Womb to Bloom - Maternity & Beyond

It really is one of parenting’s biggest questions right now.  It seems that not a week goes by when I don’t get asked whether I chose to vaccinate my children or not.  This is a question that preys on parents’ most basic fears.  There’s so much information out there, a lot of it conflicting, that it’s hard to know what the best choice for your family is.

In order to make an informed decision, it’s important to learn how a vaccine works.  A vaccine is a bacterium or virus (some are live, some dead) that is introduced into your body, tricking your immune system into producing antibodies.  The antibodies your body produces in response to this “pretend” virus then protect the body from an invasion from a real and potentially dangerous virus.

Babies are such a miracle. I love the way their newborn voices sound. Every cry seems like an immense struggle to vocalize. They are so tiny. They feel so fragile in those first few weeks, and we cradle them so carefully when we hold them. And yet, their strength amazes me as well. The first time my son wrapped his tiny hand around my finger, I marveled at how strong his grip felt. I laughed when he kicked himself out of the swaddling, despite our nurse's every attempt to keep him covered.

Already, I found myself attached to him. My entire being was fine-tuned to his every cry. I was soon able to distinguish between the wet diaper and the hungry cry, the tired cry and the gas bubble cry. My whole life now revolved around meeting his needs, and trying to fill my own needs in between.

Many women are very concerned about their ability to breastfeed. A common misconception is that breastfeeding is a difficult thing and that it takes a very dedicated woman to pursue it to the bitter end. The opposite point of view is also widely held. Some people just don’t see that breastfeeding could possibly be difficult, it is the way nature intended things after all. The reality of things is somewhere in between.

In fact generally things are somewhere in between. Something that often concerns new mothers is the fact that when your baby arrives there is usually no milk to speak of. The natural instinct is to think “Oh no, I don’t have any milk and my baby will starve!” The funny thing is that babies don’t really need a lot of extra nutrition at first.

For this day and age, I think that I am a pretty typical mom in middle America. I got married in my late twenties and had my first baby just before I turned 30. I went back to work eight weeks later, then had my second baby at 31. A few years later, at age 34, I was pregnant again, this time with twins.

After discovering the existence of the twins during week nine of my pregnancy, my obstetrician recommended several new (to me) prenatal screening procedures. When I agreed to have this screening done, she advised the scheduler in her office to make sure that her orders were coded “twins” and “AMA” for insurance purposes.

“AMA?” I thought. “That’s strange.” I had only ever heard that abbreviation used for the phrase “against medical advice.” You know, when a hospital patient on Grey’s Anatomy disappears, it usually turns out that they’ve checked out “AMA.” This time though, it meant Advanced Maternal Age. Old! My OB called me old!