We've decided to go to hospital after all. Throughout most of my pregnancy, the idea of a home birth has felt absolutely right. I could picture it in my mind and was really looking forward to it. But now it doesn't feel right, and when Mr B and I stopped to think carefully about it, we realised it's just not that important to us. My main reason for wanting to have the baby at home was to be in my own bed shortly after delivery. The OB assures me that if all goes well with the delivery in hospital, I can discharge myself after 6 hours, so I could be back home quite quickly anyway. That was enough to sway me, and once I allowed myself to make that decision, I felt a hundred times better.
Of course, I had hoped to use a birthing pool in early labour as pain relief, and since there is only one in the hospital maternity unit, it's unlikely that I'll get to use one. But even that's just not important enough. My losses have primed me to expect the worst and be grateful if it doesn't happen. I need, for my own sanity, to be near to high tech medicine for that 0.001% chance of something going wrong. After all, I've been in that tiny percentage before.
The OB confirmed that Bad Boy has started to engage (1/5th apparently) and she predicts that I will deliver at 38 weeks as I did with Badeggs Daughter. That would be next week! God I hope so. It would be bliss to spend Christmas without the world's biggest bauble (that's ornament in Amerispeak) poking out in front of me!
Things to remember about 37 weeks:
- Little feet poking out of my side near my ribs
- The feel of a full term baby wriggling around trying to get comfortable; it feels like ripples must feel to a pond.
- Baby hiccups. They've gone from tiny little pulses to great quakes that shake the whole bed!
- The way my midwife talks to the baby when she feels my abdomen. She shows such reverence and joy at the thought of that new little life.
- Mr B listening to the heartbeat by putting his ear up against my belly, and how he then pulls back and kisses the spot where he's heard it.
- Badeggs Daughter watching and rewatching the episode of Friends where Rachel has her baby, and how she keeps saying: "Oh!!! That's going to be you soon! I can't wait!". And how she drags her friends over to see how big I've got when I collect her from school.
- The tug-of-war between desperately wanting to get this baby out but knowing that this is the last time I am ever likely to be pregnant. I'll miss it.
