Celebration and Determination

Valentines from co-workers and leftover candy

Ahh, Valentine's Day. A day of celebrating love and....gluttony? Well, in our office it is a day for celebrating both whether that is traditional or not. CASA decided to host one of their regular holiday cook-offs and for Valentine's Day this translated to a bake off including lots of chocolate and rich, delicious desserts. We had cookie dough truffles, popping strawberry cake balls, cream puffs, various cookies and brownies and my absolute favorite, lemon blueberry cheesecake. It feels like pregnancy should allow you to partake in eating as much as you want. The truth, it doesn't. I figured this out about 10 minutes too late, right after I ate a half piece of every dessert. It tasted amazing going down but for the rest of the day I rotated between being ridiculously sleepy and being so hyped up my I was shaking from sugar rush. I came home and crashed like I had just binged on alcohol but instead it was sugar.

Thank goodness my sugar rush was cured by a good nights rest because today we had a very important appointment. Today, we had an appointment to tour St. David's, the hospital we are thinking about delivering at. There is a little background you need to know before I venture into how the tour went. I am completely obsessed with having everything in place for giving birth. It has basically consumed my every thought outside of work and the more information I know, the better I feel. So because I have this determination to control the uncontrolable, Will and I have met with a doula, toured a birthing center and toured a hospital in the past two weeks. The meeting with Julie, the doula, was really great. Both Will and I left feeling like we found someone we could identify with and feel comfortable with in the whole pregnancy and birthing process. I was hoping the birthing center would be the same way. Unfortunately, our experience with the birthing center was less than ideal. After we toured the birthing center we were confronted with the amazing large amount that it would cost to have prenatal care and labor and delivery there (although according to the birthing center it would cost much less than the hospital...if you didn't have insurance). We also met with one of the midwives who proceeded to tell us how horrible hospitals and medical practitioners were and how they force all these procedures on you because they are afraid of law suits. She also complained about how rushed and impersonal OB's generally are which has not been my experience at all. Right before we left they even tried to pressure us into setting up our first appointment and putting a deposit down. Needless to say, we left with a bad taste in our mouth's.

On to St. Davids. It was everything that the birthing center was not. They didn't make any assumptions or judgement about anything. They fully informed us of all of our options at the hospital even if it isn't general practice there. They were thorough yet to the point and remained friendly and professional through the entire tour. It was really great. We had a doctor's appointment immediately following the tour and we debriefed with our doctor about the past few weeks. I just really like our doctor and appreciate her attitude and openness with everything. So, we are defiantly sticking with a hospital delivery and will be enlisting Julie, the doula, to help support and guide us along the way. Yes, I am feeling in control.