i feel for zeldman. i really do. it’s hard to believe that things are moving along so quickly. it feels like we’re hurtling towards october. i hear it slows down in the third trimester, so we’ll see.

observant regular readers may remember that, while we had an early ultrasound in week 10, we should have had an “official” 18-20 week ultrasound last week. that didn’t happen, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that our OB/GYN ditched us after she discovered that we were going to have the baby at home with a midwife. that’s right, at least with certain doctors, the hippocratic oath be damned if you decide to go with a midwife.

kris decided to be upfront with the ob/gyn and told her on her second visit what her eventual plans would be. incredibly, the doctor’s response was to tell kris that she didn’t want to “clean up someone else’s mess” if something went wrong and then went on to tell kris all manner of horror stories about non-hospital births! when kris challenged her on the ethics of denying healthcare to someone for such a spurious reason, the doctor backpedalled a bit and said that she would have to consult her partners. my guess is that you’re seeing what happens when you start messing around with a hospital’s pregnancy profit center. all the margin is in the actual birth itself, so there’s not much incentive for a doctor to pick up all the low margin prenatal work without the payoff. and don’t even get me started on what kind of person you would need to be to tell a healthy pregnant woman horror stories about what happens when you have an at-risk pregnancy in the home. it’s comparing apples and oranges. she should know that there isn’t any documented evidence that having a baby at home is dangerous if you’re a healthy woman with a normal pregnancy. but hey, people will do the darndest things to make a buck. undeterred, kris talked with our midwife and we found a doctor that is more than happy to work with a midwife to make sure that kris isn’t at risk for any complications and can have the baby the way we want.

so, we’ve got a backup in place, however, the doctor couldn’t get us in for an appointment for the ultrasound until week 24, which is a couple of weeks from now. that’s the bad news. the good news is that our new doctor is going to do one of those super cool 3d ultrasounds, so i should have some amazing pictures to post.