She left and would come back when my contractions were longer, stronger and closer together. Around 10:30 am, my contractions were 60 seconds long and 4-5 minutes apart so my husband had my midwife come back and she arrived around 11:30. I spent the next several hours laboring naturally at home. At first, the pain was manageable by deep breathing but at some point I had to moan to get through them. We also set up a pool for me to labor in and that helped quite a bit. Again, it was all back labor so the pain was the absolute worst lower back and hip pain that you could imagine, like someone is putting them into a vice. It was so bad that I could only labor on all fours or lying down, I tried to stand or squat but my legs would give out during contractions. I also barely ever opened my eyes the whole time I was in labor, I was very much in my own world and I was also managing to snooze the tiniest bit between contractions. Around 5 or 6pm, my midwife checked me again sand I was 6cm and 100% effaced. After this, my contractions got extremely intense and also irregular. I would have a smaller contraction and then a break (where I would manage to fall asleep) that would be followed by 2 or 3 extremely intense contractions, back to back. So, I would be having essentially a 3-5 minute contraction. Around 10pm, my midwife gave me the option to check my progress again and I decided to go ahead and do so. I was only 7cm at that point so I hadn't progressed much in 5 hours. At that point, my midwife laid out some options for me: she admitted that she felt that I had a pretty large baby and a small pelvis and that she was hoping that my body would adjust and that nature would take over as it often does. She said that she could break my water (it never did actually break) and we could wait an hour or so to see how I progress from there or we could head to the hospital and use pitocin to try to speed things along and there I would have the option for pain medication as well. My pain was already an 8-10 on the pain scale and breaking my water would just make my contractions more intense so I wasn't willing to do that without medication since I was at my limit after 16 hours of natural labor. My husband said after the fact that he was super scared for me and even cried a few times because he could see how much pain I was in and was worried about me. (Not that I ever knew, he was completely calm in my presence) So, we opted for the hospital.
When we got to the hospital, I was asked if, since I was a home birth, I would want pain medication. They offered me Fentanyl or an epidural. Fentanyl is a shot but only works for 30 minutes at a time and also has to be stopped at some point close to delivery because it can drug the baby. I didn't want that because it would only work for a short while and I would be screwed when I progressed because I wouldn't be able to take any more and I'd be too far along for an epidural. So, I opted for the epidural and my husband said there was an immediate change in me. After the epidural, they broke my water, put in an internal fetal monitor and observed the baby and my contractions for an hour or so. They saw with several of my contractions that Desi's heart rate was dropping so they were not willing to use pitocin for that reason. They checked me again and realized that Desmond did not have his chin tucked and was looking straight forward instead, also he was -3 station. (Station works as follows: a 0 station is when the baby's head is all the way in the pelvis while +2 station is when the baby is crowning. So, -3 means he was no where near being ready to come out.) So, really, my only real option was to get a C-Section.
So yeah, my labor did not exactly go as planned but I'm kosher with that. I knew going in to labor that there are no guarantees and even though I wanted a natural, unmedicated home birth, I always knew that circumstances change and that a C-Section was never out of the picture. I am really proud of the 18 hrs of labor that I did do naturally, I was pushed to my limit and came through and I also have a beautiful son because of it!
Update on where I've been!
Hello everyone! I know its been a long time since y'all have heard from me so I thought I would update everyone on what's been going on with my health. To start: I don't have MS 😅. Here's the crazy story about that... tl;dr: turns out I had an extreme reaction to the COVID vaccine and it caused 4 different neurological issues which have made me disabled. So, as per my last announcement, I was told by doctors that I have MS after a MRI of my brain was done that showed brain lesions and demyelination. I ended up being referred out to a MS specialist and after lots of blood work, a spinal MRI and a lumbar puncture it was determined I didn't actually have MS. I went to a second MS specialist and she agreed it wasn't MS. I was also tested for conditions that mimic MS and nothing. I was ALSO tested for about 40-50 other conditions and none of those came back positive either. I was a medical mystery but since I didn't have MS I was referred to a standard neurologist. So, to step
Inktober 2018 and so on...
So, as is always the story for me, some crap came up that stopped me from completing Inktober lollll ;;;;. I had work deadlines and I was also a single parent for a few weeks which didn't help. But mostly, I'm slowly spiraling into immobility and utter pain. As I had mentioned before (either in an earlier journal or deviation. I can't remember) this pregnancy has been incredibly difficult on me. Baby girl is perfectly fine, so nothing with her, just all me. I was diagnosed with a pregnancy condition called Symphasis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD) fairly early in my pregnancy (I started feeling it around 16 weeks and I think I was diagnosed at 18 or
Fanime 2018
Hey yall!
I'll be at Fanime as per usual this year! Ill be at table 1105.
That being said, things will be a little different. For starters, I will only be selling a limited amount of items and taking commissions as well. I'm not going to get into it too deeply but I've suffered some losses this year so I wasn't even going to go but my husband insisted I go and have fun. So, I did not focus much on doing anything new as I'm trying to just focus on having a good time this year.
So yeah, if you're going to be there then please stop by and say hello! And maybe buy a thing or two. ;P
Inktober 2017
Edit 10/25: Hey Y'all! So Sorry I havent updated in a while. I had dental work done and then RIGHT after I got a really bad head/chest cold that I am still dealing with. D,: So, I do my day job art work and then spend the rest of the night just resting and blowing my nose non-stop. SO MANY BOOGERS GAIS. I want to back track and get 31 images done, so they'll be done eventually!
Since I'm participating in Inktober this year, I figure I'll keep a log of all of the art here. :) Stay tuned daily in October to see more images! You can also view these images on my Twitter or Instagram
October 1: Modern Witch
October 2: Flower Witch
October 3:
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Congrats! hes such a cutie!