Simply Mother

37 weeks. I’m not in any hurry. There is still plenty to do. Most desperately, Matt needs to get every one of the empty duplexes repaired and ready to rent out. That’s going to take till the end of this month, so this baby better get comfortable.

I know I don’t look big. I’m measuring small too. (31cm, and it’s supposed to correspond with the number of weeks you are.) But I’m pretty positive of my dates because I was charting and it was a perfect, textbook cycle. Also, I was measuring right on at my earlier appointments. I’m just carrying differently this time I guess.

Or maybe some of the bump is hidden because she is really far down. I mean, REALLY far. I’m kind of afraid she might just fall out. I’ve felt her there for several weeks but the midwife confirmed it the other night when she came over for a prenatal visit. No wonder I haven’t been able to get myself up out of bed lately, but rather have to sort of roll out. 27 times a night. (To pee.)

In anticipation of the upcoming birth, I went back through my two previous birth stories, did a bit of fine-tuning, added pictures, and posted them on this site. (They were posted previously on old [smoldering] blogs.)

Interested parties, you can find Sarah’s birth-with-the-works story here, and Jade’s unmedicated-thanks-to-Hypnobirthing-birth story here, (complete with rant about a doctor with anger management issues).

Despite not being quite ready, we are really excited about this birth. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned here or not–we aren’t really advertising it in real life much (I figure as soon as this baby comes out and everyone sees her strapped continually to my person in some kind of contraption–except when taking her out to change a brightly colored cloth diaper–we will be deemed weird enough!) but we are planning a midwife-attended homebirth.

Home Birth

I won’t go into the details of why we are absolutely not crazy and would never dream of doing anything that would put this precious new life at risk, except to tell you that we are confident this is the very safest option for us at this time.

I will, however, point you to the blog post of the lovely Stephanie, who is also having her first homebirth shortly, and considerately wrote a quick explanatory post to alleviate the worries of concerned friends and families. Since I tend to not be able to stop once I get started, I’ll just point any of my concerned friends and family members to her. One little excerpt though, with a link to a really great report viewable online.

Would you be surprised to find that the most common maternity care practices (either the practice itself or it’s overuse) in America are not based on sound scientific evidence? That the United States spends more per capita on maternal care than any other nation, and yet has some of the poorest maternal and neonatal outcomes in the developed world?

This is a really interesting and well-written paper that examines evidence-based maternity care in the U.S., why most women don’t receive it, and some of the consequences.

And look, I’m done. See? I can shut up. Sometimes.

No, okay, one more thing. A disclaimer. It always seems to be necessary to include this acknowledgment–Yes, some medical interventions are sometimes warranted. Sometimes life-saving. No one I know would ever argue against that.

It is the use of drugs and technology when they are not indicated–the overuse of otherwise miraculous interventions–that people who push for better maternity care are upset about. It is the use of what women are often told are perfectly harmless or even helpful interventions that lead to further, more dangerous interventions becoming necessary. And babies and mamas ending up in the ICU. See also (as the article linked above details): The under-use of care practices proven to prevent complications or correct them before they lead to serious problems.

Do I think every woman should give birth at home? No way. There are good reasons to be in a hospital, and some risk factors that would unequivocally rule out homebirth. But there are also good reasons for some women to avoid the hospital, or at least to avoid certain interventions routinely performed in hospitals.

It can be a bit difficult to discern fact from, um, “common knowledge” that is often not fully correct, and I encourage every woman to look for reliable information from credible sources (not just Parents magazine!) so you are empowered to be an active participant in the decision making of your care.

Alrighty, now I’m done.

By the way, the car? It is fixed. Thanks to awesome husband.

Filed in: family • health • pregnancy | March 10, 2009