Alrighty. I’m writing this post after an amazing meal of Argentinian barbacoa and many glasses of wine with an after dinner drink of Bailey’s, so bear with me. Today we went to visit the English owned peninsula of Gibraltar. What is the rock of Gibraltar you may ask? Well, it’s a giant rock that has holes drilled in it, with cannons in the holes. It’s essentially a fortress owned by the Brits on Spanish land. It’s one of those rare tax free places that people go to purchase vast amounts of alcohol and tobacco. That was not our goal today however. Luke is a history buff and this was another great opportunity to visit a landmark of historical importance. We went to the top of the rock and had an amazing view of Spain, Africa and the straight of water connecting the two. If they were so inclined, the British military could easily blow anyone out of the water, or off the shore of Africa. Luckily, they are civilized and would rather make the place into a tourist destination. The highlight of my day was having a giant wild monkey (yeah, monkey) jump on my shoulder and try to get into my purse. It scared the crap out of me and I screamed like a girl. Effing monkey. It was otherwise a lovely day. I love Andelucia, Spain.

 

There was a lovely tour of the new parts of Tangier, which is loaded with construction and developement. Thanks to their newest king, Mohammed 6, the country is doing better than ever. Women are getting more freedom and the economy is getting stronger. Everyone seems to think this new guy is pretty rad. All told it was a great experience and I’m so glad we did it. Now for the onlslaught of photos!

 

 

 

After a full 24 hours of travelling we reached our final destination of Marbella, Spain. We are in the Costa del Sol, a place where many Brits come to vacation. This means there is plenty of tea, beer and chips. On which I’m quite confident that Porter would be happy to live on, chips that is. We’re staying at The Marbella Heights hotel which has a Balinese theme. I’m planning a photo shoot with all the Buddah’s on site. My friend Sarah would love the styling here. Here’s the photo montage of the last 2 days.

Dewy spider web the morning of departure.

In the last moment of packing I read a blog that said I should bring at least 2 changes of clothes for Porter. While I thought that was excessive, I quickly found it to be correct when Porter soiled 2 of the 3 outfits I brought before we even got on the plane. I had to go 3rd world at the airport, washing clothes and collecting water (in our water bottles). I then hung the clothes to dry in the airplane. All we needed were our chickens and the picture would have been complete. Needless to say, the clothes were dry in time for a costume change at the Marbella airport.

 

Today was our in between travel day and tomorrow we leave on our big trip! We spent the day hanging out in Capitola with my parents, who will also be coming on our trip with us. This morning Allen came over for breakfast and it was so nice to catch up with our old friend. The weather was lovely and Porter pillaged my dad’s raspberry bushes, much to the delight of them both. Tomorrow is a big day! Stay tuned.

Eating homemade chicken soup, being the center of the universe. It’s a good day.

King Protea in bloom.

For the last day of National Midwifery Week we’ve been tasked with sharing the most shocking results from the ACNM survey  that “was completed by 1,252 women between the ages 18 and 45, of a variety of cultural backgrounds, from across the United States.” I have to say that most of the results should be shocking, and you should read them, but I can’t say that with the nature of health care these days I was very surprised by the results. Here are the two that I thought were worthy of sharing:

Thursday’s Action Plan is to “Debunk A Midwifery Myth.” The assignment says to go to this web page, find a myth that is most prevalent in my community and then copy/paste it on a social media site, that would be this blog post. All the information on their website is really good, but this is the myth that I find many of my friends didn’t know about midwifery care:

True or False? 
Midwives can prescribe medications
and order tests.
TRUE. CNMs and CMs are licensed to prescribe a full range of substances, medications, and treatments, including pain control medications and birth control. They can also order needed medical tests within their scope of practice and consistent with state laws and practice guidelines.

I’m not sure what many people think it is that midwives do during prenatal appointments that is so different from a similar appointment with a doctor, but I can assure you that all of the same measurements, tests, and symptoms are checked and noted. During my (30-60 minute) appointments I always had my urine checked for protein, my blood pressure taken, my fundal height was measured (how big my belly was getting) and the baby’s heartbeat was observed. I, personally, chose not to have it done with a doppler fetoscope (which is an auditory ultrasound) until after the 5th month and they used a traditional fetoscope before that. We didn’t want to find out the gender of our baby before the birth and therefore didn’t feel it was necessary to do a visual ultrasound, although we could have if we wanted.

At one point there was concern over my possibly high blood pressure. This meant a host of blood draws and collecting my own urine for a weekend in a giant container, so that it could be analyzed at the lab. Luckily everything was perfectly fine, and it was decided that the very excitement of going to my prenatal appointments, and driving through maddening rush hour traffic for 30 minutes, made my heart go aflutter. The problem was solved very simply, by taking my blood pressure at the end of each appointment. From the time the tests were run and we made that simple change, my blood pressure was perfectly normal. I also want to say that I chose NOT to have my blood sugar levels tested (for many reasons). My midwives encouraged me to have it done, and I opted out against their advice, but with their education and blessing.

During my labor, they listened to the baby’s heart beat every hour with a doppler fetoscope. Before and after every single push, and sometimes during, they listened to his heart beat to ensure it was strong and healthy. Which it was. They also kept cervical checks to a minimum, but did perform 3-4, because I tested positive for Group B Strep (GBS) and they didn’t want to push any bacteria into the birth canal. The traditional treatment for GBS is IV antibiotics 6 hours before the baby’s birth, which my midwives (out of hospital) could have done. Thanks to their education and my desire for an alternative I opted for a Chlorhexidine rinse of my lady parts every 6 hours, which I administered myself. It was a whole heck of a lot cheaper too. Overall, there was quite a bit of testing and monitoring that went into my prenatal care and birth, all done by my midwives.

The part that made this experience so different from one with a doctor was the amount of education and discussion that went into each test. This resulted in mine and Luke’s informed choices about the health care Porter and I received. In the end, had anything strayed from our original plan, I knew that the responsibility belonged to ME. That’s the only possible way I could feel comfortable delivering Porter from my body in the way I did. My decisions were always respected because that is the nature of informed health care and midwifery. In return, I respected my midwives education and opinions when they really felt a test was necessary or an observation had to be made. The mutual respect that we had with our midwives was the very best foundation for Porter’s birth and for the future of the health care I will choose for us to receive.

Porter is practicing his counting for future games of Hide and Seek with Lucy and Aunt Bug.

He cracks himself up.