My husband fixed my dryer! My husband fixed my dryer!! I'm doing a little happy dance and singing this happy song. Schlepping my laundry around to other people's houses to wash is a habit I was happy to leave in my college days.
I still haven't read about what's going on in my pregnancy these days...I was 26 weeks (out of a total of 40) on Wednesday. I went in for my May checkup on Monday. As of Monday, I weighed 153 pounds (pre-pregnancy weight is about 140) and my stomach measured 27 inches. That's the first time they've measured my stomach so I don't have much to compare that too. I guess they were measuring the dome??
As for where and who is delivering, I'm a bit hung up still...I met one of the three midwives who deliver at Mercy (hospital) on Monday. She was nice and calm and fine, but for some reason when I was driving to work afterwards, I got really upset. I had this moment where I realized that I just wasn't going to get what I wanted, and I was going to have to get over and just do it the traditional way. The thing is, I think the Mercy experience would probably be similar to what would happen if we were in Virginia Beach. The birthing center there was in the hospital and although I never got around to touring it, I'm guessing it was pretty similar. And it's not that bad; it's just that I have gotten my head wrapped around home birthing and am stuck on it and really, really wanting that experience. I decided not to think about it until after I met the home birthing midwife, which I did on Wednesday after work.
I sat on a comfy couch in a cozy basement office surrounded by the home birthing midwife, her assistant, and her student. We talked about all my concerns (most of which are the concerns of my mom and Eric more so than myself). I got teary-eyed a couple times when explaining the frustration of having everyone so adamantly against home birthing--hormones have had me pretty wacky and emotional this week. I guess that shows how comfortable I was with them. They are very kind and warm and knowledgeable and soothing...I think my biggest attraction is that they weren't alarmists. I feel like so much of the giving birth process is a cause for alarm for most people, and I really want to avoid that. I want to be surrounded by people who look at it as something perfectly normal and natural, not a medical emergency. Those people are hard to find.
This midwife also had a lot of interesting things to say about GBS (see much earlier blog) and ways to deal with it naturally rather than with antibiotics which is what the hospital will administer. She sent me home with a ton of reading material on this topic that has been really helpful. And she said she would meet with Eric and mom to answer their questions and attempt to calm them down as well.
So I left there calm, zenned out, and thinking that maybe I could have what I wanted after all. Yes, the cost is $1800 and she doesn't accept my insurance, but I was thinking that probably we'd have some patient out of pocket costs for the hospital birth anyway so maybe they'd be comparable. I called my insurance the next day to ask about this cost, hoping we could take cost off the table of pros/cons. Welllllll....not so much. My insurance covers 100% of maternity care except for a charge of $15.65/night for a hospital stay with a minimum charge of $25...While I hate to make yet another decision based solely on money, the cost difference between $1800 and $25 is huge. Maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal if we weren't simultaneously renovating an entire house AND trying to save for when the baby is actually here and in need of certain things that cost money...The idea of paying to deliver when we otherwise wouldn't have to doesn't appeal to my frugal mind. Money has always been my biggest hang up and a cause for great stress, as much as I know that it shouldn't be.
So I'm back to being frustrated and annoyed, but mostly I'm just not thinking about it. I had my May checkup so I figure I have some time before I need to decide (like until my June appointment).
As for advice, there seem to be two camps: those who think I should do a hospital birth rather than take the "risk" of a home birth and those who support my home birth options and insist that money should not be a deciding factor on this because it's a big and important event (these people have also pointed out that we didn't go through the expenses of a wedding, which is true, but we are going through the expenses of a renovation...).
Anyway, I don't know what I want to hear at this point. I just want the home birthing midwife to take my insurance so that money isn't even a factor.
Well, here is a compromise. Deliver at Mercy the first baby - first deliveries are always frought with problems and sometimes long labors. If that goes well, normal pregnancy, normal labor, normal delivery - then next time when you have more money and a less nervous mother and husband - you can do the home birth. You'll know what to expect and chance of complications is less (well unless the 2nd time around you, for some reason, have a complicated pregnancy.)
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