22 weeks along

I am starting up this journal to keep track of my thoughts and the progress of my pregnancy.

I am 22 weeks and 6 days today. I have been feeling great, albeit a bit moody. Our baby is moving around throughout the day, but I notice baby the most at bed time. Some nights I'll sleep with my hands on my tummy and dream about the little one. Things are going so fast and I know I am only a little past half way, but I also feel that I don't have a lot of time to study for what I need to know.

We are preparing for our homebirth. We are in the process of moving to another state and I don't have a midwife as of yet. The town we are moving to is four hours from a midwife that will do homebirths. The hospital is only an option if there is an emergency, so there is no point in going to that midwife because I don't do the prenatal exams or tests. I can weigh myself and test my blood pressure myself. If we were to get a midwife, I would really want her in a different room while I was having our baby so we could go unassisted, but have her there for just incase. I don't really see that happening. I don't really see it possible for us to get a midwife anyway. We are moving and inbetween jobs. I do know that we probably wouldn't be able to pay for a midwife, even with payment plans, and I don't really want one. They interfere too much.

With all of this in my mind, I have been preparing for an unassisted birth from the begining. I had a homebirth with Brigham in December of 2006 and I still have the list of items I need on hand for the labor and birth. I have been studying about what to do incase of postpartum hemorage and how to treat GBS. I have informed Brent of the tinctures we need to buy and (big and) have been mentally preparing myself for just incase I need to put a small piece (fingernail size) of placenta under my tongue for bleeding. I really don't like the sound of that, but if it's necessary, I'll do it. As for GBS, I'll do the treatment because it fluctuates throughout the pregnancy, so I may have it now and not at birth, or not now and have it at birth. It's an easy treatment of eating lots of garlic or inserting garlic in the vagina. I'll eat it first. I love garlic.

I am trying to keep track of my progress, so I'm going to put some information down so I can keep a bit of a record.

Age - 28
Height - 5' 4"
Starting Weight - 135
Current Weight - 148 (as of Jan 27)
LMP - August 26, 2007
Estimated due date - June 1, 2008
Births before this - 4 living
Type of births - 3 hospital with epidural ; 1 natural homebirth with midwife
Previous problems - GBS with 3rd pregnancy
Problems during this pregnancy as of now - none