Monday, October 26




Well, its been a while since I posted our announcement, so I guess I better update on what is going on these days. I am just over 15 weeks and doing well, in spite of my busy schedule of working a full-time job (40 hrs/wk), taking 6 college credits this quarter (Chemistry), along with my work I do for our home businesses and then the home and child care aspects (though I must give Scott and the kids the credit for keeping up on the house chores, etc... they are so awesome to take so much of that load off me! Scott even does most of the shopping and cooking these days, what a man!).

I have found a midwife who has agreed to assist me with a HBA2C (home birth after 2 cesareans) - YAH!!!! She is so awesome! I am also seeing the OB I went to last time for prenatal care so we can keep track of baby and make sure we are both healthy and good to go for a homebirth. The reason I have chosen to go with both options is because my insurance will cover the OB and all testing we want/need and also the hospital birth if its needed in the end, but it won't cover the birth at home with a midwife. In order to save out-of-pocket expenses, my midwife agreed to take a lesser fee for just the delivery and we'll give her updates of my prenatal visits and test results as needed.

I have already told my OB that I intend to have a VBAC this time and that I know that it means I cannot have him deliver me in the hospital. He was not surprised to hear it since he remembered from my last birth how desperate I was to have one and was so devastated when it didn't work out as planned. He suggested I could transfer care to the University of Washington Obstetrics clinic since they do allow VBA2C. My biggest issue is going to be getting past the 42 weeks mark, though, since I always go close to 43 weeks. I told him I was thinking more along the lines of finding a home birth midwife to attend me at home (note that I already HAD found this midwife but she advised me to not let on this to him at this point). He immediately said, "I didn't hear that... I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you say that!" LOL!

I guess if I have to "fire" him in the end to keep from being pressured into another repeat section, I will do that. I would rather not have to though, and know that he is there as a back up if we need it, as the hospital is only 5 miles down the road. I don't know how the hospital administration would view that, though, him having a 42+ week patient refusing to come in for a c-section. I'd be happy to do NSTs again, whatever it takes to convince them all is well with me and baby. This midwife claims to have an induction method she uses when under the gun such as in this sort of scenario, so I'm curious to see if it would work on me when nothing else ever has to kick me into labor!

But I'm not going to stress over the finer points until the time comes to do so. Until then, I'm just going to enjoy this pregnancy, as it was a long time coming. Maybe this one is my last, though I certainly hope not. I'm only 41 right now and always thought I'd be fertile until my late 40s or early 50's.

I had a sonogram at 13½ wks. Its too early to tell what baby is right now but I would sure love another girl, as we're at 8 boys to 3 girls right now. I've already figured out the ratios this one will give us: if its a girl, we'll have 2/1 ratio of boys to girls, but if its a boy, the ratio will be 3/1!