I’m finally showing, ever so slightly. I show more after lunch and dinner (my male coworker said that he shows after meals,too), so it’s more the food and not the baby. My kiddos at work finally know, and their reactions have been priceless. Seeing their excitement over a new baby helps me get through the not so fun things about the pregnancy. Willis still hasn’t spoken a word since we told him that he’d be a big brother…

Husband and I made the horrible decision to watch “The Business of Being Born” the other night on Netflix. It’s a documentary that focuses on the shortcomings of modern obstetrics and the glories of home birth and midwives. Obviously it’s a biased documentary, but it had some good points.

However, the overall message was that women are meant to experience childbirth in its rawest form, without “unnecessary” medical intervention, which ‘happens 100% of the time if a woman gives birth in a hospital’. The unspoken message was that women should put the personal, spiritual experience of giving birth above the potential of harm to a child in medically unsupervised environment. I finished the documentary with the feeling that I was less of a woman if I received an epidural, or, heaven forbid, have a c-section. However, I believe that my role in labor and delivery is the first time I get to put my child above myself (other than the way I care for myself during pregnancy, of course), which I will be doing the rest of my life. If it is safer for my child to be around trained medical professionals who have the equipment to handle all of the horrible things that can randomly go wrong, and I don’t get to experience the beauty of delivering in the bathtub or kiddie pool in the living room, I’m ok with that. Besides, my apartment complex would have a cow if they found out I gave birth in our bathtub. We would TOTALLY lose our deposit.

Husband’s response to the labor and delivery discussion was, “Well, it’s going to be one long and miserable day… cuz you’re going to be in labor for at least ten hours.” Thanks, hon. He even had the guts to tell me that if I get into the 24+ hour time frame, that he’d have to leave and go back to work. The sad thing is, it’s true.

Side Note…..I don’t want to start a debate about midwives, doulas, etc… if you feel passionate about this and don’t agree with me (or even if you do), you’re welcome to call me, but I don’t want to “argue” this on facebook/blog because things can be taken the wrong way. Unless you plan on inhabiting my body and pushing out this gummi bear yourself, I won’t put your opinion above my OB. Or my mom.

At this point, for the sake of my sanity, I’ll be sticking to flipping through my two pregnancy books and avoiding those Pinterest blogs like the plague. And I’ll stick to Frasier on Netflix, too.