33w, 1d

Hmm, I wrote up a long blog post and posted pics yesterday but it's not showing up for me now...

Anyway, just a quick update: I went to the birthing center orientation today - I was obviously many months late for this as everyone else there were very newly pregnant without even first appointments, and then there was me, who's been there like 5 times now and I'm 8 months along.

Didn't really learn anything, so I'm not sure why this was mandatory. But, they did discuss which room I'd be in for a water birth, and I got to ask them if I could bring my own pool. Surprisingly they said yes, which I was thrilled about. She looked a little surprised that I'd want to bring my own pool (looked like the first time she'd been asked that) and said they have a pool there for my convienience but I don't like the looks of it - it doesn't even look comfortable when it's not holey, it's just a plain, flat bottomed pool that looks like it's been used for a few too many years.

 I'm hoping to get this one, with a little blow up bench part. It's big enough for two adults, so Bill could go in it with me and help me out (in all the home waterbirths I've seen, the women all really need some support so their husbands go in with them to help hold them or help in changing positions.) The pool they have isn't big enough for me to stretch my legs out, which would really bother me.

 The orientation did help me feel better at least. Honestly, I feel like I can throw my birth plan away. Everything I wrote on there was basically things that they say they strongly encourage all mothers to do (I love how very opposite they are from the hospital, though they did say that Reading was slowly learning their techniques). They teach and encourage about many different positions to try, they're open to water labors/births, they do all of the baby's tests and measurements while the baby is laying with the mother (they said they never take the baby away from the mother, even across the room, except for weighing.) and everything they do is an option - they ask you what you want done to the baby and if you don't want something, they're fine with it and don't try to push anything. They said everything is done to have a good, positive birthing experience.

 The stay is a little longer than I thought though, it's at least 4 hours, usually between 4 -6, you have to eat a meal before you go home, they give you full access to using everything in their kitchen (dishes, microwave, refrigerator, silverwear) etc. She also explained what happens if there's more than two women birthing at a time (they only have 2 rooms) but she said since she joined in 1996, it's only happened twice and now it's unheard of because over half the women they see have a hospital birth, and a few have homebirths, so their birth center births are low in number (she said it averages only about 10 -12 throughout the whole month). She also explained that they call every day to check up on mom and baby for a week, and visit on the second day to check out both as well.

 All of it really helped to make me feel better, it's a much more secured, taken care of feeling than at the hospital. Also, MUCH to my relief, they do have air conditioning in the birthing rooms (I was told last time there weren't, but I suppose they meant they just don't put it on this early in the season.) The only thing I dislike is that it seems like something in my body does not agree with the place - every time I'm there for more than a half hour or so,  I get lightheaded unless a window is open. Not sure if it's a smell, the temperature or just stuffy air, so I think I'll be laboring with the windows open and fans blowing the air conditioning on me.

Besides orientation, I slept terribly last night and I'm hoping it isn't the start of more bad nights to come. I felt so uncomfortable, with lots of pressure and the baby would not calm down. Even though she's not stuck up in my ribs anymore, something keeps pushing up my lungs to make it difficult to breathe laying down (perhaps the uterus itself? I know the fundal height is supposed to be over five inches higher than my belly button.). I had to keep sitting up, not just to get more air but to try and relieve some of the pain and pressure.

This was after I had a very sudden freak out, where I started yelling how hot I was and I had to tell Bill to run and get the fan. I literally felt like I needed to crawl out of my own skin, I was so hot. He said it wasn't at all hot in the room (we even had the wind blowing in through open windows, and actually when the fan was on I got cold really quickly) so I'm guessing it was just a severe heat flash. It was definitely the worst I ever had, I felt like I was panicking from the heat. So...no sleep at all last night. Mostly it was tossing and turning and sitting up, or trying to arrange my mountain of pillows so that I slept on a steep incline. I had an early wake up time too, so I'm just utterly exhausted and it's not even 2 PM yet and I've done nothing besides go to orientation. I sure hope I'm magically able to get a whole lot of sleep right before labor hits, because I feel terrible when I don't get enough sleep.

 I can not believe how active Katie is today - she obviously got more than enough sleep last night. My stomach has literally not stopped bouncing and being shoved out in places since I woke up. She's really acting up quite a lot, I don't think I've ever seen her quite this energetic before! (and this isn't even with drinking orange juice or anything that normally gets her all worked up.)