Thirteen days after I last blogged my partner and I conceived our third little blessing...
Predictably, a month later I was taken siege by the evil nausea monster who holds me captive every pregnancy for about ten weeks. It was tough and miserable as it always is, but I had better support than ever before and really can't thank my friends and family enough for coming to our aid, particularly in entertaining my four and one year old (who turned two during that time!).
Tomorrow I hit 18 weeks! It blows my mind to think that I am almost halfway through this pregnancy already. Though, having said that I attended a very powerful homebirth yesterday and have since been winging to my partner that I have to wait 22 weeks and 6 days* before I can meet our baby and I wannoo now!
So, how does the woman who had a near perfect 59 hour homebirth attended by her partner and two doulas, followed by a perfect posterior/brow presentation unassisted birth with her partner, plan her third birth? How can she possibly top that record? Obviously it's not about "topping" the last birth! It's not about making a statement or proving a point and I'm quite sick of the misconception that women who choose homebirth do so because they care more about their own entertainment than their baby's needs. Every woman has a different story and a different set of experiences that led her to the realisation that homebith was the best option for her and her baby.
I know that people speak amongst themselves about my previous birth choices and claim that I chose to birth unassisted the second time to "up the ante" after homebirthing with support the first time. So long as they're not using their ill-informed opinions of me to harm others with fear or bully another family out of considering my choices for themselves, I don't particularly mind what those individuals make of me and my birthing herstory**. In truth the idea of birthing unassisted appealed to me from the start, but various circumstances led my partner and I to choose two doulas to support us first time round. That birth experience led to another set of circumstances that further flamed our desire to UC, and we were fortunate enough to have a second pregnancy and birth that enabled us to experience birthing unassisted.
Homebirthing my first daughter and birthing our second unassisted were phenomenal experiences that we're very blessed to have had. But had the circumstances been different we would have made different choices and had different births. Hence there are many homebirthers who didn't homebirth all their children, others like us who did but chose different models of support each time and others who planned homebirths but instead birthed in hospital.
Returning to my early question: how does she plan for the third birth? She takes a third set of circumstances, a third pregnancy/baby, her partner's concerns and the local birth support options into consideration. She doesn't necessarily share those considerations with you, even if you ask, because in truth it really isn't anyone's business but hers, like sex it's between her and her partner ;) In my case, I will share this much: she feels no need to "up the ante" or dazzle (or disgust) you with an impressive (or horrifying) birth story.
I leave you with my favourite belly pic to date from this pregnancy. You might call it "unique" :D This was taken at McClelland Sculpture Garden in Langwarrin on my 30th birthday:
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| 15 weeks 5 days gestation |
*I am half jokingly predicting that our baby will be born on that specific date because both our existing children were born at that exact point in gestation.
** Yep, I went there and used the feminist reclaimed term for "history" because that story is woman-centred, it doesn't get more woman-centred or feminist themed than a woman in control of her own body, using her vagina to create life, so the idea of referring to that story as 'his' is a bit perverse to this radfem.
