Our little guy is due February 17. If we lived further south, this would be no cause for alarm. If we lived further north, we would also be undaunted. Further south, little to no snow. Further north, lots of infrastructure in place to handle snow. Mid-Atlantic region? El zilcho.
Two years ago, in mid-February, we had Snowmaggedon up here. We actually had two that winter. The first was mid-January, and then a second a month later. The entire metro DC area shut down for a week. Roads were impassable unless you had a snowplow or a four wheel drive SUV, and even then, it was iffy. Last winter wasn't as crazy in terms of weather. But with global warming and generally unpredictable weather patterns, you can never be sure...
Our plan is to drive to the birthing center in Chantilly when I go into labor. It's a 45 minute drive without traffic. At my last check-up, I asked our midwife, Peggy, if we should buy the homebirth kit (gloves, sterile pads, etc.) as a back-up in case we got snowed in. My thinking was that if we couldn't get to them, they could probably get to us.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. They did have a birth happen during the aforementioned Snowmaggedon, and in the process of trying to get to the home, the midwives spent 11 hours on I-95 and ended up in a snow bank. Needless to say, they were not eager to repeat that scenario. I should add the caveat that our midwives are fantastic, but there is no reason for them to put their own lives at risk driving in dangerous conditions. I thought our back-up plan was going to be a home birth. As it turns out, our back-up plan is the hospital.
There is a hospital close to our house (maybe 5 miles away), and if we can't drive out, an ambulance can come pick us up. I'm a little bummed (okay, a lot bummed) that this has to be our back-up in case of adverse weather, but I understand the reasoning. This is not an ideal (for me) back-up plan, but at least we have one now. And even if our midwives can't make it to us, or us to them, they will still be on the phone with us and talking us through a lot of it, so that makes me feel a bit better. I'll just have to labor at home as long as possible to avoid the interventions I'm likely to get at a hospital. But, as my sister says, "don't anticipate." So I'm going to proceed like everything will go according to plan... I am planning for clear roads and clear skies.
Oh, another bit of news... I thought my placenta placement was good and we were all ready to go for non-hospital birth. Peggy, however, said that the placement was low enough to warrant another ultrasound around 32 weeks to make sure it had moved up and out of the way. I'm not super excited about another ultrasound - I still have mixed feelings about them in general. It should just be a precaution. The placenta usually moves up as the uterus expands, and having it cover or partially cover the cervix only happens in a very small percentage of cases - like 3%, I think. At least we'll get one last look at Butterbean before the main event. I'm not exactly worried about this, but I'm not thrilled about it either...
"Don't anticipate." Got it.
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