23 weeks

This is me today, at 23 weeks!  Is this picture kind of big? I think it is, and I clicked "small", oh well.  

Today I kind of rough-drafted my birth plan for fun and since we have to have the birth in a hospital birth center, I feel I need to be as prepared as possible.  I also plan to labor at home as long as possible.  Here are some highlights (lol)

• freedom to change positions, walk, go to the bathroom, do yoga, or labor in the tub as long as possible
• No IV & limited electronic fetal monitoring & vaginal exams
• freedom to be in any position, including off the bed, during 2nd stage of labor
• prefer to tear rather than have an episiotomy
• don't offer pain medication
• freedom to wear my own clothes (... maybe)
• no eye ointment, vit k, or hep b
• defer PKU test for 2 days to establish breastfeeding for more accurate results
• B/F immediately after birth
• no bottles, pacifiers, water or formula
• delay cord cutting for at least 2 hours or not at all (haven't decided about this 'lotus birth' thing)
• no bathing of baby... will rub in vernix
  
• Baby is to ALWAYS be accompanied by myself or Michael when not in my room.

We went on a tour of the hospital on Sunday, it was nice... everything is brand new (they just built the hospital in 2007).  The only thing really 'hospitalish' about the rooms are the beds (so narrow!), they had tv/dvd player/cd player in all the rooms & a jacuzzi tub in most of the bathrooms, and you can adjust the temp/lights.  I had a breakdown about a week ago over how I didn't want to go to the hospital to have the baby... but I think it will be ok.  Its better than the alternatives-  either drive an hour away to a free-standing birth center the last 2 months of pregnancy for prenatals, the last month being an appointment every week which michael wouldn't be able to take off work for, so I'd have to drive by myself!  Or pay a homebirth midwife out of pocket, like $2,000, which we can't justify (since our insurance pays 100% for the midwife in the hospital).  I'm just worried one thing will go wrong & then everything will crumble to the ground... maybe I shouldn't have such high expectations.  I should probably prepare myself for when something doesn't go the way I want it to...

I'm going to try to stop eating sugar... or at least I'm going to think about it and stop once the baby is born.  lol.  I just really don't want to be feeding my kids sugar!  And its so bad for you, but I just love it so much, its hard.  :-)  And I just bought 4 bags (1lb each) of sour patch kids from the store bec. they were on sale from christmas- 64cents a bag!!!  Who could resist such a deal?  lol

I love amazon so much!!  I have a baby registry on there, its fun.  Its amazing to me how stores convinces us of how much stuff we need for a baby, when actually you don't need very much at all!  Its pretty crazy how much stuff we have cut off our "things to buy for baby" list, like a crib and changing table... well thats actually all I can think of, but those are pretty major necessities to most people, and pretty expensive, and take up a lot of space!