Week 27: Home delivery

You guys, we blinked, and before we knew it, the third trimester had arrived! I can still hardly believe it. Yesterday, I had a prenatal appointment with our midwife Brenda, and everything looks great. It’s always such a joy seeing her, listening to our baby’s heartbeat and having a chat afterwards about how this pregnancy is coming along. We chose to have a baby with a midwife because we wanted our birth to be ours with as little intervention as possible. Like most first-time moms, when I was pregnant with Anaïs, I saw a doctor. Why wouldn’t I? But after the first 20 weeks and seeing a couple other doctors who never once made me feel comfortable, I switched over to a midwife.
My decision was a personal one but also was one that was made based on the experience I had with the doctors. Each time I saw them, I felt like I was making mistakes left and right. To be honest, I was scared of having the baby. I felt like I was making all the wrong decisions and if I wasn’t careful, then something devastating would happen. It almost felt like I was bullied into believing I wasn’t strong enough to carry the baby, let alone give birth. It felt like everything with that pregnancy had to be on their time. And that felt wrong. I felt deep down that I shouldn’t, under any circumstances, be afraid of giving birth. So I made the executive decision to switch to midwifery care and opted to have Anaïs at a freestanding birth center.
Flash forward to the present. Since then, I have moved to Atlanta. When I found out I was pregnant with our son, Jesse and I immediately sought a midwife. I interviewed a few and was so happy when we met Brenda. She has been wonderful! Interestingly (and much to my disappointment), there isn’t a single freestanding birth center anywhere in the entire state of Georgia! Which means that we are actually going to have this baby … at home. That’s right—we are doing a home birth, and I couldn’t be more excited about it!
Because I had already had a very similar experience, I knew that I could do it again. Only this time, I won’t even have to leave the comfort of our own home. Naturally, we are not going into this blindly. There is still a chance that I might need to transfer to a hospital in the event of an emergency. There are a number of things that could change what we have planned for into something completely different. We understand all of this and are being responsible in our decision. But birth is such a basic and natural part of the beginning of life, and I trust in myself to be able to do what I know my body can.
Now that we are officially in the home stretch (!!!), it’s hard not to think about the upcoming weeks and wonder what this birth will be like. Will it happen in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning? Will it happen during rush hour traffic? Will this baby come as quickly as my first did or will I be a long, hard labor? There are so many questions that pop up more frequently now. Yet, none of it is giving me anxiety. None of it is scaring me. None of it makes me worried. It all just makes me giddy with excitement and anticipation. And that’s all I could ever want to feel leading up to his birth day.