End of Week 25

This note comes to you from our back veranda. It's a lovely early spring day here in Perth - sunny and 24C (75F). Bodhi has taken advantage of the good weather by savaging a lamb bone in the back yard. She's now having a rest from that exertion on her favourite shaggy rug. Mick's away for the weekend, doing a 24-hour adventure race a couple of hours south of here. It's supposed to be raining down there but I hope the rain holds off and they're enjoying this beautiful weather. The Wombat started with an early AM calisthenics session and hasn't really let up all day - it's been a high-activity day as far as the baby is concerned. Maybe it's decided to have its own little 24-hour adventure race. And I've been off to yoga and am now just catching up on some laundry. It's a good lazy Saturday here in Perth.

Here's the Week 25 photo.

While we're on photos, here's a photo of Mick the other morning just before he left for work (cycling that day). Normally, I call this look the Cycling Ninja but the Crocs and socks de-ninjafy the whole getup.

After a couple of face-to-face interviews and a few phone calls, we finally selected our doula this week. For those who aren't familiar, a doula is a birth attendant who provides non-medical, non-midwifery support. I've heard good things about doulas from friends who have used them. Mick and I decided to work with one one mostly for the extra support they provide both the woman and the partner/husband during labour and birth. It is our goal to have a natural, intervention-free childbirth yet because we're both fairly risk-averse when it comes to something as important in life as childbirth, we've decided to deliver in a private hospital. Private hospitals don't profit much from natural, intervention-free births and we've heard numerous accounts of people being pressured into making birth decisions they later regretted. Our obstetrician does have a good reputation for supporting natural birth but nevertheless we felt the support and assistance of a doula could only be a good thing. We've chosen Jodee as our doula (http://www.believeinbirth.com.au/) and our first meeting with her is this week. I've also just finished reading a very good book on natural childbirth (thanks, Jenny!) - called Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. This book was an absolute wealth of information for me and has removed most of the fear and anxiety I felt about labour and birth. As someone who has only really ever had a mass-media exposure to the birthing process, I found out how totally misinformed I was about the whole process. This was a huge relief! Of course, our intent is for a natural birth but our ultimate goal is to bring the baby into the world in the way which is most healthful for it - so if that means a caesarean is required, then that is what we will do.