little feet, big sky

It’s grey in L.A. today and hot cocoa stuffed with BonBonBar vanilla marshmallows is delish. Too bad I can’t figure out how to lick the inside of the mug…

The spouse is recovering nicely, thanks to lots and lots of vicodin. :-) My mother drove down for a surprise visit on last Monday, which was an unexpected godsend. She’s a nurse, so it was doubly good to have someone handy to keep an eye on the sleeping-all-day spouse as well as be able to hand the baby over once in a while. We lounged around for the most part, drinking tea and coffee and hanging out in the kitchen. The kitchen part is fun, because we both love cooking and it’s hard not to look at a jar of pecans and start imagining warm pecan pie. She woke up early one morning and cleared out and rearranged all my kitchen cupboards! Yea, Mom!

Now she’s spending the weekend with my sister, and the house is quiet. I’ve resurrected some old knitting/crochet projects and have filled up the recent downtime from Spice with laundry, the kitchen, crochet, tea and books. I whipped up some booties for her to wear under her baby legwarmers in some buttery soft , and frogged the newborn baby bolero I was making to make a sleep soaker instead. I also just finished Stardust last night and it was fantastic. (I’ve been a fan of Neil Gaiman since Preludes and Nocturnes, and aside from the Sandman books, my favorite book is still Neverwhere.) Now that I’ve read the book, I can add the DVD to my Netflix queue in good conscience.

My mother and sister are going for dim sum this morning and invited me. Given the recent drama, I’ll probably bow out, but dim sum! The spouse, being vegetarian, has a tough time finding something edible there, so I usually only go with my mother and sister. *sigh* I’ll just have to content myself with being curled up here with my tea, a blanket, cleaning out my rss feed reader and try desperately not to think of hot, steaming nor my gai.

I’m 23 and 5/7 weeks pregnant and the hardest thing about being pregnant so far has been… other people.

I knew I didn’t want a hospital birth even before the spouse and I started trying. I’ve never been in a hospital for more than a few hours in the ER for an ear infection and I had no intention of starting now. I knew I wanted a midwife, but it wasn’t until I got pregnant that the hub and I started to talk about a homebirth. A few weeks looking around on Google and making a few phone calls turned up some interesting information: no birth centers within safe driving distance. So we started shopping for midwives and found one that we liked, met her and happily signed up for a midwife-assisted homebirth.

I knew this was going to be an unorthodox decision among family and friends, but I had no idea just how much. Perhaps if this was our second child, or just not our first, I wouldn’t have been swamped with other people’s opinions. Most people, primarily other mothers, would instantly exclaim “Just get the epidural – don’t wait!” To this I would often smile and half-joke “Well, I’m having a homebirth, so that’s a no-go for me!” Their expressions were often comical, somewhere between confusion and disbelief. I guess for most, homebirth is just not in their vocabulary.

Even my mother had a strong negative response. Her reaction was as if I’d just stated that I planned to find a barn in the mid-West to have my baby when I go in labor. It’s more than a little frustrating, because if you look at the numbers, homebirth is safer than a hospital birth if you’re not a high-risk pregnancy. And in all honesty, few women are truly high-risk. Doctor-assisted prenatal care has nothing on my midwife. :-) I’ve had monthly prenatal visits (my home or hers) for well over an hour each. I have my pulse & BP checked, urine for protein, prenatal blood screening, ultrasounds at 8 and 20 weeks, and an AFP screen. Plus, I have her home and cell numbers for any questions or concerns. Bloating like mad? One email gets me a reply with tons of natural tips and solutions. Funny pain in the side? A quick call to her cell gets a warm, friendly explanation and advice. The thought of going to to a doctor for prenatal care sounds like a nightmare!

The average c-section rate in hospitals in the U.S. is about 46%. My midwife’s is under 15%. I believe the best way for my child to be born will be quietly and gently at home, surrounded by his or her loving parents, two qualified and experienced midwives, and a doula. He or she will be gently dried off and half-wrapped in a blanket to keep the skin-to-skin contact that newborns find so soothing. The midwives will assess the baby and me to make sure we’re doing well and we will be left alone to enjoy the new addition to our family.

If you’re newly pregnant, or planning on it, I highly suggest two books: Immaculate Deception II and Misconceptions. If you’re the too-lazy-to-read type, then netflix The Business of Being Born.