Birth Update...

I know, these aren't as fun as pictures, so I will try to get some pics of Graeme today to post :)

Went to the dr. yesterday. She wanted to strip my membranes, but I declined b/c there's a risk of breaking your water if they do that, and there's no reason to be doing that at 38 weeks!

She approved everything on my birth plan!!! I was totally surprised, and then relieved. What a blessing.

She told me that they may want to put in an internal fetal monitor if they can't get a good read with the external. Well, I'm doing some research on that today and found that it's a strap they SCREW into the baby's head. What?! So I'm probably going to talk to her about that next week (if I don't have the baby before then) and express my concern regarding that. I'd probably have to sign a consent form or something if I really pressed declining that one, but I'm not wild about screwing something into my baby's head.

They also got a slight positive on my GBS screen (the most common bacterial infection in newborns - something like 40% of mothers carry it naturally - it doesn't hurt us as adults). But my midwife called this morning and told me that I can request to have it done again, and there are alternative treatments to antibiotics. If you test positive, they will give you antibiotics in the hospital every 4 hours to pass in to the baby's system. I'm also not wild about that...so technically if I had a 12 hour labor, I'd get 3 doses of antibiotics! Yuck! It increases the baby's chances of thrush during the first few days of nursing, which would not be fun at all.

My midwife called this morning to tell me she received my post-operative report from Graeme's birth and she was extremely encouraging. She said they reported that I got to 8+cm dilated and 2+ station, which meant I was less than 1 inch from the baby's head coming out! So I've been through almost an entire labor, it was simply his positioning, full occiput posterior, that caused the c-section...and frankly, had I had a midwife who had some ideas about re-positioning, I probably could have avoided it. But, God had a reason for everything that happened, and I just continue to seek to learn from our experiences and apply that knowledge to this time around. Marilee said she thinks I will have a much easier, quicker labor this time, if this baby stays in a good position! Like she says, my body is completely capable of a wonderful birth, and we've done everything we can do this time to encourage optimal positioning.
As of right now, I can feel his bottom and back right in front of my belly, which is perfect :-)

At the visit yesterday, I'm 2cm dilated already - doesn't really mean much - like, it doesn't mean I'm going into labor tomorrow or anything...but good to know I've got a head start LOL!

Thanks so much to those of you that gave input on the birth plan. It helps a lot to hear from people who've birthed in a hospital - I didn't have to think through all that last time around, so I appreciate the input!

And can I say, my doula continues to be awesome! We've been e-mailing back and forth about all this stuff, and she isn't pushing anything, but offers lots of information and encouragement.