Hello everyone! Well, today was my 14 week check up at the ob's office and everything is going fantastically! The baby is very active according to the dr and is measuring at 8 (either inches or cm, I can't remember which he said.) But that it was on target. I will officially be delivering at Barnes again. I am not thrilled about it, but if it's the only hospital that will let me do a waterbirth so I will just have to deal with the subpar post pardem care. I have officially hired a doula, though it was a hard decision. I will be following the hypnobabies course and she has had many clients including herself use it. What hypnobabies is..is what a person might use to go under surgery with instead of anesthesia, which is called hypno-anesthesia. It is self hypnosis. It is supposed to be a pain free and short labor and birthing time, which all sounds great to me! I have seen videos of actual births of mothers using either hypnobabies or hypnobirthing methods and it's absolutely amazing! You wouldn't even think they were giving birth naturally. I will try to find the link to it and if you wish you can watch for yourself. Also the doula seems very in tune with all of my needs and that was a major selling point. So, we have been selling some of the girls items that they have either grown out of or just not using on craigslist to help fund our doula. When I birthed the twins Barnes provided them free of charge which was fantastic but they no longer have the program because the clientele that typically comes in are very young mothers who were wanting drugs (stadol, epidural, etc) and they were no longer in high demand there. If this is my last pregnancy or I have another I will never go without a doula. They are truly awesome and a necessity for me. What exactly is a doula, do you ask? Labor/birth support doulas are trained and experienced labor support persons (always female) who attend to the emotional and physical comfort needs of the laboring woman to smooth the labor process. In addition to emotional, physical and informational support, doulas work as advocates of their client's wishes and may assist in communicating with medical staff to obtain information for the client to make informed decisions regarding medical procedures.
I am almost done with the nausea, it is definitely getting better, but the exhaustion and fatigue are still in high force. The OB asked me if I wanted to find out the sex of the baby today, but I said as tempting as it is, we are going to let it be a surprise. I do and don't want to know. So, I am going to be patient and wait until "THE DAY." Here's a pic of the u/s done today. Also here is the link to the hypnobirthing...FYI it is all G rated! No body parts are shown. The mom has a sports bra/swimming suit top and an open swim skirt. It is amazing!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSsaJ0Zno9s (this is my fav)
