Today

I do not like doing bedtime by myself. Nope, not one bit. There is not ANYTHING I can say that I like about doing it by myself. So why do I forsee myself doing the bulk of bedtimes by myself while our kids are the youngest (and need a whole song and dance to get to sleep)? First night with Jacob back on nights, he leaves just in time for everyone to fall apart before dinner. It is great.

On another note: We met with a midwife a few days ago for a home birth. We wanted to check her out, see if we would all be a good fit together. Interesting how when thinking of a home birth I am more interested in finding someone who meshes with me well compared to when i do a hospital birth I only look for someone who just totally wont try to overrun me and be my boss. We are excited about the idea of NOT getting in a car for a ride to the hospital when i am in labor. We are excited to NOT have to have various people watching our kids, wondering how they are doing, how they are doing missing mom and dad, sometimes for days on end. I know I am soooooooo excited about NOT being woken up every morning around 5 (weather I just got to sleep or not) to have my belly pressed on (thereby spewing blood everywhere and needing to get up and change) and being asked how many times my baby has nursed and pooped and getting the whatfore for not telling them sooner that she did infact nurse around 1am (not being dramatic here, just telling it like it has been for me). I am also excited about NOT having to fight about things like Vit. K shot, or the eye antibiotic, or Antibiotics for being Strep B (which I usually am)..so nice to not have to fight.....

We have insurance (or I should say, we pay for insurance) so a hospital birth would be partially covered but we would still have a good amount to pay, so with the home birth cost it about evens out, probably slightly more for the home birth (unless I can convince my insurance company to cover part of it, it is afterall cheaper for them to payout on a home birth than what they would pay out for a hospital birth). Anyway. we have been heading in this direction since the beginning. With liliana we had an OB (we looked into a midwife, but they were over an hour away and didn't service our town at the time, we also looked into a female Family Doc, had an appt with her and realized, wow...she thinks every man is doing wrong by their respective women (she was very suspicious of jacob) so finally settled on an OB that happened to also be a D.O., we thought since jacob was soon to be heading to DO school we would get to know one. He was great to get along with, but lets face it, he was an OB. He so looked forward to Thursdays. Why? Because those were his scheduled Surgery days (C-sections, as well as other gyn surgeries). He loved scheduling the timing of babies being born and once he saw how miserable i was around 40weeks he dangled that carrot and I took it (what an awful carrot to dangle, when all along he knew and I knew I had no desire for a 'managed' (medicalized) birth..yes, yes, yes, I still had my choice...but I made the choice based on being a new, scared, first time miserable- this- is- never- gonna- end- pregnant person who had only my husband for support and bless his heart he didn't know how to help me (if he did, he would have done anything to help me). I know I did the best I could at the time. Had I had a different care provider the outcome would have been different. I would still have been the same miserable 40-weeker, but different specialties 'help' us differently. Had I been able to secure a home birth at that time I would not have had the 'induction' carrot dangled infront of me by that provider. But learn and live....

So for Mattie we chose a Family Doc (he saw us for our other family needs as well,which I loved, my kids already knew him as he did their well child's, etc...)I could very much be myself with him. Part of that I know came from being in DO school and seeing all Jacobs classmates and realizing, oh, they are just ordinary (sometimes totally crazy) 20-30 something year olds who are just as scared to be in that room with you and you are uncomfortable to be in there with them. So I could totally let him know about what I thought when he was looking for the baby's head and would press hard, boy would I yell out at him, "Your killing me, stop it already...we all know where the head is"...it was refreshing to have a family doctor my whole family felt comfortable with and knew he was always on top of things and actually listened (even if he didn't agree-like when we told him we were taking Mattie to a Homeopath to deal with her food sensitivities/eczema and diarrhea/ sleeplessness/foggy brain-ness) He still wanted to know what we did, and would check on her progress. But he didn't actually make it for the birth, he strolled in 5 mins too late and he was bummed.

Then for Jane we went with a recommended nurse midwife who delivers in the Hospital. I also got along with her as well and she also did alot of leg work to help things run smooth in the hospital (particularly since we were refusing so many of the 'normal' interventions for the baby). If I were up for another hospital birth I would probably go back to her. Although she is a midwife, she was trained as a nurse first. That makes for a different type of midwife care as usually Certified Nurse Midwives still think like nurses (and I don't particularly like how nurses are trained to think).

I have now met with a Certified Professional Midwife. So someone who went to midwifery school/training, then apprenticed for three years, attending births and helping/learned under the eyes of another midwife (kinda like residency), then had to complete around 50 births as the midwife in charge before qualifying for her professional license and has continued to do about that many births a year for quite awhile now. She has seen some scary things. She is not a vigilante, trying to make everything work at home, nor someone who thinks hospitals are bad. Afterall, they are not bad. They are just where you go when something is wrong. and until proven otherwise, there is nothing 'wrong' about being in labor (except for the fact that our husbands get out of it Scot free.....man...anyway..i wont get into that). She carries emergency supplies with her to handle excessive bleeding and many of the problems that could arise in the hospital. She also is there with you earlier on in the labor so she is able to assess yours/babies condition and can spot a problem earlier on and transfer you to the hospital before the emergency occurs. I mean, she comes even if you are just in labor moving from a 1-2cm...she will stay for days if you want her too, making biscuits, going on walks, whatever helps you relax..she is in no rush, hence you don't have to feel like someone is waiting around for you to progress. I cant wait for that!

Well you can tell I am excited about this. Although this pregnancy was not planned at all I am thankful that it is happening at a time when we live here and have great midwife choices around. I also know I have a great hospital to go to if something does arise and great Ob's (who are really good at what they are trained to do:handle problems) who are on=call waiting to help.

Some people have said that I must feel comfortable with this because Jacob will be here and he is a Doctor. The answer is no....if he were a carpenter it would be the same. Seriously, it probably makes it harder to do because of his job. He only ever gets to see the scary crazy, everything goes wrong births. Mostly because his OB patients tend to already have alot of issues (like drug addiction, etc) and things spiral out of control with them. So he has all the scary images in his mind. But that is not normal. Of course there are risk. There are risk to going to the hospital too. Sometimes babies die. I dislike even writing that sentence. And sometimes they die no matter where you gave birth and it breaks our hearts.

I have been surprised about the amount of people who would be scared to do a home birth. Our countries Morbidity/Mortality rates have not gone down due to having hospital births, they have actually risen!!!! We have an awful rate, esp. compared to other countries that primarily practice home births (like the Netherlands) or even compared to Germany, where all births are either attended by midwives in your home or at the hospital-the Ob's just hang around for when something goes wrong. they don't even presume to try to handle a normal pregnancy/birth-THEY HAVE NOT BEEN TRAINED FOR IT!. They seriously have not. I know that sounds silly. But most have never in 3-4 years of residency seen someone come in and require no medical intervention, ever.

Alright, I think I am done writing this. I have only had to go put both girls back in bed around 6 times in between trying to type this. They are finally asleep.Hallelujah!!!!!!!