If you're not Completely Sick of reading about my Birthing Plans...

Thanks to everybody's great suggestions I have added a few things to the Bag. Lis had a fantastic idea to break the bag up into 2 bags- one for if all goes to plan and I give birth without complications in the Birth Centre (located within the Gold Coast Hospital, on the same floor as normal delivery); the other for if I am transferred to normal delivery, and stay 3 or 4 nights.

If I am in the B. Centre I will be sent home 4 hours after giving birth, if neither Peanut nor I need medical assistance. This is because there are only two B. Centre rooms, and these two rooms are in high demand. However they will only take on a certain number of mothers in the B. Centre. I believe there are 6 midwives, split up into two groups of 3, and each group takes on one mother in waiting per week (the week the mother is due). Of course there is the chance that a few mothers may go into labour at the same time; if this happens its basically first in, best dressed (the unlucky mother would go to normal delivery).  But this rarely happens. This is why there is a waiting list to get in, here on the Gold Coast there is a very high rate of births for some reason. I guess due to the density of population but also apparently because alot of mothers come here from afar to give birth and have a holiday at the same time! My midwife told me. I thought that was fascinating; I can't imagine going away from home to have a holiday and give birth! But that's me :)

I am hoping all goes to plan and I have my room. It is very large spacious room on the third floor of the hospital, there is a huge spa bath for pain relief and/or birthing, a double bed, a large bathroom and various things to aid birthing such as those big bouncy exercise balls, bars to help with squatting, shower stool, mats for kneeling on the floor, and a birthing stool.

If you or someone you know are pregnant and may be interested in "active birth", I recommend you find out if there is a Birth Centre nearby. I'm only saying this now because before I was pregnant I had no idea that these places existed, and only found out from my friend Dana. She had a wonderful water birth with her first son, and was so excited to share with me her amazing drug-free birthing experience, at a Birth Centre in the Royal Women's Hospital in Brisbane. I too am hoping for drug-free birthing (I won't go into my reasons here but if you are curious or would like some links for reading materials please feel free to email me).

In my other bag packed for in case I am transferred and stay a few nights, I have added more clothing and tracksuits (suggested by Chrissy), more underwear of course, more baby clothing, tissues (suggested by Jamie), my own soft non-hospital toilet paper (as suggested by Kendall), pen and paper for thank you cards (suggested by Archer's Mum and Joolz), and Ural (thanks Julia). Also have thrown in a robe and extra slippers, socks etc.We got a great bag of goodies too, muesli bars, powerade, boiled lollies, and blue cheese like I mentioned earlier :-). I will also be hanging out for a strong coffee but alas, that is not recommended with breast feeding either. I guess another year or two wait is in order, unless I am going to pump...

We now have our new (old) car, handed down to us by my very kind brother and his girlfriend. They bought new cars each and wanted to help us. How lucky are we?? It needed a little work but not nearly as much as expected so it hasn't cost us much at all. It is a '98 Holden Barina and its fantastic! I absolutely love it, as it has power steering, air con and is automatic (unlike the Ute which my father in law very kindly sold for us).  So today I rang RACQ to book in to get the baby car seat installed. They are calling me back on Monday and hopefully we can have it done on Wednesday. It's only $25 and I think it's worth it as Shane and I know nothing about installing baby seats and of course its very important it is done properly.

There is really only one more thing on my To-Do Before Peanut Arrives list, and that is to take some final documents in to Centrelink to finalise the family payments application. I tell you, I have been in there 3 times now to get this done and each time I was told to bring something else in. And I did research this before I started the application, the first time I went in I felt very prepared but of course, not prepared enough. It's not very straight forward, as most dealings with Centrelink aren't, I've found. Fingers crossed this last visit next week will enable me to cross this To-Do off the list.

SO now we just play the waiting game and try to patiently wait for our precious little Peanut to arrive...
:-D