36: Birth Mother

[The Girl]

Writer Mariah MacCarthy talks about placing her newborn with adoptive parents.

www.capslocktheatre.com


This entire show is available on KATG VIP along with...

Access to over 2,700 Keith and The Girl in-studio episodes dating back to March 2005.

Constantly updated VIP only podcasts, bonus shows and special offers including:

• Chemda's What's My Name podcast
• Keith's My Name Is Keith podcast
• What Do We Do Now?
• Andrea's WHAT'S UP, A?
• Flavor of the Month
• Bottoms Up with Hennessy
• Myq Kaplan's Super Hang
• That's the Show with Danny!
• The Brother Love Owwwr!
• Myka Fox & Friends
• INTERNment podcast
• All KATGtv episodes
• A look back with KATG Beginnings episodes
• Special discounts and offers

Click here to get more info about KATG VIP!
 

[BrianAlt]

Looking forward to listening. I followed a lot of her posts on FB and it seemed (seems?) like some heavy emotional shit she went (is still going?) through.

She really seems like a great person to me. I wish her the best.

And, again, really looking forward to listening!

[stulagu]

some women carry boys "higher" than girls. The belly is raised higher than when you are having a girl, sometimes is is true, but it is an old wives' tale as well.

Another popular phrase is "woah, you've dropped" at the end of your pregnancy, meaning the baby has dropped into the pelvis and you're ready to deliver. People experienced in labor and delivery can see that, but the average Joe can't...yet people say that ALL the time to hugely pregnant women.

When it really grosses you out is when someone touches your belly and you realize that without a baby in it, the skin they're touching is almost your pubic area. *shivers*

[stulagu]

8 lbs is an ideal size for a baby, 10lbs is big. epidurals are magical. I still get twinges where my epidural was inserted (4 years after labor) but it was worth no pain...and epidurals can be applied in different amounts, when given the right dosage, you can feel the pushing and the need to push, just the pain isn't overwhelming.

eating your placenta gives you a ton of good hormones and has a lot of good benefits...you're not eating baby poop.

they break water with a tool, not the fingers (or at least it shouldn't be with the fingers). the tool looks like a foot long plastic thin knitting needle.

[mariahmwrites]

Hey stulagu, thanks for listening. :-)

All I know is what happened to me, and I'm pretty sure they broke my water with their fingers. I did not see a knitting needle-esque instrument go into me. Though maybe they inserted the fingers first and then did the knitting needle? I admit, I wasn't watching.

I don't have strong feelings about placentas, but I do know that some women who've eaten them have had adverse health effects and that one of the functions of the placenta is to carry away fetus waste. If you ate yours and it helped you, AWESOME.

When I was first pushing, I couldn't feel it at ALL. I mean, I could vaguely tell that I was pushing, but I was pretty numb. I'd gone from about a centimeter and a half to 8-9 centimeters within a couple of hours and my contractions were becoming painful again, so I'd had an epidural "top off" which made me VERY numb. Which was awesome. I wasn't feeling the urge to push at all, though, the doctor just told me "it's pushing time." For the first hour or so, pushing wasn't painful at ALL, but then they lowered the epidural level and then the contractions were painful as FUCK (and they'd put me on pitocin so there was almost no break between contractions at this point, it was like one long contraction).

I did get "you've dropped" a lot. I couldn't tell the difference from up above, though. :-)

[mariahmwrites]

I could seriously talk about adoption, pregnancy, and my experience for DAYS, but here is one detail that I felt it important to share...

I was told from day one by my adoption agency that I did NOT have to place my baby for adoption just because I was meeting with them. There was no pressure on me; my social worker didn't, say, get a commission if I placed my baby. She ONLY meets with birth moms, not with adoptive parents, so there are no impatient couples whispering in her ear. I could have gone the whole time saying and thinking I was going to place my baby, then decided at the last minute to parent him myself, and the adoption agency would have been absolutely fine with that. It happens from time to time; they understand.

I say this because, since one of my hopes with going on the show was to let other women who might go through this that they're not alone, I want people to know that you can meet with an adoption agency without actually making a decision right then. I obviously can only speak from my own experience and I have no idea how other agencies work. But I was given space the whole time to make whatever ended up being the right decision for me and my situation.

Just wanted to share!

[BrianAlt]

Hey, mariahwrites, fuck you and welcome to the forums. And you were awesome.

Thanks for sharing your story. Awesome episode. Well done Mariah and Chemda!

[stulagu]

Originally Posted by mariahmwrites

Hey stulagu, thanks for listening. :-)

Mariah, thank you so much for sharing your story!

I would never EVER eat my placenta...eeek! Gross! But I have researched it since I'm friends with a lot of natualpaths, doulas and midwives. I guess it gives you this surge of hormones which stops bleeding quicker, helps your milk come in, etc etc. I would assume it would also have side effects as does everything and apparently there are cubes of dried placenta that don't taste too bad...but I personally wouldn't want to eat anything that my body has expelled.

When you think about it as eating liver or kidney...those organs filter toxins but also are really good for you...I don't know.

In my experience with water breaking, they can strip the membranes which they do with their fingers and it HURTS and then break the water with the tool. I never saw the tool either (all three of mine had to have the water broken) but when I started photographing births I saw the tool and yikes.

My first epidural was like yours, I was totally numb...they gave me way too much and it ended up making my labor much longer and it wore off before I actually gave birth which totally defeated the purpose. For my second two, they did the epidural perfectly, I could feel a little pain, and could feel when I needed to push, which helped so much.

I'm actually really debating writing a birth/raising babies book because I feel like every book I ever found had very specific politics aligned with it, and there weren't any that were frank and non opinionated. Women get so bombarded with advice when they're pregnant and then after they had the baby realized other options were out there and so I want to someday do something to help people realize having a baby is more than just pushing.

I actually had a question for you, too. I know someone that had a one night stand and put the baby up for adoption. The adopted mom is the biological mom's sister, and the dad is really not sure how this relationship is going to work out. I think he is super proud to be a dad, but knew he couldn't take care of the baby. I'm wondering if you have any advice on how to go forward? They really don't have much of a legal contract worked out yet and I'm super nervous that down the road the dad will be dragged into drama.

Emotionally, what advice to you have on how to handle this? Do you seperate yourself from the baby totally? If you're only invovled for a couple times a year how do you keep your emotions in check? I really want to help him work through this situation...I'll be sitting him and his current girlfriend down to listen to this episode for sure.

PS Thank you Chemda, for bringing these amazing topics to your listeners!!!!

[Keith]

I'll take this one.

They should all move in together. All that love in one place... beautiful.

[stulagu]

Originally Posted by Keith

I'll take this one.

They should all move in together. All that love in one place... beautiful.

except the baby was a product of a one night stand...I can't imagine the future drama if this baby mama goes a little nuts.

Though I really appreciate the advice, Keith