An emergency c-section birth story: preparing for the unexpected
My son Max was born on September 18, 2012 with several other first-born baby boys. According to the nurses, the days leading up to severe thunder storms tend to bring in lots of first-time births where the expectant mom’s water breaks. The day before, I had decided to work late in order to finish as much as I could, just in case baby came early.
My partner won’t be at our son’s birth: dealing with birthing almost alone
Due to circumstances beyond both of our control — a move, a job change for me, and my partner’s desire to really try the job it took him over a year to find — it looks like I’m going to be having this baby alone. There’ll be doctors and nurses and maybe a doula, sure, but I always thought my partner would be there with me. And while it’s possible that he may make it for the birth, it’s entirely possible that he will miss it.
Birthing Without: a birth plan for the plan-adverse
It’s taken me a while to come up with a birth plan. I’m a daydreamy librarian (INFJ, Pisces, Type B — you get the picture), more at home reading a bunch of parenting and childbirth literature than actually putting any of it into practice. But since I had my first child almost five years ago, I think it’s about time I came up with something.
Do I have to have a birth plan?
Birth plan, smirth plan. Jess understands the reason behind them, but feels like she can do without — what do you think?
Why I threw out my birth plan
Long before we made that ‘end-of-the-first-trimester-safe-zone’ announcement, I set out to arm myself with information. I bought twenty or so different books, ranging topically from c-sections to homebirths, joined every pregnancy website I could find, pored over every birth story I could get my greedy little hands on, and began deciding just how things would go this time around…
A premature baby can change your entire birth plan
Our baby, Jasper, was born on 27 March 2009 in Portland, Oregon. My husband and I moved to Portland in December of 2008, and I hooked up with the nurse midwives at OHSU for our birth shortly thereafter. Before going into his birth story, let me preface this by saying that my husband, Sean, and […]
Breech babies and birthing plans
Let’s backtrack to the 37th week, two weeks before Alice was born. Henry and I went to my weekly check-up together, to have “The Talk” with our doctor.