Once you've started to study holistic health in earnest, it's only a matter of time before you feel like you are missing out on something by not owning a Squatty Potty. You've been just sitting on a regular toilet? All this time? How...primitive.
It's kind of like what happens when I think about the position I was in for the births of T'ai, Ting, and Yani. What? I now think. I was lying down? Why didn't they suggest I squat? Why didn't I think of delivering babies under water, in one of those pop-up pools you can set up in your living room? It really did not cross my mind, and now I feel like it all could have been done more sensibly. It's like I was trying to get the swing going without knowing you could pump your legs. Here I am talking about an actual swing.
I guess none of this applies to Yani's birth -- she came out her own door, one created with impromptu carpentry. It probably made sense to be lying down for that, I'm thinking. Though she was my third perfect little baby, I have always resented that the obstetrician elected to bring Yani into the world by C-section. I wasn't in distress; the baby wasn't in distress. Yani seemed to be perfectly content being bottom first, and now that we know how much she moves around when she sleeps (whomever she selects as life partner will have to sleep like a rock), we should have just waited for her to grab all the covers and roll over.
But the doctor was in distress; I was to her like a kid who was just learning to tie my shoelaces and taking a very long time getting my Keds on. She had those Velcro sneakers, maybe even with wheels on the back. Which is to say that, though those are extremely cool, and I feel envious whenever I see kids sliding through the grocery store in their wheely sneakers, I felt rushed by my doctor 23 years ago.
The next morning she came to check on me. "I wish I could give this woman upstairs a C-section and hurry things up like we did with you," she sighed with understandable fatigue. I imagine that if she hadn't been so tired she might not have shown that card, but there it was. The truth sprayed itself out in a sorry mess, scatological analogies to which I have written and deleted several times. I will spare you that much.
I am ever the trendsetter -- cutting edge, you might say -- and C-sections are unfortunately almost routine these days. Now I know about and so regret all the biological consequences of Yani's not having been exposed to my, ah, vaginal flora, which is just such an unfortunate thing to be blogging about when I started out wanting to talk about pooping.
Squatty Potty. I was telling you about the squatty potty. Suddenly I had to have one, to honor my ancestors who squatted so that I might one day live and prosper in Farmington, Connecticut, despite having spit into evolution's wind by birthing my progeny while lying down.
I make my way to the Squatty Potty website. Once you've chosen your Squatty Potty style, you choose the height. They try to guide you a bit: "Order the 7" if you are new to squatting. If you are advanced or limber, get the 9". Our 5" works great for grannies." This gives rise to serious rumination, and I take days to decide: am I new to squatting? I do it all the time in the garden. Am I advanced? Along what scale? Are we talking spiritually, or what. I sure as heck was not going to order the one for grannies. Not yet, baby.
The Squatty Potty website will make you feel as though you have long been a fool, tempting death and disease, really, not to "elevate your feet in order to eliminate." And it does help. Oh, I don't actually notice much difference in pooping. But when I put my feet on the Squatty Potty I get a little ego boost -- because I got the advanced.
Then, when I realize that this type of thinking is not in the least bit advanced, I go back to feeling like my same old foolish self. I chuckle at myself -- and as I sit there, I feel like my ancestors are chuckling at me, too.
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Wow. What next. Well, what style did you go with? I'm guessing....durable.
ReplyDeleteAlways interesting to find out, isn't it, that the Dark Ages really were the Light Ages :-)?!
ReplyDeleteWow, Paula, you really are cutting edge! You have introduced me to a new product I had no idea even existed. While reading your post, I imagined plumbers in the house outfitting your bathroom with new, expensive, ceramic fixtures or maybe those holes in the floor you come across in foreign, public bathrooms. But, NO, it’s just a clever stool (pardon the pun) to adapt to your old American Standard. The anatomical benefits seem obvious but you’ve got to admire that entrepreneurial spirit! It’s another one of those moments when I think, “Why didn’t I think/invent/patent that?”
ReplyDeleteMy late husband used to push our tired toddlers around the Arnold Arboretum with an old broomstick, attached with duck tape to the back of their big wheels, when their little legs pooped (sorry!) out . He called it his “power stick“. Now, on my walks in the Arboretum, I frequently see young Dads pushing their tired toddlers with plastic “power sticks” built right into the back of their toddlers’ big wheels. I think, “Why didn't he patent that? I could have been a billionaire by now”.
Sorry and sad to hear you still have residual grief about your last birthing experience. You’re right it was the doctor who was in distress and, possibly, for better reasons than she unfortunately expressed. Early in my nursing career, I was an Labor & Delivery nurse. From your descriptions, I’m understanding that Yani was a breech presentation. But I don’t know if you were in active labor or not when the decision was made to “hurry things up". I can tell you that, 23 years ago, not a lot of breech babies where being delivered vaginally anymore partly due to medical-legal concerns and partly due to the fact that the old art and experienced mechanics of such deliveries had been lost to the trend of high tech obstetrics. Lately, I have become a devotee of the PBS series “Call the Midwife” and there was a breech delivery in one of the episodes that was both beautiful and harrowing in its reality.
I love hearing birth stories and maybe someday I’ll be privileged to hear more about yours. I knew my days of L&D nursing were probably over, in the early 80’s, when a doctor asked me to hand him an amnihook, used to artificially rupture the amniotic sac (sometimes for good reason, often not), and I imagined sticking him in the eye with it. Not a good sign, I recognized and got out.
Anyways, enjoy your squatty potty and the beautiful Spring weather we’re having lately. Thanks for the tip!
What Ellen said. But peer pressure, even peer suggestion, is powerful stuff.
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