Deven is doing great - singing and dancing lately. He's learned what a tiger (Sher) says... "HISS-ROAR!" But that's not why I write today.
Like only a small fraction of expecting parents, Yogesh and I have decided that we will have Cupcake at home.
Lest you worry that we're becoming born-again hippies intent on birthing in a barn, um - NO. We have been influenced by Deven's birth despite the labor, as well as friends Tom & Kaya who had both their kids @ home, and Amy & Paul who had theirs @ home (but in the UK, which is much more practical about the whole thing), as well as books like "
The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth" and
studies showing that planned normal homebirths are as safe as hospital births.
The Business of Being Born was the last straw - but not that I really needed convincing by that point.
We've engaged a great certified midwife,
Nancy, from whom we're receiving great prenatal care, and will still be taking birth classes, etc.
Danielle has agreed to come over to help with "whatever" during the whole thing (assuming Cupcake shows up before she has to fly to MD for Christmas break!), and Daadi - while not 100% sure of all this - has agreed that we're not *too* far from the hospital, should something go awry. She's right: Should Cupcake prove difficult (unlikely with a 2nd baby, but possible); the hospital is still just .4 miles away- and I could have an emergency C-Section faster by coming from home, than I could if I were laboring in the hospital.
The decision process started in May after we learned I was pregnant - here's what I wrote but never published then:
PRENATAL AND DELIVERY CARE
I've mentioned before, how lucky I was to work with Yeshi and the Homestyle Midwifery midwives for Deven's birth.
I feel this way even more strongly, every time I hear a birth horror-story (like we did in May from a gal, now pregnant with her 2nd, who for her 1st was induced because she was just 1 week "overdue" - then had a catheter, an epidural, and an eventual c-section that she's convinced could've been avoided), or am reminded of the gal who gave birth a week after I did with a posterior baby, who had a c-section, or read another article that "posterior presentation" (that's sunny-side-up) makes for a harder, longer labor. Mine certainly wasn't a walk in the park with Deven - but I made it through, all 'parts' intact!
Yeshi's team was unceremoniously kicked out of St. Luke's (no matter what CPMC says, those of us who know, realize it's because her clients were of too high a percentage of insurance-holding, older, educated women like me, who did not need lots of expensive interventions - in other words, we were unprofitable). So, unless something miraculous happens, we have to find another care provider.
I thought about working with the
St. Luke's Women's Center - but as the "dead link" there indicates, CPMC has other designs for them, too. The lead Doctor, Dr. Laura Norrell, is fabulous, but her team couldn't see me for a MONTH - and that's when I was already 8-10 weeks pregnant - unacceptable, to me. I don't know why - are they too busy? Don't care? Bad timing? Any of those reasons doesn't bode well. My prior doctor there, Dr. Nicol, left and moved away with no notice. I suppose there's no requirement that the office give me notice, but it would've been nice to know. So, I have no primary Gynecologist, and I'm looking for maternity care.
The latest on
"primary, urgent, and maternity care" at St. Luke's is that it will stay for now - but who knows when a budget-cutting bureaucrat at CPMC will change their minds on that? So...bathtub and birthing-ball @ home, here we come!
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