Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe...

Yesterday I finally decided on our midwife. I needed to do this last week (and the week before), but I've just been undecided about who to pick. Since day one we've known that we wanted a home birth with a midwife, but with the holidays and my mother's death, we did not have the time to do many interviews. So we've been getting general prenatal care in the meantime while we interviewed and decided on midwives.

The two midwives we interviewed couldn't be more different. One is a young earthy yoga teacher that has delivered babies (and her own son) on dirt floors in Mexico. She's very into the community and has recently opened a hip little office in east Austin that is very close to our house. She's connected to an acupuncturist (more important than it sounds), and she teaches her own childbirth class. She's delivered around 450 babies and is very competent. However, she is all business when it comes to childbirth, and while this works for some women, I think I would like someone with a kinder bedside manner. Her all-business approach seems contradictory to her appearance as a yoga teacher and community person, but that's how she is.

The other midwife is a little older and has about 10-15 years more experience and has delivered twice as many babies (and has 4 of her own). Much to our surprise, she is not a believer in yoga and thinks the book beloved by many, "Birthing from Within", is cheesy. Basically, she kicks it old school: "you can do all of the crazy stuff in the world, but that baby is coming out and I'll be here to help you with that". Her bedside manner is much more motherly and nurturing, something that may appeal to me more at the birth than the other midwife's resume. She is not as technologically savvy, and she pretty much works alone (not all involved in the "community" like the other one). But I like that she's confident and sweet at the same time - not as intimidating. She's much further away from us, but they say it's worth the travel to have the midwife that seems best for you.

To some people, it's a no-brainer that the woman who has delivered the most babies is the right choice. Others would say that someone who doesn't believe in yoga is a nut job. I thought (and still think) both of these to an extent, but I decided to go with the non-yoga lady. Even though I really believe in yoga and mediation (especially for child birth), it is really her bedside manner that I think will be more important to me during the birth and after. It's not like I'm exactly doing yoga right now anyway...

Of course, once I wrote an email to her and pressed send, I started to wonder if I had made the right choice. Maybe it would be better to have the younger yoga-type of midwife that's used to delivering babies on the dirt floor in Mexico; one that doesn't care if I give birth in a birthing tub or on the roof. Or maybe it is better that I chose the older more experienced midwife that will be more motherly (something I'm craving given that I just lost my own mother). I guess we will see!

I am excited to begin my appointments with a midwife, and to end the sterile visits to the OB's office. While the particular practice where I'm receiving prenatal care has been AMAZING (3 midwives on staff), it is definitely set up for a hospital birth, one where you labor for hours under a bright light without your midwife or doctor until it's time to push. For me, it seems so much harder to labor in such an unnatural environment as a hospital, and there is so much anxiety around birth there. While hospitals are incredible when you need them, it is not our belief that it's necessary to give birth there unless we have something wrong. And at that point, no problem - we will be there STAT.

Some family and friends are nervous about our choice to have a home birth. I totally understand that. But we are more and more comfortable with this decision everyday. While I have now been to a handful of home births already, we are still reading every night about what to expect and how to prepare mentally and physically for an otherworldly experience. I am in no way unaware of how painful childbirth can be, and I know I won't get a medal for going through the pain. But I also know that I will have a calmer experience (hopefully) with bringing our child into the world, and won't be unnecessarily subjected to drugs or a C-section. It is obviously very easy to give into drugs when you are in the hospital and they are being offered to you every 5 minutes. I think it's a great way to go for some women, but it's not really the way we want to go.

I wish there were more positive images of birth portrayed on TV and in the media. We are mostly exposed to images of women in the hospital under a bright light, screaming and yelling, saying mean things to her husband and demanding an epidural. Many people are not at all exposed to the beautiful images of natural childbirth, laboring at home surrounded by people you love, and then giving birth on your own terms when your body is ready. In the hospital, there is pretty much a set standard that you need to give birth within 24hrs of going into labor. But some women's bodies labor for a couple of days, stopping and starting again, and this is all very natural. OB's and nurses are wonderful at what they do, but if your labor lasts longer than even 12 hours, they start to pressure you with the options to speed it up or to get it over with.

The best analogy I've heard so far about labor and birth is that it's like peeing: it is sometimes very hard to pee in front of people or on demand, and birth is similar - it's very hard to deliver a baby when there's a room full of strangers YELLING at you to PUSH. Just not what I want. But I TOTALLY respect that choice for other women. I respect the choice to want to be in the hospital if something goes wrong, or even just to have access to the drugs. I don't judge other people's birth plans (it's hard enough to judge your own). Women will do what's right for them and that's all that matters. At the end of the experience, we will all have a baby in our arms no matter how we got there.

I am realistic that anything can happen and that our expectations of having a home birth might be dashed. But that will not keep me from trying. I am open-minded about what I may HAVE to do for the safety of our baby, but I will strive for what I'd LIKE to do. You can't get what you want if you don't try!

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