So... a few things to update....

The last week and a half have been kind of busy for us. On Friday last week we met with our doula and hired her. She is very much a believer in the ability and design of a woman's body to deliver a child without the assitance or intervention of modern medicine. I'm really excited about having her and feel quite reassured about a hospital birth now. I know some, if not many, of you don't quite understand my fear of the hospital environment. I can't really explain it except that I belief birth and labor to be something that God has created our bodies for and that not only are interventions unnecessary but indeed cause more problems than they solve. So strongly do I feel this way that the possibility of interventions being forced on me causes me fear. I'm still struggling with this fear and don't know how to overcome it before the birth. I don't think I'm capable of overcoming it on my own. I know I could not go through with a hospital birth if I didn't have the support of a doula who felt as strongly as I do that I am capable of doing this. All this to say, I am very much excited and relieved to have found Katie. I think our personalities match well and I look forward to having her as a support during the birth. I think, too, that it will be helpful for Jim to have someone supporting him.

The second bit of news is that we started our Bradley class on Monday night. Poor Jim, twelve weeks for at least two hours a week. I hope for his sake that our teacher is a little more engaging than she was on Monday night. Not that it was too bad, really, but not many guys are going to be thrilled at 24+ hours of birthing class!

Finally, I had my 6 month appointment with the doctor. The baby's fine (the heartbeat was 152 beats per minute... don't really know what that means, other than healthy!) and I'm fine. I had a bunch of questions that I asked the doctor as to how things are handled in their practice (like c-section rate, vacuum extractions and episiotomies, etc). Anyway, while their c-section rate is lower than the national average (25% versus aprox. 30% national avg. sometimes a doctor even is as high as 40%!), he told me that 99% of their patients request an epidural before labor begins! I found this number to be really shocking. Are there really that many women out there who are that clueless about pain medication and it's side effects with birth. Also, I can pretty much expect that they will give me an episiotomy (as first time mothers are apparently unable to stretch appropriately... bullshit really. Let's think about this. If 95% of first time mothers are unable to stretch sufficiently in their perineum to deliver a baby and need an episiotomy, than why or how would that change for a second birth? If you never got there in the first place and now have the added difficulty of trying to stretch inflexible scar tissue why are your chances higher of gaining your goal? Whatever. Completely illogical.) All this to say, I believe I can deliver naturally with these doctor's but with the number of unmedicated births they see (1%, Ha!) and the frequency with which the doctor kept bringing up emergency situations during our discussion I do not feel comfortable. So, I'm asking around about doctor's who are actually supportive of the natural process and possibly even familiar with it!

I promise pictures are coming very soon! Possibly even in the next few days!