Doing well! Happily planning my UC! I met with our midwife and she was very sweet and understanding about our financial situation. We paid her what we owed her for all of my prenatals so far, and she said that she would even be willing to allow us to make small payments continuing after the birth if we wanted. She said that since my last labor was only 45 minutes, she thinks I'm a good candidate for UC, and gave me lots of tips and said to call with any questions or if we change our minds. She gave me all the paperwork I'd need to get the birth certificate after the UC and wished us well. I am actually getting kind of excited (as well as nervous, of course) about taking this on without a midwife.
DH is not 100% on board with UC. Especially since it will be just the two of us, I need him to be supportive. He is just super nervous. He keeps talking about all the what-ifs. What if the cord is prolapsed? What if baby is breech? What if I hemorrhage? I think he feels overwhelming pressure and responsibility with UC...like, he is the one person there to make sure his family gets through the birth and everyone turns out okay. I understand his feelings, but don't know how to reassure him. When I say that I trust my body, women were made to birth babies, we will be fine, etc., it doesn't seem to help him. I remember he used to be against home birth, but eventually he came around and was super supportive. Perhaps it will just take some time for this new plan to sink in for him? I hate that he is so stressed and uncomfortable about it right now.
So, I am happily planning a UC. I think DH might be secretly planning on stuffing me in the back of the car and driving me to the hospital when the big day arrives!
Can you give him a list? Possible complication - what to do. Keep it basic.
Prolapsed cord can happen even wit ha planned hospital birth, if your water breaks before labour. It can happen in a home birth as well. In both scenarios it's the same- get your butt in the air to keep pressure off the cord, call 911, and take an ambulance to the hospital for an emergency c-section. Baby is breech- hospital (c-section likely), or a midwife would (maybe) deliver, or you do lots of research to deliver on your own. Chances of head entrapment are slim if you wait as long as you can and keep your hands off the breech. Hemmorhage- eat some placenta, take shepherd's purse tincture and/or angelica, nurse your baby, and call 911. These are all things that can happen with any planned birth location (i've heard of women with silent hemmorhage in hospital, of unknown breech in hospital that no one notices until a bum presents, etc) the only difference being that you might get emergency treatment faster. There are a lot of things you can do at home though.
I'd do a bunch of research, get lots of printed "cheat sheet" cards or what to do in every possible scenario. There's a really good book recommended by uc'ers... umm.... I can't remember what it's called, but I'm sure you can find the link in the UC thread. I think something White is the author, it lays it all out in a super easy to understand format that is very non-threatening. It's a downloadable PDF book, free.
May doulas will not attend UC b/c if anything goes wrong they can be charged for practicing without a license....
Still worth asking around! Here there are a few who would attend a UC. If you sign contracts that make it very clear the doula is NOT a medical professional, make sure she has nothing with her that could be construed as medical (doppler, drugs, etc) then the chances of her being held liable (for a birth that was "too fast" to transfer to hospital?- who knows the truth, really?) are really slim. Every area is different though, and every doula has a different comfort zone. The doula coming to MY birth would absolutely not be comfortable with a UC; I definitely would be!
Calli- that looks like the one I keep seeing! I'm getting mine whenever my doula client has her baby... she's due next week, so any day now theoretically! I've loaned it to her.
I'm not convinced I'll set it up. I liked the birthing in the water thing- not sure if it's why I had no swelling or tearing at all after my second was born- but labour in the water mostly just sucked. I didn't find it to be a big pain reliever, although the boyancy was REALLY nice for numerous position changes. I think it would go a lot better if I was in the water only for the actual birthing and let gravity and movement/ walking do the work through most of the labour and intensive pushing phase. I had a BIG tub, too - this one: http://inhishands.com/Pool-La-Bassine.284 I got it from someone on MDC for $70 before my second was born, and have since loaned it to 2 other mamas. As long as they use a liner, it's no big deal for clean up.
Cristeen has a good point, too. If it's not deep enough you're not going to get the pain relief effects or the boyancy that a bigger tub will give you. For some women, that doesn't matter and water in any form is good enough, but this pool is only 22" deep... not quite 2 feet... and it probably has a max fill line that's lower than that. The La Bassine tub has a 24" internal fill, which was definitely totally adequate. I know a LOT of women who had fabulous birthing experiences with a smaller fishy tub of the exact same dimensions as the one you linked, and for $30 I'd say it's worth ordering anyway- but just keep size mind. Maybe do a dry run (ha!) and see if it'll be enough?
I would love to see that!
that is one hell of a day!
