It must be the water...

My sister (due anytime), me, and my cousin (both ~33wks).

Amanda is having her first, I'm having my second, and Kelly is having her third. All girls!

It seems like half of Logan is going to deliver in the next six to eight weeks. I see pregnant bellies everywhere I go and wonder if I'll be in the hospital with any of these women. I am so nervous about labor and delivery in America that it feels like I'm delivering for the first time again. I don't know how my mom handled the stress--England, Chicago, Bahamas, and Illinois. Each place would have been so different!

After a pregnancy refresher class and getting to tour the labor & delivery rooms, I have a better idea of what will happen here, although I'm still up for any labor/delivery/postpartum in America advice. The mandatory IVs, fetal monitoring belts and contraction monitoring screens seem funny to me, and the fact that each room is huge, uncarpeted, and has its own bathtub. With such short hospital stays and no shared bathrooms, I doubt the new mothers get to interact with each other. I also find it sad that no one is allowed to see the babies in the nursery. That was a favorite part of each doctor visit when I was pregnant with X. I'd go peek at the nursery, see how many grams all the babies weighed, and feel excited about having my own.

With X, I never had to time contractions or worry about whether or not I was far enough along to be admitted to the clinic since my water broke first and they had me come in to avoid infection. The nurses would sometimes come rub my back for 15 or 20 minutes after they checked on my progress and I heard the doctor check in on me via the nurses at midnight. I was in the hospital for six days, so the nurses took care of the funky newborn diapers, gave us a framed picture of our newborn and some small sticker pictures, and helped the cord come off before we left. I was given amazing, healthy Japanese meals, including a going-home meal for both Joe and I (he ordered the shrimp...), personal breastfeeding help, a hand/foot massage, plus the government paid for 3/4 of our expenses and five prenatal visits. Joe came and went to work as needed (they didn't have paternity leave) and they didn't check if we had a carseat when we left, which we didn't--shhh, don't tell! (the carseat rules are there, just more lax).

It wasn't perfect, of course. The labor itself was long and intense so I'm hoping to cut that time in half. I told my doctor that 13-16 hours would be nice and she said she expects it will be much faster than that, so I am cautiously hopeful. I'm still undecided on pain medication. I had no choice last time and now that I know I can do it naturally, why not do it again? Plus the idea of a needle in my spine does not appeal to me. Then again...the possibility of being able to actually sleep through some of labor or to avoid the hyperventilation during pushing because I'd be more relaxed? Hmmm...I can definitely see some benefits!