Well Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight is the night i have been waiting for, for weeks and weeks and weeks.

In a few hours I will officially hit week 38 of this pregnancy and therefore will be on target for the home birth i have had my heart set on.

My birthing pool is all pumped up and filled with water and the equipment is all set. The dining room is hereby known as the delivery suite and my GTBOM project can now officially commence (although we all know that my impatience has persuaded me to start a few of the methods a little earlier, tut, tut!)

And guess what? It appears that my spending a little time on all-fours (no! Not like that you filthy buggers!) has paid off - baby is no longer back-to-back and is instead all ready for take-off in exactly the right position.

You'd think I'd be on top of the world right now?!

Well i was, until the midwife announced that the results of my last blood test showed my iron levels are too low to actually qualify me for a home birth.

They've had these results for over a month yet didn't feel it necessary (considering my plans for a homebirth) to actually share them with me. One fucking month. I could have been taking supplements. I could and would have been stocking up on my greens. But they failed to tell me until now. Now when i can pretty much do sweet FA about it.

I hate to upset anyone here with this next comment (and indeed paragraphs) but it has to be said. The shitty NHS, their rules, regulations and overall negligence never ceases to disappointment me. What a tosserific organisation. Total and utter shit and nowhere near worthy of the amount of tax we pay.

I had thought that by choosing to have this baby at home I would be avoiding the majority of all the stress and dissapointment that comes with virtually any experience of the NHS. 

I'd hoped i could have a little control over my own labour and birthing experience, yet instead it seems that, due to their incompetence, I may have to put up with the usual.

Appalling care, (due to staff shortages and extortionate waiting times.)

A total lack of privacy, (the last time i was on the labour ward i found myself next to a poor woman in horrific pain wailing away. She was 7cm's dilated and progressing so quickly and still they had not been able to offer her a private room. The woman opposite me, meanwhile, was sounding deeply embarrassed as she was asked to discuss details of her muchas plug for all to hear. Seriously they pull those mouldy curtains around you as though that will somehow make you invisible and inaudible to the rest of the ward.) 

A sargeant major midwife (whom i imagine will be 'looking after' several women at once and therefore will be unavailable most of the time.)

And of course . . .

parking charges,

terrible food

And restrictions on everything from toilets, (birth partners are not allowed to use the toilets on the labour ward and instead are required to leave and use the facilities in the main hospital) to visiting times.

I'm being a pessimistic grouchy cow i know (I'm so tired though, one of the symptoms of being anemic!) And I could be totally wrong, but i'd rather be prepared for what i fear will be the case than try to convince myself that it'll be different this time round and then be bitterly disappointed at the end of it all.

The midwife has taken more blood today and will be re-testing and telephoning me with the results tomorrow. So there is a teeny, weeny chance that my levels might be okay now (four weeks on) - but I'm seriously suspecting that the results will be the same and my dreams and plans for a home birth will be gone with the wind. (And I'll be lumbered with the worlds most expensive paddling pool! lol)

The last time I went into labour and gave birth i didn't get to take my baby home. Instead i left empty handed and my little boy went to heaven.

The time before that I delivered my daughter and was practically evicted from the hospital before the effects of pethidine had even worn off. (They needed my bed.)

I so hoped it would a case of third time lucky this time round.

I know it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. What will be will be and the only real aspect of importance is that baby is delivered safely. Yet I'm longing for a happy birthing experience. and it's so difficult not to feel let down.

I'll find out in the morning and I doubt i'll get any sleep tonight.

Wish me luck!

x