The birth center visit

First off, I have to get the facts right out there:

1. My uterus is huge. The week by week pregnancy book says it's beginning to poke up above my pubic bone. But, in reality, the nurse midwife helped me feel it, so I know where is it, and, it's way huger than above my pubic bone. It's about 3 inches lower than my BELLY BUTTON. I know. I am all uterus. All I can do now, all day long, is press on my stomach, through the fat layer (which I decided to consider is just an extra layer of protection) and touch my uterus, and poke at it, and feel it (which actually starts to hurt a little after a while because of the protective fat layer over my gut). Kevin says to stop torturing the baby, but, I don't think I am torturing it--it's more like a gentle massage probably.

2. Total pregnancy weight gain: 1 pound

3. Baby's heartbeat (which I heard!): 160 beats/minute.

4. My blood pressure is fine, actually it was a little on the lower side, at 118/64 I think she said. The bottom number was 60 somthing. Might have been 62. Either way, a little on the lower end, which she said is fine.

So there's the bare bones. Now for more details:

Nurse midwives seem to be pretty awesome, and I transferred my care to the birth center. The midwife I met Thursday was named Alissa (but she pronounced it Ay-leesa) and has been a labor and delivery nurse for 5 years before becoming a midwife. And she is a vegetarian. But I digress. She was very nice. And she gave me a book full of useful non-scary information. And there were diagrams of pregnant women in the exam room, and when I told her I had been having pain and showed her wear it was, she showed me a diagram of how much these ligaments called round ligaments stretch to accomodate your uterus. That looks like what it is. Much more informative than my OB telling me that it's not a problem if the pain isn't continuous and there's no bleeding.

The thing about the birth center that is also cool, well, there's a lot of things. For one, you have the baby right there. For two, a midwife is with you the entire time, and they call the nurse in for an extra set of hands right when you are about to deliver. For three, when you get there, you sign in, and then you go to this back room and weight YOURSELF, and pee in a cup and test your own urine with these urine test strips. That's awesome. When you meet with the midwife, you report the results to her.

She also told me that she does not care how much weight I gain, or don't gain, but that she DOES care that I am eating a healthy balanced diet.

Did I mention that you weigh yourself??? I think that's the most awesome thing ever. No wonder my blood pressure was low. Getting your name called and then having the nurse tell you to step on the scale, and then have her give you that disapproving look before she writes down your weight, is the most stressful thing I can think of. THEN, after putting you through that, they take your blood pressure. Now while some of my thinner friends can't relate, I know some of you out there must be able to. So anyway, I get to wight myself, which is much better. And then to have them not care if I gain or not? Fabulous. The pressure is off. I like having the pressure off.

They work with doctors. If I become high risk, they have a doctor who takes over my care. That's good. I like that idea. And since I don't have warm fuzzies for my current OB, well, then who cares about possibly losing her?

We talked about labor, and the birth. Did you know there are stools and chairs you can give birth in too? They have all kinds of cool stuff there. And of course, since it looks like a regular house, I asked them the important questions like, after someone births in a room, how do you get it all nice and clean and sanitary again for the next person? Or is birth not the blood bath I've begun to imagine it as? They assured me it's not a blood bath, and that they use the same cleaning techniques as they use in hospitals, and in fact have never in their 20 years + had someone get an infection from being there.

They also told me that when the baby is born, it's up to me whether or not I want erythromyacin in it's eyes or a vitamin K shot, that it's not standard. Hmm. Well, since I didn't know they did EITHER of those things or why they would, I got to find out. I guess in the hospital it's standard that babies get erythromyacin in the eyes to kill any infections, but that the infections are caused by gonnorhea and/or chlamydia (I think, it was two std's, if you know, please correct me) and since I don't have any of those, I don't technically have to have the erythromyacin in the baby's eyes. And vitamin K is some kind of immune system booster or something, I think, maybe a blood clotting thing (again, anyone know for sure?) and it's standard in the hospital too, but at the birth center, it's up to you. Hmm.

Then she told me about some possible links between vaccines and autism or other horrible diseases, and well, I'm not sure I buy into all that, but wow, look at all the info.

I liked it.

Incidentally, I started writing this yesterday, but didn't finish. And yesterday afternoon, I think I may have felt the baby move for the first time. I don't know. Maybe it was just gas. But it felt weird. I was at work, talking on the phone, and then in the right side of my belly I felt this, well, wave. Or maybe a little ripple. Briefly. It might have been the baby. I don't know. Wouldn't that be sweet if it was??