"She refused to be bored, chiefly because she wasn't boring." Zelda Fitzgerald

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Midwives, Past and Present

Just trying to psyche myself up to call the midwife we think we've finally picked after a few weeks of interviews and appointment setting. I am so weary from all of it. I really hate interviewing, selecting things and the whole lead-up that comes before actually doing things. I also hate calling people on the phone. Ack! I am however, really looking forward to the part where I actually have a caregiver and we can start on genuine prenatal appointments.
My wonderful previous midwife, Martha....checking Nib out post-delivery.
After every interview we'd load all the kids back in the car and start the drive home, discussing the candidate midwife and what we thought of her and compiling a verbal pro and con list. And I'd sit there thinking in the resulting silence after we'd finished..."Crap. I miss Martha. (my old midwife) " Sometimes change sucks. When it comes right down to it I like the familiar and the comforting, those I already know and the previous good compared with the blank future full of "possibles." I hope Martha is enjoying her sabbatical time away in California, I am sending her a long chain of love over the mountains and the plains, I hope she knows she has been a great inspiration and comfort to me in labor and pregnancy and life. I hope she is getting some good, restful care herself now, the caregivers of the world so often need that kind of love themselves. And here's hoping that the new midwife ends up being just exactly the right person for the job.
Martha, does Nib's newborn exam and narrates for big brothers.
I am 14 weeks now, with just my pinky toes over the 2nd trimester line, not really "showing" in any impressive way and still wearing normal clothes just no longer feeling sick to my stomach. I am really looking forward to feeling the baby move and hearing the little heartbeat.
This is what I look like these days, not much belly to show yet which is just fine with me.
Our homebirth midwife used a fetoscope instead of a Doppler to listen to the heartbeat which meant that it was a much trickier endeavour to pick up the sound of the heart, the fetoscope, not being an electronic, amplified instrument is much more subtle, like a slightly exaggerated stethoscope. This means the heartbeat for the fetoscope served homebirth patient is a little later experience, Martha, my last midwife was a wizard with hers and could hear the heartbeat towards the end of the 1st trimester but I could never pick it out myself until the 2nd and not very solidly until the 3rd.
Dee testing out the fetoscope on his puzzled, kid brother's head. Can you hear brains?
My friend Nutmeg gave us her fetoscope so that we have one for trying out and practicing with at home. I have been giving it a try lately but so far I can't pick up anything but my own breathing and heartbeat. I am no Martha. :) Looking forward to hearing that little galloping sound sometime soon.
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