• Group B strep is considered normal flora.
• Group B strep is not a concern to anyone but pregnant women, or rather, their babies.
• Group B strep comes and goes, which is why they don’t test until 36 weeks.
• There are no side effects to me, I’m not sick.
• 30% of women test positive for group B strep.
• 5% of the babies born from those 30% will be born with it.
• It can make the newborn sick.  If that happens, it can happen very quickly and be dangerous for the baby.
• To prevent this, women who test positive are given IV antibiotics 4 hours before birth.
• If they do not receive the antibiotics, or receive them too late (they give birth less than 4 hours later), then the newborn’s blood will be tested.  And it won’t be a heel prick.  It’ll be a blood draw.
• The culture takes 48 hours to come back, but the white blood cell count comes back quickly.  If it is elevated, it is indicative of group B strep and they treat the baby with antibiotics immediately.  If the white blood cell count is not elevated, they do nothing.  The baby probably doesn’t have it.  In 48 hours, the culture will determine whether to quit, continue, or begin antibiotics.
• Prolonged labor increases the chance that the baby will get group B strep.
• If a pregnant woman’s water breaks and she does not deliver within several hours (six was the estimate I was given), the baby will be more likely to get group B strep.
• Babies born to mothers who test positive for group B strep are strongly encouraged to stay the full 48 hours.  And highly discouraged from leaving after only 24 hours.

• I have quick labors.
• My water breaks during the pushing stage.  Minutes before the baby is born.
• I’ve had C. Diff.  Any antibiotic I take is likely to cause a recurrence.
• I do not want to have C. Diff with a newborn.

So here is what my midwife and I decided:

• Barring any circumstance that would increase my risk of passing group B strep to the baby, I will not be taking antibiotics during labor.

This increases the chance that the baby will have to be on antibiotics hours after birth.  Which makes me sad.  But it doesn’t sound like there is any great chance that the baby will get sick, given all the precautions.  Whereas me getting an antibiotic will likely make me very sick.

Here are some things I still want to look up (If you know anything, could you please let me know?):

• How can I give a newborn probiotics to counteract the harmful effects of antibiotics?
• Does breast milk contain probiotics?
• If I were to take probiotics while nursing, would it transfer to the baby through my milk?

And here are some things I’d like to give to God, would you please join me?

• That the labor would be quick.
• That the water wouldn’t break until the end.
• That the white blood cell count is normal.
• That the culture comes back negative.
• That we can find childcare for our other three during the hospital stay that will now be twice as long as originally planned.

I know that was an awfully dry post.  I just wanted to get it out there.  I promise I’m still spunky when not discussing group B strep.

(Ahem. I know I’m horrible at updating, so in case you’ve forgotten, or never knew, or lost track, I’m 35 weeks along now.  Girl. Evelyn.  May 8ish.  Caught up? Awesome.  Times for bed.)

We went out there last summer for an internship and I was amazed at the amount of people who were surprised when we came back.

Apparently I’m a horrible communicator.

(Says the person who hasn’t blogged in months.)

So here’s what I know:

Josh has not graduated yet. He was shooting for May 2012, but now is thinking August or December. We thought a December graduation date would mean another summer internship, but he just found out today that they won’t require one.

He also found out today that he has been approved to extend his research here until at December.

So we don’t really know much. Here’s a summary:

• We won’t be going to San Diego this summer.
• He won’t be graduating in May.
• Graduation will either be in August or in December.
• Moving to San Diego permanently will follow graduation.

My name is Beth and I’ve been c diff free for… Weeks now.  (I’m bad with remembering details, such as the passage of time.)

I faithfully took my $133 (after insurance) liquid antibiotic that was supposed to taste like cherries. (Ha!).  I could have gotten the pill form but that would have been $1,000.  ($4,000 before insurance.)  So I now have a new appreciation for the nasty stuff children have to swallow.

I also got a probiotic from the local grocery store with a billion live cultures per serving and took it three times a day.  With store bought kefir.  But I was still getting sick.

So, I took more drastic measure and bought myself some heavy duty probiotics from the local natural foods store.  87 billion live cultures per dose.  Once a day.  And around this time I was home again and able to make my own raw milk kefir.  Bonus probiotics.  Been healthy has a horse every since.

I’ve been declared “cured” of the c diff by medical professionals.  But from what I’ve read and been told, that just means the live and active c diff bacteria has been eradicated.  The hardier, impossible-to-kill spores that it hid all over my digestive tract are still there.  But they’ll just stay dormant as long as they aren’t threatened.  And the only thing that will really awaken them is antibiotics.  So as much as I questioned the purpose of antibiotics before, you can bet I’ll be even harder on the poor doctors now.

Really.  I’m not an easy patient.

And that’s the end (Please, God) of my story on c diff.

It really would be too corny to say “C ya, c diff” at this point.  So I won’t.  But know that I’m thinking it.

When we went to urgent care, Josh mentioned to the doctor that we drink raw milk and asked if that’s what could be causing this.  I was, I admit, partially afraid he might be right.  I mean, our FDA makes drinking raw milk feel like the equivalent of drinking rat poison.  No benefits, only diseases and death.  And it’s scary going against the FDA, so yeah, I was afraid I might be wrong and they might be right.

But then, why was I the only one sick?  My kids were fine, my husband was fine… we all drink the same milk.  However the doctor really picked up on that factoid about our lives and lectured me on how raw milk is bad, especially for pregnant women.  I felt like I’d put my body and my baby in danger in my quest to make us both healthier.  Then I waited 48 hours for cultures to come back, dreading what I would hear.

Well, I found out today.  It’s a bacteria called C. diff.  The first thing I did was look up what causes C. diff.  What did I do to myself to put my baby and body at such risk?

The answer?  I took an antibiotic.

C. diff is everywhere.  Air, dirt, water, grocery stores… But don’t get too scared – healthy people can fight off C. diff with ease.  God made your gut prepared with healthy bacteria to fight off the bad stuff like C. diff.  But after you take, say, clindamycin for, say, an infected cyst under your arm, your gut gets cleaned out.  And I had an infected cyst under my arm.  So I was prescribed clindamycin.  Finished my prescription about a week before I got sick.  Oh… wait…

When I look up clindamycin on teh interwebz?  The most common side affect is C. diff.

So my question is this, Mr. Urgent Care Doctor:

I told you I had been on an antibiotic for an infected cyst.  I also told you I drank raw milk.  The number one side affect of raw milk is… NOTHING.  General good health.  Honest to goodness sicknesses caused by raw milk is rare.  In fact, the CDC even admits that not a single person has died from raw milk in 11 years!  I’m actually laughing now, remembering, Mr. Urgent Care Doctor, that you asked me if I’d had a specific brand of cheese that had been causing listeria locally.  I know for a fact, that particular brand pasteurizes their milk and cheeses.  Yet it causes more sickness than well-cared for raw milk.

Right, back to my question: Why did you focus on the raw milk, then?  Why did you leave me feeling like I had failed my body and risked my baby?  It was a medicine prescribed by another doctor that had ended up causing me the harm.  Harm that could have been avoided by an accompanying probiotic.  I ate yogurt with every dosage, but not knowing my antibiotic was a top offender, I’m positive I didn’t eat enough.  And I should have continued after my prescription ran out.

Mr. Urgent Care Doctor was not a mean man.  He was genuinely concerned for me.  He was afraid for my health.  He was acting in the way he’d been taught.  I guess I’m more upset at what they teach him.  Why do natural health and hospital health have to be so polarized?  Why can’t they work together?

Mr. Urgent Care Doctor, I’m not perfect either.  You assume the worst about me… and I assume the worst about you.  You prescribed me another antibiotic to take care of my C. diff.  But I’m not taking it just because you tell me to.  I’m going to do my research first and see if there is a more natural way to cure this.  I’m going to research the prescription you gave me and see what the top side affects are.

(Funny how the side effects you can find on Google don’t match the ones on the warning sheet that come with the prescription.  Just read the one I got with my clindamycin.  C. diff isn’t mentioned on there at all. But it’s in the first sentence of the second paragraph in this Wikipedia article.)

If I can’t find anything credible and effective, then yes, I will take the prescription.  I still need hospital health.  I just wish you worked more hand-in-hand with natural health.

Instead of assuming the worst of it.

————————————–

Image source

For lunch,

“Benjamin, do you want your sandwich heated up so that the meat and cheese is melty?”

“But… is it not cold?”

“No, it’s heated up.”

“But… is it hot?”

“It will be heated up, yes.”

“But… is it warm?”

“It will be heated up.  It won’t be hot, it won’t be cold.  It will be warm.”

I always knew he asked a lot of questions, but I didn’t notice this particular trend until earlier this week.  Every time.  Three follow-up questions.  It makes me laugh, and that’s good.  Because I’m less likely to become frustrated when I’m laughing.

In case you didn’t see the description (what all do they show you when I embed a video?):

We gave our children some exciting news… And this is how they reacted.

Back story: This is what my husband said, at age ten, when he was told his littlest sister was coming. So, no, this isn’t their actual response. It was just a fun way to tell family.

My laptop is broken.  AGAIN.  The extended warranty is up on the 24th, too, I think.  So I made the video on my phone.  Impressive, no?!

PICTURES BELOW!!!  (For those of you who don’t like lots of words… )

I thrive in routine.  My children thrive in routine.  When there’s a big change, it takes me (and them) a couple weeks at best to adjust and find my new normal.  Given this past year… I feel like I’ve barely righted myself before I’m turned on my head all over again!

Three months in Illinois with my mother, three months back home after her funeral where I felt I worked the role of “single mother” pretty hard while Josh finished his prelims, then three months in San Diego, and now back, only to move all our belongings to a different (though mold free! and beautiful!) house.

Whew!

Every weekend since we “moved” has been taken up with relocating our stuff to the new place and then finding room for it all.  We threw a lot out.  It was refreshing.  We still have a huge Goodwill pile in our garage, but as I’m left car-less during the day, that may take awhile to get rid of!  Mostly, though, except for pictures, the house is organized and completely unpacked.

This past weekend was our first non-moving weekend and Josh’s mom, sister, and sister’s roommate came to visit! They helped to celebrate my birthday.  It was a blast, and given it was my first birthday since my mom’s death, I welcomed the happy distractions.

After they left on Monday, we started school.  This is new territory for me, teaching two at once, but it seems to be working itself out pretty well.  So far, I can teach Benjamin most of his school while Olivia does handwriting and spelling which doesn’t require much attention.  When his school starts to take longer, I’ll probably throw Math into her morning school too, since she excels in that. They were both ready, eager, and willing to start school, which made it so much fun.

So we’re finding our new Normal.  Again. I have so many times throughout the day where I just turn in circles trying to figure out what I should be doing and when.  I’m such a “feeler”, not so much a “planner”.  I feel my day out, and when I find something that works, I keep with it.  Sometimes I wish I would just sit down and schedule out my day.  Maybe soon I’ll have a good enough feeling for what I’m doing that I can attempt something like that.

I also need to get my camera fixed!  It’s been illegally long since I’ve posted a picture on here of my gorgeous children.  I have some on my phone.  I suppose I could use those to hold you over.

Here’s Levi at our apartment in San Diego.  He got innovative trying to get water from the fountain on his own.

Here’s Lucy in San Diego.  The big city life changed her.

Here’s Levi again.  Proof of the mess he presents me with At. Every. Meal.

Here are all three of my kids plus two of their third cousins at the Air and Space Museum in San Diego.  They loved the helicopter.

We went for a walk just about every day in San Diego.  Here’s the San Diego River, which we had to cross to get to Target.  And yes, those are two umbrella strollers connected together.  It was the best purchase I made all summer.

This was one of our last days at the San Diego apartment.  That was the life.

Here’s Levi in his shorty wetsuit!  The Pacific ocean is CO-OO-OLD, people.  (At least where we were.) Wetsuits were crucial.

Levi, Benjamin, and Olivia with their Great-Oma (Josh’s grandma)!  This was their first ice cream cone, too.  I’m the mean mom who makes them get their ice cream in bowls because it’s neater.  :-)  That’s what grandmas are for!

Here’s Lucy.  Benjamin wouldn’t get in his seat, so we demoted him.  And promoted Lucy.

Here’s Olivia with her lose bottom tooth!  It has since fallen out, but apparently I haven’t gotten those pictures off my phone yet.  Sorry!

This was our first lunch at the new house.  The kids love the back porch.  I love not having to clean up a lunch mess off our carpeted dining room floor. Win/Win!

Well that’s all the pictures for now.  The family wants to go for a walk.

What all have you guys been up to this past summer?  I have NOT been keeping up on your blogs at ALL.  {bows head in shame} Sorry…

“Move your milk!” I cried desperately as I remembered that there was nothing protecting the carpet under his chair.

He looked up at me, reached out, grabbed his cup, and wiggled it.

“Levi!” Frustration was creeping in.  ”Stop! You’re going to spill!”

He didn’t have a devious look on his face.  It was a wide-eyed look of trying to take in as much information as possible.  What didn’t he understand?

“Move your cup, Levi,” I tried again.

Again, he made his cup dance on the table top.

“Levi!  Why –”

“I move my cup.”

“What?”

“I move my cup.”

“Oooooh!  You’re moving your milk!”

And we all got a good laugh.  And I felt guilty for yelling.  After all, he was obeying… I just didn’t understand!

But I was thinking about it today, and as cute as it was, that incident makes me so grateful that I have a Father who understands me. The Holy Spirit intercedes on my behalf, just to make sure!

He knows my heart and I believe He blesses my efforts, as feeble as they may be.

Thank you, Abba, Father!

So I decided to have an object lesson on what “wanting” alone gets us in life.

I put out my empty hands and told everyone to “want” the power cord with all their might.  We closed our eyes in effort.  When we opened them, lo and behold, my hands were still empty.

So I asked, “What can we *do* to help us remember to get it next time?”

We all decided I should write it on the list.  And I did.

Just another life lesson I teach myself along with my children.  Wanting is less than half the battle.  Remembering is probably 75%.  Oh, and effort goes in there somewhere, too…