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(Originally posted Sunday Oct 12th)
With Zoe I had a safe (a little long) but remarkably smooth natural delivery with my husband at my side coaching me, and a fantastic mid-wife Susan Haas. (We also had a few others there that played a major role in creating a kind of insulated and safe birthing experience). At that time we couldn't have asked for anything more.

Partially because we didn't know what not to ask for or of what to ask. We did know that we wanted to re-create something similar if not even more of a "natural birth" experience as our first.  But what is a natural birth anyway? Even though we had this "natural birth" we started looking a little deeper,  even if by accident at first... It started with my some good freinds inviting us to a movie called "Orgasmic Birth" my husband dragged us.  I was thinking, "you have got to be kidding me"-but went anyway, if for nothing else the entertainment value. Yes the movie did have some orgasms but the major focus was about home birthing and creating a soothing and relaxing environment for women to birth their babies.

From a variety of different sources from movies to books (education came mostly through movies since I hardly have time for reading except for Hypnobirthing) we were slooooowly impacted. I began to realize that I had been turning my authority over to an illusion that I didn't even necessarily believe. The illusion is, that hospitals are the safest place to have a baby. The general but underlying context of most hospital settings started to be revealed to us. They are always standing by waiting for a medical emergency to occur - sometimes they even, believe it or not, cause them! Through The Business of Birth, What Babies Want & Orgasmic Birth I learned what a cool, relaxed and natural birth experience could be.
So now, looking back on our natural child birth I could nitpick about things that they did in the hospital that I never even questioned because they were "protocol" from wiping the baby down to the vitamin K shot within the first few minutes. Now I see there is no good reason to take the baby away from the mother (barring a medical emergency). Birth, I learned, is not a medical state of affairs. Its, as some old doctors that used to make house calls for births, conceived of as, a "family affair". Having said that, we feel lucky to have had the birth we had as well as the midwife we had. And now we can do our best to create the setting that is the most comforting to our new baby arriving into this crazy world.

In the meantime, we were leaning towards a birthing center (the best of both worlds we thought). We ruled out a couple off the birthing centers pretty soon in our search. A free-standing birth center in Brooklyn that, to me, defeated the idea of going to a birth center with no Nicu or backup defeated the purpose of leaving my house. The other option was Bellvue which has a lovely birth center but its so disconnected from the heart of any supporting philosohy and my experience of the hostpital was one of total bureaucracy. There was a water birthing option at LI hospital but call me spoiled but I thought the hospital was a little run down (Though we got to meet and talk to the nurse there who built the water birthing room and that was really neat). Finally we went to Roosevelt/ St. Lukes and got a tour. There were 80 people that day for 3 birthing rooms. That's 26 per room! Well as crazy as it sounds, I was willing to take my bets at Roosevelt/St. Lukes even with these crazy numbers and yet on a side note I was still entertaining a small chance of having a home birth. However, I had concerns.

One of them was a real medical emergency. The other was the one who I really trusted to accompany and guide us in a home birth, Susan Haas, said she didn't do home births and unless I found someone who I was really comfortable with it wasn't really a major priority for me.

I had had such a trusting experience with my former mid-wife, Susan Haas, that I was reluctant to go elsewhere and yet really wanted to create the generous setting that I now knew was possible. I went back to Susan one last time to say good-bye, I thought. In that meeting she said to me, "don't trade one hospital experience for another". She urged me to make a few calls and at least meet with a few home birthing midwifes. She recommended three. I did call a few of the referrals that Susan gave me, one of them was Cara (who was the main midwife inThe Business of Birthing) She was unavailable. I then called Mirium Shwarzchild. (From her name I thought either she is going to be really old and Jewish or she is going to be too touchy-freely).

By the way, in the background of all of this ideal vision and planning there is a whole other discussion of insurance matters. Long story short, I'm 95% sure, we are covered.

Three weeks ago we were still oscillating between a birthing center and a home birth. Around this same time, something mechanical came to my attention about the fourth stage of birth and the typical way it was handled in hospitals which was disturbing. To say the least, it prodded me to do a little research and in my research I found info that addressed one of my major concerns about home birthing. (Which was the possibility of hemorrhaging). Anyway I got more clarity on the myths and facts and was not only reassured but a little shocked at what I found- if you want ill tell you later). I was willing to at least meet with one home birthing midwife. I went ahead and set up an apt with Mirium Shwarzchild.

I still wasn't convinced until Mirium walked through my door and I wasconvinced. I knew right away. I trusted her whole demeanor, her casual yet experienced and professional manner impressed me. I could then picture giving birth at home. She walked though some of my other concerns about having a plan B but mostly we just talked and she's great. Its been a really enlightening process of examining what we think we know and want to know to examining our underlying beliefs about what is, what isn't and in the end what we want to create for our life.

PS Susan (my original mid-wife) offered to come during the home birth. I mean how often do you get to attend a home birth?

This will be my first entry so I hope it will be somewhat compelling.  For me - the dilemmas and concerns of being a new mommy (of 2 years) was impressive enough to start a conversation about. 

My most recent adventure has been putting my daughter Zoe in preschool and... taking her out. She is very independent and social and we felt, at first that she would do well to be with other kids more than she had been. However, other factors played a role; creating time for my work-life and a new baby on the way. Both being good-enough reasons for preschool on their own. Moving a career forward in small blocks of time can be eh hum challenging. We also wanted to make sure that we were creating enough stimulation for Zoe as well as attempting to offset any possible jealousy of the new baby with the distraction of school-life. Yet, after a good trial period - one solid month from 9:30-4PM (enough time for everyone to adjust) well, I just wasn't sold on my own brilliant plan any longer. Nothing really seemed "wrong" with the school. The teachers were attentive - a little limited in their child development philosophy - but the curriculum seemed decent enough.  The other kids seemed really sweet and always welcomed Zoe, etc. You see, when picking her up from school, I would spy through the gate (hopefully not encouraging others, of the non-parental role, to do the same) and I would see her either clinging to the teachers or finally just sitting alone, staring at her shoes. Seeing her not playing with the other kids like she always had in other situations was foreign to me. That was what did it for me- there is no reason that a 2 year old should not be engaged whenever there is ample opportunity. Not to mention that she would often talk to her dolls and tell them, "I miss you all day."  Almost every day that I picked her up, she told me that she missed mommy and daddy and she had been crying in school.  Looking back, I can't believe I waited so long but I wanted to give it a fair shake for all the reasons mentioned above. Plus, what made the decision even more complex, is that she would get excited about specific things at school which had us waiver.

Currently, she is mostly at home with mom and we go to a "mommy and me" type of school where I take her for two days from 12-2PM. She gets to socialize with other kids and still have me nearby. I've noticed that she is more clingy than she used to be and hope we haven't already traumatized her. I have yet to find a solution for my time management - especially when it comes to working from home.  Now we have the added dilemma of figuring out what exciting activities to do on the days that she is not in school.  But I'm sure this will be another adjustment period as it seems parenthood is chock full of them - ad infinitum. Thankfully, I do have one full-day offered by Israel's mom. Israel is going to take her on Friday afternoons and if I can get one more day covered by a Hebrew speaking nanny, I would be set for a little while, that is, until the new arrival comes. 

Any ideas for cool things to do on days off? We were thinking music, gymnastics (though she may still be a little young), art and, of course, finger painting and story time are always staples.