Life is really busy...but now we have a midwife!

I have been trying to write a few times per week and this has not happened the last two weeks!

We have been so busy and I am hoping that this week I can catch up properly with pictures and posts. I was even sick for the past week because we were so busy before that - just overdoing it!

The most important accomplishment in the past two weeks was finalizing the birth location. We started looking into midwives who offer home birth much too late in this pregnancy and so I spent a lot of time going to/from Tarragona and Barcelona interviewing midwives. In the end we found one (yay!) and we also hired a Baha'i doula. Needless to say, I feel very relieved, excited and ready!

The hospital option made me incredibly apprehensive, despite the fact that the hospital near us is "pro-natural" birth, they still operate with lots of unnecessary protocols that made me feel nervous and unsafe. I see birth as a holistic experience that is all parts emotional, spiritual, physical, mental, and physiological - not only physical or physiological, which is what most medical models of birth follow so it felt necessary for me to give birth around people who also see birth in this way and respect its natural process.

The baby is due in three weeks time (although I am now considered full-term) and my mom will be here the day before his due date. It would be nice if he waited for her to arrive but now that we have everything prepared: newborn prayer, midwife, his bed & supplies, etc., he might be more eager to make his appearance.

I am trying my best to slow down in preparation for his arrival but it has not yet been possible - between meeting frequently with the midwife & doula, finishing up "maternal education" classes, animating two junior youth groups, weekly Ruhi, last minute baby shopping and seeing family, there just has not been a moment to rest. Maybe this is for the better...

The sunset one night.