The story so far... (part II)

Group appointment - 10/13/04
Our first appointment with midwives was in October. The first appointment was just a group informational session. Alan and I and several other pregnant women were there. One of the midwives told us how things work with the midwives and the birthing center at the hospital. She also went through a presentation with basic information about pregnancy, what to do, what not to do, and what tests we may be presented with during the pregnancy. It was interesting. They also did a tour of the birthing center at the end, but Alan and I were running late for a flight to DC, so we had to leave before the tour. I think we get another chance to take a tour during a childbirth class. Hopefully anyway :)

First appointment - 10/25/04
The following week I went in for a blood test (standard procedure) and everything came back perfectly normal. The following week was my first private appointment. At that time the midwife complimented me on my great numbers (iron levels, blood pressure, etc.) from the blood test.

Mom told me to tell the midwives that I was delivered by Ina May Gaskin. I never thought they would care, but it came up in conversation, so I mentioned it at my appointment. She thought it was awesome! She had all sorts of questions and said "The other midwives will be so excited!" I laughed and said, "I think my mom is going to be more popular at this birth than I am." ;)

At this appointment we tried to hear the baby's heartbeat, but couldn't. It was only 10 1/2 weeks though, and the midwife said that there's nothing to worry about.

Third appointment - 11/19/04
We got a heartbeat! Yay! This was a pretty short appointment actually. She just did a checkup and let us hear the heartbeat. It was very cool.

Fourth appointment - 12/17/04
On December 17th we went in for the 18 week ultrasound. Some doctors do frequent ultrasounds, but the midwives here just do one for a normal healthy pregnancy. We went in and met with a radio technician and another in training. It was neat because the one lady was explaining all sorts of things to the other, so I feel like we got to learn a lot. One interesting point, you have to be significantly more precise when measuring babies because the proportion of the object (like the head) to the whole body is much great in a baby than say the proportion of a kidney in a grown up. She kept stressing the importance of being very precise with the measurements.

We decided that we don't want to know the sex of the baby before birth, so the technician was nice enough to not go "down there." But she did show us all the other parts. We saw hands and feet and head and ears and belly and all sorts of great things. It was very awesome.

Our next appointment is in 2 days so I'll try to post an update then.