midwife – Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

I am Canadian. New York magazine, therefore, hits my news stands three weeks late and I have only just read “Extreme Birth,” Andrew Goldman’s article about NYC home-birth midwife Cara Muhlhahn and home births in general. I have been wanting a good lead-in to a home birth discussion for a long time, so even though this article prompted much online buzz about home births from such big wigs as Jezebel and salon.com’s broadsheet weeks ago, I’ll throw my two bits in anyway.

A good friend, and one of the most unabashed, frank and honest people I know, is five months pregnant and on the wait-list for a midwife in her area. I was pretty surprised because “Quick, easy, and pain free,” might as well be her motto. Both my kids were “delivered by” a midwife and I know that wanting to at least try for an unmedicated birth is really kinda the point. When I told her this, she replied that she has always been one to try the latest, trendy thing and thought she might as well see if she could go it au naturel. Is that really all this home birth talk is, then, a passing trend? Or does it represent a real backlash against the over-medicalization of childbirth and a general shift toward a less invasive approach to labour and delivery? Or could it be both?

Chug a chug a choo choo, we hear you

We had our 12-week appointment with the midwife on Tuesday and were able to hear the baby’s heartbeat with the Doppler. Colum said it sounds like “Chug a chug a choo choo”. That’s not an altogether inaccurate description, either, but I hope he’s not expecting a baby train. I’m already starting to show and my uterus is a bit bigger than my midwife would expect at this stage. She assures us that this is likely because everything grows more readily in second pregnancies. Since we are pretty sure about our date, the only other explanation would be more than one baby, but nobody’s buying that. Twin pregnancies are often accompanied by pretty extreme first trimester symptoms, but I had only the slightest queasiness here and there and typical fatigue. And there are no twins in my family. We’ll find out for sure at our 18 to 20 week ultrasound, but, like I said, we’re not really worried. Really, hardly at all.

There’s lots to say about midwives versus OBs and I hope to find the time to delve into some of that. I’ve given my notice at the restaurant for the end of May, so I’ve been picking up extra shifts while I can. This will be my last week of extra work, though, and I’ll just cruise through my last month working one shift a week.

Lastly, Colum’s at the stage where his internal dialogue is still external and it can be so funny. I just heard him in the hallway saying, “I going to ask Mom for another one cracker.” And then seconds later he comes charging through the door, “I have another one cracker, Mom?” Don’t you wish we could all be so transparent?