What Are You - Crazy?

21 Weeks

The pregnancy has been going along swimmingly. It's amazing how I am actually thinking about the process of giving birth now. Part of me thought for a long time that I might never get there. It's as if I feared my body would just keep rejecting the idea of incubating this creature for a full nine months, but now, I am thinking it will actually happen. Therefore, I have been thinking about how I want this to happen.

We watched the movie "The Business of Being Born" and another movie "Pregnant in America" - okay, not just movies, documentaries. They both dealt with different birthing options and focused on natural childbirth and home birthing. The idea of giving birth at home initially seemed insane to me. It's unsanitary! There is dog and cat hair on the rug and crumbs in the kitchen! But when I start to think about hospitals, I think that that is where you go when you are sick. I am pregnant, not sick. I don't need an operation, I need to do what women have done for thousands of years.

Americans are obsessed with the idea of health care, but health care to many of us is having a doctor cure what is wrong with us by taking a pill or preforming an operation. If we examine our lifestyle, what we eat and how we live, perhaps we may find with a few changes we don't need so much 'health care'.

I used to think that there was no way I could stand the pain of expelling an eight pound baby from my body, but over the last few years that has changed. I have experienced pain, both physical and emotional, that I never thought I could endure. The pain of labor, the process of delivering this much desired, much anticipated baby will be nothing like the pain I went through this summer having to end my pregnancy at 20 weeks.

I told a young friend of mine that Griffin and I were considering home birth and she was appalled. She had the same reaction that everyone does - what if something goes wrong? How will you get to the hospital in time? Women give birth in hospitals all the time and end up with problems that doctors can't fix. The infant mortality rate in the United States is higher than virtually every other first world country. Why? Perhaps because we treat birthing as a health care issue and not as a natural process.

We have an appointment at the OB today. I will be proposing home birth with a midwife to them. What do you think the response will be?

Tune in later for the exciting results!

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And now the exciting conclusion....

The nurse took my weight and blood pressure. All fine. Gained a few more pounds. BP nice and normal. The doc came in and talked about blood test results and the level II ultrasound results. She talked as if it might be the first time we were hearing this information. I chuckled to myself. Did she think we would sit idly by and wait to hear about results days and weeks later? She checked by fetal heartbeat. Nice and regular. Of course, the NJPA group at St. Barnabas does that and a lot more every two weeks, the nurse that shoots me in the ass every Thursday checks it too and I have a home FH doppler, so I can check it too. I waited for the moment to ask.

Any questions? Yes. Are you affiliated with any midwives? A look of alarm passed over her face. The answer was no. Not surprising. She told me there were some midwives that worked out of the hospital in their own group. And then she started in on how I need to continue being under their care. I told her I had every intention continuing my monitoring, but this was about the birth.

She told me that they were willing for me to have as natural of a birth as possible at the hospital. I smiled and nodded. She reminded me that this is still considered a high risk pregnancy. Did she need to even mention that? I am well-aware, thank you. When I assured her that I would continue my care she seemed to relax a bit.

Ultimately, she conceded. As long as the rest of the pregnancy is as normal as the first half has been, she supposed it would be alright to use a midwife. I nodded. It didn't really matter what she said, we are going to do what we want anyhow. Of course I didn't mention that I wanted to do this at home. Perhaps I would save that tidbit for another time. I would like to speak to a few midwives first and pick one that has similar views to ours. I don't think that will be hard to find.

I was very happy to see that my insurance does cover care by a midwife. There are board certified midwives that are in my insurance plan and somehow that certification means a lot to me.

We have another appointment at the NJPA high risk pregnancy group on Monday. Maybe I will bring up the home birthing there and see what their reaction is like. I find it all a bit amusing. "What are you - crazy?" There's nothing natural about having a baby.....