The dirt on baby #3.

Since the word is out now, here is the dirt on baby #3. Baby #3 is due in late May (May 27, says our midwife. May 28, says the OB I saw before that. June, says me.) We were a bit surprised that we are expecting right now, which is why we sat on the information for about 6 weeks. We hadn't even intended to tell Erin until we got everything sorted out and digested the information ourselves, but she found some ultrasound pictures in my purse, and Erin isn't stupid.

Basically, we really had to get to an arrangement we were comfortable with, because that's not what we started out with. I basically fell into this OB situation, and I'll say, the OB is very nice. I just really do not enjoy the obstetrical approach to pregnancy. There is a lot that was done that was very unnecessary, not to mention costly. (While I enjoy seeing the baby, the copays on those ultrasounds every single visit really plunder the paycheck.) Plus, I don't enjoy the OB's attitude that this is a precarious situation. It's like each time, she would say, "It all looks good." and then she'd pause for a minute, and say, "...well, for an early pregnancy anyhow." almost as if she was expecting me to lose the baby or something. While that can absolutely happen to anyone, our odds of a healthy pregnancy are good. I like to think positively about these things. "It all looks good" would be sufficient. I also did not like how I always felt like I was fighting her off on giving me drugs. She asked if I had any complications and I said no, and she said "no nausea?" (Nausea is a complication? I thought it was a normal part of early pregnancy for most people.) I said, "Yeah, I'm kinda pukey, but-" and before I could finish my sentence, she had a prescription for me for some drug that's really pretty questionable, not to mention with some crazy side-effects. I never filled it. (Frankly, I'd rather spend the first half hour of my day hugging the bowl than take that stuff.) That's happened with EVERYTHING. I have a purse full of prescriptions I will never fill, just from two visits. It's just weird to me. I'd only ever been seen by midwives before that, and there is not this focus on medication.

So anyhow, I was sticking with the insurance-approved OB until I got all my labs done because they are really expensive, and insurance will pick up 100% of them if it's through an in-network provider. They would pick up 0% if referred by a homebirth midwife, or done through any of our local birth centers, so I wanted to get my labs done before completely transferring out. It's been hard to stick with it for so long, though. I can only lie so many times, and say which hospital I want to have the baby at. Every time they ask, I want to yell "ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THEM!!!" and run away (because the hospitals have such a high c-section rate, it's scary) but I had to BS my way through it in order to get what I needed. I went to the final OB appointment I will ever go to this morning, and they were taking my history, asking about Erin and Orren's births. It is amazing the things they consider complications. A nuchal cord (cord wrapped around the neck), and posterior presentation (sunny side up baby) are both considered complications. These things happen every day, and are absolutely not complicated. Ask any midwife on the planet how many times a week she delivers babies with both of those factors, and if she considers them complications. I guarantee you she deals with them all the time, and considers it a non-issue. I was shocked at the things the mainstream OB profession considers complications. It was really scary. Although this OB is very nice indeed, I do not feel safe in that setting, especially when it comes to the baby. (I did not admit to anything which would possibly get me a high risk designation.)

Anyhow, during this whole OB debacle, I kept myself sane by interviewing homebirth midwives, and checking out birth centers. I found that El Paso has three homebirth midwives and two birth centers. I really wanted to do a homebirth this time, so I only checked into the birth centers as a formality just in case none of the midwives worked out for me. The birth centers were good. The midwifery school, while so cheap to give birth at, wasn't really my style (too busy and almost all the patients are from Juarez, so it's almost exclusively Spanish-speaking, which would make Thak uncomfortable), but Casa, the other birth center, was nice. If my first choice was another birth center birth, I'd have been very happy delivering at Casa.

As for the homebirth midwives, the first two I spoke with were definitely good, but not the perfect fit I was looking for. If they had been my only options, I'd have chosen one and been fine, but I interviewed the third and final one to see how I liked her. Thak and I met her last Friday for the first time, and from the first moment, we knew that she was the one for us, no question. Of course we loved the answers she had for all our questions, but more than that, we just really feel like we can trust her. She has 20 years of experience, over 2000 births (mostly home, some at Casa), and only a 1% hospital transfer rate. I thought her low transfer rate would mean she would be extremely picky about who she would assist, but in talking with her, we found that she is actually not at all picky about her clients (she does not call us patients). She takes moms with things most would consider risk factors, delivers babies that are breech at home, even delivers twins at home. She isn't picky. She's GOOD. I was impressed. Anyone who can take such a broad slice of the population, and come up with the kind of success rate she has, is definitely a person I want on my side. I was so happy and relieved after we met with her and she agreed to take us on as clients.

In the week and a half since then, I've mostly been agonizing about how to bring this whole OB debacle to an end. I've heard so many horror stories about OB offices being really nasty to women who transfer out to a non-hospital practitioner, or not transferring records, or something else crazy like that. I think I'm just going to tell them to transfer our records to Casa. (Our midwife is at Casa 3 days a week, so it would be easiest to send them there.) If I have them transferred there, hopefully the OB's office won't be mean to me about it. ACOG even says birth centers are ok. They just vilify homebirth (which makes no sense because the only way a birth center birth and a homebirth differ is in location). I just have felt trapped by this OB thing, and will feel a lot better when I get out of that situation completely. I had the blood drawn for my labs today, so as soon as the results come back, I'll call and get the records transferred, and be much better.

On the good side, paycheck plundering aside, it was nice to see the baby both times we have. We got to see the heartbeat, and all that. Today we got to see the baby moving all over the place, flailing and kicking. It's a very active baby, just like Erin and Orren were, with a super strong heartbeat of 167 beats per minute! (A fast heartbeat is good this early.) The baby is also measuring about a week ahead of gestational age in size, so this is probably going to be another big one, but that's no surprise. My guess right now is that it is going to be a boy, 10 pounds, June 4.

Yes, I will show ultrasound pictures very soon. They are not scanned in yet. You really couldn't see much on the 6-week ones that we got before (the baby was just so small then) but you can distinguish a little bit on these 9-week ones, so I'll post them soon.

Right now, we're just looking forward to our first appointment at Casa with our outstanding midwife, and that is one week from tomorrow. Oh, and a super cool thing about her is that she does evening appointments one night a week! That way, Thak can actually go to all my appointments this time, and not have to worry about the people at his work harassing him about wanting to be involved with the whole thing. Sure, he'll miss an hour or so of school for the appointments, but his instructor is flexible enough about time that he'll almost certainly work with him when it comes to that. This will become especially important when he's interning at a shop while on terminal leave from the Army. He won't be able to take time off during his internship, and he won't have night classes anymore then, so we'll be really set with evening appointments at that point in time.