Fire on Babylon

So. Made a phone call today.

I called a birthing center. I'm exploring my options for the next pregnancy. Which I WILL NOT TELL YOU PEOPLE ABOUT. I'm not pregnant again so just simmer down. We will see in a few weeks if it worked this month, but again, NOT TELLING YOU PEOPLE. Until I am eight months pregnant. :P

Birthing centers are holistic places. Usually staffed by midwives. Midwives are nurses, like me. Advanced practice nurses. Which means they care more. They move slower, get to know their patients and have that whole nursing caring thing about them.

It was a rough phone call. I was polite, intelligent and well spoken. I explained about my daughter's birth a little. Which I don't like telling. I mean, we all know it worked out ok. But I don't like talking about the emergency C-Section. How I had an epidural and her heart rate was dropping. How they decided to section me, put me under general anesthetic and intubated me. So I missed the first 24 hours of my daughter's life because I was really groggy and my throat hurt because of the tube. It took me a good 5 weeks to realize I had given birth, to connect with my daughter in a loving way.

Five weeks old and there we were, in the kitchen. The room was lit with early morning light.I was warming her bottle, it was about 5 am. It was just me and her. I recognized her for the first time. I held her and said, "Your name is Pancake, my name is Momma." And then I sobbed because I felt it to be true.

Try summing THAT UP in a polite 5 minute phone call!

My son's birth was fabulous. FABULOUS with almost no interventions!! Birthed him right and proper. It was fabulous! The pain was fabulous, the joy was fabulous! I can wax poetic about his birth for days on end and still not be done.

TRY SUMMING THAT UP in a polite 5 minute phone call!!

Then, THEN I started summing up the miscarriage. This was easy, i relied on a lot of technical terms. Six weeks, early ultrasound, D&C, had no complications, no spotting. That was easy until the woman on the phone said, "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear about your miscarriage."

It took all my strength to keep it together.

Because midwives care.

But, I held it together, right and proper.

The thing is, I'm scared. I want another birth like my son's. All natural and blood guts and glory. I want to be cared for. And the next pregnancy I will be needy. I will need to be partners with my caregiver, not treat them as my assistants in the process. I need someone to guide me through this.

And I am fucking done with doctors.

SO. Wish me luck on everything. And thank you all for reading this. Getting it all out here does help keep me sane. As sane as I can be anyway.

:)