The Baby Preparation Train Rolls On

It's been a busy first week of the year. We're feeling more and more everyday like we're about to be a family of three.

Sunday we took a tour of Holy Cross, where we will be having the baby. The overall atmosphere was very calm and the labor/delivery rooms were especially nice. The recovery room were not quite as nice but still better than any hospital room I've ever been in. I think we'll be really happy there. You go first to maternity 'triage', then past a lot of high-tech looking nurses' stations and equipment but after that it seems like a pretty natural environment. I mean it's not, it's a hospital but they do a good job of creating the feeling.

We've decided against the hospital's doula program. We are going to be contacting a few people this week instead. We decided that we'd rather the doula work for us, not the hospital. Hopefully our doula will consent to being blogged about.

We are still somewhat considering a CNM but we haven't seen any good options yet. There are a few that deliver in hospitals about 30 miles away but from what I've heard we still face the same hospital issues (pushing pain meds, etc.). Then there are birth centers. Nikki and I discussed this briefly and there is just something odd about the options in this area. Something doesn't feel right about the people out here. We both feel it but can't really nail it down. We both feel so much more comfortable out west. It might sound strange but I feel like the birth options are a lot like the beer options -- they just fall a little off the mark. In both cases I think you feel like you are seeking out individual alternatives when you should be seeking community. It makes you feel disconnected. There's some kind of hidden cultural connection you make when you drink a Deschutes Black Butte Porter (or to some extent a Saint Arnold Elissa). All the beer out here is just sort of boring and a little off. Same with the birth options -- you learn about them and you don't feel like, "Ok, I'm going with that portion of my community that strives to give birth the way a woman's body was meant to." Out here I just feel like we are fighting to carve out some individual preference in spite of something. It's frustrating.

I seem to have wandered completely off my intended topic, which was to describe what we've been up to the last week. More about that soon.