Miss Lazy has a baby

I might be in denial, but I’m not too worried about the birth, despite all the stories I heard recently.

I was even considering home birth, but Mr. C doesn’t want to and I can’t argue with him on this. A couple of friends suggested leaving it for the next kid(s) after I know everything went fine with the 1st one.

So, there’s this new birth centre opening at the hospital I’m being looked after – it’s not my hospital of choice,  but it’s one of the options and it’s where they will take me in case I have to call an ambulance.

Birth centres are small maternity units usually run by midwives. It is dedicated to offer a more natural birth as opposed to the whole hospital/clinic experience – the idea is to keep it as natural as possible, leaving the mom to deal with the birth with little or no medical intervention. It also means that if you are in desperate pain, they have all sorts of natural pain relief methods – aromatherapy, shiatsu, reflexology, hot towels, soothing music and Entonox (gas). Oh, they also have birth pools! All does sound very good, doesn’t it? Not surprisingly this is my favourite option at the moment.

So now let’s talk about the cons: birth centre only allows moms with low-risk pregnancies, with a good chance of having a normal delivery at full term; BCs won’t accept moms with gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, or if the baby has problems that have been picked up already (*); also the brand new birth centre I want to go to only opens in April, if everything goes well – Baby C is due in May, so very little time to go for a visit; there are only 5 rooms in the centre – let’s face it, I guess there’s more than 5 women giving birth on the same day in the area; only 3 pools – again, if you are going for such natural option, why not opt for the pool as well, since they say it hurts less?; if you need a strong painkiller you’re screwed – no epidural option for you in birth centres, no C-sections, no forceps or ventouse. Honestly, if everything is fine with mom and baby, there’s no need for these things. The epidural bit might be tricky though, especially if it is a slow labour.

As I said I’m not too worried about the birth – I don’t handle pain too well (who likes to be in pain anyway), but I can accept pain. My favourite example is when I broke my leg when a car ran over me – 4 years ago. Mind you, I’m not comparing that pain with birth pain. I broke my right leg and hurt my head. It was just before a long holiday and I was going to my mom’s house the following day. I was so pissed off that the guy messed up with my plans of travelling, that instead of focussing on the pain, I was yelling at guy, while lying on the floor covered in blood, for screwing my long weekend. On the ambulance to the hospital, I didn’t let the doctors cut my jeans off because I wanted them back in one piece. The guy was a bit shocked and said to the driver “geez, don’t worry, she is great, she doesn’t even want to cut the trousers off! We will have to remove it.” The pain was intense, but I felt good to have my jeans – which by the way, they don’t fit in anymore.

All I want to say is that pain is horrible to deal with, but it can go away. I do believe that labour pain is a “one off” (ok, can last many hours), once the baby is out, the pain is gone and you want to have another child. And – I always regret when I say this – sometimes I do enjoy feeling pain, if I know it will go away. It makes me feel alive and appreciate the painless moments even more. I prefer to feel pain to be scared. So as long as the baby and I are fine, I think everything will be great (famous last words).

Today I had another midwife appointment – a routine antenatal. It’s my 3rd so far. Here in the UK we have the 1st midwife appointment at week 10, the 1st scan between weeks 11-14, 2nd MW appointment at week 16, another scan between weeks 18-20, then MW appointments every 2-3 weeks – if it’s the first pregnancy; it’s less for women on the 2nd child +.

Today was interesting; I guess the midwife was in a good mood, so she was all chatty and warm. My womb measures 28 cm (they measure the belly vertically), which she said is a great size. She felt Baby C, who is upside down (ready to leave, sweetheart?), with her back to the left (where the placenta is) and legs and arms to the right. All good with Baby C’s heartbeat, all good with my urine sample and my blood pressure. So, I’m a healthy mom carry a healthy baby.

I got the forms I needed for HR at work and to claim my £190 Government allowance (they give £190 to every single pregnancy in the UK – it’s per pregnancy, not per child, so if you are expecting twins or triplets…).

We have this book (maternity record) that I have to take with me whenever I have any appointment to do with pregnancy and they write down everything in there. It’s great because if we move, I have everything with me. I just don’t know if NHS has one single database where every hospital or GP could access my files. I haven’t a feeling that it doesn’t work like this.

So, according to the maternity record, this appointment was to discuss 1) maternity leave and benefits (and get that form), 2) smoking cessation (I don’t smoke, never did, so nothing to discuss), 3) feeding intention, which she basically asked if I decided on breastfeeding or bottle – well, I REALLY* want to breastfeed and at least for 6 months, but you never know, right? and 4) Anomaly Scan Result (the one that came with the water in the kidneys).

I wanted to ask her a couple of other questions, such as the birth centre and plane travels but I just realised looking at the book that those are topics for next appointment.

* When I say REALLY I mean I have this physical urge to breastfeed – the whole hormone/mood/physical change my body is going through and breastfeeding are the main reasons why I wanted to conceive a baby – otherwise I would happily adopt instead. I don’t really care much about genes/DNA.