I eat my granola with a silver spoon

The book that I read that has made me so excited about natural childbirth is Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. Her positive outlook and success stories have me bubbling with anticipation for labor and delivery. I want to know what it's like. Feel it all, the good and the not so comfy. I am looking forward to giving birth instead of fearing it.

That is a powerful feeling.

The birth center idea went hand in hand with Ina May's ideas and methods I thought. So I was just about ready to leave my current doctor and hospital to go with a midwife at the birth center. Until the tour today.

People don't realize how much of a difference putting a positive spin on things can make. The woman leading the talk and tour must have used the word "don't" 127 times. She told us everything they don't do and very little of what they actually do. A large portion of the talk covered what happened if you ended up having to go to the hospital and the different scenarios therein. Most of which included you and your partner getting into your car and driving to the hospital, followed by your midwife in her car. Guy was not at all thrilled about that plan.

I was a little discouraged at the break. I also needed to pee of course. So I went into the restroom. That is where it hit me.

I'm standing in a tiny dimly lit restroom. The toilet is way low to the ground. After I'm done, I have to flush it twice because the first time it didn't work, but simply ran awhile. There is a can of Lysol on the back of the toilet (Satan's spit in an aerosol can).

It hit me that I wasn't comfortable there. It didn't seem as clean as it needed to be. It seemed a little run down. And the director had "don't" syndrome that was suffocating the rest of the room when she spoke.

I wanted to hear what they did do. Why they did it that way. I wanted to hear their successes and not how unfortunately their c-section rate rose to 10% in 2006 because there were 5 breech babies that year. It was almost as if she resented those babies for making their numbers look bad.

The waiting area for family didn't look very comfortable. That was one of my considerations. Daddy might be here for the birth, and he doesn't do well in hospitals any more. They make him nervous. He gets lost. It's just not a great place for him to have to be. This atmosphere though, I don't think would be any better for him.

I feel like I'm the one being negative now, and I don't mean to do that. I'm sure it is a great place to give birth, and I still love the idea of having a midwife and the theories behind natural childbirth. This location though, is not for us. And to be honest, I'm terribly disappointed that it isn't. Because in theory, it is so what I wanted.

I have to admit though, I like my clean bright and slightly posh doctor's office. I didn't know I did until today, but I do. I like being walked back and weighed in. I like the idea of someone taking care of me. I didn't feel like that was going to be the case at this birth center.

So onto plan B. As we were leaving, Guy says to me,

"You know that I'm on your team, right? That whatever kind of birth you want to have, I'll make sure that it happens."

He took my hand and squeezed it.

So you'll sneak in some food when I get hungry, fight off unnecessary IV's, and tell them to stick their hospital gowns where the sun doesn't shine, because these girls need support, and I plan to be in a sports bra or a cami and not much else?

"You got it. It doesn't matter where we end up. It's going to be you and me, and I'm going to take care of you."

That's it then. We'll stay with my current doctor and just cross my fingers that after all she has been through with me, she gets to be the baby catcher that day. We have our personal childbirth instructor meeting with us in November. We will write a birth plan together. He's promised to read the Ina May book so that he can see what I'm so giddy about.

And together, we'll make sure Bird hatches in the best way we possibly can.