Happily joining you all! :)

[boscopup]

I took a pregnancy test today, thinking it'd probably be negative since we really didn't utilize the "best days", although we did have one time that was within the 5 days pre-ovulation... Apparently, it worked! I have a light line - easily visible after a minute or so, but doesn't show up right away. I used the Dollar General $1 tests, so I took 2 for fun. :lol

This is a great change from last cycle when I kept taking hpt after hpt, had preggo symptoms and went 4 days late, but never got a bfp. Then the day I was going in to get a blood test, AF showed up! I still have my fingers crossed about this one, since it's only the first day of my missed period, but the fact that I got a bfp gives me alot more hope. :D

This will be baby #2. DS #1 was born at 29 weeks 4 days due to PROM at 29 weeks (on the dot - midnight even!). So I'm hoping to go full term this time. Thankfully, DS #1 is perfectly healthy and normal (well, for MY child:)). So I'm not freaked out about having a preemie, plus I have an OB this time that will actually keep me going until 36 weeks... But anyway...

I plan to do "homebirth away from home" if I go full term. Midwife-attended homebirths are illegal in my state (AL), although UCs are perfectlly legal. Go figure. I can't have a trained birth attendent to help me, but I can do it myself (nothing wrong with UCs, of course - just don't understand the state's logic there). Anyway, I live 15 minutes from the TN state line, and there happens to be a wonderful midwife who delivers in a little house just over the state line. I was using her last pregnancy, but obviously couldn't deliver there at 29 weeks! Hence I ended up in the hospital with no OB and got the hospital assigned OB teaching group. The residents were ok, but I never got to talk to the people making decisions, and that was annoying. This time I have an OB lined up and I plan to see him and my midwife simulataneously, and then I have a good OB (he's recommended by most of the natural birth junkies in town) in case something goes wrong and I have a good midwife in case everything goes just peachy normal. :D The funny thing is that the midwife house in another state is actually closer than the hospital I would go to if I had to do a hospital.

About me... I'm a SAHM, was a software developer pre-pregnancy #1. I cloth diaper DS, and make his diapers as well. I can't wait to sew some cute little newborn diapers! I tried out my own pattern on a newborn a couple weeks ago and am so excited that it fit and I can now make MORE. :D They're so cute and teeny tiny! Aside from sewing cloth diapers, I also raise meat goats and train my German Shepherd Dogs in obedience and agility. So life around here is usually busy and I get no housework done (maybe getting off the computer would help though :lol).

Well, I guess that's it! I look forward to sharing the next 8 months with everyone! :thumb

[gen_here]

Congrats and welcome!!!!

[LavenderMae]

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!:D

[poetesss]

Exciting!! You seem really prepared already...that's great. Do you suggest that us folks who are having the 1st and are seeing a midwife also see an OB who we "click" with in case something should happen? The midwife practice here doesn't have an agreement as such with OBs at the hospital, they just transfer you out if something does come up. It's something to think about I guess...

[boscopup]

After this experience, I personally think that having a backup OB is a good idea, because you never know when something will happen, and it really sucks to be stuck with whomever they give you. I was lucky that my labor went so fast that they weren't able to pressure me with pain drugs or interventions. The nurses thought that since I was a first time mom, it'd be several hours, so they kept me in the antepartum unit instead of sending me to the LDR. They didn't listen when I said my family usually has 4-5 hour labors with their first, and my water had already broken 4 days earlier and baby was small and in the right position to come out - I ended up with a 2.5 hour labor, and they were racing me down the hall to the LDR and telling me to close my legs and not push (UM... not happening!). So I just got lucky with the birth experience itself. :lol

I know alot of people who never saw an OB and did fine with their midwife attended birth - that's what happens MOST of the time, but sometimes you have no warning that things are going to happen differently. My pregnancy was very easy and nothing was the least bit out of sorts. Then one night at midnight, my water broke as I was getting up to do my first middle-of-the-night pee... Totally took us off guard! I'd not had any contractions (they didn't start until about 11 hours later), nothing to warn me that this would happen.

Now if something had happened during a full term labor, requiring a hospital transfer, my midwife is acquainted with the doctors at the hospital near the birth house in TN (different one than what I used last pregnancy), and those doctors do listen and work with midwives. But since I needed a good NICU (and that TN hospital is a more rural type hospital), I had to go to the hospital here in AL that does not work with midwives. Had I had a backup OB, I would probably have been kept pregnant until 36 weeks. Although I can't say that I'm sad DS was out at 29 weeks - He's healthy and normal, only stayed in the hospital for 4 weeks (coming home with no monitors or anything), I didn't have to go through the 3rd trimester discomforts, I had a newborn that literally slept ALL the time until he got closer to his due date, and it actually ended up being a little easier for me as a whole. But had he been smaller, he could have ended up with health problems coming out that early. So I really think the OB group made a very risky discision to let me deliver at that point - the drugs were working great at keeping me contraction-free, and my water level was a tad low when I went in, but it got higher as time went on (even if your water breaks, the water replenishes so often and a hole can seal up again, so you can still have water in there and go completely full term).

[Brisen]

Congrats! Welcome!

[sweetfeet]

Congrats on the pregnancy. :love

[Mermaidmomma]

Congrats and welcome!!!:D

[rainbowfairymomma]

CONGRATS MAMA!!
Hope you get the homebirth you want! :love