Keep Busy on Bed rest
Certified Miracles: Guaranteeing Baby Products and Services for Mamas on Bedrest.
September 2nd, 2011
Hey Mamas! Knowing that many of you are at home, trolling the web for ideas, inspiration and baby gear, I thought that you should know about Certified Miracles.
Miracle Industries™ LLC created Certified Miracles, which is a review organization that was started to be able to recommend the best, safest, most useful baby and children’s products to parents. The organization has created a group of parents and experts who review products for safety, efficacy, durability and for whether or not the product lives up the the marketing put out about it. They also review the products’ manufacturers, checking to see customer service policies and whether or not manufacturers are fair and reliable businesses. Companies and products that meet their rigorous standards are then awarded a “Certified Miracle Seal” which the company may proudly display on their products, websites and company marketing information.
Now many of you, as I was, may be asking, “So what makes this company a reliable resource and why should I trust what they say about products?” It’s a great question and here is the story:
“The company was started by Michael Gatten, a concerned father of three young children, one of which was a sleepless, colicky baby. He knew immediately he was on to something big when he wrapped his previously inconsolable son up in his then hand-stitched swaddling creation. Founded in 2002, Miracle Industries™ flagship product Miracle Blanket® has gone on to become an international sensation comforting well over a million babies and parents alike into a peaceful nights rest. Miracle Blanket’s unique patented design has won countless awards, been written about by hundreds of newspapers and television news shows, lauded as the “Cadillac” of swaddlers, hailed as a “Nobel Peace Prize” worthy product and said to be “as necessary as diapers”. In fact, the name Miracle Blanket, while seemingly lofty to some, was actually coined – and insisted upon – by several of its earliest customers and product testers.”
The mission and vision of Miracle Industries™ is:
It’s our mission to significantly improve the quality of parenthood by becoming the world’s preeminent parent-centric awards program ever created. With integrity at the very core of all we do, we are dedicated to hand-picking and exalting only the latest, greatest, innovative products on the market through an honest, stringent, credible and objective evaluation process that is not based on money being paid for evaluation or the use of the seal once approved.
The Certified Miracle® Seal is priceless. Unlike others, it can’t be bought. And to keep the seal, all products must remain “above the bar”. Through our collaborative process, it’s the customer that will ultimately decide.
While there are but a few products to date that have earned the Certified Miracle Seal, it is up to parents to notify organizations like Miracle Industries™ about products we love and even more importantly, products that were terrible-not at all as they were marketed to be- and companies that accepted responsibility or those that tried to make it seem like your situation was an anomaly and the problem is your fault.
I invite you to take a look at the Certified Miracle Seal website and decide for yourself. To me, it seems like a good resource (not the only one, but a good place to start) for checking out products and services that you are going to be using anyway. And since you can’t do it yourself, why not let someone else do some evaluation legwork for you?
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Mamas on Bedrest: Congratulations Cora and Welcome Ravi!
July 24th, 2011
After 11 weeks on bed rest (8 of which were strict) and 30 hours of labor Cora Jeyadame gave birth to her son Ravi Ixtel Jeyadame at 39 weeks and 3 days on July 16, 2011. Cora is my parent’s next door neighbor. I met her while I was home visiting for the summer.
For Cora, the road to motherhood was not an easy one. Cora has a long history of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCO) and seldom ovulated. When she and her partner Suriya married last August, she immediately started taking Lupron in order to stimulate ovulation. While on her honeymoon, she and Suriya prayed to the Mexican fertility goddess Ixtel so Cora would ovulate and promised that if she became pregnant on her first attempt she would name her child after the goddess. Cora ovulated for the first time the day after praying to this goddess and became pregnant on her first insemination in October.
Unfortunately, Cora’s joy was short-lived. She had significant morning sickness through her first trimester. She developed Gestational Diabetes and low blood pressure complicated by fainting during her second trimester. Additionally, an abnormal heart beat was detected and she had to wear a holter monitor for a month. At 26 weeks she began experiencing preterm labor. However, because of her heart problems, her obstetrician was very cautious using drugs to halt labor. At 28 weeks she was placed on modified bed rest which meant that Cora, a first grade teacher, reduced her work schedule to 3 days a week. When the episodes of preterm labor intensified, she went on full bed rest at 32 weeks.
“The decision to go on bedrest was really hard,” Cora says. “My OB left the decision totally up to me and as a teacher, it was really hard for me to leave the classroom. But the thought of having my baby early was frightening. I knew all of the problems that he could have and that terrified me. So I opted to do all that I could and went on bed rest.”
“Bedrest is so much more difficult than I could have ever anticipated” Cora adds. “I was very lonely and although I thought I would stay at home and finish the nursery, read books and prepare, I found that I wasn’t physically able to do anything to prepare. My attention span was really short so I found that I didn’t want to read and spent much of my time watching reality TV shows. My saving grace was the Bedrest forum on BabyCenter.com. Having those other women on bed rest to correspond with really kept me sane.”
Cora was really lucky because she had a lot of help and support.” My partner Suriya is extremely supportive and my parents live close by so my mother came by often and ran errands and did the grocery shopping.” Cora and Suriya already had a housekeeper and dog walker and hired a helper to do other jobs around the house such as tend their garden.
“It’s impossible to do this without support. I never would have made it without all these people”. (Cora also had a labor doula.)
At approximately 35 weeks, Cora developed Pubic Symphysis diastasis. While it is common for the pubic bone to begin to relax in preparation for labor and delivery, in some women, the relaxation becomes a more pronounced, painful separation. Because she was so uncomfortable, Cora was prescribed oxycodone for the pain and crutches for her limited ambulation.
In the end, Cora had to be induced at 39 weeks and 1 day. Ravi was born after 30 hrs of labor at 7lbs 6 oz and 19 inches long, a perfectly healthy baby boy.
“I loved being pregnant,” says Cora. “I loved that feeling of having life inside of me.”
Admittedly, Cora didn’t like all the complications and probably won’t have any other pregnancies. But she is very glad to have had this incredible experience.
Mamas on Bedrest: Day 2 of the Self Care Challenge: End Stinking Thinking
May 3rd, 2011
The Self Care Challenge Contest began yesterday. This is an awesome program created by Diane Sandford, Ph.D, author of the book, Life Will Never Be the Same: The Real Mom’s Post Partum Survival Guide, the inspiration to the Self Care Challenge. This challenge is chocked full of great information and great prizes for the participants. It’s free to join so why not??? If you want to see the first post, check here. Check out the blog daily and be inspired to better self care. Here is the second post. Since this is one of my greatest challenges, stinkin’ thinkin‘, I decided to share it here as a reminder to myself.
Living Self-Care: Our Minds
Equally important to nourishing our bodies, is thinking that promotes health and well-being. As it says in the Bible, “As a man thinketh, so doth he become.”
Healthy Thinking strategies include:
- Monitor Self-Talk: Be aware of your internal dialogue. Research shows that the more negative your thinking about yourself and your life, the worse you’ll feel. Because your mind and body is connected, chronic negative thinking often leads to emotional and physical health problems.
- Don’t Take Things Personally: This suggestion comes from Don Miguel Ruiz’es The Four Agreements and is frequently the root of feeling bad. Realize that most of the time other people’s sour moods and unkind actions are not because of you but because of what they’re going through. You are not to blame so don’t dwell on it.
- Don’t Make Assumptions: This is also from The Four Agreements. How many times have you felt hurt or angry imagining what you thought someone said or intended and it’s not what they meant? Stop assuming and ask for clarification.
- Release Self-Criticism: Women are frequently harder on themselves than anyone else. Be-friend yourself instead. Notice your successes and strengths. If you make a mistake, forgive yourself like you would a friend.
- Stop Worrying: In the words of the Dali Lama, “No good comes from worrying. If there’s something you can do about a situation, do it. If there’s nothing you can do about, worrying will only make you feel bad.”
Don’t forget to enter the challenge to be eligible for some great prizes. If you have particular concerns you’d like to address, Sign up for a Complimentary 30 Minute Bedrest Breakthrough Session and we can address your particular concerns one on one. Good luck and here’s to great self care!
