30 Weeks and Still Growing...

I thought I was big before...I had no idea! I can't believe that I am going to get bigger. Probably A LOT BIGGER! This is a horrible picture of me… but I really wanted to show off my enormous pregnant belly! I made Jacob take some shots of me before bed last night so I would have something to work with today. I had snuck a picture of his beard, but he deleted it without my knowledge. Sheesh.

I LOVE pregnancy. Or, at least this pregnancy. I am told that every time is different and that the second baby could give me all the problems this one has been without. I’ll take my chances though! How do you like that, I haven’t even squeezed out this baby and I am thinking about his siblings! I probably shouldn’t get too ahead of myself. I was going to write some about homebirth today…but I might save it for a day when I feel more long winded. I'm feeling too distracted and restless for a long exposition. But if I got anyone thinking about it yesterday, check out this website . I’ve only just started going through it, but it looks pretty informative.

Today I have finished a terrific book, Baby Catcher by Peggy Vincent. Turns out she was one of the first Certified Nurse Midwives (CNM) in the East Bay area with a private practice. Her story is fascinating and touching. The stories of the mothers, babies, labors, and everything else had me locked into the pages of her memoir for two days straight. I couldn’t tare away. The only tragedy of her career is that the insurance companies and big medical machine eventually made her homebirth practice impossible after over 10 years and two thousand babies! The situation has improved for CNMs and lay midwives in California since then, but it still seems there is a ways to go. It’s just amazing to me that these women with statistics that rival and often surpass obstetrician’s (OB) outcomes for healthy moms with normal pregnancies could be kept hampered or kept from their practice all together because of an unwillingness of the medical machine to challenge the status quo. I guess it all boils down to money. Anyway the book was great for me to read because it chronicled the rise of homebirth movement in the community where I actually live.

The only caution I would give to moms in my position reading the book is that out of her many many many homebirths a disproportionate amount of her births that required hospital transfer appear in her book. My guess is that not only did these stand out sharply in her memory, but telling those scarier stories showcased her competency and ability at handling the emergencies. Further, it gave her a chance to illustrate how important it is for those rare true emergencies that OBs and hospitals respect and coordinate with homebirth attendants to save lives. I love the part in the book where she describes an unidentified breach that when into labor fast and early. Peggy did everything right, down to the speedy hospital transfer where her supporting OB rushed in to “save the day” and the baby’s life. This was early in her career and she was worried the doctor would loose faith in her. Instead he acknowledged that all practitioners, regardless of their degrees, occasionally miss breaches, or twins, etc and that she had done everything by the book and to the best of her ability. He went on to say,


“I’ve backed a few lay midwives over the years, and now there’s you, and I really like it. When midwives call with problems, we docs get to do what we’re good at, the emergencies, the drama, the flashy stuff. I like swinging from the branches a bit, playing hot-dog obstetrics, and I know you do too…”


To me, that sums it up beautifully. In a perfect world there would be no competition between midwives and OBs. Each has a vital role to fill. The midwives have the time and ability to help a healthy women labor normally and the Docs have the skills to save lives in emergencies. Consequently I am going with my midwife’s blessing tomorrow to consult with a OB to possibly be our back up doctor. I guess that will be tomorrow’s topic.

Here I wasn’t going to write a dissertation, and I got sucked in anyway. In between I have been baking Potica (a W. family secret recipe Tracy was finally able to share with me on our trip through Kansas!) and now I HAVE to get the kitchen clean and diner on. Smoochy will be home any minuet!