A clear sign to switch from an ob's practice

http://birthingbeautifulideas.com/?p=1922

This is a blog post about an ob practice in Ohio that has banned doulas and individual birth plans. The scariest part about it is not that the practice is requiring patients to sign off on their rules, but that many other practices feel the same way, but are not as upfront about it. I didn't get far enough along in my last pregnancy to discuss a birth plan with the ob practice I started with, but due to everything that lead to my leaving them, I have a feeling that they might have been just as unbending, just not as open about it.

While I would highly recommend any woman with a healthy pregnancy to seek out midwifery care instead of a doctor, I also understand that even for the most ardent natural birth supporters this isn't always possible (at the very least, insurance issues can make this a no-go right from the start). If you must be with an ob, I would then suggest speaking from very early on plans for a natural birth. There are some telling signs if the ob is less than supportive of this. Things such as their c-section rate, epidural rate, and how long they're willing to let you go past your due date (ACOG recommends induction at 43 weeks, not the 41 currently practiced the majority of the time). And remember, it is never too late to switch to a health care provider that you feel more comfortable with!

The Farm

http://babylievmendoza.blogspot.com/2010/05/liev-michael-mendozas-natural-birth-at.html

Ina May Gaskin is the Godmother of Natural, out of hospital births. I really, really should know more about her, but I'm always hearing raves about her books. The Farm is where she lives and practices. The above link is from someone who gave birth on the Farm recently and explains everything much better than I can. So please, read the blog post above, and I promise to do more research :)

Natural Birth conquers another site!

Since my avatar is the same, I'm probably not revealing too much to say I'm a huge fan of the Nest & the Bump (outgrowths of the uber-popular website the Knot). I've met a lot of wonderful women on the boards, many of whom I've actually met in real life, and many, many more that I hope to one day. Anyway, as of today, there is finally a Natural Birth board. I am so very, very excited! It is yet another outlet for women who want to find out about, talk about, encourage and commiserate over going the route that few in this country do (seriously, about 90% of births in this country are medicated, CRAZY!!!). I hope that as someone who has already gone through this, I can be of help to the first-timers. And if any of them are visiting my blog for the first time today, I say welcome here, too!

(and for those of you who haven't ever been on the Nest or the Bump, I say give it a try if you like having an internet support group for life in general)

Scared after watching a birth(?)

An on-line community that I take part in had a post from one of the pregnant women today. She had seen a birth in her birthing class last night and was now terrified. Yes, the first time (or first several times) you see that birth it can be really traumatic. Especially depending on the video (seeing the women in labor screaming first doesn't help). But, I highly, highly recommend getting over this by watching more, and more, and more births. Watching until it's no longer shocking and seems commonplace. It's totally not the same as being there for a birth (particularly your own), but the more normal it seems, the less it will shock you when it's your turn, too. This was one of the many, many things I loved about my Bradley class, we watched a TON of births. Natural births. And honestly, watching a medicated birth kind of freaks me out more. And if you want nightmares, watch a c-section. I wish they made all women watch those as well as a natural birth in those "education" classes that hospitals run.

The only birth movies that I've seen that Netflix has are The Business of Being Born which is more about the industry than about births and doesn't have the best birthing examples, and Orgasmic Birth which I just watched two weeks ago and is fantastic. Lots of beautiful, natural births. Home births, hospital births, supportive, loving births (and no crotch shots, so less disturbing for the uninitiated). There is also the medicated birth, but don't worry, it's not balanced at all. I'd love to hear of more if anyone has any suggestions in the comments.

And as a parting thought: WHO (World Health Organization) recommends a c-section rate of about 10%, which means that 90% of women can have healthy, unmedicated births without any problems. It's your body, and your body knows what it's doing.

First (happy) Pregnancy Dream

Last night I had an amazingly realistic dream about delivering my baby. It was during the day, my water broke at a trickle and I had my toddler with me. He played in his room, I called my husband, our friend who is going to attend, and my midwife. I drew a bath for a water birth and got in. In my dream I had one massive contraction and then I felt the head. My midwife arrived just in time to deliver my daughter. The whole thing was less than an hour (and was way cleaner than I could ever hope it could be). It was a FANTASTIC dream. The only thing wrong was that my husband couldn't make it home in time.

To analyze the dream: My son's labor and delivery took about four hours, so there's a good possibility that #2 could pop out even faster. My biggest fear is that it will happen during the day and nobody will be able to get here in time. I really don't want my less-than-two-year-old being the only one who assists. We only have one car and my husband takes public transportation to work, so him getting home to me could be an issue. Fortunately, our friend who will attend works in the same building as he does, so they could always take a cab to her place (ten minutes) and then she could drive him. I'm really hoping that he'll be able to work from home the last week or two before I deliver, but that assumes I'll be close to the due date, and I'm quite happy to be a little early. With my first child, my husband was a twelve minute cab ride from my office and the birth center was fifteen minutes from there, so it was less of an issue if I had a daytime labor (which, by the way, is not usual, particularly for a first birth). The second part of that is worry about the midwife making it in time. I will be having several discussions about that beforehand since I barely made it to the Birth Center last time.

Overall, I'm pretty confidant with how labor will turn out. It helps that I had one easy one already, and I try to keep worries at bay. But since all of my previous pregnancy dreams had been about miscarriage, it's nice to finally have a good one. Weird dreams are normal during pregnancy, I just hope they continue along this vein from now on.