My Birth Plan

Of course, I know I cannot plan when my baby will be born or much of what will happen. Nature will take its course and things will happen as they happen.

My midwife has encouraged me to develop a birth plan.

For the most part, my plan includes a safe labor and delivery for both me and my baby. I want to listen to the nurses, my midwife and the doctors with our only goal to have that baby in my arms.

If there are no complications: I plan to deliver vaginally with an epidural as soon as the pain becomes too much to handle. I would like to labor as long as possible before the option of a c-section arises. I want only Bryan in the room, no family, no friends besides him.

My biggest (and only) preference is most important: I want my baby. And when he is born, I want him directly on me, skin to skin, naked and fresh from the womb. I want him in my arms, want to delay the cord cutting (midwife says it helps prevent the nurses from taking your baby if he's still attached). I want to hold him as they clean him, measure him and do the "eyes and thighs" procedure. I want them to take him for his bath and weight only after I've had a full thirty minutes with my brand new baby.

When they take him for his bath, I want a bath, new sheets and new clothes. And then I want my baby back again. And I want to try to breastfeed within the first hour. This is the most important thing to me: holding my newborn. After all these weeks of carrying him, after all the pain of labor, after all the waiting, I want him. I want him in my arms and I don't want anyone to take him away!

This first hour of his life is so important to me. Pictures and facebook updates can come later. Those first few moments of life, I want him in my arms. I am so ready to meet my little baby. I can't believe we're only 3 months away from meeting this little guy. Who will he look more like? Me? Bryan? Will he be big or small? Will he be chill or a screamer? I am just so excited to find out.