The decision.

Parenting is full of decisions. Parenting is also full of other people's opinions, requested and unrequested. I think the best parents consider opinions they asked for, tune out the ones they didn't and ultimately make the best decision for their family. This is what we try to do, though it can be hard to drown out the "noise" of all the opinions floating around out there.

Before I got pregnant with Theo, we found the birth center. We loved it there. They were welcoming, accepting and supportive of our family (notice I didn't use the word "tolerant") and without them, we wouldn't even have Theo. They helped us get pregnant and were there every step of our first pregnancy. Leigh Ann, the midwife who delivered Theo was all I could have asked for during that long 31.5 hours. She was patient, calm, stern when needed and in the end, made the call to go to the hospital which was the right thing to do. Even though I didn't get to deliver Theo at the birth center, she still delivered him and was with us every step. He never left our arms, no less our room and none of the interventions we were afraid might happen did. In short, it went absolutely as well as it could have, even though a hospital birth was "plan B."

The birth center was there for us again when we started trying for a second and encouraged us to get some outside help when they had done all they could. When our plans changed and I got pregnant with Lucy, it seemed natural to go back to the only place that had ever cared for us in this journey. And, for the past 30 weeks, I have been their patient. The whole time, however, I have had this nagging feeling about what might go wrong if I didn't deliver in a hospital. I tried to shrug it off, after all these were the same people I'd had total confidence in when I was pregnant with Theo. I thought and thought and did some quiet research on my own about other options, but was sad when I considered changing providers. I read blogs, listened to strong opinions on both sides and felt like I was getting weighed down by this decision and wasn't sure whose voice to listen to.

Finally I asked myself what was different this time that was causing me to have doubts. I think it was three things: first, I have Theo to think about now. Obviously, I was thinking of him last time but now I really know what it's like to be a mother. And, I love that boy more than anyone in the world. If something happened to me, Susan would have to raise him alone. If something happened to Lucy, I'd be forever changed as a person and likely in need of heavy medication for the rest of my life, which would change the kind of mother I am to him. Second, I now work in a big children's hospital and spend my two days a week there dealing with really, really sick kids. Now, only maybe 1% of these have a birth injury, but still. It changes your perception greatly when you see what these families have to deal with on a daily basis. And last, I have known or known of 4 different families who have experienced stillbirth, cord accident or a late term miscarriage in the past YEAR. That's a lot. Susan just talked with a new doctor at the hospital whose uneventful pregnancy ended in a baby not breathing at birth and ended up in the NICU for a week. While the baby is ok, they never could figure out what happened. Had they not had the NICU right there, it could have been very different. Odds are in favor of a totally normal, healthy delivery, but I sure don't want to be one of those families if I can help it. All of this shook my confidence.

I was talking to a friend about all this and she asked me if everything with Lucy's birth went fine, would I regret being in a hospital. My answer was, yes, I would, but I would get over it. If something happened to her or me as a result of not being in a hospital, though, that kind of regret would not be something I would ever recover from. Ever. I think that was the moment of clarity I needed.

Susan and I made the decision together and so, we are going to be leaving the birth center's care at 30 weeks along. I have an appointment on Monday and will tell them in person. Lucky for me, UNC has an all midwife practice that delivers at the hospital. I will be changing to them, so I will still get to have a low intervention, midwife delivery, only in a hospital with an excellent NICU down the hall, just in case. We both feel like this is the best of both worlds.

I still believe that birth is a natural process that deserves to be as hands off as possible. A hospital birth still feels like "plan B", but I am really hopeful that we can have the birth we want, while still feeling safe. I have very little trouble bossing people around :) so I don't have concerns about being my own best advocate. Lucy won't leave our side, she won't have her cord cut until it stops pulsing, no one will give her anything but Vit K (not even eye ointment) and no one will stick an artificial nipple in her mouth. I will still try my best for a drug free birth and there will be NO c-section unless one of our lives is in danger - baby fat squishes, so big baby or no big baby, she'll come out. If the birth center did planned hospital births, we'd stay with them, no question, but they don't and so that's not an option. I'm most upset about potentially having to stay overnight, but I am hoping I won't have to. I've heard most hospitals will only make you stay for 6 hours after birth if you really push them. We stayed for 10 after Theo's birth and then came home and everything was just fine.

So, that's the long and short of it. Well, really just the long I guess! It was an extremely difficult decision to make, but now that it's been made, I feel at peace. A healthy mom and baby is what matters the most and I am very confident we will have both.