so when you're gonna have a baby, there are some things that you have to be educated about and some decisions you have to make about labor. obviously, sometimes things do not go according to your plan and you have to go with the flow, so to speak, but still, you should try to plan some things out. so you create what's called a birth plan; you write it all out, talk through it with your doctor, give it to the nurses when you get to the hospital, etc. so we are hoping to do things in a less medical, surgical way than most hospital births. and we were pretty worried that our doctor was just going to laugh at us when we tried to talk through it with her. cause doctors really like to make childbirth as clinical as possible, with as many steel surgical instruments and machines that go ping as they can possibly fit into the room. well, we're not really down with that, so we thought our doc might beat us up a bit about it. but we talked through our birth plan with her yesterday, and she didn't really fight with us on anything. she was a little concerned that i didn't want an episiotomy and tried to tell me (despite everything else i've read and heard elsewhere) that i would heal better from a cut than a tear ... but she didn't force the issue.

she did say however, and i nearly wet myself when she did, that I should remind HER at the delivery that i didn't want an episiotomy.

i'm thinking, yeah, like i'm gonna be lying there with this baby's huge head coming out of me and calmly saying, 'oh yes, by the way, doctor, please kindly remember that i don't want you to cut open my vagina.'

yeah, i see that happening.