A New Plan

I am so excited right now!!!!

This is a super long story, but basically since I found out I was pregnant (and was seeing an Ob) I knew I wanted a doula. I quickly realized that delivering in a hospital with an Ob and wanting the type of birth that we did, a doula was going to be pretty important. We found a wonderful one and all was great! However, in our lovely economy we decided that the combination of learning so much in our Bradley class, learning so much on our own and from our cousin (a labor and delivery nurse turned natural birth advocate and more :) ), and switching to midwives instead of an Ob, we needed to forgo the doula. I was pretty bummed, but we just couldn't swing it and justify it.

We decided my mom would play that part and I had both my mom and my husband read The Birth Partner which came highly reviewed.

I mean, I don't necessarily feel like I need someone to advocate for me anymore, like I did at first. I've researched a lot and know what I will and won't tolerate. But it would be really nice (even though we're with midwives, it's still a hospital setting and the on call midwife could have numerous patients to attend to at any given time) to have someone who isn't so close to the situation (I don't think my mom will like seeing me in pain!) there with us at all times to tell us "this is normal" or "try this now".

So anyway, my mom makes friends with everyone, everywhere she goes and of course has her Starbucks friends since she's there daily. I guess a manager there and his wife she had a baby w/ the midwife practice I am with and used a girl who lives nearby and is becoming a doula. She's done all the training, but needs a certain amout of births to be actually certified. I get to be that last one! They raved about her services and she sounds incredibly.

I'malso really excited because we know a lot about Bradley, but she is trained in Hypnobabies and I am really interested in trying that as well. She's had 4 children and had experienced everything from a standard Ob hospital birth w/ tons of interventions, to a C Section, to a birth center, to unassisted homebirth!

I feel so good about having someone in that position who has experienced a lot of it all herself and knows and understands why we were trying to do what we are and can help us get there.

It's very last minute, but we get to have a few prenatal appointments with her, she'll be with us the entire labor and delivery + 2 hours after, and we get a postnatal visit as well. And she mentioned and herbal bath that she sends home with us for after the birth, which sounds so neat!