December 26, 2004
11 Weeks 6 Days
First I'll cover a few of the basics, things that get asked regularly.
- Yes, we have names picked out.
- No, you don't get to hear them :P
- We won't be finding out the gender until it's born.
- Yes, this was planned.
- Yes, we're very excited.
So at this time I'm at 11 weeks out of 40 (12 come the 27th). For those unaware of how pregnancy is measured, they start with the first day of your last period, day 1 of your monthly cycle, hence it also runs to what seems more like 10 months than 9. Actual gestation therefore is a week or two less than the 11 weeks.
We found out on Halloween that I was begot with child. It pretty much worked out that way, I just tested a day before I was due. It was Halloween, we're goths, how could we resist? ;)
From then on came the saga to nail down our prenatal and birthing care. Now this would be simple if I had just decided to go with an OB/GYN and a hospital, but I didn't. I want a homebirth, one of those funky ancient traditions, one that you wouldn't assume was a complicated request. Guess again. The full saga of finding a midwife is documented in a text file somewhere that will make a subsequent entry. Needless to say, if you like doing things that aren't strictly the norm, prepare for battle. There's an irony in the fact that the more natural and less invasive option isn't the norm.
So yes, a homebirth, with a midwife, and probably a waterbirth at that.
Why a homebirth? Because where I come from that's the norm, at least as far as I'm aware of. I was a homebirth baby, so were my brothers and pretty much all of my cousins and such (both how they themselves were born, and in some cases now how their wives are birthing). I grew up with the idea of hospital birth being the more unusual. I prefer the idea of being at home, somewhere where I feel more comfortable, and where I don't have several different people running around me, who might all be someone else when the shift ends. I also prefer the idea of a less invasive birth, no drips and medication and stuff. And that includes pain medication. And believe me when I say I'm well aware that this whole birth thing is not going to be pleasant, but I'd still rather do it without meds if possible. Statistically homebirth is at the very least as safe as hospital birth, and the rates for c-section, infection, morbidity and mortality are actually substantially lower than hospital births.
Obviously this is all contingent on my good health. If there are contra-indications, then by all means I'll go somewhere with more supervision. However, considering my age, the fact that I'm pretty fit, slim and generally healthy, and there are no genetic or family problems in my lineage, it should go pretty well as I'm in a very low risk group.
I finally had my first appointment with my midwife on the 21st of December, the Winter Solstice, which is kind of amusing considering the Halloween thing. Well, to me anyway ;) PreZ came with me and we went to Harlem where she rents out space two days a week. Basically it was a 'get to know eachother' appointment, informational and with forms to be read and signed. She also used a Doppler stethoscope to listen to the heartbeat, which initially provided what seemed like several minutes of ominous silence. Usually they do this at 12 weeks or later, so she'd already said it was possible we wouldn't hear anything. And while you listen to the absence of a smaller heartbeat your heart does squeeze in your chest a little bit, even though you realise intellectually that there's probably nothing wrong because it's still early days for doing this. Eventually though the smaller faster heartbeat came into hearing range, and for a while you could hear both my and its heartbeat at the same time, which was indescribably cool.
I also got jabbed with needles to take some blood. She had some problems locating a vein in my left arm for that, and after swirling it around in the crook of my elbow hoping to nick a vein or something, eventally we went to plan B, the back of my right hand. The veins in my hands stand out substantially when the weather is warm, or when I am, so much easier to locate at that time. It did mean though that it doesn't flow quite as fast as it does further up your arm. Those vials will be for things like bloodtyping, immunisation levels and such things. Seeing as I had most of my kiddy shots redone for INS back in May, I'll probably be fine for that.
I'll be getting the results of all the bloodwork back next time I see her, which will be about mid-January, some 3-4 weeks after this visit. Next time will also be an actual GYN exam too, and we'll probably discuss what diagnostics center is nearest for me to go get a sonogram done, which will be around week 18 or so.
And for those who have questions at any point in time, by all means ask, either here or in email or IM.
Posted on 07:26 PM to: Pregnancy