Week 36: OB appointment & change of plans

Wednesday night, Doug and I met with Sally Avenson, who I hope will be
my midwife. She was highly recommended by several people and
accredited with my insurance company. After spending the whole day
working out insurance details to cover the birthing center, the midwife
and the pediatrician, Doug and I went to meet with Sally.

When we arrived at her house I was a bit skeptical because it looked
like a total remodeling job in progress. All the walls were in various
states of demolition or repair and clutter everywhere. One curious
item caught my eye; a book about mothers and babies from around the
world. There were great photos of mother and babies from faraway
places and guess what? I didn't see a pile of plastic toys and stuff
surrounding each baby. We buy too much junk in this country. When I
was stationed in Korea, the mothers used to tie the baby to their back
and off they'd go to shop or even work in the rice paddys. I always
admired them when I saw the little baby bundles on their backs.

Sally's office was fairly tidy and one of her walls was dedicated to a
collage of the many babies she's delivered. I couldn't count them all,
but it was a testament to her good work. Sally had many question to
ask and a wealth of information to share with us. Unfortunately, at
the end of our conversation she did not feel I was a good candidate for
a birth at the Community and Family Birthing Center. She did however,
know my OBGYN and said that if Dr. Daniel said it was okay then, she
would do it.

Yesterday, Doug and I went to see Dr. Daniel and everything was going
great. The stress test was good, lots of fetal movement and my blood
sugars looked good too.
But, when we told Dr. Daniel that we wanted to have an out of hospital
birth she didn't think it was a good idea because the baby needs to
have his blood sugars monitored for the first 24 hours. I was
crestfallen, my dreams of labor and delivery in a serene environment
faded completely from view. Dr. Daniel recommended the hospital birth
because I needed to have more medical care available then what the
birth center could offer, which is basically a do-it-yourself method.

So, a change of plans are in motion and we will be transferring to the
Swedish Birthing Center in Ballard which is pretty close to our house
and they only deliver about 70 babies per month compared to 700 per
month at the main hospital in downtown Seattle. The rooms aren't as
nice as at the birthing center, but at least I'll still have a chance
at a natural child birth with medical backup if I need it.

It's funny. Four years ago, Doug and I began this adventure of
starting a family and it took more than three years to realize our
dream. For the first year I was defiant because I couldn't believe
that I could fail at something as simple as getting pregnant. How
could I not do that? I've planned so many things in my life and I
didn't have any control over this one little thing. The second year, I
was just mad and getting desperate from having to use so much medical
science that didn't seem to be working. And of course the third year,
I started asking lots of questions until I got the results I wanted.
At times it's been depressing and at others down right laughable. I'll
have to write more about some of my experiences along the way, but for
now it's nice to know that I'm in the home stretch and ready to take
things as they happen. It's nice to be able to plan everything, but
life is a force of nature and can't be predicted, so I'll just do my
best to have a healthy baby under any circumstances necessary.