The Plan

Everyone wants to know what the plan is. Now I'll tell you.

I will go into labor at roughly 5 in the morning. This will begin with contractions, of course, none of the silly water breaking in the bed stuff.

Thak will take Erin to school as usual, and at 8 am, I will call Alyson, who will then arrive, along with one apprentice, at 8:45.

The midwives and I will enjoy a breakfast of fruit and bagels, and I will drink blue Gatorade. They will have coffee.

By the time 9:30 rolls around, I'll have taken up residence in the pool, and be unwilling to get out.

My water will break at precisely 9:52, followed by no more than 10 minutes of undirected pushing, in a squatting position, in the water, facing east, with a wind coming from the west at 5 mph.

The baby will be born at exactly 10 am, and Thak will catch since it will be in the water.

The placenta will be born 20 minutes later, and promptly taken outside and buried in the zucchini patch.

After that, I'll be hungry, and eat chicken and salad for lunch, and of course, more blue Gatorade.




Sound like BS? It is.

Here's the real plan:

We're going to have a baby at some point, most likely in early June.

This will take place in our home.

Alyson will be on hand to assist should anything go wrong.

There will be a pool. In what capacity I will use it, I won't know until that time.

I will eat and drink whatever I want (and it will probably include blue Gatorade).

I will do whatever seems right at the time.

Everything will be ok.

(And we really will bury the placenta in the garden. They make great fertilizer!)


That's the plan. Not real elaborate, but honestly, I think that the problems only arise when people over-analyze this process. People seem to expect me to have this big elaborate plan since every part of it is up to me, but honestly, one of the biggest draws of homebirth for me (aside from the obvious draw of not having to leave home during labor, when it is very uncomfortable to leave home) is the fact that nobody expects me to have some big elaborate plan. All I have to do is do whatever occurs to me, on my own turf no less, and at some point have a baby. It's an infinitely simpler process than going to a hospital, or even a birth center (although that's pretty simple, too, when you get past the car ride.) where there are so many things that you have to tell people what you want, or don't want, or even in the case of hospitals, fight for your basic right to a normal birth. My plan is simple, honestly, because it can be.