natural parenting from xkcd

from xkcd

Birth story

Dot writes:
I’m not sure where to start with this. The beginning, obviously; but I don’t think I can convey what it was like just by saying what happened. It was such a straightforward birth and it all went pretty much to plan, even though (as last time) it took me at least half the labour [...]

Francis Victor

And here he is, named at last.

New Arrival

New baby boy (as yet unnamed)
born 18 September 2009, 9:28am, at home, weighing 3.18kg (7lbs).

Jitters

Dot writes: 38 weeks 1 day. I’ve been feeling pretty crampy. Lots of Braxton Hicks (not painful, but tight all round the belly and lower back, coming on promptly with any sort of exercise). Yesterday I had – not exactly a bleed, but some staining that wasn’t how the books describe a ’show’. I rang [...]

Sprout update

Dot writes: we now get weekly visits from the midwives, and they came this morning. Happily Hugh was in good form. He engaged the midwives (Niamh, the senior midwife, and Aoife, a trainee) in conversation as best he could while I nipped upstairs to the bathroom; which is to say that he pointed at the [...]

36 weeks 5 days

Fizz plop / more birth plan

Dot writes: Ken and I both stayed at home today and we had a fun-packed morning of birth preparation, interspersed with reading about the Old English Exodus (me) and some sort of awe-inspiring philosophy cleverness (Ken). Ken inflated the birth pool and filled it. This took half an hour using cold water only; presumably it [...]

Birth plan

Dot writes: earlier today I typed up my birth plan, ready to discuss it with the midwife when she visits tomorrow.

1. I wish to give birth at home, attended by the Community Midwives.
2. I would like to be supported by my husband, [Ken], and also by my mother, [Katimum], if she is able to be [...]

Midwifery, homebirth and the Oireachtas

Dot writes: by a rather complex process I came upon this transcript of a meeting of the Joint Committee on Health and Children which included a presentation from the Midwifery Birth Alliance. It’s quite a long transcript but extremely interesting as an example of how a great tangle of factors contribute to the state of [...]