Fair warning: This post is exclusively about pregnancy stuff.

Technically, week 36 starts tomorrow.

Later today, we’re meeting our prenatal care midwife for the week 36 check-up, and tomorrow we’re meeting with a potential midwife for the actual birth.

Let me share the wonderful news: We can have a home birth!

I am so excited about this.

For the past several months, I have been under the impression that due to my blood type (Rh Neg) I would be unable to have home births. This is because the surgeon general classifies blood type discrepancy as high-risk, and as such recommends a hospital birth for such pregnancies. However, the same word is used for the potential for antibody production and a mother with actual antibody production, and as we discovered during our birthing class last week, only the second definition is high risk! Simply put, I’m free to have a home birth, as I have been completely free of antibodies throughout the pregnancy.

Of course, it’s a little late to start our preparations, but the women who gave the birth class are so lovely that they’ve agreed to meet with us tomorrow. They are both enthusiastic and knowledgeable about home births and natural births, so we’re in good hands.

For my part, I’m so glad I can do this at home. You might have noticed, but I’m quite fond of doing things at home. My marriage took place ‘at home’ (our home in Norway). I would like a home birth. Institutions, be they churches or hospitals, have always felt a bit sterile and impersonal. It feels natural to me to have my most intimate and private family moments in the privacy and intimacy of my home.

Before we can relax and wait, however, we need to sort some things out. We need to buy diapers, set up a changing station, wash all the baby clothes and find a place for them, buy everything needed to support the home birth, get a nursing pillow and bra, buy a car seat and set up a hospital bag, just in case. I don’t expect we’ll be able to get all of this done next week, but the basics (hospital bag and diapers) will be at the top of the list. Since the little guy could arrive anywhere from 1 week to 5 weeks from now, it’s good to have the basics ready, but the rest can be accumulated bit by bit as week 40 approaches.

As for me, I’m huge. The last week has been very physically demanding. Harsh, even. Granted, I also caught some bug that was going around, so that didn’t help. Today is the first day where I’m feeling a little more like myself again, so I’m assuming there was some kind of growth spurt that has finally subsided.

The last week or so has brought on some serious pelvic pain, too,  so now I have to be very careful when sitting down or standing up, I avoid stairs like the plague and sleeping has become a new kind of uncomfortable. However, it helps to know that this is for a reason – my body is making room for a baby to get through, and his date of arrival draws closer by the day. This makes me very happy. As much as my little tenant amuses me with his antics, it will be so good to start moving again, sleeping on my stomach and just not being so full of baby.