Waiting for Baby...

We're moving into the warmest week of the year so far! I've seen predictions for a week of days above freezing, and I'm hoping desperately that the warm days inspire the baby to come out and greet the world. 

Our house is all cozy and ready to welcome the tiny person who currently spends all his or her time grabbing with tiny hands at the edges of my womb. I imagine him grabbing at all my food, greedily trying to steal the flavor. 

We have flowers out on the altars and tucked under Icons, stock-piled kerosene, propane, and as much wood as we can keep from burning. Seth has been bringing home buckets of clean water to store, and the bathtub is sitting - full and clean - in the center of the of floor..but we won't be having this baby at home, as we'd planned to. Apparently my body is low on platelets..not dangerously low for an in-town birth, but low enough to make the midwives uncomfortable with a deep-in-the-woods, winter-time birth. So we'll be moving the birth to the Birth House and I'm eating a platelet-friendly diet of kale, kale, and more kale until the baby is born. 

I'm disappointed, but not devastated. I wanted a home birth this time, and had such happy images of my home birth..but I'm relieved beyond all telling that I'm still outside the hospital. Hospitals make me uncomfortable, and I worry that I'd have to spend the entire time fighting to avoid excessive interventions. Also, visually, the space is jarring to me and I don't know that I could feel safe enough to labor well in such an institutional environment.

But friends and family have no need to worry..even the hospital midwife we consulted said she'd be comfortable with a home birth at my levels..it's more our location that throws a wrench into things.

All in all it's a decent middle ground..maybe even ideal for this time of year. I always tend the stove at home (it's my own little addiction), and it could be I'd be too distracted by the 'need' to add a log or two to focus on birth. And thanks to weeks of preparation for a home birth, I have an amazingly clean, well-stocked, and beautiful home to bring the baby home to. And thank goodness the birth house doesn't hold us unnecessarily for hours and hours after birth, so home might not be a super cold place to come back to afterwards.