36 Week Update

Yep, still here! I suppose it would have been a little early for him to come sooner than now, though as you can see from the pictures I am enormous! Speaking of the pictures, I have a friend who does amazing photography. She grew up in the mountains and knows all sorts of cool places to get some natural Colorado pictures for just about any occasion. I love her stuff and was eager to have her come do maternity pictures. This was something I always wanted to do with Noah, but never got around to it. I was so glad to get it done with this pregnancy. It is amazing to be this big, and I love that I have it documented so I can look back and really remember this time and remember what I looked like! Also, Garden of the Gods and Rock Ledge Ranch are both places that are close to our hearts, as they are natural parks just down the street from our house where we spend a lot of time. This is where the photos were taken, and it was great to celebrate this pregnancy in our favorite places with pictures! If you want to see more of Christie’s stuff, go to Blue Columbine Photography.

So, how is our boy doing? I have had both a midwife and an OB appointment since I last wrote. As of the first of the week, Aaron was 6 pounds, 11 ounces. He is measuring a week or two ahead of schedule. Kind of funny, I am on an email list that sends you baby updates once a week. It tells you where your baby should be as they progress through their growth while you are pregnant. This week it said that the baby should be just about hitting 6 pounds. Ha! Yeah, right. Aaron appears to have hit that a while ago!! Not only is he well past the 6 pound mark, but his head is 10.4 centimeters. He is beginning to drop into my pelvis, getting ready for birth! I am feeling more and more pressure down low. He still has farther to drop before all is said and done, but it is clear that he is starting to get ready for his big entrance into the world! I am so excited for it and am feeling ready. The nesting has paid off. I have completed pretty much everything off of all of my crazy “to do” lists. Next week is week number 37. This was the point at which Noah came, so I am wondering how much longer this will be. Aaron will decide. It is all up to him now.

We registered for the hospital last week. Not my favorite task, but necessary. Every time I go to this hospital I get depressed. It is a beautiful place, don’t get me wrong. You don’t walk through and see sick people everywhere. It’s just that as a natural child birth mom, this hospital is the worst in the city when it comes to getting the birth experience that you want if you choose to go the less popular way of going natural. They hardly fall all over themselves to cater to this request. I am unfortunately bound to going there because of the experts I use. I am absolutely sure that I have really great doctors. The hospital itself is what leaves me hanging. I shouldn’t complain so much, since I did have a perfect birth experience last time (never mind that it took some lies and manipulation to get it). I believe in this path of child birth enough to do these things, even to the point of being nasty to fight for what I want. I just wish I didn’t have to.

The nurse we had this time was better than the one we had last time. The one we saw last time saw that we had a birth plan, read the top line about us wanting a natural birth, and then stuffed it into the back of our file without reading any further (see what I mean?). The lady we had this time actually read everything we brought which was a nice change. We told her up front that our baby is high risk of a life threatening genetic disorder, so that may have had something to do with it. She was very conscientious to make sure that she understood everything in Aaron’s care plan from the Children’s Hospital, and put those instructions on the top of our folders (both mine and Aaron’s) so that when we arrive when I am in labor, whoever will be caring for us will see that first. She also let us know that the management of the hospital will be notified that we are coming.

I have mixed feelings about that. These people have a hard enough time wrapping their brains around the fact that anyone would want to go natural, so the extra attention is really going to suck. I also understand that our case will make them nervous because of the potential liability it places on the hospital. Chris and I had prepared ourselves to wear our story on our sleeves when we came in to register, both for the special care that Aaron will need until his test results come back, and also to help us get the post partum care that we want with not being separated from Aaron for any length of time due to our own grief issues, so the extra care is needed with us.

Another part of this that was difficult was filling out the paperwork. For the rest of my life, when I fill out any kind of women’s health questionnaire, I will have to answer in a very abrupt, impersonal way how many pregnancies I have had, how many live births, and how many surviving children I have. Yes, it is relevant information for a care provider to know, yet it is a huge slap in the face to those of us whose lives have not gone according to plan. Ouch.

Now time to breathe in a big sigh. I made it, as hard as it was, through this milestone. It was important to do it now, and not on Aaron’s birth-day. I have time to recover from the hard parts of it, get my game face back on, and be ready for the real deal. This is just a hospital. Impersonal staff that I will never see again once this is all done, so who really cares? At the end, I get the prize, this amazing baby boy, and that is all that matters.

On a lighter note, Chris finished a major project that he wanted to see complete before Aaron came. For many, part of having a subsequent child means preparing the older sibling as well. Sometimes they have to move to a new room a little further down the hall. Sometimes it is moving them to a big-boy-bed so that the crib can be freed up for the new baby. Similar to those activities, we had to move Noah out of his room so that the nursery would be free for his brother. This was a painful task that had to be handled with care. Noah wasn’t here for long, but he did use a few things while he was here that are now precious keepsakes. We came up with the idea of building him a hope chest where his things would be kept. It would be our own special spot of remembrance whenever we want or need it. Chris is really talented with woodworking, so he built it with great care himself. It is made of solid aspen, which is appropriate since to date, Noah is the only child in this family to be born and spent his life in Colorado. Chris made it to match our bedroom furniture, as it will live at the foot of our bed. I think Noah would approve since the entire time he was at home, he was always in our room with us. I am absolutely in love with it. I love that he has a permanent place in our house. I love that in order to connect with his things that I am not digging through this drawer, or that shelf, or that corner of the closet. It is all gathered together in one spot. Chris also put a lock on it, so if I ever feel like his things are in danger of being messed with, I can lock it up. I love being able to hold his things, smell them and feel them in their small sizes just as they are. It makes it so much easier to give Aaron the room free and clear with no baggage. I have the best husband ever to help ease the transition in this way!



At this point, Aaron can safely come at any time. I am hoping my next post is one filled with pictures of our beautiful new son, and stories of how it all went. Granted, he could decide that he is just fine where he is, and I am posting again with more pregnancy stories in a couple of weeks! Who knows? Thanks for following along, and we will see how Aaron decides his story should go!

Nesting (The After Picture)

Yep! This was my weekend. It felt GOOD to knock a bunch of things off the list. I should have the rest of it done after one more weekend (just pray that I don't think of too many more things to add to the list!)

Nesting...

I just went through all my notes to myself of things to do and made one big master list. Wow, that is a lot of stuff!

34 Week Update

I meant to do this post a week ago! It is kind of funny and typical of where I am right now. I spent weeks in a pregnancy fog where I was not so organized about anything. Then all of a sudden, it was like a switch was flipped, and now I am completely the opposite! I am so focused on a very full to do list to get ready for the baby. In a word, nesting has hit!

Last time around, I didn’t really get what this was, and spent a lot of time feeling frantic, stressed and emotional around getting things done. This time, I know what it is, and I try to just go with the paranoia around whatever I feel needs to be organized in the moment. It just is what it is, and either denying the urge or getting stressed out about it just makes life miserable.

Every minute of my time is carefully crafted around getting things done. I have cleaned out my house, organized closets, gotten family to help me cook about 26 casseroles that are sitting in my freezer right now, my car is currently in the shop finally getting some repairs done, Chris and I have new cell phones, the hot cocoa has been organized in my pantry (spent a whole half hour on that and it felt very important at the time!), my soon-to expire drivers license has been renewed, I finished making Aaron a baby blanket, I plan on doing a Costco run this weekend to stock up on essentials, and I have a detailed list going of all that needs to be packed when we go to the hospital. This is just the tip of the iceberg! It is hard to just sit down and relax, to think back on this time I have spent being pregnant with Aaron, and feel peaceful. My mind is going a million miles a minute. I know that it is just all part of it. There is some animalistic part of us as human beings that knows what is coming and has this instinctual need to prepare. The best thing is to go with it. Chris has been a great sport through my madness. He laughs, shakes his head, and jumps in and helps where he can. I am lucky to have him!

I am getting to be pretty big and uncomfortable. Sleeping through the night is almost impossible. I have to take several pee breaks, and my hips ache if I lay on one side for too long, so I am tossing and turning a lot. It takes a lot of pillows to keep me propped up enough that I can be comfortable. I am also so big that I snore like you wouldn’t believe. Poor Chris has been either trying to tough it out, or giving up and going downstairs to the guest bedroom and I really don’t blame him! (As I was writing this, he went to Walgreens to buy ear plugs, so he clearly hasn't given up on me yet!)

At this phase, Aaron is gaining a half pound to a whole pound a week. He is getting pretty heavy to carry around as you can imagine! He is running out of room to do his famous somersaults that he loves doing, not that he quits trying! He is a very active baby, with very busy feet. I love feeling him move and am really going to miss it when he is out. He has finally settled mostly into the head-down position which is such a relief! He has to be head down for me to be able to do natural childbirth with him. He was flipping around so much all throughout the pregnancy, it has really made me nervous. I guess he just needed his time to have fun before he got serious!

I have had a couple of doctor and midwife visits since I last posted. The midwife did an ultrasound recently, and it was just so great to see him! She measured him to get an estimate of how big he was, and boy was he was measuring big! At that visit (32 weeks) he was 4 pounds, 10 ounces. He was measuring a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. She looked at the diameter of his head (already 10 centimeters and measuring 3 weeks ahead!), the cross section of his middle (this was measuring dead on where he should be), and his femur bone in his leg (measuring ahead – long legs on this boy!). He looks to be tall and skinny like us. He has lots of hair. She thinks he is measuring as though he will come on October 10 (guesstimate). That is my birthday and also 10/10/10! It would certainly be cool, but of course, technology aside, only he knows when he is coming! She also told us that IVF babies tend to come sooner. Since the typical 40 week calendar is based on estimating a due date when you don’t know when you got pregnant, it is a little awkward trying to make it fit with a woman who does know when she got pregnant. That has pretty much been weird from the start trying to work that out anyways, so it made sense to us.

It was really cute, because the whole time he was completely doubled over. His head and feet were facing down. His hand was holding onto his foot, and he was likely sucking on his toes. She got some great pictures of him holding his foot.


I also wanted to share pictures of Aaron’s room. We have worked hard on it, and are pretty pleased with how it turned out. Chris felt so strongly that he wanted this boy to have a bike themed room. He did a lot of searching to pull the elements of it together. It has been fun to see his idea come to fruition.

"Aaron Noah" in Chinese characters.

I am feeling more and more ready to do this. On one hand, I am sad that this phase of life is almost over. I love having him so close to me all the time, and feeling his movements. I don’t know what the future holds and if we will be able to do this again. IVF is extremely expensive, and the only way that I can have a healthy child. Is this my last pregnancy? I wonder that a lot. On the other hand, I have been pregnant for almost two years in a row, and I am ready to have my body back again. I have been on such a long journey to parenthood, and I am so ready to get to the payoff of having the actual child to care for in the end. It will be terrifying and have plenty of its own challenges given what happened to us in the past, but they are challenges that I want to face. This is what it takes to have meaningful life for us, and it has always felt right.

I hope to get one more update in before he comes. I have always said that my kids choose their birthdays, so ultimately Aaron will determine if that happens or not. I will certainly keep you posted as best as I can!

30 Week Update

Lots to show and tell this time!

I am 30 weeks along, and fully into my 3rd trimester! I can’t believe that I am in the home stretch now. The time has flown by with this pregnancy. I am feeling really pretty good compared to what it felt like last time. My PUPPPS is non-existent thanks to the acupuncturist I see. She is now working on keeping the swelling to a minimum, which I appreciate. It is keeping me comfortable. My only complaint is that the summer feels particularly hot. I do mostly ok since my house and work are air conditioned. Not many places in Colorado are, however, so when I need to go to a friend’s house or to church or something, I get pretty miserable pretty quickly. Sleeping is getting also a little more interrupted as well with more frequent bathroom breaks, and being able to feel him move more and more. He does not like to have his space crowded in the slightest and has been fooling around with my bladder more than Noah did. This is to be expected though, and I love feeling him move.

We are beginning to think about life after this pregnancy. I have worried tremendously about what will happen when the day comes that Aaron has passed all of his tests, and the experts are certain that he doesn’t have MCADD and we are sent home from the hospital. It’s that special moment when you are turned loose with this new baby and told to go home and start being a family on your own. For me, it is a battle of head versus heart. My head says that I have a healthy child. There is nothing to worry about. I can go home and he will be resilient and will be just fine. My heart screams that this was when it all went downhill last time. How can I trust my instincts when it comes to his care, when the last time I did it, my child died? I have nightmares about this, and have had it hanging out there on the edge of my consciousness this whole time. I had an “aha” moment when I was at prenatal yoga one night. My yoga teacher knows all the best experts in the city when it comes to this time in your life. She has a wall of business cards of the people she refers her mothers to. I walked by that whole big wall and wasn’t even looking that closely at it, but there was one card that caught my eye, and I picked it up. It was for a “post partum doula.” Basically, this is someone who is an expert in all things infant care and mom post partum care. They come to your house on a daily basis the first few weeks after you are released from the hospital. They teach you how to take care of your baby, and monitor your progress as you heal from child birth. They also keep the house in great shape by doing dishes, laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, walking the dog, and light cleaning. They help you get to doctor’s appointments as you learn to manage bringing your baby along and the gear that is needed. Of course! This felt perfect for someone like me that has experienced everyone’s worst nightmare in parenting and needs lots of reassurance! It was meant to be. I called this woman, and she is absolutely perfect. Everything that she has to provide is something I need. Since hiring her and knowing that I have this kind of care coming my way, I have felt such a huge weight lifted off of me. I have been enjoying my pregnancy more and relaxed quite a bit about how this is all going to work.

We are also starting to get serious about preparing for childbirth. We are taking a refresher course from our child birth doula. I originally really wanted to do the full gambit of Bradley classes again, but Chris talked me into doing this instead. I was hesitant at first, but now that we are doing it, it really is perfect. We know this stuff. We just did this a year ago. To have someone do an overview and remind us of the finer details feels right. I think we would be bored and drive the rest of the class crazy if we did the whole thing all over again because we just did it. With some practice, I am picking up the relaxation techniques again, and remembering the tools I learned to handle and minimize pain. Chris thought it would be cool to show you guys our secret weapon…our cards.

When we were going through Bradley class, we learned a number of ways to keep me calm, relaxed and peaceful during contractions (which makes them not hurt very much at all). It became clear that without some way to jog Chris’s memory when we were in the heat of the moment, it would be easy to forget the finer details and miss out on using some great natural childbirth tricks. So, I made cards for Chris to have and reference. They contain things that we have practiced with and know work well ahead of time, so when he needs something new to try, he flips to a new card, and viola! there’s a fresh bank of new ideas. My favorites are the guided relaxation cards, where Chris walks me through a favorite memory. We go through the five senses, and he describes everything about the memory for me.

Here’s how it works. I get into a comfortable position and focus on deep relaxed breathing. I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. It is slow and methodical. While I do this, I scan my body for any tension, and release it. Chris helps too. He knows the areas I tense up most often (usually my shoulders) and reminds me to relax. A contraction will come on, and we go about doing these tasks. Meanwhile, Chris reads me a card to take my mind elsewhere so that I am not focusing on what my body is doing…

Guided Relaxation – Sigmund (a very loved dog I had growing up)

What do you see:
Just home from a day at school. I park my 1985 light blue Toyota Cressida station wagon in the driveway, get out and grab my black LL Bean backpack with my initials sewn onto it and hop up onto the big front porch of my parent’s house in Charlotte. I try to be as quiet as possible as I slip into the front door. Look on the floor for mail, and mom has already grabbed it. The house is clean. The living room with cream carpet, fireplace and red chairs is to my left. The dining room with the big brass chandelier is on my right. The wood staircase with runner to help give Siggs some traction is ahead of me. The whole house is bright with sunlight and open looking. I carefully set down my backpack, and sit cross-legged on the floor. Then I call out “SIGMUND! Pup pup pup pup pup pup pup pup puppy!!! SIGMUND!!” A large golden retriever dog comes barreling out towards me and dives into my lap. His hair is curly and somewhat wiry. He is wiggling all over trying to get closer to me in my lap.

(Chris breaks in and lets me know that the contraction is halfway over. I am on the downhill side of this one.)

What do you smell:
Dog! He smells kind of musty. Maybe he was digging (burying toys perhaps!) in the back yard today. Mom has been cleaning this afternoon so the house smells fresh and clean.

What do you feel:
Completely and truly loved! There has never been another creature so happy to see me! His fur when he was a baby was velvety soft. Now that he is full grown, his ears still retain that softness, but the rest of his hair is somewhat course, but still soft. He sniffs and sneezes. I feel him in my lap and remember when he was a baby and his whole body fit there perfectly. Now, just his head and front paws fit.

What do you hear:
His nails on the hardwood floor when he is woken up from his sleep hearing his girl call for him, desperately trying to get his feet to work for him to get him to me sooner! His grunts and sniffs in my lap, which he does with more gusto as I say hello to him and tell him how much I have missed him as I bend down and kiss his head. He wags his tail happily.

There are also cues outside of these stories on the cards that prompt him to wipe my face with a cool washcloth, to give me a sip of water, to take breaks himself if he needs it, to check my shoulders again to see if they are tensing up, etc. Chris is the kind of guy who feels best in any situation when he has clear instructions on what he can do to help, so he loves this.

The very latest news is that this weekend, my two best buds Mary and Jenny came over and spent a few hours with me giving the baby’s room a complete overhaul. I had a mess of a pile of baby things in the basement of stuff that either people had given me for Aaron, or that we had bought. In the nursery itself, there was also a jumble of things that had been thrown in the closet after Noah died to get it out of sight. All of it had to be gone through, cleaned up and reorganized so that the space could be used again. It was quite a job! We spent the afternoon hauling everything upstairs, and out of the closet, drawers and shelves, and get it all set back up again. It was so great to have them there. First of all, because occasionally we would unpack something, and find an item that was difficult for me to see. I had great support there as I faced it all. Second, if I were left to my own devices, I would put everything back where it was last time, which would end up being painful as well. The places where I knew this would be hard, we would make piles of everything that would go in an area (ex: all of THAT stuff goes on the bookshelves) and then task one of them to put it back up there in an order that made sense to them. It ended up being different, and it felt so much better to me. We pulled all the linens and clothes out and brought them down to the laundry room. Eleven loads of laundry later, all of it has been freshened up and organized back into the closet and drawers. The whole room is ready to go when Aaron shows up. It is organized in a way that makes complete sense. Mary was a great help there as she has a one year old, and knows the more practical places to put things. And Jenny is type-A like I am in how we organize things, and helped there too. It was great. I am so lucky to have these girls in my life!

Today, Chris started working on getting the decorative painting done that we want in there. Once it is all done I will post pictures. The room is bike themed. Chris picked out most of it, and it has been fun to see his vision of the space come to fruition! At the end of this weekend, I am so proud to say that for the first time in a little over a year, the door to that room has been open and stayed open. Instead of feeling grief over what that room represents, we are able to focus on the bright future ahead and feel excited about that. It feels so good to reclaim the space. I think Noah would approve. First of all, we kept one of his bees (his room was bee themed). Second, I believe that he had a hand in picking out this soul for us, and that this is someone that he loves and wants the best for in every circumstance. I know he would be so excited for his brother to have this space, and how we have worked out how to give it to him.

Good things ahead! Thanks for reading!

26 Week Update

I am 26 weeks along and we are cruising through! The last four weeks haven’t been as eventful which is really nice. It is fun to be in the second trimester were all we are doing is watching him grow. And man is he growing! I am quite a bit bigger than I was when I last took a picture. I am wearing it well though. My back is surprisingly not as sore as you would think, and I am still moving around just fine.

I have hired a midwife. She only does home births, but she takes patients for what they call “concurrent care” if you are looking for that kind of monitoring even if you are delivering in a hospital. Basically, she will not deliver the baby, nor be at the hospital. I will simply see her for prenatal visits (and likely some postnatal visits as well) as I move through the rest of this time. I wanted to hire a midwife because of how I went into labor with Noah. I think about half the people in my life know that when I had Noah, my water broke, but I didn’t have any contractions or any signs of going into active labor. In the medicated child birth world, you go straight to the hospital where they give you lots of pitocin, the labor inducing drug to get things going. In the natural childbirth world, they call this PROM, or Premature Rupture of Membranes. It is normal and healthy, and you wait it out until your body and your baby decide to get things going on their own. This takes about 72 hours. It took me just under that time frame. I know that this concept scares the bejesus out of most, but for me I have no regrets. I got two and half more days with Noah than I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. We were both fine. I find it comforting in hind sight that he was the uber-nature baby. He came into the world when he wanted, and he left when he needed.

Doctors do not subscribe to this method of going into labor at all. There are a myriad of reasons why. Fear of malpractice suits, plus they make more money on medicated mothers, or maybe it is what insurance companies insist on for some reason. Either way, if it happens again with Aaron, I want to be cared for by someone that understands waiting for spontaneous labor, and is still a licensed medical professional, and has all the equipment (ultrasounds, etc) that my doctor has to monitor me more carefully. I also heard from a friend who uses a home birth midwife that the prenatal visits last about an hour. I probably see my OB for ten minutes when I go. The midwife on the other hand does a full checkup, measuring my belly, doing an ultrasound, checking blood pressure and pulse, and a number of other things. She also goes over how I am handling stress, what am I doing for diet and exercise, and helps manage the vitamins and supplements I am taking. It is a very thorough checkup! I find that incredibly comforting. Also, when I have questions, she is available all day and into the evening. She always picks up the phone. I don’t leave a message with someone else or on voice mail and wait for her to call me back. She is just always there. In moments of panic, she is a real lifesaver! I will of course continue to see my regular doctor too since that is who will actually deliver Aaron in the end. I am just covering all my bases and enjoying the best of both worlds by splitting my time between a doctor and a midwife.

I saw the midwife last Friday and she was remarking on how much weight I have gained in the last month. I have gained nine pounds! She then went over my diet with me. I am pretty anal about food and after I satisfied her that I am not living off of french fries, potato chips and the like, she turned her attention to check up on Aaron’s growth. That’s where we found the answer. He is measuring four weeks ahead of schedule! He has been growing like a weed, and frankly knowing that now makes a lot of sense. I have been hungry pretty much all the time lately. I have had a hard time keeping up on that for him! He has been in the middle of a huge growth spurt. Noah grew the same way. He was always measuring ahead. With two very tall parents this is completely normal and to be expected. In the ultrasound, Aaron looks great. He moves around just fine. His heart rate was in the 130’s. Everything looked perfect. He is just one big growing boy!

Aside from Aaron’s massive growth, as the summer is progressing, I am getting more and more swollen. My hands and feet feel like sausages. I haven’t seen the bones in my feet for a few weeks now. I have also been getting some braxton hicks contractions. The midwife says that this is normal and likely a sign that I need to slow down and rest more. Focus on staying hydrated and keep eating small snacks throughout the day. They don’t hurt and they aren’t coming regularly. I likely had them last time, but just didn’t get what they were. I haven’t had any food aversions yet. I am craving watermelon and the occasional Root Beer. I have always liked watermelon, but I don’t like Root Beer ordinarily! I don’t let myself have one except for every so often. Clearly Aaron loves it though! He is moving around more and more. There are times when it feels like he is knitting sweaters in there. He doesn’t kick so much as he feels like he is busy working on something!

As you can see from my previous post, the PUPPPS is back this time around. The skin on my legs started feeling a little itchy, and then right around 23 weeks it tipped over into being PUPPPS. PUPPPS stands for Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy, and it is an allergic reaction to the pregnancy, and in particular, some research is showing that it is an allergic reaction to male fetal DNA. It causes an extremely itchy rash akin to poison ivy and it usually pops up later in the pregnancy. Usually 3rd trimester, but because of the severity of how bad I tend to get it, it came mid way through second trimester this time. It is pretty rotten, and last time I had no choice but to take mega doses of steroids throughout the rest of pregnancy. This time I seem to be doing really well with the amazing acupuncturist I have found. She has a treatment plan that is really keeping it under control so far. I am so grateful! The midwife too has been pulling together a concoction of supplements that helps a lot too. Between the two of them, I am doing really well. It takes a lot of work keeping on top of it all, but to stay off of those drugs makes it very worth it! Pray that it works throughout the rest of the pregnancy!

Hope all is well with each of you! Thanks for reading!

PUPPPS Home Remedies

You guys are going to have to forgive me, but I need to post a public service sort of thing here. As of 23 weeks along into this pregnancy (way freaking early, I might add) the PUPPPS came back. Last time around I developed an allergic reaction to the pregnancy (called PUPPPS), where I found that my belly, legs and arms (mostly my belly) were covered with an itchy rash that was akin to having poison ivy that I enjoyed living with for the last trimester. I researched as hard as I could to find a holistic alternative to taking the mega doses of steroids that the doctor prescribes to treat the condition. I failed miserably, and had no choice but to side with modern medicine.

This time around, knowing what it was and identifying it sooner, I gave the holistic thing a shot, and so far I am doing really well trying some new stuff I didn’t do last time. Posting about it on the blog is important. I did this last time and it has helped in two ways. One, I had it documented so I would know what to do when or if it showed up on the next pregnancy. Two, my fellow itchy moms out there are desperately sitting at their computers ready to scratch their skin off and are googling for this stuff, and I know my past blog posts have come in handy. Ladies, I do this mostly for you, since when we find something that works, we need to share it with each other!

Here’s what I am doing that is working (so far at least!)…

Supplements:

Supplement	Dosage	Frequency	Where to Find It
Flaxseed Oil (or Mercury Free Fish Oil – mercury is terrible for the baby so be careful if you go this route!)	Ignore the package instructions. What’s important are the EPA and DHA counts on the back of the bottle. You must get it up to around 800 mg each per day in order for it to be therapeutic. Don’t forget to add in what is in your prenatal vitamin as well! I get 814 mg of EPA and 764 mg DHA a day, and it is working great. These nutrients are also fantastic for brain and eye development for the baby, and will help as they develop motor skills when they are older!	Break it up into taking it 3x day to get to the needed EPA and DHA counts. Remember - 800 mg total for the day of each nutrient.	Any grocery store or drug store
Dandelion	550 mg	3x Day	Natural foods market
Apis Mellifica (Homeopathic Medicine that helps relieve itching as needed)	Limited to manufacturers packaging	Follow package instructions	Natural foods market

*Takes about a week of taking the flaxseed oil and dandelion for it to start working. The Apis Mellifica should help right away.

Diet:
Limit foods that cause swelling. This includes diary and eggs. Make sure you are still getting adequate calcium and protein through other means such as lean meats and dark green leafy vegetables.

Squeeze a slice of lemon into a glass of water. This helps eliminate toxins, and help improve your liver function over time, which helps with alleviating PUPPPS.

Topical Remedies:

• Grandpa’s Pine Tar Soap – Get this at your natural foods market. Take a lukewarm shower with it. Get yourself soaped up, and use a shower puff to really work it into a good lather for a couple of minutes before rinsing it off. It takes about a week of doing this remedy for you to start noticing a difference.


• Eucerin Calming Cream - As soon as you get out of the shower, cover the rash with this cream. You can get it at any grocery store or drug store. Put it in the refrigerator for an extra cooling effect.


• Sarna Anti-Itch Lotion – This is another topical cream that works well too. Get it at any grocery store or drug store. It works on the first application, but repeated doses aren’t as effective.


• Hydracortisone cream – Great to keep on you to treat itchy spots as needed. Get it at any grocery store or drug store.


• Clarisonic with body brush (optional and expensive, $200) – This is a body brush that is made by the makers of the sonicare toothbrush. This should be used sparingly, but can be helpful every so often. Part of PUPPPS is that the skin builds up quite a bit of dead skin cells. When you are applying topical treatments, it gets difficult for the lotion to penetrate through the dead skin and get to the part that needs to be healed. The Clarisonic brush will gently slough off dead skin cells without scratching. You will feel itchy afterwards, so use carefully and only every once in a while. This is an especially helpful remedy when you are done being pregnant and the PUPPPS is finally beginning to heal up and go away. Use in the shower with your pine tar soap. Soap up, and run the Clarisonic brush over the effected skin until the timer goes off (it only stays on for a limited time). Rinse off, get out of the shower and apply lotion. You can buy this from Amazon.com or from higher end salons.

Acupuncture:
Acupuncture has been known to help treat the symptoms of PUPPPS. It will tone down the itching substantially. Not all acupuncturists are fully trained on how to treat this condition, so be careful on who you go to. If you live in Colorado Springs and want a recommendation, shoot me an email. I would be happy to share the name of the person I use. I saw someone who wasn’t good last time (links to those blog posts are below). The lady I see now is fantastic! Each treatment will cost around $50-$65 each, depending on the clinic, and you will need to go 2-3 times (or potentially more) depending on the severity of your rash.

Other Tips:

• Wear loose clothing like dresses. Let your skin air out as much as possible. Don’t wear restrictive clothing that doesn’t breathe.


• No hot showers! Take lukewarm showers instead. The heat can exacerbate the rash.


• Try to stay in cool environments. If it is summer, stay in air conditioned places as much as possible. Again, heat makes it worse


• Avoid the temptation to scratch. If you scratch the rash, it will make it much worse. The patch of skin you scratch will become raised, inflamed, more itchy and even painful.


• Clip your nails back and sleep wearing gloves at night. Sometimes without realizing it, you can scratch yourself in your sleep. You will wake up feeling miserable. Prevent yourself from doing this by wearing a light pair of gloves at night.

My other blog posts on PUPPPS:
Sarah's Adventures at the Witch Doctor
PUPPPs Remedies
PUPPPs Update
Sleeping with Gloves On
PUPPPs vs. ICP

Finally, I am not a doctor. You need to consult with your OB on this to see what they recommend. Anything they say trumps what I have written here. These are merely things that I have independently tried that have worked for me. Every woman and every pregnancy is different and I don't pretend to be an expert! Good luck!