Shopping

 Since 36 weeks is literally just around the corner, this is where it gets exciting. Not just because the baby will be here is roughly a month, but it's time to go Shopping!! And we have quite a shopping list of supplies and stuff to get.  Hospitals rob us of our wonderful obsessive shopping skills, you just go in , have the baby, and go home. Yea it's nice to only think about buying the cute outfits and obsessing over what kind of diapers to buy, but home birthing goes way beyond that.
First and foremost, we had to order the birthing kit. Which even if we didn't have anything else in the house, we absolutely need that. (Well that, grapefruits, and double stuffed oreos. :o)

Our shopping list goes as follows: (this is the recommended list from my midwives, it may vary by midwife/ group)
-Olive oil-small bottle unopened
-Paper Towels (brand name, not scratchy)
-Black garbage bags
-Electrolyte drink: such as Recharge/Gatorade
-Flashlight with batteries
-Plastic Mattress cover or tablecloth (for your bed)
-Rubbing Alchol
-cotton swabs or balls
-Hydrogen Peroxide
-Baking sheet or serving tray
-2 medium bowls (not plastic)
-Two packages of regular OB maternity pads or thick overnight pads that come in extra long
-6-8 bath towels
-4-6 washcloths
-6-8 receiving blankets (thin flannel or cotton blankets for babies)
-2 baby hats
-baby's first outfit
-Newborn diapers (preferably disposable until the meconium is gone.)
-Camera, film, batteries
-Music of your choice
-Aromatherapy of your choice
-small fish net and new hose with sink adapter (for those planning a water birth)
- Plenty of food

Quite a list eh?  Goes above and beyond diapers and baby's first outfit. Our goal is to have this all sitting in a storage bin that we can just grab and move it to where it is needed.
Since I'm planning on a water birth, my 36 wk appointment is when I'm also getting the birthing pool. Which I have to say I'm excited about. Now we get to figure out where we want to put it and I get to do a dry run and see how it holds up. This isn't what you think of normally when you think pool. I know there are some who are thinking, inflatable pool like what my son plays in. No, this pool is made out of heavy duty material. For example the suggested way to get in and out is to sit on the side wall and swing your legs in. How many little kiddie pools can hold your weight on one wall? Good question, I'll back to you on that when I find out.

It's interesting looking at the list of actual supplies needed in birthing. Most of this stuff is set up on the other end of you or you only saw it covered in a sterile towel. Which was my experience, covered with a towel, so some of it raised an eyebrow here or there. Like the first thing: Olive Oil. Olive Oil? I'm having a baby, not making a salad. This is used in perineal massage. (My what?)  The pernium, the site that is stretched to the absolute limit when crowning happens. Apparently my OB was doing this while my son was being born so I wouldn't tear. I didn't know because that whole area was numb, but since I don't want to tear, go right ahead and use that olive oil.

I think it's interesting, birth is so common and yet so secretive as to what is used during birth. I get that most people put this stuff on the need-to-know list, if I need to know, it's on the list. But this is part of why I wanted a home birth. I've never been a big fan of secrets and the medical industry seems to have a lot of them. I guess I could of obtained a list of what supplies were going to be used during a hospital birth, but like millions of other women, it just didn't occur to me. It wasn't on my need-to-know list.

Back to the fun part now. SHOPPING! Really, what women doesn't like going shopping!? If I had an unlimited amount of money, I would be in pig heaven. I get to pick out what kind of towels to have at my birth. Not those scratchy over bleached white ones they had at the hospital. Color isn't that big of a deal here, but that's not the point. I get to go above and beyond buying clothes.

So if you see someone getting excited over black garbage bags, that would be me.