Having a baby is like planning a wedding...

Having a baby is a lot like planning a wedding. We have planned and executed two weddings (our original wedding and the one we count as our wedding date and then the second wedding was a small ceremony to “make it legal”…come on Ohio…get with the program). 

When you plan a wedding you need to:

-         Figure out the budget

-         Discover who you want to be there

-         Do a lot of decorating, cleaning and organizing of things

-         Hire the right people for the vision you have

-         Plan, stress, cry, and feel so excited!!!!

You need all of these things and more when you are planning to bring a child into this world…except it doesn’t just involve one day…its FOR. EVER. (just a side-note, I am a firm believer that marriage is forever, but you can have a great marriage without a wedding). So after our LONG journey of trying, we really had a long time to think about our birth and decide what and who we needed. So, we set out to find our “birth dream team”…we typically like to surround ourselves with awesome people and we figured our birth was not going to be any different.

We had a TERRIBLE experience with our first OBGYN office and were looking for a more natural birthing experience (not quite at home natural…but definitely less medicinal than the norm). It was a great choice for us to go with a midwife practice who we LOVE! They talk to us both as a couple and they involve me in the conversation (which lets face it…I’m bossy and I normally run the conversation…whoops).

I am inducing lactation so we knew we would need a lactation consultant. We found the most amazing lactation consultant who talks me off the anxiety ledge at least once a month (and I haven’t even started pumping…I know…I’m a little high strung).

We also hired a doula who we love and is amazing. She understands trans issues (and what she doesn’t understand she is willing to learn). She’s great and patient and I feel so confident that she will really help advocate for us.

I think the thing we have learned the most through this process is that we cannot do this alone. If we are going to have help we want it to be the best help we could find. The most important thing we could do for ourselves is to advocate for us and for our family. I think we are on a great track.