7/11/11

So I've been hearing some buzz from other people about a birth plan. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I guess I'm supposed to create one. 

I of course can't just sit here and wonder I needed to look it up on the internet to find out just exactly what a birth plan is and what I need to do. I've only got three months left I'm feeling the crunch.

I didn't realize how much say we have in deciding how our baby's birth will go. I thought we just showed up at the hospital on the day and they went into auto baby delivery mode, but I guess that's not the case.

A birth plan lets us have in writing who will be in the room during delivery. How I'd like the atmosphere when I deliver for example: music, lighting, photos or not. Things I'd like upon admission into the hospital like, my husband to stay with me at all times, whether or not I want people to visit, freedom to walk around if I choose, that sort of thing. In the birth plan I can also put in writing whether or not I wish to be given drugs to induce labor and how I want the fetal monitoring done. I can request birthing props like a ball, stool or tub. I can decide pain relief techniques and I can even outline how I'd like to push! I can make certain requests during vaginal delivery and c-section. I can choose to hold the baby before they take it away for procedures that aren't urgent. I can decide when to feed the baby for the first time and whether or not the baby stays with us in the room 24 hours a day.

That's an awful lot of control for a relatively indecisive gal. Especially when this is my first time ever doing this. I have no idea what I'm in for how do I know what decisions to make?

My doctors and nurse practitioners at St. Michael's Hospital in Stevens Point are really great about taking the time to answer all of our questions and help us through this as much as possible. I've found that they answer without judgement and without pressuring us to make decisions one way or another. They respect our decisions and really make us feel like this is our adventure and they are in the passenger seat navagating the whole way. When they say "today together tomorrow" I really feel like they mean it.

When we first found out we were pregnant we both thought this would be the longest 9 months of our lives, but in reality, the first three months were really long because we were trying to keep a HUGE secret from everyone we know, but since then time has really sailed by. It'll seem like a blink of an eye once we arrive at St. Michael's to start our life long adventure as parents. 

Did you do a birth plan? Did you feel like you were more prepared by having a birth plan?