I’ve decided to deliver at a birthing center.
After this delivery I’ll have birthed in a standard hospital (though we weren’t there very long before I delivered her), I’ll have had a homebirth (absolutely wonderful to experience), and I’ll have given birth at a place that’s a bit in-between one’s home and a medical facility.
The decision wasn’t easy, per say. After two successful, drug-free and intervention-free vaginal deliveries I really don’t see the need to leave my house while birthing, but…I’ll be alone. This time, not only in spirit, but I won’t have his body to knead like bread through the waves of contractions. I also don’t know if my mother or sister will be with me. So, even though I know that I have the strength to delivery my baby safely and peacefully, I’d rather not be alone.
I wanted to hire a homebirth midwife. I interviewed some and met one that I really liked, but that was months ago, when I thought I’d be better off financially by this time. However, I am not receiving child support, and with all of my other expenses I cannot afford to hire a midwife who isn’t covered by my insurance.
It does sadden me. I know that I’m fully capable of delivering my baby without anybody’s assistance. But with two little ones in the house who need tended to, and with us being so many miles away from a healthcare facility, it just seems safer to be with midwives during the delivery. Plus, I really don’t want to be alone.
2009 – Terra’s Homebirth
Birthing is difficult. It challenges your core strength as a person, as a woman, as a mother-to-be. It grounds you, and sweeps you off your feet simultaneously. It empowers you while bringing you to your knees. I love birthing. I feel the strength that I typically suppress consuming me. I am unstoppable and fully capable of riding out the rushes; in, out, up, down, squeeze, opening my body.
But I don’t want to be alone. Birth is a celebration. Someone come earth-side, someone taking their first breaths, someone welcomed to life. I want to be in good spirits when I push her through my bones, I want to give her a wonderful welcome. If I am not surrounded by loved ones, or loving midwives, it will be much more difficult to not succumb to the sadness, to the emptiness, to the fears. I do not want her to come into this world and be greeted by my grief.
I need the birthing center to distract me from brooding over him during labor and delivery. I do not want to focus on my worries, I cannot spend my labor wondering what my future holds. From my experience the best way to get through a delivery is to be totally present. It’s difficult though, when the sensations make you want to push against them or run away, and what is really going to help you is to embrace them, allow them to invade your idea of comfort, reorganize your concepts of control.
It still saddens me, that I cannot have another homebirth strictly for monetary reasons, that I will give birth to our third baby and he will not be there with me, that I will bring her into this world so uncertain of what will be. But I am happy that she’s coming. I am excited to prepare for her. The girls already consider her in everything that they do and enjoy imagining the ways that Baby will contribute once she’s here with us. I will do my best to bring her into this world safely and surrounded with love.
This may not be the situation of my dreams, but I’m still going to give birth naturally, and I’m going to make her earth-side entrance as positive and peaceful as can be.