The pace is picking up . . .

It feels as though time is ticking more rapidly now. Last week, it was 12 more weeks until my due date and now it's only 11. That may not seem like a big difference, but next week it will be 10 weeks and the week after that it will be only 9! Yes, I know that this is how time works, but to me it still feels a little shocking to think that in just two more weeks I will be in single-digit countdown. 

I thought that time would start to start to drag throughout the entire third trimester, but I think it's actually picked up ever since about 25 weeks and I'm guessing it will continue to do so until 37 weeks or so, when it will probably start to drag again. I'm hypothesizing that I will feel compelled to get things ready before the baby is full-term, and then once it is, I will be tapping my fingers waiting for it to arrive. 

At our midwife appointment on Friday, I asked a lot of questions about birthing options. Here's the rundown of what I found out: 

1. As long as my weight gain continues to stay under control, I will be eligible for a waterbirth! I actually found this out at the appointment before this last one, but it was good to have a second midwife confirm it. I'm not sure of my exact preferences, but it's really nice to know it's a possibility. I asked a few other questions about it on Friday -- mostly about whether I'd need any special preparation (to which the answer was no) and whether I could still do it even if I end up testing positive for strep b or needing an IV for other reasons (apparently, there are no problems with that and I could even do it if I needed pitocin).

2. There are virtually no circumstances in which they'd allow for a scheduled cesarean. As long as I don't have placenta previa or other serious conditions that would make a vaginal birth impossible or dangerous, they don't schedule them.  Even if the baby is breech, they will try a ton of other stuff to get the baby to turn rather than schedule a cesarean in advance. 

3. There are very, very few circumstances in which they'd send me for an "emergency" c-section. Basically, the baby would have to be in pretty serious distress and there would have to be evidence that it wasn't going to work any other way. 

4. They don't do any kind of elective inductions. They don't even discuss an "induction plan" until 41 weeks and there'd have to be a medically-indicated reason for any labor-inducing procedures (even just a membrane strip) before that. 

I'm really glad that I'm finding this all out now and not later. I'd always kind of assumed that the standard of care at my midwife group meant, "We want you to have the kind of birth that you'd like to have." I was pretty surprised that there wasn't much, if any, wiggle room. Of course I'd rather have a low-intervention approach rather than a high-intervention one . . . and I appreciate that all of their decisions have the healthiest outcomes in mind, but my need for some level of control or choice is starting to make me anxious. 

So many people, when I've stressed out about how this baby's arrival is going to work with my school schedule if it comes late, have said something to the effect of, "Well, have you considered an induction if it really gets to that point?" I've always said, "No, no, of course not. I'd want to let the baby come on it's own schedule." Even though this had been my preference (when I thought I had a choice), it's kinda scary to know that I have no option for encouraging it to come on my schedule. 

Anyway, having these discussions has made me realize that I should perhaps really start thinking of my countdown differently. Perhaps instead of thinking of myself as having 11 more weeks to go, I should start thinking of myself as having 12. Just to keep things in perspective, since I'm less scared of the baby coming early than I am of the baby coming late.