home birthing mamas-- Are you all prepped for d-day?? - Page 2 « Back to Group Discussions

[forumyonly1]

We don't have an adapter for the sink.. I think we were planning on using a special/new garden hose because it is still overt 100° here during the day.. We won't really need the water heater.. Is that a no no?? We filled up plastic buckets and dumped them in last time so I don't know about these special hose things. And as for the pp "popsicles" have you guys used them before?? Are they mostly for if you tear? They tried potting those cold packs on me after my hospital births and I hated them.. The child just seemed to feel worse to me... But I haven't tried since those two so I'm not sure how I feel about them! We are buying the last of the birth supplies this weekend and getting them all set up before my home visit on Tuesday! This will be the earliest I've ever been ready.. So I'm sure I will probably gestate the longest this time..... Lol

[Angelorum]

My midwife said to get a specific drinking water hose made for RV's.  I didn't ask why though.  I can't imagine using water from the garden tap though, unless it comes out of the ground hot already.  It was 80 degrees or more in my house when I gave birth last time, and I still wanted the water in the pool to be about body temperature.  Of course, I also had a team of people bringing me ice water, cold wash cloths and fanning me if I got hot, and I was stark naked, so I was probably the only one who wasn't overheating.  Body temp water is what's best for the baby too if you plan on giving birth in the pool. 

I have a funky kitchen faucet, so we will be connecting the hose directly to the hot water spout that's for the washing machine.  We'll have to switch it over to the cold side if we need to cool the water down, but I think we'll probably run out of water in the water heater before we have that problem.

[Vegan Princess]

Yeah we inflated the birth tub this morning. And my engineer husband had his tape measure out and did some math to try and figure out the volume of the tub and whether or not our hot water heater will handle it. Not sure what he came up with - but I thought it was cute. I'm glad we did the test run on inflation too bc it took a little bit to figure out exactly how to use the pump and which valves worked best - and to realize we could inflate the bottom part of the pool. My 3 yr old was NOT happy when we took it down. I'm going to have a hell of a time keeping her out of the water!!

I too was told the hose for filling had to be rated for potable/drinking water. The hose is white instead of green. It didn't cost any more than a regular garden hose though.

Cindy

[mamac27]

We are ordering supplies from amazon and 1cascade tonight. I have the pool..now I am seriously thinking of a test run with it. I am due on halloween and trying to get ready now as I am still working full time..I'm so over that. I just want to get it all ready and my house too.

[UnderTheOldOakTree]

We finally  inflated the birth pool tonight.  Now it's taking up every spare inch of space in our bedroom.  We literally have to move it if we need to get into our closet or our dresser, or just about anything else. Oh well.....I guess that's part of living in a small space. We also tried to hook up the hose to the sink, but big surprise, we need different adapter.  We'll go shopping for that tomorrow I guess.  I'm glad we tried it out tonight.  As my midwife pointed out we really don't want to go into labor at 2 AM and then find out that the hose doesn't work with the sink.   Hoping the guys at our local hardware store can help us out with that tomorrow.

We ended up eating one of my frozen postpartum meals this evening.  My cold has migrated from my head to my chest today and I just didn't feel up to much work in the kitchen this evening.  It was just one thing of frozen soup and  it's really quick to make so I might go ahead and make a second batch of it this week if I'm feeling better to replenish what we used and put a little more by too.

[Angelorum]

Went to the dollar store to pick up a shower curtain for the floor and ended up getting a few new things to hopefully help amuse ds while I'm in labor.  If he ends up sleeping through labor, I'll at least have them for  post partum.  I got some little activity/coloring books, and a pack of glow bracelets I thought would come in handy if it's dark outside and I want to keep the lights off/dim.  Also a bag of pom poms so we can make him a pom pom shooter (this I'll probably save for  post partum).

I also inflated my exercise ball that we still had flat from moving.  I didn't really use one during labor much last time, but my midwife wants me to sit on it now any way to help discourage baby from being posterier. 
 

[aggie pop]

Yes... ready and waiting.  After a month of Braxton-Hicks and labor signs appearing over the last 10 days starting with the mucous plug and now breathless and dilated (4 1/2cm), 100% effaced (according to me- we are having a UC).  Every morning I wake up thinking "today is the day" and then by 3pm I am too discouraged and tired and mentally give up.  Not sure how much hoping and repositioning oneself, acupressure and walking can actually DO anything, but I think for me, it just makes me feel even more disheartened.  I went through a bottle of B&B tincture (wishgarden) and have black cohosh left and, of course, red raspberry leaf tea.  Part of me says, "you can do it!" the other part says, "chill out and have a drink and a nap".  I keep popping in & out of "active" labour.  My breath gets sucked away with some of them, but not all.  I was getting full-around waist contractions but they seem to fade sometimes.

I'm "due" Oct. 16th and very frustrated!  But we have everything we need (same pool as my last waterbirth!).

Cheers,

Aggie (who could use some cheer-leading, I guess)

[OrangeMoon]

I think amazingly we are pretty much ready with all the essentials. Diapers, clothes, hot water bottles, birth kit, etc. etc. etc. I still need to install the pull up bar though for pushing time though. 

Aggie, I am so sorry to hear you are feeling so frustrated at times. I think for me one of the best things about this pregnancy has been the fact that I am just too busy to even think about "Will it be today?" or "Does that pain/cramp/etc. mean something?". I had a lot of pre labor contractions with my last pregnancy and it was soooo frustrating constantly wondering if this is it. Anyway, I know it's so hard but my advice to you would be to try and just not think about it as much as humanly possible, and just distract yourself with other things. Favorite movies, fun crafts to do for baby, etc. You'll know when it's the real thing <3 Good luck!! ETA: Oh, and also try not to think of what has happened so far as all for naught just because it doesn't result in the big thing. I really do believe all this work your body is doing now, means less work later :-) <3

Edited by OrangeMoon - 10/2/12 at 7:43pm