Decisions, decisions

I seem to have forgotten what life is like without constant nausea. I have vague recollections of exercising, going into my kitchen, cooking meals, enjoying food, standing for more than 10 minutes consecutively. But those all seem like dreams now. Being nauseous is the worst. I feel like I would be so much more excited about my new baby if I didn't feel so lousy all the time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm way excited! I just think I would be more so without the poorly named "morning sickness."

In other news, the doctor called and all is well and good in the baby department. All the tests I did came out with a big fat smiley face so hurrah!

As pregnancies go, at some point this child will have to come out and surprisingly enough there are a lot of options in this area: natural or epidural? hospital, birthing center, or at home? should I induce? Should I get a c-section? Midwife, doctor, doula or all three? And lots of other things I haven't thought of having never done this before.

SO to correct my ignorance I have been doing my fair share of research. Mama Birth is a great resource (the link is on the right sidebar) and I just re-watched two documentaries: Pregnant in America and The Business of Being Born. And I have to say, I'm leaning toward a home birth.

You may be thinking that I have some sort of pregnancy insanity but do a little research before you judge. The hospital is not your friend. They take patients. And quite frankly, when you're pregnant you don't need to be fixed, you're not sick (unless you're throwing up in your first trimester) and therefore you should be treated as a client and not a patient.

I believe that I should be allowed to labor for 30 hours if I need to and not have a doctor pressing me to get a c- section so he can be home for dinner. There are a lot of steps between the one and the other but you get my drift. A hospital is a business much like a restaurant. Restaurants want tables filled and emptied as fast as hospitals want beds filled and emptied. They can't make money if they're full.

Now that being said, I am not done with my research and my mind is not set. Obviously this kind of birth is not for everyone. What happens if you're birthing at home and something happens that could hurt mother or baby?? I guess that all depends on the midwife's skills and how close I live to a hospital. I think I'll get a midwife and a doctor and if my pregnancy is high risk I'll just take my midwife with me to the hospital.

Anyway, I am excited about all this and I'm excited to learn more and make the best decision for my family. And pray a lot about it. And soon enough I'll be doing research on whether to use cloth diapers, disposable, or EC (look that one up). I love research, It makes me giddy!