Thread: ~*~*Jodi's (Barefoot~Mama) Birth Lodge*~*~

Welcome to your lodge and I am looking forward to your journey.

I'm glad you posted! I was pg in 97 (obviously didn't go to term) and was planing to move from WA to MD where the baby's father lived and where homebirths are illegal. The only people who could deliver babies were CNMs and OBs.

I'm curious about how the hospital handles your birthplan. Will they force you to be hooked up to an IV? Give birth in the bed?

Alright, here's a bit more to my story.

DH and I met in high school when I was a freshman and he was a junior. We were best friends for almost 3 years, and did not start dating until the middle of my junior year. When he graduated h.s. he moved from MI where I lived and his family lived, to Florida, where his dad lived. He was planning to apply to art school. He lived there 6 months, and we wrote eachother long letters all the time. We missed eachother very much, so he moved back to MI in the winter of my Junior year and we started dating when he got back.
I knew that he was THE ONE - as silly as that sounds being only 16! Anyway, he got a job at a restaurant and an apartment. My mom HATED him. Basically because her 16 year old had a boyfriend w/ his own apartment. During the 6 months that he lived in FL, his mother had sold their house and moved to Chicago. So he had nowhere else to live.
I graduated, and moved 2 hours away to the other side of MI for college and he moved there too. He took some classes, but never finished a degree. We got engaged just after I turned 18, and planned a wedding for a year and a half later. We planned to move in together, but the city where my college was was very very religious and no one would rent to us because we weren't already married.

So I moved back "home" to the city I grew up in and we got an apartment together. My mom still did not like him, but that's the way she is. Anyhow, mom parents were divorced since I was 3, and my dad did not want to have anything to do with paying for college, and my mom didn't earn enough $ to do it. I have a brother who is 5 years older, and a sister who was a year older - and both were in college at the same time I was. She did pay for one year for me though - and so I had to work full time so I could pay my 1/2 of the apartment and my tuition.

When we got married after my sophomore year of college, we talked about kids. I told him I wanted 2. He said he wanted 1, and maybe 2. We both agreed to wait until school was done and we had stable jobs. We also agreed that since he did not have a degree and he did not want to be working full time -that he'd be a SAHD. We decided to start TTC when I was about 30.

SO I eventually got my degree in Child Development and Elementary Education w/ a minor in Biology. We were in MI at the time and could not find a teaching job since the economy there was just starting to go bad w/ all the auto plants beginning to close. SO I had no job. My mom had since relocated to ATL. She desperately wanted me to move there. Her school district was huge and 3 days before school, they were still short 200 teachers. So I applied for a job there and got an interview. I got the job and we moved there 3 days later. We hated it there and moved as soon as the school year was over. This time I interviewed in VA where they had a grad school program in infant development at Virginia Tech. I did not end up getting a job near there, but instead near UVA. We lived there for 7-8 years, and DD was born there. I taught K and Pre-K while there and was a doula there.

I went on maternity leave for the summer and the first few months of school since DD was born late July. On the last day of school my principal told me that she was transferring me to 2nd grade when I come back from leave in Nov. That was 4 years older than the students I had been teaching for 7 years. I was pissed.
DH and I had been thinking about moving back "home" to the midwest for quite some time. We just realized that we were not true southern country folk We owned a great eco-friendly house in the country, but we could NOT stand all the barking dogs, gun shots and 4 wheelers all the time.
So we put the house up for sale and I applied for jobs in IL, where we now live. I got a job at a local public school the same day as our house sold for $60k more than we paid for it a couple years earlier. Of course 1/2 that $ had to be used to pay off a special loan we had gotten, but it made things easier to live since neither of us were working for 6 months!

When I turned 28 I really wanted to TTC, but knew it wasn't the right time. So I started training to be a doula. I did that for a year and then told Dh it was time. It took him almost a year to agree, and that was after lots of crying on my part. He had become used to living w/o a baby, and was worried how he'd deal with it - being isolated in the country all by himself w/ a baby when I went back to work.
So we began TTC so that we could have a March or April baby so it would work best for the school year - and I got pregnant with a baby due the end of March -but had a m/c at 5 weeks. We decided to keep trying, but had no luck for a few months. I have a history of a pituitary tumor and at the time un-treated hypothyroidism. So I got a new endocrinologist and went to an RE and the month that my thyroid got fixed, I got pregnant w/ DD.

Originally Posted by kvo

I'm glad you posted! I was pg in 97 (obviously didn't go to term) and was planing to move from WA to MD where the baby's father lived and where homebirths are illegal. The only people who could deliver babies were CNMs and OBs.

I'm curious about how the hospital handles your birthplan. Will they force you to be hooked up to an IV? Give birth in the bed?

I just went to the MW yesterday. Baby is evidently an octopus! It was moving around so much that she swears it has 8 arms and legs. The heartrate was really good - around 150.

ANyhow, I showed her my birthplan, and she seemed totally fine with it. I think since homebirths are illegal - some hospitals are trying to be more mother friendly. I HOPE HOPE that it is true. They do have a birthing tub - ONE. The hospital's protocol is to give you a hep-lock, but I'm refusing it and she said that it wouldn't be a problem and that all the MW's will basically tell the nurses to get over it. I'm also refusing all meds and immunizations for the baby at birth. I will have to sign waivers, which I'm fine with. The MW said that since I'm anti-intervention, they will give me a nurse when I check in for delivery that also is. That way I'm not going to be likely to be referred to CPS for refusing things for my child.

They don't make you stay in the bed or birth in it, which I'm very happy about.

Welcome to your lodge!
Sounds like a good hospital. My hospital was actually pretty good- it was my OB that sucks- so I do believe a good, natural hospital birth is possible.

Sometimes I'm convinced I'm carrying an octopus too!

Sounds like a very nice setup. I've certainly heard of wonderful NCBs taking place in hospitals, you just have to be a little more assertive and fend off more than you would at home or in a birthing center that is really used to it. It sounds like the MWs will help advocate for you there too, which is awesome.

Congratulations and I look forward to hearing more!

Sounds like you've had quite the wild ride with your DH- lots of moving around, jobs, etc. But also sounds like you have weathered it all well- I hope you get the birth you want even in the hospital.

I'm from Michigan (Kalamazoo) and am interested in what town in Michigan is so religious that they wouldn't rent to you... I didn't know it was THAT bad anywhere around here!

Originally Posted by Marite13

Sounds like you've had quite the wild ride with your DH- lots of moving around, jobs, etc. But also sounds like you have weathered it all well- I hope you get the birth you want even in the hospital.

I'm from Michigan (Kalamazoo) and am interested in what town in Michigan is so religious that they wouldn't rent to you... I didn't know it was THAT bad anywhere around here!

It was when I was at GVSU - near Allendale, west of GR>

Originally Posted by Barefoot~Mama

It was when I was at GVSU - near Allendale, west of GR>

Very interesting... I grew up in Kalamazoo, and have traveled a bit around Michigan, but I suppose I don't know other parts of it too well!

In any case, I hope you love the Chicago area now!!!

Originally Posted by Barefoot~Mama

It was when I was at GVSU - near Allendale, west of GR>

Welcome to your lodge! I am so excited to read your backstory - I've really enjoyed reading your posts in April!

I was in Grand Rapids from 1999 through 2005 - I had to move back to Chicago to save my sanity! The CRC/Dutch mafia was a bit too much for me (my apologies to anyone who is Reformed Christian/Dutch descent - I think any religion is fine until it takes political control of a community). But, I'm originally from the east side of Michigan - outside of Port Huron - and my heart does belong to Michigan.

I hope you find your daughter's birth story and post it soon!