Whew! Drama Drama Drama!

I'm going to start on a positive side of things with a funny story :) Yesterday, Charlotte and I had some errands to run and we met E for lunch. While I was getting ready she came into my bathroom and insisted she needed to help me put on make up or put some on herself, So I dug out an unused eyeshadow sponge and put some sparkles on it (yes I keep sparkles in my makeup... you never know when you'll have to dress like a fairy!). She poked herself in the eye a few times but enjoyed putting on makeup with Momma. Then as we were getting ready to walk out the door I was putting some things into the diaper bag and her little face just lit up! She ran into her room saying "Oh! I'll Be RIGHT back Momma!" and came back out with her little leopard print purse. She stuffed a My little Pony in it and a plastic spoon (one of her new obsessions). So Yesterday she walked around Babies R Us and the Army base with her purse on her arm right at her little elbow, and carrying her baby doll (another obsession that NEVER leaves her hands except when baby needs a bath). :) She was a hoot yesterday! SO FUN!

Now, on to our appointments last week.
If, you're not up to date on our baby status, here's a small recap. I am 36 weeks and last week we finally came together and talked about Where and with whom we are going to deliver miss A.belle Ruth. We looked at all of our options and decided we wanted to look for a midwife to do a home birth and also to speak with our midwife at the hospital about our birth plan to see if and where they were going to give us a hard time. I had a really hard time finding a midwife that would come to us, he were turned down by a few and given one last name by several of the ones that turned us down. After E calling and leaving a message with her, she returned our call and drove 2 hours to see us and talk about what we wanted and what needed to be done from that point... That was last Friday.

The midwife came at around 10:30 Friday morning. I opened the door to a woman standing before me in a long blue jean dress and a white sweater. She had socks pulled up to her knees, and white leggings on under all of that. Her hair was greying naturally and was pulled back out of her face with a white cotton headband it matched her sweater and leggings. Needless to say, it was obvious she was extremely religious, and to me it was almost uncomfortable. Trying my hardest not to judge a book by its cover we sat down in our living room and I got Charlotte ready to go play outside while we were talking. The midwife was very nice, but very reserved. She handed us a booklet and we talked about our reasons for going this route and what we were looking for in a birth. She mostly address E since we had mentioned he was the one more reservations and that I had done my homework as far as home birthing and midwifery. All was going well and then we opened the booklet she had made for us. She went through a few things and she got to reasons for transport... Ugh! "WHY?!" is what went through my mind at this point.. she had nearly ruined the experience for me at that point. She talked about stalled labor and how if we were to transport, we had to sign a waiver saying we would be compliant with whatever the dr's wanted. This to us was a sign of her lack of self confidence... its was disheartening to say the least. In her booklet she states that she is trained in IV's and can do them but prefers that, in situations where an IV is needed, as long as there is time, to wait for the paramedics to arrive to preform the IV. Lack of confidence. The way she talked about her previous births and how she was working with the hospitals, it seemed to us that she is prone to transporting her patients.. not something I want to fork out $2500+ for if I'm just going to end up in the hospital anyway. E said there were 2 moments where in his head he thought.. "uh oh" one of which was when she mentioned stalled labors and the other being when she said... SHE HATES CATS... Yep, you read it right.. This woman said openly in front of me that she hates cats. That was pretty much it. I have an appointment with a group of nurse midwives that this woman works under on Wednesday to see if I'm even eligible for a home birth. I guess there are certain requirements you have to meet for some midwives. I plan on going to the appointment but pretty much just for the sake of getting that approval if we happen to find another midwife. Since Friday, we have gone through her booklet a few times and every time i look at a new page I find something else that exudes the lack of confidence on her part or her willingness to comply to hospital requirements. She even looked at the birth plan we were taking to discuss with provider at the hospital and she disagreed with almost everything on it... WHAT?!! Yeah she was not what we were looking for. I really could continue on complaining about all the things that she said but I'll move on to our next fiasco from Friday...

Our appointment at the ob clinic was supposed to be at 2, so we got Charlotte up from her nap much earlier than what she's used to and headed on post. I got up to the little sign in Kiosk and slid my card in. The screen read my name and said my appointment was for 2:40.. and with a different provider... Umm... What?! So i head up to the desk explain that my appointment was for 2:00 and with so and so. the girl behind the desk explained that my provider had gotten married and moved away about a month ago (must have been right after my last appointment with her) And that the reason the time was different was because the provider I was seeing that day probably didn't have a 2:00 slot open. Ok, now I can understand all of that.. but no one bothered to call and tell me. What if the appointment had been earlier and I had missed it?! Anyway, so we waited and waited and played games and ran around the hallway with Charlotte (getting dirty looks from nurses and doctors). When we got called back I explained that I needed to get the Rhogam shot because I hadn't had it yet and she literally freaked out. This little woman rushed in fussing at us and saying that I could have died and killed my baby because I haven't had the shot yet... (not true) and that if i didn't get it that day that something could happen over the weekend and my baby and I could bleed and die. (WOW.. over react much?!) So then we mentioned that we were hoping to talk to someone about our birth plan and that we were considering a home birth... OMG.. you would have thought I committed suicide right then and there. She just about lost her head running around saying that was irresponsible and that we needed to speak with the Chief of Obstetrics in the clinic and start seeing an OB instead of a midwife in the clinic and this and that. AHHH!!! it was hard not to laugh in her face. She said that no one in the hospital would endorse that decision and that women come into the hospital all the time with dead babies because they tried to have a home birth... yes she said this... She explained that there are complications all the time and that at home there are not tools to take care of them. I responded with "Yes ma'am but there are also complications in the hospital and women lose their babies here too" She said, Well that's true. This was the appointment where I was to be tested for Group B Strep.. something I thought about refusing simply because I was negative for it when I was pregnant with C and the odds of me having it now are VEERY slim to nil. But since she was already fussy I decided to comply.. its not a serious kind of procedure and when I was tested before they gave me the swabs and asked me to swab myself in the bathroom. Not the case this time. The little woman, who we came to find out is not even a midwife but a nurse practitioner, said she was going to do the test and took the Cotton swabs rather forcibly and swabbed me I was actually surprised at how rough she was. I understand being upset with a patient but seriously.. there was NO NEED for that! I plan on filing a complaint about this little woman at my next appointment on Thursday.. Of course its with an OB because she insisted that we speak with one :P (however the Chief of Obstetrics was not available for an appointment until April 12th) (Oh AND she said to make sure we get THAT appointment with him because we needed to speak to him, haha.. that's like 6 days before my due date, I'm pretty sure by then we'll have our mind made up)

So anyway, After seeing her we went down to the lab and had my blood drawn for the Rhogam shot, the lab techs were HILARIOUS! It was the end of the day and they were just all cracking jokes on each other and the lady that drew my blood got it on the first stick (that NEVER happens). I should have stayed in there with them :) Then we went BACK up to the clinic to wait for the shot to be ready. It takes about an hour after they draw your blood. So we spent about two and a half needless hours at the hospital and left rather flustered. Poor E was really wound up.
So there you have it... our not so friendly encounters.

However, we have since found a doula AND a birthing center and have appointment with them. We are very excited about this new direction and are hoping it follows through and ends up being the end of our crazy decision-making process!

Another fun note is that we have everything ordered for Baby A and her cute little room. I am loving the new color and cant wait to get it all set up just the way we want! :) Our super-duper chair will be here in a couple weeks but everything else should get here in the next few days :D I actually just got the rest of our diapers in the mail today! like 5 minutes ago! YAY! We're planning to go to the hardware store tonight for shelving and closet organization.. her closet has to be completely redone because whoever lived here while we were in NC totally destroyed it.. I mean large holes and all in there. :oP Anyway, We are hoping to have everything set by the end of the week. AND E is taking me shopping this weekend for some nursing stuff and comfy/cute pj's to labor in. :) Fun!!