Perfect Fetal Positioning

We had our first appointment with Debi, our homebirth midwife, yesterday. It went very well. We spent two hours at her house, filling out our chart, chatting, and doing the prenatal exam. She has some sort of stick that you put in the urine to detect hydration, sugars, etc like they do at the lab of the doctor's office. She felt my belly to find out the fetal positioning and measured my belly. She used a fetoscope to check the baby's heartbeat.

According to Debi, the baby was head down in an anterior position - exactly what you want during labor. Granted, we still have a long way to go, and there's a lot of room to move in there still, so he will probably be moving around between now and then.

My belly is measuring 26" right now. She said generally speaking, from this point on, I should be measuring within one or two inches of the number of weeks along I am. Yesterday I was 27 weeks, so she said the measurement was very good.

The fetoscope was pretty interesting. She let both me and Rob listen. It sounded like a very faint (and fast) clock ticking. She said the heartbeat was at 130.

My blood pressure is good. My pulse is very low (60), which is typical for runners. I was well hydrated, and she didn't find any problems with my urine strip.

The kind of time she spends with us is completely different than the kind of time you get at a doctor's office. At Kaiser, I was seeing midwives too. They would spend a little more time than the doctors and answer questions if I had them, but still, I probably saw them at most 20 minutes. She spent a full two hours with us, explaining things, answering questions. It really is a total change.

At 37 weeks she will be visiting our house to make sure we have everything ready for the birth. She wants everyone who will be at the house during the birth to be there, if possible, so she can meet them and answer any questions they may have to ensure they are comfortable with the process. That will be sometime around August 3rd.

She also invited anyone who may have questions or concerns about the homebirth idea to join us at any of our prenatal appointments. We will be seeing her every other week, on Tuesdays (usually the appointment will be at 3:30 on Tuesdays) starting June 15th.