New Belly and Beats

Today, a young-ish woman who we met at a Home Birth Story Night who is still figuring out her insurance situation came over to our house to borrow our doppler/babyheartlistener thingy, and Cati showed her how to use it. After many warnings about how she shouldn't worry if she doesn't hear anything, it's still early (she's 10 weeks), blah blah, they found the heartbeat in about 2 minutes. It was really wonderful to be there with her when she heard the heartbeat for the first time, reminded me what a relief and joy it was for us the first time. Then, at an Oscar party, we met a guy who'd had a homebirth for both of his children, who are 8 and 13 years old, and found out he had our same midwife! I'm really loving how this is bringing us into a sort of community with people we would've never met otherwise.

Speaking of homebirth, we told Dr. Kahn we were planning on it for the first time. He was, of course, somewhat discouraging, but didn't put undo pressure on us. He just said, you know, that Kaiser has a nice facility and he always encourages folks to go to the hospital JUST IN CASE. It was all really reasonable, and we really like Dr. Kahn, but afterwards it struck me...having birth isn't a disease. It's a normal activity that has some risks. Like walking outside. Or getting on a plane. Or riding a bicycle. I wonder if I should now only ride my bicycle around the hospital "just in case" anything goes wrong? It's amazing how you have to remind yourself that birth is actually not something that needs to be cured. Of course, there is a very slight chance something could go wrong that the extra 10 minutes we might need to get the several blocks to the hospital might complicate, but our midwife has done nearly 100o births, we feel confident in her expertise. As well as Cati's. And that's what hospitals and ambulances and doctors are for, IN CASE anything goes wrong, we have no hesitance about that.

Anyway, if we knew Kahn would be at the birth, we might feel differently. But for all the nice things he's saying, we have no idea who will be there when she actually gives birth. Could be someone who hates natural birth, or is just sleepy or whatever. Maria is with us now, and she will be with us then and after. That means alot.