Last doctor's appointment and Doula

So my last doctor's appointment went well. I did tell him about my chiropractor appointments and he didn't necessarily say anything about them. He didn't sound like he personally "believes" that he can help but he said if it seemed to be helping me, then I should keep going.

I had a 7 pound weight gain, which is definitely more than 1 pound a week, but seeing that I'm way less than I was with Noah even at birth and that I wasn't gaining (actually losing) weight in the beginning, it's no big deal. I also attribute that to the last 4 weeks including the Holidays, where I may have indulged a bit.

The biggest news was that as I was scheduling out all the rest of my appointments, I found out that my regular OB is going to be on vacation the week she is due!! I couldn't believe it.

I had done all this work to prepare for Noah's birth and my dr seemed so supportive of our natural birth plans and when it came down to it, he was supportive. So while I was still nervous about this birth because every birth can be different, I was feeling a little less anxious than the first time. But then I find out that there's a good chance he won't be there and I feel like I'm back to square one again.

So the plan is to see his "associates" for my next 2 appointments, which I think is routine anyway just in case he wouldn't be "on-call" when I go into labor, but now even more important. I have met with the female doctor before, but never really "quizzed" her on her supportiveness of natural childbirth. This time, I plan to take our birth plan and really get a good idea of how these doctors feel. Hopefully they don't feel that much different than my regular OB and all will be well. Not to mention, we still have the chance that she can come early or late and my regular OB will be there. They say due dates are actually week 38-42, so that's 4 whole weeks she is due and my OB will be gone only one of those weeks, giving me a 75% chance of delivering with my regular OB (although I would think the greatest chance she will come would be that one week...but who knows except baby, right)?

This also leads me to our other birthing decision David and I have made - to hire a doula. We didn't really think about this much the first time around. I think we were on a "birthing" high from our Bradley classes and thought we could handle everything ourselves. Did we? Pretty much. I would say Noah's birth went pretty well. However, there were a few things I wished we had done differently and at the time, we were always unsure of what we were doing. This time, I think hiring a doula is a good decision so we have that second opinion, that second person to bounce ideas off of it, that second person to help David out when he has to use the restroom, update family, etc. And then when we found out our regular OB may not even be there, it just solidified our decision more.

So then the task of finding one... It turned out to be more difficult than I thought. It really irritates me that when you offer your services and someone contacts you, that you don't contact that person back within 24 hours. We have a rule at my work that we need to have an away message up explaining when you will get back to that person or you respond within 24 hours. With my Scentsy business, I have a personal rule that I always get back within 24 hours, but generally I respond within 15 minutes. I think I emailed about 10 doulas. One or two responded that they couldn't take me for that time frame, but one was like 6 days later. In the end, I only had 2 that responded at all, one within a reasonable time frame. I met with her first and she was fantastic. It really pushed us over the edge to hire a doula at all. The second one was good and we liked that she was actually a midwife in her main business, but I just think we didn't "click" with her as well. I'm sure she does great work though and I would recommend her to others. So now we are in the process of hiring the first one. I am really excited and can't wait for my prenatal appointments.

For those that aren't really sure what a doula does or includes, basically she is a support person during labor and birth. That's her main role. Our specific one will also do 2 prenatal appts where we will discuss our birth plan, my nutrition, what relaxation techniques we will use, etc. Then she will show up whenever we want her to once I'm in labor, most likely while I'm still at home. And will stay through the birth and make sure we have breastfeeding established. She will then visit us two times post birth to check up on us.

So that's what's been going on in our lives lately. I now start seeing the doctor (not necessarily my own...grrrr) every 2 weeks, so my next appointment is on Jan 23 (next Mon).