Birth Preferences Round 2

So I made a birth preferences infographic for my son's birth, but never ended up using it since we arrived at the hospital only half an hour before he was born! Some things on my first set of birth preferences are no longer a big deal to me though, so I decided to make another one, and found a set of icons that I really liked. I recolored them and added a preface, and I hope that I actually get to use it this time and hand it to the nurses at the hospital when I arrive!

You may have heard both the terms "birth plan" and "birth preferences" used when talking about what the mom/parents want for their baby's birth. But I do not like the term "birth plan" cause you really can't plan everything. You WON'T get everything you "plan" for. Life is messy. Birth is messy! ;) So I use "birth preferences" to show that these are things I'd prefer to have happen, but I make sure to add in a preface statement saying that I want my baby's health and my health to take precedence above all, and that these are my preferences for a NORMAL birth. If major complications arise, everything will probably go out the window because the medical team will be focusing on bringing baby into the world safely. And I am okay with that! 

Please feel free to use my birth preferences as inspiration to create your own! You can also find fill-in-the-blank birth preferences sheets online. Like this one at Pregnancy and Baby or this one at EarthMamaAngelBaby. They also have a customizable icon birth preferences sheet, or you can download their icon birth plan as a PDF.

If there's interest, I can make the icons that I recolored available for download. :)

Here Comes Baby Boy! - The Birth Story

Almost 2 months after my baby boy was born, I'm finally writing his birth story. And now scrambling to find my birth notes that my doula gave me... (in reality, I'm calling my husband to find them for me cause I have a baby sleeping on my chest, in the Moby Wrap (which I will write about in more detail later).

Found it!

So if you are only interested in the general picture of my birth, read the short version, which I have here first. If, however, you are interested in the details and specifics, read my novel (aka, the long version), which follows the short version. :)

Short version:
March 14, my due date, I woke up at 4:00am to find my water had broken. 4:30ish I felt my first contraction. I labored at our apartment until 9:00am and arrived at the hospital around 9:50. (Only a 15 minute drive, but it took a while to get down the stairs and out to the car). The nurses were shocked to find I was already completely dilated, and after forcing my feet into stirrups and repeatedly trying (and failing) to get an IV into me, my son was born at 10:31am. The nurses, having forgotten that I had not received an epidural, jabbed me in the leg with a needle to give me pitocin (without my permission), and my doctor then informed me that she was stitching me up from the episiotomy she'd given me (again without my permission and without me even knowing what she was doing). Then another nurse dumped cold water all over me "down there" - to which I shouted "ahh" to. (She then asked, "what?!" to which I told her it was cold and she then said she'd forgotten I hadn't had an epidural). My boy crawled to the breast and began nursing on his own within the hour. Because my husband was deployed, my mom flew out and arrived around 6:00pm.

Read on for the long version...

Birth Preferences (infographic)

This will be a short post...
I am not going to go into the details of creating a birth plan and choosing what to put on it right now. I just wanted to share a Birth Prefrences infographic that I just created on Easel.ly
I had created my birth "plan" (which is what they're usually called, but you can't always plan for everything and I know you may not get what you plan for... so I use the term loosely) on a word document, nicely typed with a friendly introduction ("We are so excited to be birthing our baby at Mission Hospital!" etc) before going into my bulleted requests for my labor and delivery. My husband did help create it and then our doula looked over it as well to give her suggestions.
Though I still plan to use my typed one, I saw a cute infographic-style birth plan on pinterest (that you could have someone personalize for you on Etsy for $10) and just had to make my own!

Here is the one you can have made for you on Etsy:

And here is the one I made! I actually made two... one with my contact info on it and this one here, which has no name or contact info (for sharing online... don't need my phone number floating around the cyber-universe!) I'm not sure if I will actually use it, but I was bored and enjoy playing around creating different things like this.

 

Happy to hear your thoughts on it!

Thanks for reading!


UPDATE 3/1/14

I edited my birth preferences infographic to be a little more printer-friendly (less color).
There's an open space at the bottom below the feet, that is where I put my name and contact information.