I Love My Midwife

I had a check up today with my midwife. It was great as usual. We started at two o’clock and two and a half hours later the visit was over. What OB/GYN is going to spend that kind of time talking with a patient? The woman is AMAZING. After thirty years of practice she has seen and dealt every kind of complication and situation. She was one of the re-innovators of midwifery in her state. She worked outside the system before traditional midwifery was legal, and then fought to make it legal and available to women. Not only did she take up the cause of midwifery in the USA, but she also helped traditional midwives in Guatemala organize, protect their art, and create a birth center. I really look up to her. While chatting with her husband today he mentioned that she has NEVER been sued by a client. I wonder how many other healthcare providers can make that claim? I doubt very many. Not that every birth she attended had a perfect outcome, because that is impossible after thousands of births. Sometimes things go wrong that are outside ANYONE’S control. But what is impressive is that even her clients who had to face unhappy outcomes never blamed her or lost their belief that she had done everything in her power to bring their baby into this world safely. Well, I completely trust her.


The tone of our visit today was different than before. Previously, our meetings were more focused on over-all health issues, but today we started getting down to the nitty-gritty. I was given the list of supplies for the homebirth (a much shorter list than I expected!) and she urged me to get everything in order because once Jacob gets home from Korea it could happen at any time! COULD, but probably won’t. Feeling my belly today she said that Sonny didn’t have a "ready feel" about him yet. She told me she could usually tell by touch and intuition when a birth was actually getting close. Sonny still has plenty of room to move and is actually a little small. She estimated he is currently about six pounds. This blew me a way because I would have guessed that he was going to be HUGE! If he goes to term and gains half a pound a week he’ll be up to eight pounds at birth, but I would have guessed he would be a 9 or even 10 pounder! Oh well, the proof is in the pudding, only delivery will tell. Thank God he’s head down and it isn’t likely that he’ll flip!


I guess the lesson of the day is that there is no telling with birth. This baby could make his entrance in one week, three weeks, or six weeks and be perfectly healthy at any of those times. Statistically speaking first time Moms tend to run late, but I bet most of them anticipate going early. Part of me (despite all rationality) actually thinks this baby will be born in May…and he’s not due till June 8th! At least my husband will be home soon. After three weeks of separation we may not WANT the baby to come right away so that we can enjoy each other’s company to the fullest extent. (Sorry Dad!) But you know what they say; the quickest way to get them out is the same way they got there in the first place!