Today…another one of those anniversaries I’d rather not have. After two days on bed-rest in the hospital, our seventh child was born 30 weeks early, three years ago today. The city in which we lived has an "anonymous" funeral (anonymous meaning that it doesn’t cost us anything and there’s no marker) twice a year for all babies under 500 grams, but we were the only parents who responded to the invitation and met with the pastor taking the service, so our baby was the only one mentioned by name, we chose the only song that was played ( Your Faithfulness, by Brian Doerkson), and the sermon was mostly for us.
And now I’m at nearly 32 weeks with our ninth child, who is actively kicking away and reminding me not to lean too close to the computer! We spent the day near Limassol at a homeschool get-together with four other families, our five running-around, living children being one-third of those present. A good day.
Then we were supposed to see friends off at the airport this evening (a family of four, moving back to Norway), but because of the currently erupting volcano in Iceland, their flight was cancelled. We don’t mind in the slightest having them around for another week (at least…we’ll have to see what the volcano does–could be longer!!), but it’s of course rather unsettling for them. A relatively calm evening for us wasn’t a bad thing, either.
Last week I did actually find a doctor (ob/gyn) who after much grumbling said that although he’s never done so before, he would be willing to attend a homebirth for me, "because I’m from Germany." I did explain where I’m actually from originally, but when he realized that I lived in Germany before we moved here, he switched to German with me, as he studied medicine in Germany. Many, many years ago, however…and I’m not at all sure that I’ll go to him even for a check-up (haven’t had one since I saw my own doctor in Germany in January), much less call him for the birth. Seeing as he’s been practicing for 30 years and has attended over 4000 births, but had no idea that it’s even possible to have a first baby of any size with neither an episiotomy nor tearing, nor a 4000-gram baby at any time without either of the above, I’m really not very encouraged. (I’ve done both–only had a first baby once, but had two others that were just over 4000 grams each, and those were two of my three homebirths, and no episiotomy, no tearing with any of the five.) But at least SOMEONE was willing, so maybe, just maybe, I’ll find someone else in the next eight weeks who sees birth as something normal, not something medical…
No comments:
Post a Comment