Labour and Birth

[Hadassah]

My daughter did report in College on Birthing alternatives because her biology teacher found out I had 13 children some hospital and some homebirth.

Literally she freaked when seeking the hospital births.

There are tons of great homebirth videos on youtube.

Didn't care for any of my hospital experiences, but the homebirths mine and my sisters were so wonderful. My daughter liked the film on the Russian midwives the best. I also liked some of the really great birth stories on Unassisted child birth.
I had six UC myself.
bananna

TBH, watching "A baby story" and the other related shows, it's been many of the hospital births I've watched (same for in biology) that put me off more than the home births and midwife assisted births.

We're supposed to talk with our dr on the 18th about our 'birth plan' (as uninvasive as possible, no epidural, but with options to have pain relief if I need it, and intervene only if I or baby go 'down-hill'.. options for water birth -- we're thinking this will be an active birth likely), and which hospital can accommodate us and him for that.

I have the additional fun of making sure the hospital has the means to treat me, in that celiac disease isn't often accommodated where it is needed most -- on a hospital level! I think there are two in our area that are close enough to work, but it just depends if Dr P can operate out of those offices or not.

Once we know, we go and introduce ourselves and set things in motion on that end (hospital level) and meet the OB staff... and work out whether or not we'll be able to take the course they offer.
With me being in school that kind of complicates matters.

I've been hearing good things though, so I'm trying to not get worked up or otherwise 'put off' by proceedings as they slowly come together.

DH asked yesterday if I was getting scared. I said no, just the idea of where the baby's gotta come out of and when he'll decide to finally let us know he's ready... but otherwise I feel pretty calm about the whole ordeal for now.. When it happens it will, and we can only do what we can do to have an idea what to expect as each birth is different, and it will depend entirely on both of our health when we go that direction.

I'm just praying I can follow what everyone is saying when we get down to the 'theater' stage... I have a language barrier going on, so it puts a whole new spin on what you hear when you're giving birth. LOL

 

[angelsgirl]

I haven't watched anymore birthing videos.
The one I watched at class was actually a home birth.
I don't think i deal too well with watching them, so I'm not going to. I know what has to happen now. And thankfully from my point I won't be seeing the baby actually coming out which is what I found the most disturbing thing about the video!!!

I am actually feeling alot calmer about what has to happen. Which is really nice. I figure there is only one way out for this little one and its going to happen sooner or later...
One thing i am glad about is doing those classes as early as I did. It really gave me time to get ok with what has to happen. i would've hated to have seen that video for the first time a couple of weeks before I was due to give birth!!!

 

[CrystalBrooke]

When I got about 2 weeks away from my due date I would sit up at night and cry because I was so scared..and during the day when my husband was gone to work I would cry. He finally caught me crying one night and asked what was wrong...I completely broke down and I was like "I can't do this..she's just gonna have to stay in there"

But like someone said earlier, we were made to do this..you can do it and it's so amazing when you do

 

[Hadassah]

LOL Crystal!
I can so see myself doing that. I'm just praying really hard that our LO doesn't get really big.. but I figure, we're made for this, and G-d will provide. It's up to me to be calm and rational about it, and ensure that I'm ready so that things go smoothly.

 

[Bananna]

You know I have a lot of allergies so If I may offer some sugguestions:

Make sure you start a package of things you can eat and must substitute for your speacial diet. Every hospital would tell me they could accomodate me but really it took them 24 hours to do so and by then I was starving and trying to nurse a baby so getting there.

If you are going to want food delivered from a specialized food place do so when you go into labor old food is better than no food.

Go eat at their cafiteria before being admitted. Talk to the kitchen about requirements for doctors perscriptions for a special diet ahead of time.

JMO
bananna

TBH, watching "A baby story" and the other related shows, it's been many of the hospital births I've watched (same for in biology) that put me off more than the home births and midwife assisted births.

We're supposed to talk with our dr on the 18th about our 'birth plan' (as uninvasive as possible, no epidural, but with options to have pain relief if I need it, and intervene only if I or baby go 'down-hill'.. options for water birth -- we're thinking this will be an active birth likely), and which hospital can accommodate us and him for that.

I have the additional fun of making sure the hospital has the means to treat me, in that celiac disease isn't often accommodated where it is needed most -- on a hospital level! I think there are two in our area that are close enough to work, but it just depends if Dr P can operate out of those offices or not.

Once we know, we go and introduce ourselves and set things in motion on that end (hospital level) and meet the OB staff... and work out whether or not we'll be able to take the course they offer.
With me being in school that kind of complicates matters.

I've been hearing good things though, so I'm trying to not get worked up or otherwise 'put off' by proceedings as they slowly come together.

DH asked yesterday if I was getting scared. I said no, just the idea of where the baby's gotta come out of and when he'll decide to finally let us know he's ready... but otherwise I feel pretty calm about the whole ordeal for now.. When it happens it will, and we can only do what we can do to have an idea what to expect as each birth is different, and it will depend entirely on both of our health when we go that direction.

I'm just praying I can follow what everyone is saying when we get down to the 'theater' stage... I have a language barrier going on, so it puts a whole new spin on what you hear when you're giving birth. LOL

 

[Hadassah]

Banana, I talked with my DH about this, and according to both our Doctor and MIL, we have to go and make an appt with the hospital we want and meet the doctors and nurses (and other staff), tour the delivery, recovery and nursery rooms and ask all our questions then, give them our birth plan and inform them of all other info and they'll go back and forth with our dr so we have only to say yes or no to certain things.

It's kind of confusing really. I hope to have this all cleared up in the next couple of weeks (we have moved my dr appt to Thursday so we'll see).

I plan on packing food in my 'going away bag'. I can just see them screwing something up. The one thing I am worried about is having ice. Germans have something funny about having ice in one's drinks and all, and I'm someone who gets dehydrated easily (too easily) so I drink a lot of icees and smoothies, and when I'm sick and don't feel like I can eat or drink, I want ice to suck on (in chips)... so I've got to figure out if they can accommodate that and just bear with me that I'm "weird" that way..

My MIL swears that's why I'm sick all the time, but it's the only way I can keep liquids down sometimes. (like yesterday when I had a migraine)

Hopefully by then though, DH and I will have everything together and we can just grab the suitcase and go. I've been thinking about packing two if my inlaws decide to have two cars -- that way it does not matter which car I go in, I have "something" with me at all times. I can see it being left in the heat of the moment, can't you? LOL (Just my luck )

I wanted to see about getting a bracelet also that we can put my allergies and aversions to in case we get to a point where I can't concentrate to answer, or am too tired to try in German... I can't afford any mistakes.


Thanks for the advice! Definitely sound!

 

[Bananna]

You know what
They never checked my bracelet or my charts when it came to allergies in both the hospitals. Scared me to death when they almost flushed my saline iv lock with that heperine stuff. LOL scared the nurse too.

Get a really big piece of vynil maybe and sew some velcro onto it to make a bracelet and use a permanent marker to write the important stuff on your arm in reall big letters. Hee hee.

yah I did the pre tour at my hosptial of choice but when transferred it did no good and when transferred back most the stuff they said they would do they ignored when it came to it.

I hate the fact that i didn't have any idea who was going to be on call, so whatever my doctor agreed to the people on call just negated. Its like you would have to talk to every single person in the group and get them to sign off ahead so the nurses don't have to worry about getting yelled at for doing what you want. Poor things get it coming and going.

May God Grant you happy and peaceful nurses with wisdom and gentle spirits and believers too.

bananna