Hi all! it has been awhile since I've checked in here -- but I've been enjoying reading about how everyone has been doing. Our june bug, Geraldine Sadie, was born at just after four in the morning on last Thursday, June 9th, just as the sun was rising.
I started having mild contractions around 7:30 in the evening or so on Wednesday, and we headed to the birth center around 10:30p or so. I am so so satisfied with our experience in this birth center (a midwife-led unit within the largest hospital in our small german city). I had the no drug, no needles, very minimal intervention (just a bit of monitoring when we first got there) birth I wanted for my daughter (but with the option to go full-steam with every intervention possible in seconds had we needed it!) ... and I was blessed at the end with this soo alert, healthy little creature, who was nursing in the first ten minutes! I don't even remember her crying at all, although I'm told she did give a cry in that moment before she was laid on my belly. The midwives were amazing, totally respected our wishes, and my husband was just incredible. After I delivered the placenta the midwife gave us a tour of its coolness while we waited for the cord to stop pulsing. This is our first, so it was all new to us! Then she helped my husband to cut the cord and they left us alone like that for an hour or so. It was pretty incredible. When they weighed her later, she clocked in at 8 lbs, 12 oz (~4kg). Okay, I'm rambling now.
:-)
The only snag was that the ward (which is different location within the hospital than the birth center/labor & delivery) was so totally full of women due to various reasons, that my husband would have had to go home (!) for the afternoon & night .... not the way we imagined the first night for our new family. So I talked with midwives about me going home that day, and everyone thought it was a good idea. Many checkups and pep-talks later, we were on the bus for the short ride home. The bus was maybe not our best idea ever (the 10 min ride felt a LOT longer than normal), but we don't have a car and a taxi wasn't an option since we don't have baby's car-seat either. It was kinda crazy, but it was also great to be in my own bed that afternoon. And in the german system, a midwife comes to visit you daily for the first six weeks, which has been a great help & good for our peace of mind ... especially since we are very far from our families. The care here is pretty incredible. I feel soo lucky.
Thanks for reading my rambling story! wishing all of you all the best!
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