Get thee to a midwife!

You don't really hear a lot about midwives until you run into someone who has knocked back the midwife kool-aid. I am pretty sure that anyone who uses a midwife during their pregnancy takes a solemn oath to go forth and proclaim the midwife gospel to all who will listen. Maybe midwives won't give you your baby until you sign a pledge or something, but for whatever reason, parents who use a midwife seem very eager to tell you all about why no person in their right mind would ever want some "sassy, know-it-all doctor" presiding over the birth of their child.

It's kind of like people who belong to a credit union. Yeah, I get it – you got a super interest rate on your car loan. Now please get out of my house.

Anyway, as it turns out, our sassy, know-it-all doctor is, well, a sassy know-it-all doctor. She is extraordinarily competent, but also extraordinarily cold and a little bit bitchy.

So we decided to give the midwives a shot.

The way the practice is set up, if you decide to go with a midwife, you need to have at least one appointment with each one on staff, presumably so that when it comes time for birth, the mother-to-be gets to work with someone that she knows well enough to curse at and hit with things.

The other day, at appointment number three, we met midwife number one.

I'll just call her "Uh-huh."

Uh-huh was heavy-set (very maternal), well-dressed (very professional) and responded to everything we said with a very engaging and enthusiastic "uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh…"

We told her that Baby Car had been feeling some fatigue lately (uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh…) and that there was a little bit of ligament pain (uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh…) and that we wanted another ultrasound (uh-huh, uh-huh…NO!)

We have been methodically shot down any time we've suggested getting an ultrasound outside of the usual ultrasound schedule. I don't know what the big deal is – the procedure is less complicated than making a TV dinner – but apparently at this particular office, exceptions to the schedule just aren't made. Actually, I'm pretty sure we will get in trouble if the baby isn't born during normal business hours on our exact due date.

So an ultrasound just wasn't in the cards. We aren't worried about the baby or anything, but we had read that it was sometimes possible to determine gender by now and we figured it would be cool to give it a shot. We were thinking that maybe the midwife would have a heart and bend the rules, but no such luck. It will be about another month during the "anatomy ultrasound" that we get to find out if we're having a boy or a girl.

Perhaps it was because of the warm uh-huhs, but Uh-huh made us feel a lot more comfortable than we had ever been with the obstemagician.

Probably because of that, Baby Car felt able to confide in the midwife that she didn't think she was feeling the appropriate level of emotional attachment to mommy's little parasite.

Uh-huh told us that at this stage of the game (just barely into the second trimester), feeling that way is completely normal. Right now, the baby is pretty much just a source of inconvenient and frustrating pregnancy symptoms that she gets to endure without being far enough along to enjoy all the cool pregnancy stuff, like feeling the little kicks and stroking that stylin' baby bump.

We were assured that in the next month the attachment would grow and that it would become especially strong once we found out if it was a little boy or a little girl (or a pony!) growing in there.

Personally, I'm crazy in love with the little creature already. I look at our only set of ultrasound picture 25 times a day and at work I have two thumbtacks stuck in the wall to keep track of how long baby is, head to rump (8.5 centimeters!).

But then again, I'm not nauseous, my energy level is great, and my boobs are no more sensitive than normal. For me, the little guy/gal is easy to love.

But it's okay, Baby Car will come around. She doesn't wear her emotions on her sleeve, but I know they're brewing. I just can't wait for them to start bubbling to the surface so that I don't have to feel like such an emotional sap all by myself.