This Tuesday, our midwife and her assistant came over to our house for my first checkup. Chris and I scrambled to make at least one room comfortable for us to meet. (Incidentally, we’ve been trying to make our apartment liveable: The Accumulation of Stuff had reached a tipping point sometime last month. Plus we’d been re-shuffling the rooms. More on all of that later — maybe from Chris.)
Had I (and I hadn’t) even the slightest doubt that I should have a home birth, this meeting would have completely obliterated it. As it were, my buckets of faith have just gotten bigger to accommodate how much I believe in this.
So, get this: they were late for our 11am. While waiting for hours or even minutes for the doctor in her office can take all the steam out of you (not to mention traveling there or the fact that you’ll only see her for 15 minutes at best), imagine waiting in your own home. You’re straightening the cover on the bed, catching up on email, eating left-over ratatouille, gathering up any data you can think of to share while your husband is maybe vacuuming the hallway or cleaning the latest cat damage in the box. We loved the extra half hour of anticipation.
When the buzzer rang, we both ran downstairs and hugged our midwife. We climbed up to our apartment 
and settled in our cute little railroad room. Then we started talking: birth in general, home birth specifics, her methods of handing difficult baby presentations (oh, do I love her), protein needs (80 -100 grams per day!), mercury in fish (eat small ones), sugar (don’t eat: makes big babies), labor positions, shape of pelvic bones… We went over my medical history and looked at the stack of fertility charts I’ve been keeping for 30 months. She answered my questions and in general made me feel warm and fuzzy. The assistant chimed in about her experiences working elsewhere as a nurse-midwife and assured me I’ll be getting the best care possible.
For the actual exam, I laid on our bed in our awesome sunny bedroom and the midwife took my blood pressure, measured my belly and, the best part of all, gave me her stethoscope so I can listen to the baby’s heart beat (with my eyes closed… it went tic.tic.tic.tic.tic.tic.tic for every tic of my own)! It was lovely.
I think I’m in love. To celebrate, I went to Prospect Park and took lots of pictures.
Even her name sounds warm.