First Midwife Appointment

When the midwife arrived at our house this morning for our first appointment, lets just say - she was not what I was expecting. Our Alexandra midwife has been a underweight middle aged woman who looked like she hadn't slept in over 2 years, was never on time, and was still reeling off the adrenaline of the last baby she'd delivered. Andrea, our current midwife, is a rather large and very relaxed looking woman who pulled up to the house at 10am on the dot. She is a very friendly and good humored woman full of good information, confidently presented and I am very happy with our choice. Andrea has around as many years experience in midwifery as I have years of life. Now don't get me wrong, we adored our crazy eyed adrenaline junkie, infact I phoned her to see if she could be our midwife again but unfortunately she is moving back down to Alexandra. Andrea was her recommendation, so thank you Sonya!

Now might be the point at which to mention our birthing plan, just to help people warm up to the idea, as I know that in the US this is not the regular approach. We have a sleep out behind our house that is currently tenented which we plan to use as the birthing room. In Nelson you can rent a birthing pool so we will have that set up out there and the midwife tells me we'll have to fill it quickly (and high looking at my height!) as she's predicting a quick labor based on Ayva's speedy descent into the world. No drugs, no instruments, just all natural!

She has bumped my due date up a day, making it January 7th. And putting me at 7 weeks today. Either way, it's all an estimate! We've decided to do a 12 week scan just to check things out and ease our minds after our recent loss, but Andrea assured me that it wasn't necessary as she could see no reason why this baby wouldn't go to full term. I feel confident in this pregnancy, it feels so much like the pregnancy with Ayva in '05. Except that I haven't put on any weight yet. (I had gained around 4 lbs by now with Ayva - so is this a boy??? Old Wives Tale - you chub up less with boys!)