More midwives.

On Saturday, we had two more meetings set with midwives. One was first thing in the morning, and one was set for late afternoon.

The morning appointment was with a midwife who lives about 10-15 minutes southeast of us, on a farm with real live chickens and goats and horses. Her house has a green roof, and 2 cats were walking the edge of the patio's railing while a big, old looking dog slumbered on the porch. Idyllic, I tell ya. The midwife herself is probably in her early 50s (she looked younger, but she mentioned having turned 50), and immediately she was very warm and welcoming. Her office was a large room in the back of her house, with an exam table, a low futon (I'm sensing a theme here), and a desk. She also had a yoga ball floating around, as well as a mini table with mini chairs and toys for kids accompanying their parents. The floors were dark cherry wood, and attached to the room was a bathroom with what appeared to be a large bath/shower. We sat on the futon, Luca immediately made herself at home playing with the blocks, and the MW sat in a chair facing us.

She asked us some general questions about Luca's birth and about us (what do we do for a living...what do we want from this birth...), and then she told us about her. About how she has 7 children and several grand children. About how she started as a doula and has been a MW since 2001. About how her first births were in a hospital, and her last were at home. She talked some about her rules for who she will work with, her expectations and ours, and answered the basics like transport rate to the hospital (about 5% which seems to be industry standard) and why she transports (erratic heart rate between contractions, broken water for more than 24 hours with no contractions, etc.). But more than that, we felt her out, and she did the same with us. By the time we left an hour later, send on our way with a warm hug, my husband was already telling me he thought she was 'it'. I kind of was feeling the same.

But, anothe appointment was on the agenda. So we would go to that one and see.

And go we did, but just Luca and me, since Darrick had something come up and I wasn't too strict about him being there. This next appointment was in Mesa, about a 20 minutes drive from home. On the website were pictures of what looked like a nice historic home...but reality fell a little short. After a search for the correct office, I walked through an open door and was met by a midwife who looked nothing like the woman on the website. I said, "Hi, I'm Katie." From the other room came another woman, the face from the website, but with a blank expression of sorts. I said, "Sorry I'm a few minutes late and my husband couldn't make it, but I'm here."

"Did you have an appointment?"

Flash back to the Saturday before, when I made the appointment for 4 pm. Flash a little more current to Thursday morning, when I had a voicemail from the MW asking where I was, since we had a 10 am appointment. I called her back, and we straightened it out (techincal glitch with her blackberry). And now, 3 phone calls later, and she couldn't remember my appointment?

"Yup. Originally it was at 4, but we moved it to 4:30. We talked? On Thursday?"

She sat at her desk and opened a planner, saw my name penciled in, and seem satisfied I wasn't fucking with her. THIS was a much rockier start than I'd hoped for. But, as we sat and talked I realized I really really liked her. As opposed to the midwife I'd met that morning, this one was a bit younger, more activist than nurterer, but that was ok with me. And I clicked with her pretty well. Her office was 3 room: a main meeting room, an exam room, and a classroom where she holds birth classes and prenatal yoga and mom's groups. Pretty neat all in all.

So now I was torn. Three midwives, all capable and kind and with different personalities. Did we want the first midwife: tattoos, hippie-ish, spiritual without being overt, very mother-earthy? The second midwife: gentle, quiet, calming influence who's laid back style meshes with our own? Or the third midwife: perhaps a bit more scattered and slower to warm up, but very thorough and respectful, funny and an activist?

It's a huge decision to make. And there are more women out there we could interview, but that would just muddy the waters more.

So we talked that night and made a decision. And we're happy and confident with it, and we both agreed. So now it's onto the next phase: hiring our midwife of choice and starting to do some work to prep ME for this whole experience. Wish me luck!