13 Weeks!

Woah, I'm 13 weeks today. This is kind of flying by. Only 27-ish more weeks to go!

I've been feeling pretty well these last few weeks. Sometimes I still feel sick and can't eat much, but rarely. I'm still tired a lot and have slept like 11 hours the last 3 nights, but I think that's because I've had clinicals this week and am working 10 hour days. I feel like I'm in the in-between stage. When I had morning sickness, that was my way of knowing that baby was ok and still growing and everything. And once I'm able to start feeling the baby kick, I'll know he/she is doing ok also! Right now, I'm not having many symptoms and I can't feel the baby kick yet, so it's sometimes a little hard not to worry or wonder if everything's alright. My stomach isn't growing as far as I can tell. All my clothes still fit better than before I was pregnant and I'm still down about 6 pounds from when I found out I was pregnant. That's fine with me though, cause soon enough, I know I will feel like a whale. I was supposed to have an ultrasound yesterday, which would have been so cool because we could see how much the baby has developed and grown in the last 3 weeks. However, I told my job I could only work 30 hours a week because school and 40 hours of work per week was killing me. So I lost my insurance...I should have waited until after my ultrasound. Oh well. The ultrasound/appointment was to check for Down's Syndrome and other abnormalities. Finding out our baby has Down's wouldn't change anything, so it doesn't matter to me whether I have the testing for it or not. My doctor never gave me the option whether or not to have the tests. He actually didn't even tell me what my ultrasound/appointment was for. That bothers me a lot, because I feel like it is my health and my baby, and the doctor should at least tell me why I'm having the tests I'm having and that they're OPTIONAL. Needless to say, I'm not going to continue to go to that practice anymore. Which leads me to my next news...

I found a midwife that I absolutely love! I met with her last week, and the appointment was the complete opposite of anything I've experienced at my doctor's office. The midwife's name is Wendy, and she spent over an hour with me, getting to know me and answering my questions. She let me listen to the baby's heartbeat, and spent a lot of time explaining to me what each sound was, which was really nice. She was very clear that she isn't going to push any testing on me or anything. She told me what testing she thinks is important, and WHY it's important, and told me that it's up to me whether or not I do it. She helpfully offered her opinions without making me feel like I was under any pressure to have anything done. She made me feel very at ease with having a home birth, and was even familiar with my fainting condition, which was my biggest concern. She seems to have a true passion for helping women during this amazing time in their lives. After one meeting, I feel a hundred times more comfortable with her delivering my baby than I did with my doctor. Of course, I know that there are great doctors out there and that my experience is just an unfortunate one that I should not base my opinion of ALL doctors on. But I definitely feel that a midwife and a home birth is best for me and the baby, and it's a very personal decision that I wanted to feel 100% ok with. I've been reading lots of stories online about home births, and honestly, I have not read a single one where the woman has said "it was horrible, I hated it, and I never want to do it again." Every story I've read has been honest about how hard and painful it is, but every story ends with the woman saying that it's the best thing she's ever done and she would do it again. Every experience sounds like a good one in the end.

I've had a lot of people tell me things like "be prepared to go to the hospital," and "what if something goes wrong and you don't get to the hospital in time?" I think a lot of people close to me think I'm crazy and that having a home birth is dangerous and irresponsible. I definitely want to do it, but I also understand that if something does go wrong, and I have to go to the hospital, it's ok. Things don't always go as planned, and the ultimate goal is to have a healthy baby in the safest way possible. I live about 5 minutes from the nearest hospital, and the point of having a midwife there is because she's trained to deal with any problems that may arise. She said she's had one emergency transport to a hospital in her whole career. I think we're trained to think that pregnancy is a medical problem that must end with medical intervention (i.e. - going to the hospital for pain medications, induction, c-section, etc). It's not! It's a natural thing that our bodies were made for. Obviously there are cases where medication, inductions, and c-sections are absolutely necessary for the health of the baby.