Getting this baby out!

I'm not quite ready for him to come out yet (hello, not-even-started nursery!) but I realized last night that in 10 weeks I'll be technically full term. 10 WEEKS! I'm not sure why but that thought scares the hell out of me. But I've been thinking more and more about what I want to happen while I'm in labor. Mark and I decided early on that it would be just me and him in the delivery room. We got into this together and we're getting out of it together! But I've realized that it could be a long process and it might be helpful to have someone else there for both of us to lean on for support. We discussed choosing a friend or family member but we wouldn't even know how to choose one of them. Our birth class instructor gave us the name of a friend of her's who is a student Doula. She has to attend 3 live births as part of her training and we're lucky enough to be one of the 3. We've been e-mailing with her and we're finally meeting her in person on Tuesday evening. Hopefully everything goes well and she'll be at Colin's birth. It will be nice to have an extra support person.

The birth class that we've been taking is The Bradley Method - the "coach centered" method that places a lot of importance on nutrition and exercise during pregnancy ultimately ending with a natural birth. So far it's been awesome. The instructor is all for non-hospital, midwife assisted births so she's been kind of dissing hospitals which scared me a bit since I'm delivering in a hospital. I was pleasantly surprised when I was reading a birth plan checklist from the hospital I'll be delivering in. It has all the options I want - limited monitoring if everything is going ok, being able to walk around, get in the tub, use the birthing ball. I was so surprised! I guess I let the instructor get in my head a little about how hospitals are "bad". I felt relieved knowing that the hospital will allow ME to call the shots.

I was even more relieved after visiting the maternity section of the hospital. It is simply amazing. They have really thought of everything to make the mom's happy! Unfortunatley Mark wasn't able to tour it with me but we're going back soon so he can see everything. So...while neither me or the baby is quite ready for him to come out, I feel extremely confident in the choices Mark and I have made for our path of bringing him in to the world!