Thank you VERY much to everyone who read this blog! In case you're interested in how the actual birth went for us (sans epidural), here is the play-by-play...

On Thursday, March 13th, 2008, I went to my midwife for a 1pm visit. Since I was due on March 17th, she asked if she could do an internal exam and if I wouldn't mind if she stimulated the cervix just a little bit with her finger to nudge things along. She said this was nothing like inducing, but just a little nudge. I said okay. When she checked me, she said the baby was really low, my cervix was 75 percent effaced, and I was dilated about 1 to 2 centimeters. She said the whole picture made her very optimistic that we might be having a baby that weekend. She also mentioned that the internal exam and her slight stimulation might cause some cramping.

That afternoon, I did feel cramping and had some bloody show -- and I didn't know if it was just a byproduct of the internal exam or if it meant labor was beginning. That night I started to feel a lot of cramping. By midnight I started to think that the cramping was coming kind of regularly and that maybe this was contractions. Still, I thought it could be nothing or "false" labor, so I tried to go to sleep. But I was in too much pain to sleep, so I finally woke my husband up around 5 am and told him I thought something might be happening. We started timing the cramps and found they were coming fairly regularly -- around every 10 minutes -- but sometimes they were coming every 7 minutes or every 15 minutes. We decided to wait until my midwife's office was open on Friday morning to call. When we reached her around 9 am, she said that this could be very early labor or this could go away. She said to keep monitoring the contractions.

I fought with my OB about it. I consulted two midwives for second and third opinions on the protocol. I discussed it with my doula. I obsessed about the issue with various friends and family members. And then I did it.

I went for my first fetal non-stress test (NST) today.

Since the midwives in particular both agreed that they would also prescribe the twice-weekly monitoring based on my age and SUA issues, I decided to stop feeling so railroaded by the medical establishment.

Because the test is particularly centered on fetal activity, my doula relayed a story about an OB she knew who advised a patient to "have a coke and a candy bar" before the test, to make sure the baby passed.

Those two items are not exactly part of my pregnancy diet repertoire, so I did my version: I stopped by Café Gratitude before my appointment and picked up an "i am chipper:" a smoothie made from nut milk, almond butter, dates, and raw cacao chips. (Yes, this place really exists. Come visit me in the Bay Area and we can consume our affirmations-named menu items together.)

As great luck would have it, my co-worker here at Parenting delivered with a midwife she loves here in New York City — at the very same hospital (St. Luke's Roosevelt) that I was already set to deliver in with my obgyn, so I'd already researched the hospital and knew that I liked it.

Also fortuitous: One of the obgyns in the documentary The Business of Being Born who speaks about the benefits of midwifery in the film, works at St. Luke's Roosevelt and he's one of the doctors who backs up the midwives at this practice.

I was so excited that I called up the midwife practice the day after I saw the documentary. Thankfully, they had an opening for me and asked me to attend a group orientation to learn about the practice — something they offer every two weeks. Can you imagine if all doctor's offices offered orientations to explain their philosophies before you chose to sign on with them?

Big news: My approach to labor has been transformed. I'd always planned on trying to have a natural birth, and I was planning to hire a doula to help make my birth as holistic an experience as it could be. But a new documentary called, The Business of Being Born, has opened my eyes to an approach I like even better: Midwifery.

I am so glad that I got to screen the movie (you can see one image from the film above). It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival but it doesn't get released nationally until January. My brother and sister-in-law saw it at the Festival and told me it was incredible, so I got in touch with one of the producers to see if I could screen it because I was interested on both a personal and professional level. The documentary was remarkable and it's changed the course of my pregnancy.