anticipation

This morning, I met with Sarah, the woman who has offered to doula for me. We brought the kiddos over to my friend Jaime's house for a playdate/meeting. It went really well and I feel quite good about having her help us out with the birth. Jaime will also be there, most likely, and has said she'd be happy to act as photographer as well. Talking over my last birth with them, my fatal flaw seemed obvious---I had absolutely no labor management help until I had been in labor for fifteen hours and was in quite a lot of pain. Though one of the midwives did visit around 6pm, about nine hours after it all began, she decided that I wasn't far enough along and left; Jon and I were left to our own devices until a call to the other midwife at midnight. It seems obvious now that a woman in that situation would choose to go to a hospital for medication.

This birth will be in the hospital by default; there are no nurse-midwives (read: legal midwives) doing homebirths in my area any more. I am a bit anxious because the hospital is a half hour to 45 minutes away from our apartment, but Sarah assures me that she'd be happy to come over and help figure out when it's time to transfer. I would like to get there in time, but certainly not too early, both because it can (of course) stall labor, and because the idea of having Tristan present is becoming very appealing, but I just can't expect a toddler to be happy in a hospital for hours on end.

I guess I'm somewhat apprehensive and worried about the whole situation. I don't think that I handled birth well last time, but in many ways, that is probably just because it went so very differently than I had expected...I traded a homebirth for a labor helped along with Nubain. I am going into labor with fewer expectations and a more open mind this time, but I cannot help but worry that the interventions will snowball and I will be powerless in my daughter's birth.

34 weeks along as of yesterday. So, three more weeks and I'll be considered term, but she dropped about a week ago, so I'll just have to see how much further than that we'll go.