birth plan

The websites always recommend making a birth plan. I always thought it was a funny, hippyish thing to do. With Jordan I had an obstetrician, with Tennyson I had a midwife and with #3 here I'm having a family doctor here in Portage.

If only I could find my granola . . .

I'm doing it. I'm making a birth plan. People don't quite understand what the difference is when you have a midwife, especially when I tell them that you can still have a midwife and give birth in a hospital. There is a BIG difference. Many differences, actually. Here, I love listing things:

1. The entire prenatal and birth experience is about you. Sure they are very concerned with the health of the baby and all that, but their focus is on mom. For instance, a doctor's appointment is about what? 15 minutes long? The nurse does everything and doc comes in at the end to poke around your belly for a minute and then buggers off. The midwife sets aside an entire hour for you. The weight, measurements and heartbeat portion only takes 10 minutes or so, the rest of the time is to chat about any anxiety you may have, ask questions, talk about the birth, etc. as you sit on the couch in the office and watch Jordan play with the box of toys. There is no nurse either, the midwife does everything.
2. There are many different tests you can undergo when you're pregnant. A midwife informs you of the test (along with pros and cons) and lets you decide which ones you want. A doctor hands you a slip of paper and sends you to the lab. He makes you feel like this stuff is standard and you have to do it. It is standard, but you don't have to do anything.
3. Medical interventions - this is my BIGGEST pet peeve ever so bear with me!! People always ask "What if something goes wrong?" "What if you need a C-Section?" Um, yeah, the midwife can tell if something is going wrong - she has all the monitoring equipment that a doctor has. The thing that annoys me is that the rise in the need for medical interventions correlates A LOT (and yes, I've looked into this, not just making it up) with medical meddling. Pump a woman full of synthetic hormones to induce labour and then be surprised when the body doesn't respond in a natural way. Ridiculous. Oh yeah, and the episiotomies? It's actually better for the woman to tear. I know, sounds yucky, the whole thing, but you heal faster from a tear than a cut. The doctors like to cut because it speeds up labour by about 8 seconds (so they can get back to golfing) and it's somewhat quicker for them to stitch. Nice that mommy comes first eh? Any of you men out there should have stopped reading already!
4. There's more stuff, but I won't get too into it. I'm afraid this is becoming boring! Hehe, just keep reading, in case anything interesting happens.

That's my story. Anyway, I'm working on a birth plan. I guess I am a little granola where childbirth is concerned.

A birth plan is just something you write up and give to the doctor that outlines some specific wishes/requests that you have for your baby's "birthday." You can bet that doctors never ask for these, but mine is going to get one!

What am I asking for? Just a few things - no IV (they love the IV, you should have seen the nurse's face when I was in labour with my first baby and refused the IV, I think she almost panicked. Went and got a superior.), no uninvited "guests" popping in to see how labour is going, no cutting (it's just mean!), don't offer drugs unless I ask, etc. Nothing too demanding, basically just leave me alone and let me have my baby!