Doula or Dontcha?

lol i feel so clever for my post's title right now ;)

anywayyyy today I want to talk about something exciting that Ryan and I did over the weekend!  We found our Doula!

What is a doula? 

Well, according to the definition given to us by DONA International (doulas of north america):

"The word "doula" comes from the ancient Greek meaning "a woman who serves" and is now used to refer to a trained and experienced professional who provides continuous physical, emotional and informational support to the mother before, during and just after birth.." (www.dona.org)

We've been describing a doula as our Birth Advocate and the individual who will be there to support us throughout our labor and delivery process. She will also be a part of our prenatal process and she pays us one post-partum visit too. A doula is an amazing birth diva, basically.

Why is a doula necessary?

For us, having a doula is a necessary part of our birth for several reasons. First is because neither myself nor my husband has ever had a child before (that I know of lol) and we really felt it would be helpful to have someone there who has been a part of many births, who knows what is "normal" and what isn't, who can help me through the tougher parts of labor and who just support us on the journey.

Second, I wanted there to be someone who is on my side during the birth process.

Let's face it, at a hospital I am just one of dozens of women who will be there that day.  I am not their main priority (imagine that!) and therefore it's easy for them to treat more like how they see me: just another patient.

But for me and Ryan obviously, this is a HUGE deal. We are individuals and this is the birth of the most important little person in the world: our BABY. Nothing matters more than making sure that everything goes okay for us and our little baby.  We may be a number to a large organization but we are certainly individuals to ourselves and our baby is a little individual too and we want to make sure we are receiving the kind of care we need and that we feel we deserve.

That's where our doula comes in.

Before giving birth, it's common nowadays to write what's known as a Birth Plan. A Birth Plan is basically just an outline of what you would like to have happen under ideal circumstances. Of course, as is true of everything in life, things don't usually go according to plan, we know that but we still have definitive wishes for how we would like things to happen and what criteria we would like our caretakers to utilize when making decisions for us.  Out doula can help in this arena because not only will she support us in writing our birth plan but she will be the one who makes sure that the doctors will be following it to the best of their abilities during the labor and delivery.

I really thought this was important because I didn't want Ryan or my mother to be responsible for memorizing a list of procedures that we didn't want or experiences we needed modified for our needs. I wanted Ryan to be able to be as stress-free on our baby's Birth Day and I wanted my mother to get the chance to just be my mother. I didn't want anyone to feel obligated to have to monitor what anyone else was doing. Plus, like i said, we have no clue what the hell is going on anyway and i have the feeling that in such a potentially intense situation like giving birth all of those things we've committed to memory will just go flying out the window.

So that's another thing our doula will do for us. She will make sure that the doctors aren't deviating from the birth plan too much.

For example, I am hoping to have an entirely natural birth (laugh all you want! my mother had natural births with all four of us and my sister had a natural birth with both of her kids. i'm not sure about my other sister though). I don't even want anyone to OFFER me any pain medication. I will specify this in my Birth Plan but if for some reason a nurse decides to take it upon herself to bring by the concession stand of pain meds anyway, my doula will usher her right out of the room for us. Problem solved.

Overall a doula is going to help us create the kind of experience we want for our birth. And so it was important for us to find a doula that we connected with.

Enter in Amy Owen, our newly acquired Doula! We had the pleasure of meeting with her on Sunday and it was an instant connection for us.

Amy totally understands my approach to this birth. She is on the absolute same page as me and even better, she gave me so many great ideas.

I described to Amy that I wanted to labor at home for as long as possible, she was enthusiastic about this decision and gave me a list of why this is a really desirable approach to birth - especially a birth at a hospital (there is less time for unwanted interventions if you do most of your laboring at home as opposed to laboring in a hospital room).

She went on to describe the ways in which we could make the birth experience our own. Things like music, lighting, the setting, aromatherapy; elements that allow us to really define the experience for ourselves. It hadn't occurred to me that I could set the stage that I wanted for my experience. If i wanted a holistic and beautiful atmosphere, i could create that.  That sounds much more lovely to me than the florescent experience being offered to me through hours spent at a hospital.

She also discussed the fact that this is a Birth Day Celebration and not something to be anticipated with fear and trepidation. We can look forward to the birth, we can choose to embrace it, to be thrilled when it happens and to get through each contraction knowing that 1. they will end and 2. at the very end our little baby will be in our arms. It will be his or her birthday! and that IS something to celebrate, isn't it?

It certainly is. 

So needless to say, we are snapping Amy Owen right up and we are thrilled to be doing so. I'm feeling better already about things. My compulsive need to "have a plan" for everything is temporarily satiated and I am really excited about what these next weeks and months hold for us.

Up next for us: determining where exactly we will be delivering our little bundle of joy. I'll of course keep you updated on that one as it progresses.

But first, we have to move. And you all know how much I just looooooove that process lol. Saturday can't come and go quickly enough.

Happy Birthday, Ryan!

Today is Ryan's birthady!  It's his first birthday as a future daddy although I'm not really sure how much that changed things, really. He got up and dutifully went to work like usual although when i kept pressuring him to play hookey and take the day off he refused so he could save days for when the baby comes.

Awww!

And as it turns out, once Ryan's boss found out it was his birthday, he let him go home early for the day so that was totally awesome too!

As for his actual celebration, it was a pretty good year even if his birthday DID fall on a weekday (which we all know, of course, universally sucks (fun fact: every year mine and Ryan's birthdays fall on the same day...so therefore since his birthday is on a Wednesday this year, i know mine will be too (don't believe me? look it up! October 27th! and now that you know my birthday date i expect many gifts lol jay-kay))).

Anyway, back to Ryan and his bday: he was greeted fresh out of the shower with a breakfast bar illuminated by a single birthday candle (and my melodic voice at 6:45 AM singing "Happy Birthday"). He also was met with several little "Happy Birthday, Ryan!" signs scattered around the house in strategic locations (the bathroom mirror, his computer screen, his shoes, on the day-to-day calendar, on the front door, in his wallet (with directions telling him to make sure he gets something nice to eat for lunch!)). Zoey (our little cat) even left him a note in between her food and water bowls! She is thoughtful, that little furry monster.

When he got home, Ryan told me about a video game he had just heard about and because it sounded awesome I quickly convinced him that we should go get it for his birthday! It's called Red Dead Redemption and it reminds me a lot of the Grand Theft Auto games from days of yore. Although it's more like GTA in the Wild West in the early 1900s which is just as awesome. You just basically ride around and go on missions and stuff like that (well so far that's what it seems to be basically, though there IS a plot line of course but I'm a meanderer and like to deviate from those and go explore). Basically, it's super fun. It's filling up  our fix until Fable 3 comes out sometime hopefully soon (I hope it comes out before the baby gets here because lord knows I won't have time to really play it once there's a baby attached to me 24/7!) but it is one of those games that seems to be very time-consuming. Like Ry said, you can't really sit down with it for half an hour and expect to get much done. that's okay though, it's a "let's play video games all weekend!" kinda game which is always fun (and which, i have a feeling, will summarize our weekend together this weekend as well lol).

Video game geeking out aside I think that his birthday was a success! Ry opened his gifts, we went out for dinner, I sang to him (again the poor thing) over a peanutbutter-cup cupcake and now we've been spending the rest of the evening taking turns playing xbox and being on our computers! lol it might not sound fun to most but for us it's completely an awesome night.

Ry isn't too big on birthdays anyway...not like me. I'm the spoiled youngest child. I still get a gift from my parents for my HALF birthday every year so you can imagine my perspective here on birthdays. They're important and it's important to me that the people I love feel important on their birthday. Unless it might make them uncomfortable if i go all crazy over it so i do refrain in some situations but Ryan is not immune lol

Hell, I'm kinda already planning the baby's first birthday party. It's hard to do it too much because I don't know the baby's sex yet but there are definite ideas floating around in my head and there may or may not already be a potential list of photographers. I don't mess around, y'all! And let's not get started on my plans for the baby's real BIRTH. That's the first ever birth day and I have some cool ideas! (don't worry, I'll share them later)

Anyway, this is rambling enough, I just thought an update was in order because it's only once that you turn 29 (unless you're a woman and then you turn 29 about 40 times i believe). So Happy Birthday, Ryan! I love you and I am wishing you a wonderful day and a fantastic year! You are my everything <3

PS i promise i am done changing my layout for a while. A friend of mine on livejournal recommended this site to me and this layout is pretty much exactly what i've been looking for. I will do my best to abstain from changing it up on you all again! Sorry!