For me, bathing my newborn baby was a pretty terrifying thing. He's so soooo SOOOO very slippery, won't I drop him? What if I get soap in his eyes and it burns, or in his ears and he gets an ear infection? What if the water is too hot and he gets burned, or too cold and he gets chilled? What if I don't get all the shampoo out of his hair and it gets irritated? What if he does his business on me while he is without diaper??? Luckily after doing it a few times, these fears have quieted but still sit in the back of my mind ready to shout "I TOLD YOU SO!!!" the second I make a mistake!

Fear or no fear, babies do need a good cleaning. But how you do it, and how often you do it is up for discussion! Our American nurse at the hospital said until they're crawling around and getting really dirty, babies really only need a bath in the tub about once a week, using a washcloth (water only) to do spot cleaning on a daily basis (face, neck, hands, armpits - they get cheesy - ewwww!!, diaper region); incidentally this is the practice we have adopted. Our Australian nurse, on the other hand, said it's their culture to bathe the baby daily. My sister, who's son has severe eczema, would argue this is too drying on the skin, and in our son's case I would agree. His skin is a bit dryer after a bath, and his cradle cap is absolutely flaking out of control. Sure you could bathe daily and then lather them up with all kinds of creams, but those creams are loaded with all kinds of chemicals. And no, I don't want to shell out an arm and a leg for an organic blah blah blah kind of cream when we've found that it's much simpler to just not bathe him daily!

One of my friends in Japan got the OK from her doctor at her son's 1 month checkup to take him into the regular bath with them. I have mixed emotions about this. Mostly I would love to do it! I love holding Kenzo, and I love taking a bath, so to mix those things would be absolute joy!! My problem is I like my bath water to be hot, and my  husband likes the water to be pretty much scalding! And from what I understand a baby should have bath water that is just barely warm. I wonder if there is a certain degree that is recommended? The bath we had over in Japan was electric, you set the temperature and hit "on" and leave the room going about your business elsewhere in the house. When the tub is done filling up, it plays a song to let you know. And then it keeps the water that temperature til you're done bathing! How awesome is that?? Man, I wish I had that tub here. Instead, we have an OLD (pre-war??) tub with no stopper so we don't even have an option to take a bath now. Which is nice cuz I don't have to bother cleaning it often (or to be brutally honest... practically never). We'll have to fix this before Kenzo grows out of his baby bath, which fits into our kitchen sink and is nice and easy to use!

I knew this day would come. I had been warned. But there is no way to prepare yourself for the trauma of your hair falling out. It's like someone has been slipping chemo into my morning cereal. (I know I know, shame on me for even slightly comparing this to the hair loss associated with cancer treatment.)

I had read that postpartum hair loss is common, about 80% of women experience it. Increased Estrogen (you can always blame hormones, can't you!?) during pregnancy extend the growing phase of the hair cycle and you don't shed the normal amount (100 hairs a day), giving us those glorious silky and shiny full heads of hair! But after childbirth, the estrogen drops and suddenly all that hair you normally would have shed while pregnant (and then some!!) comes out all at once!

It started gradually for me a couple of weeks ago, so I thought that was it. OK OK not so bad, I can handle this! And hey, I thought, what if I don't brush my hair and only wash it once a week, that will conserve it even more! HA! Nice one. Of course that didn't work. Instead, I found myself mid-shower today standing in a sea of my own hair. Every time I gently ran my hand down my hair another clump would ease its way out. I had been considering chopping my hair off for Locks of Love, but now I think I might need that donation to make a wig for myself! In the meantime, I gotta keep up with cleaning the house more. Every time Kenzo gives a little cough while kicking about on his play mat I quickly check to make sure he hasn't found one of my many hairballs wafting about on our apartment floor!

So, yes, I'm losing hair. But it's not just me! The inside of Kenzo's hat is covered in tiny little hairs every time I pull it off. And the back of his head looks like we went at it with a razor, I mean, completely bald!! He's also got a thinning streak across both sides of his head.  Poor guy doesn't realize that repeatedly turning his head right and left when laying down is giving him one wacky do!

Despite having read all the books and gotten the down and dirty play by play from friends and family, I definitely ran across a few surprises during my pregnancy and after giving birth. Here's a fun list I and some mommy friends came up with - feel free to add your own nuggets!!

1) The linea nigra doesn’t go away for a LONG time (mine didn't show up til the 9th month, but now 3 months postpartum it's still there, but fading slowly) <**Update: June 25 - 6 months postpartum, it's almost completely gone, just the faintest of faintest lines remain>

2) Just when you think you’ve made it through without any stretch marks, they can arrive AFTER delivery – hoorah!

3) Things down under won’t look the same after a vaginal birth (i.e. formerly sealed parts are no longer so and will remain that way, WHAAAAAAAAA??? learned this at my 6 week postpartum checkup)

4) Washable nursing pads are a joke and last all of 30 minutes before you’re dripping through your shirt (if you’re an over-supplier as I am). **Tip - get the disposable ones, they are miraculous!!

5) Newborns have explosive poops that hilariously trigger their startle reflex!

6) Your milk will be out of control, shooting your little one all over the face, running all over yourself when you're drying off from your shower (during which they were doing their own bit of shower)

7) During labor and pushing, you really do feel like a bowling ball is coming out of your a$$. Afterwards, you will dread anything coming out of said orifice, and when it does, some say it's worse than childbirth!! **Tip, lots of water, fiber, & stool softeners, and for cleaning up - water spritzer & moist witch hazel pads (not toilet paper, ouch)

8) Pooping will not be your only dreaded bodily function for about a week after giving birth. Sneezing and coughing will put the fear of god in you for sure!

9) Babies have great timing for peeing and pooping the second you take off that diaper. Be prepared for yourself and surrounding walls and furniture to get covered in #1 and #2 a few times! **Tip, cover your boy's bits immediately after pulling the diaper back - you can use a peepee teepee, a washcloth, or my personal favorite, a wipe.

10) Your baby's soft spot will randomly pulsate, taking on a life of its own - FREAKY!

11) If breastfeeding, food cravings and hunger can be worse than while pregnant! Who'd have though!? Alas, you are burning a lot more calories, so it makes sense!

12) You might go an entire day(s) without changing your clothes or brushing your teeth, and you really won't care! haha!

13) Immediately after giving birth, you still look about 7 months pregnant. It gradually deflates over the first few weeks.

Before getting pregnant, the only baby wearing I knew about was the Baby Bjorn (**see side note about this carrier below) ala The Hangover! But thanks to the hand-me-down from my sister, I am now the proud owner and wearer of the Mei Tai wrap, which I love love LOVE!! I also got one from her similar to the Moby, and was able to get a small teddy bear in there after some practice but never was able to get my actual baby in there!! Might give it another go now that he's a bit older (much sturdier) and I'm not so afraid to break him! hehe

During Kenzo's first two months, I mostly wore him for the simple fact that our stroller with bassinet attachment was quite heavy and difficult for me to lug up and down the mere 2 steps at the entrance of our apartment building! Now that I've taken the bassinet off, I can roll/bump the stroller up and down those 2 steps and it's no hassle at all. For short trips to the neighborhood drug store or grocery store I usually wear him in the Mei Tai, and for long walks or ventures that we'll need to bring his diaper bag and other essentials along, I usually go with the stroller.

This Saturday I have to head into the city by myself for half of the day. I'll need the stroller unfortunately, so I am dreading having to deal with the 2 flights of stairs at our subway station for the first time by myself! I think I can kind of roll/bump the stroller down, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to wait for someone to help me carry it up. I'm terrified that someone will help but will accidentally drop his/her part of the stroller, or trip on the step and fall down with the stroller, etc. I guess I'll just have to be sure Kenzo is buckled in nice and tight!

Here are my pros/cons list for wearing your baby and pushing your baby -

BABY WEARING:

Pros:
* Wonderful bonding time for you and baby
* In winter, you are both warm and cozy
* Stairs? No problemo!!
* Depending on which carrier you have, you can go right into a regular bathroom stall and do your business without having to take baby off and not having to worry about fitting your stroller in the handicapped stall or have it unattended outside.
* Can wear your baby around the house as you do house-work or work-work
* Great in crowded spaces

Cons:
* In summer, might be a bit hot and sweaty
* Can get heavy on your shoulders and/or back, especially if you also have to lug around a diaper bag
* Could be dangerous in ice/snow

Stroller

Pros:
* Can lug around stuff other than baby, i.e. diaper bag, groceries, etc.
* Baby can sleep uninterrupted in the restaurant or anywhere while you relax and do your thing nearby
* Can provide an easy & clean place to change a diaper and take care of other needs

Cons:
* Stairs can be a big obstacle and you'll rely on your superhuman strength or kindness of strangers
* Crowded areas such as subway cars during rush hour, boutique shops, etc. are tough and you may get the evil eye from strangers
* Not great in ice or snow
* Difficult to use an umbrella, cell phone, or anything else requiring one hand/arm

**From what I've read the Bjorn is a terrible carrier because it puts all of baby's weight on his/her spine which is not built to support the whole body - you should use a carrier that distributes supports through at least to mid-thigh and brings the knees up parallel or above the bum; side note, infant's legs should be tucked into the carrier froggy style, which is a natural position for them).

Until quite recently, I always took what was said by my doctor and anyone in the medical world as law. They go through a lot of schooling and are pretty damn smart, so we should just blindly follow, right? It sure is the easy way! Unfortunately, once you begin to question anything and do some research, you are just led down this path of unending skepticism wherein there is no right answer. One leg of research ends with no simple conclusion but rather a whole new set of questions. And how often are they retracting one recommendation after realizing it's not so good, and giving a new recommendation. Ugh. It does seem like ignorance really is bliss...

Take the issue of vaccination for example. I grew up getting all the standard shots in the standard time frame. I certainly never questioned it. I never heard my mom or dad question it. Vaccines help us not get these horrible diseases, and not spread horrible diseases, and other than the pain of the needle and perhaps a sore arm for a day or two, what's the harm, right?? But now that it's my own itty bitty baby subjected to these vaccines (and many more than we were subjected to as kids), I find myself in a fog as I go through article after article questioning the the side effects (sometimes even death) of vaccines, the safety or lack thereof of certain ingredients, correlation with or causation of autism, and the efficacy which is not 100% after all. So what's a parent to do?

If you decide not to vaccinate your child, and your child ends up getting one of those horrible diseases and dies, not only will you mourn that child for the rest of your life but wouldn't you also be racked with guilt that you could have prevented the death with a simple shot? Or perhaps your child handles the disease find but passes it along to your neighbor's infant who has no protection against it yet. Sure, these outcomes are all very very rare, but my mind always goes to the worst case scenario. I'm not sure which is lower risk, getting sick from a disease you're not vaccinated from or having a serious side effect from the vaccine, but in the end I decided to go ahead and have little Kenzo vaccinated as recommended. We are however on a non-standard schedule which spreads the shots out so he never has more than 2-3 vaccines in a single visit. This means more trips to the doctor (and more co-pays - damn the man!!), but hopefully his little body is better able to process them.

On a side note, one reason I'm glad we got out of Japan before having our baby is because of the BCG vaccine that is mandatory over there. This thing is WICKED!! Take a look at the photo on the left, I mean, ouch!! It causes permanent scarring, and from what I've read does not give a lifelong protection against tuberculosis. My husband says he is proud of his scar, and calls it his Japanese tattoo. My friends from UK and other various countries all have a scar or two from certain vaccines. So I guess I should be thankful none of the shots on the US roster are scarring??

Before I get to the system we're currently using to schedule our little one's sleep, let me give a quick review of his sleeping patterns from the start.

For the first week of life, little Kenzo was zonked out big time! I got yelled at by the nurse our first and only night in the hospital for letting him go 5 hours without feeding. Whoops! I haven't slept in 50+ hours and just pushed an 8 pound baby out of my hoohah - sorry if I wasn't exactly watching the clock. And it seems he was just as tired as I was! The whole first week I had to wake him up to feed, every 2.5  hours (4 hours at night - had to set my alarm clock!) as advised by the nurses. This was hard to do cuz he was so darn sleepy. Tricks included stripping him down to his diapers and tickling his feet and ears, but he still managed to pass out mid feed almost every time. I was worried maybe he wasn't drinking enough and the doc at his 4 day checkup freaked us out because he had lost 10% of his body weight, which is NORMAL by the way, but had us come back 2 days later for a weigh... by which time he'd already gained back the 10%! He would continue on this dramatic weight gain trajectory for the next couple of months! I'm very thankful I didn't panic and start supplementing with formula, because that could have decreased my milk supply and led us down a slippery slope of losing my milk supply completely.

Anyway, back from that tangent - After the first week, he got adjusted to my 2.5 hour schedule and I no longer was the one waking him up but vice versa. Every 2.5 hours around the clock. And this is including feeding, burping, and bouncing (not rocking - we only have a birth/exercise ball, not a rocking chair) him back to sleep. So, by the time he's back in bed we only slept about 1-1.5 hours. This went on until about the 5th week. EXHAUSTING!!!

After we were done hosting both sets of grandparents, yes in our tiny one bedroom apartment!, he was almost 7 weeks old and I decided it was time to figure out a better schedule that we could both thrive on. At that time, I was just letting him pass out whenever, but it was usually in your arms or on your lap, and the second you tried to transfer him to the crib he would wake up crying. He was also quite fussy - looking back on it he was just overly tired, poor guy!! My sister had given me a book/theory that had worked well for her: "On Becoming Babywise" by Gary Ezzo and Robert Buckman. From what I've seen on the baby blogs and forums, this theory is a bit controversial, some say leading to dehydration and other issues, but I think those issues only arise when you are too strict with the schedule, whereas they repeatedly remind you that you need to be flexible as growth spurts and other times will require changes in the schedule.

The basic theory of Babywise is that the baby should be on a "eat, play, sleep" schedule, with that exact order being key. They recommend it from birth, so I wasn't sure how it would work starting from 7 weeks but they explain in the book how to adjust the schedule as the baby gets older so I just started with the suggested schedule for a 2 month old. It seemed counter intuitive to me since Kenzo is usually in a milk coma after feeding and seems the perfect time to put him down, but I decided to give it a go anyway. They do say you should put the baby down drowsy but not asleep, so they can learn how to self sooth and put themselves to sleep. I can't bare to start this part of the plan yet, I think he's too young for that. Maybe around 4 months we'll give the whole "cry it out" thing a go.

With this Babywise schedule, we basically give him a 12-hour day period and 12-hour night period. During the day time, we stick to a 3 hour cycle: 1.5 hours for eating and then playing, and 1.5 hour nap, and repeat. During the 12 hour night period, there is no "play" time. If he wakes up and seems hungry, I feed him. But quite often it's something else, like he needs a burp, needs spit-up wiped off his face, or just can't go back to sleep by himself, so I bounce him and put him back to bed.

He adjusted to the day time schedule pretty much immediately. I couldn't believe how his fussiness disappeared and he was just so much happier, as was I! I know he had been getting enough food all along, but definitely had been sleep deprived. His night time sleeping got better progressively from this point as well, though that could be a coincidence as he's getting older and more mature, but who knows. Right away he started having longer and longer periods of night time sleep. Now at 10 weeks he sleeps between 6-8 hours straight (technically "sleeping through the night", though for me 9-10 hours would be more like it!!), wakes up for a feed, and then from there doesn't do as well - only 1-3 hours at a time, with lots of grunts and groans, until the "day" period starts.

Here's our typical day:

10 AM - wake and feed
10:30 - 11:30 AM - awake time
11:30 AM - 1 PM - nap time
1 PM - wake and feed
1:30 - 3 PM - awake time
3 - 4:30 PM - nap time
4:30 PM - wake and feed
4:30 - 6 PM - awake time
6 - 7:30 PM - nap time
7:30 PM - wake and feed
7:30 - 9:45 PM - awake time (daddy time!)
9:45 PM - final feed
10 PM - bed time
5 AM - feed
7 AM - feed
8:30 AM - feed

All in all Kenzo gets about 8 feeds and 14-15 hours of sleep. His awake time is spent on the play mat, in the bouncy chair, tummy time, playing with mommy or daddy, listening to music or his Japanese books on CD, taking a bath, etc. When I need to run an errand or take a walk, I do that during his

So, Babywise really changed our lives! I get about 8-9 cumulative hours of sleep during his nighttime period, and no longer feel exhausted or have to nap during the day. Kenzo rarely fusses anymore, but I'm much more capable of realizing and solving the problem when there is one, whereas before the schedule I would have just shoved my boob at him guessing that he was hungry. #Momfail haha! Just so you know, I am not affiliated with the book or the authors, just found that it worked for me and it may be worth a try for some of you out there struggling with your little ones. I know there are TONS of books and different theories out there, and some will work better for you than others. So keep on reading and giving them a try til you find the right one for you and your family!! If you do want to give this one a try, it's super cheap on Amazon:

One of the perks of living in a tiny one bedroom apartment in New York City is that you are saved from the hassle of making such decisions as what color to paint the nursery, where to put your super comfy glider, and which high-tech video baby monitor to go with. You can skip over these issues because you don't have a spare room to turn into a nursery, you have no space for a glider, and you don't need a monitor as you can hear your wee little one from every corner of your pad.

Luckily our bedroom did have room enough for Kenzo's crib to squeeze in next to our queen sized bed and still leave enough space for getting in and out. Just enough. Having baby in the room has its advantages and disadvantages. When he cries, its just a hop out of bed before I can scoop him up and console him. When he squeals and shouts, I can just glance over to see if he's awake and needs help to settle, or if he's just having a dream and should be left alone. What I didn't count on is that our little Kenzo would grunt away for hours on end, night after night. My goodness!! I wear earplugs and use a sound machine, and he still wakes us up with his orchestra of noises!! Occasionally he gets banished to his bassinet stroller in the living room, but he's only 6 pounds (2-3 months?) from maxing out on that weight limit... so we're debating what to do.

During his first few weeks, we often brought him into our bed. His father and I both loved to lay Kenzo on our chests where he would doze off ever so peacefully, and quietly!! My mother said babies sleep best on their stomach, and it's too bad the whole SIDS thing led to the "back to sleep" trend. Of course saving babies is not the too bad part, but it is a shame that many babies have issues sleeping on their backs. All that spit up and tummy troubles I suppose.

My husband was all for co-sleeping with our baby. In many parts of the world this is common place and no one would question it. But here, it's quite controversial. Honestly, if I was alone I would totally do it. I'm a very light sleeper and the times we have done it I was so completely aware of his being there and was so protective of him. That said, I definitely didn't sleep all too well. So there's that. My husband on the other hand is a deeeeeeeeeep sleeper. DEEP! The big fear about co-sleeping is smothering - by one of the parents or by blankets. And this definitely happens. We had a close call one night and quickly agreed we wouldn't be bringing baby into our bed (for sleep anyway) again.

Perhaps we'll move his crib to the kitchen, but that would require disassembling and reassembling the crib - good luck with that dad! It would also mean having to be super quiet if we're still awake when the baby is sleeping, and also not being able to use the kitchen when he's sleeping. This is especially difficult as his father gets home from work rather late quite often. So, we're crossing our fingers that our little man grows out of his grunting and groaning, which are perhaps related to some kind of reflux due to an immature digestive tract. Fingers crossed!!

We are planning to move to a bigger place before baby #2 is in the picture, which is several years off, trust me!! I can't even imagine staying in this sized apartment with 2 kids. But then I think back to my days teaching in Japan. I was in a class of junior high school kids and we were talking about the layout of their bedrooms. In the US, this would be a normal discussion with kids talking about their beds and TVs and all that stuff. But I remember several kids being like, ummmm, I don't have a bedroom. Nothing shameful - completely normal. Co-sleeping or at least room sharing over there is pretty common place. One mom I used to tutor told me she shared her futon bed with her two children and I remember being so shocked. But as she explained how it was so much easier and they all slept better, it made sense. I would have LOVED that when I was a kid. Instead, my mother would watch "Poltergeist" with me on TV and then scoot me off to my own bedroom where I would hide under the covers in fear! Hmmm. In fact, I'm still rather afraid of the dark. Maybe sharing a room with two boys is quite good for me after all!

So, do you co-sleep? Share a room with your tot? Have an amazing celebrity-style nursery for us to drool over? Got advice for silencing a grunty baby?? Please comment below!!

While still pregnant, I was fairly certain I would be returning to work after the 12 weeks maternity leave. I had never pictured myself as a stay at home mom. I thought it would drive me crazy. Picture Charlotte in Sex and the City 2 locking herself in the closet and losing it while her children wreak havoc in the kitchen. Fast forward to the moment I met my son and knew right then and there that it would be a momentously difficult decision whether or not to return to work.

I have been a notorious job hopper since graduating from college. Teaching English in Japan, editing and proofing translation work, doing HR and PR in New York... I have never stayed at one job for more than 2 years. Although I loved my current job at the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, not having an extensive and long-lived career going on swayed my decision both ways. On the one hand, it's not like I have years and years of perfecting a specific skill in an upper level position that I'm giving up. On the other hand, it seems like finding a great job once I'm ready to go back will be that much harder.

My husband and I kept discussing the matter but never really reaching a decision about it. It wasn't until around 6 weeks postpartum, when I realized my leave was halfway over, that we really sat down and hashed it out. We had visited 3 day care centers in our neighborhood. Because of the time they close, and the length of my commute, I'd have to leave work by about 4:30pm which is, um, impossible. At one of them, I kept getting wafts of cigarette smoke during the tour and later saw several of their workers outside smoking. This freaked me out! I don't want my little baby exposed to third hand smoke 12 hours a day!!! Hello asthma!! Other than the smoking, paying $400/week and leaving my baby with strangers that were not accountable to me also sent me into a panic. What was positive about going back to work was, of course, MONEY! Dual income baby!! Also, I liked my job and my co-workers, and I was building a career and skill set.

So, we carefully weighed the pros and cons over and over and what it boiled down to was I just couldn't bare to leave baby Kenzo. So, I handed in my resignation and never looked back!

I never looked back, but that's not to say I haven't looked at other countries with envy. The US is way behind on maternity leave and support for mothers and their careers. According to Wikipedia, only 4 countries have no national law mandating paid maternity leave: Liberia, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and the United States. It's like that Sesame Street game, "one of these things is not like the other", hmmm... Sure, we have FMLA, but only companies with over a certain amount of employees are held required to abide by those guidelines.

In comparison to the US, here are some various parental leave programs I found around the world:

Japan offers 14 weeks of 60% pay and adds on 2 more months if mom and dad share the leave. Though, I can assure you paternity leave is more or less non-existent! You can take up to 1 year off, unpaid. BUT, there seems to be great amount pressure on women to outright quit before giving birth.

Canada gives 50 weeks at 55% pay, and 35 of those weeks can be shared with the dad. In Quebec (because they HAVE to be different, haha), the first 25 weeks are at 70% pay - NICE!!

The UK gives 39 weeks of paid leave, the first 6 weeks being at 90% pay and the remainder at a flat rate.

Sweden gives a whopping 16 MONTHS of paid leave, somewhere around 70-90%.

So, what was your maternity leave program like? Or did you decide to stay home - if so, how long and how did you like it?

We had ourselves a little Christmas baby just over 2 months ago. Little Kenzo arrived at 1:19 PM on Christmas day after a grueling 50 hour labor. With the help of Hypnobabies, I labored at home with my husband until hour 40, when I finally reached the point where contractions were close enough by the midwife's instructions (2-3 minutes apart for a few hours) to head to the hospital. We delivered at Manhattan's St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital's Birthing Center which was a wonderful experience!! You labor, deliver, and stay one night postpartum in a private room with a jacuzzi and queen size bed where dad and baby can stay with you the entire time. It's natural births only there, so there wasn't even a suggestion about pain meds and the midwife and nurse were AMAZING at getting me through the labor and getting my little one to progress down and out. They had me (and my husband!!) doing lunges and squat/sways up and down the hallways. That was TORTURE but I guess it did the trick. After breaking my water (the only intervention) and 1.5 hours of pushing, out he came and straight on my chest for kangaroo care. We both got the OK from the professionals and were discharged a mere 28 hours after birth.

Yes, it was incredibly painful. Yes, it was exhausting. But I am glad I went the natural route and it was a truly empowering experience. I knew the pain was productive and not due to sickness or injury (well, maybe the pain immediately AFTER the birth was injury-related pain, haha), and I knew it had a definitive end point. Each "pressure wave" (what hypnobabies moms call contractions) worked its way up to the intolerable point, but only stayed there for about 30 seconds or so and then eased its way back down and gave me a minute or two respite before the next one. Anyone can get through 30 seconds of excruciating pain, knowing it will go away (and come back, yuck), especially with wonderful and patient coaching.

If I could have had an epidural with the 100% guarantee that it wouldn't slow down my progress and lead to the need for pitocin, wouldn't hinder my ability to push, wouldn't take away my right to eat and drink and move about on my own, and wouldn't ultimately end in a c-section, then yes, I most definitely would have gone for it! And it seems most women in America do go for it (and most doctors and nurses encourage or even push it). Unfortunately, the risks I mentioned are quite frequent with epidurals (if you haven't seen it, watch "The Business of Being Born" - an amazing documentary about childbirth in America). I do not judge anyone who goes that route, in fact, up until a year ago when I watched that documentary I had no doubt that it would be epidural city for me!! But in the end, it just wasn't worth the risk for me and luckily I was able to endure the "discomfort" (another hypnobabies term, which looking back, is freaking HILARIOUS).

I could not wrap my head around was the price tag associated with this natural birth and short hospital stay. A whopping $25,000 was billed to my insurance company!! After paring that down using their "contracted rates", $15,000 was paid out by my insurance company to the hospital and my midwives' practice, and $3,000 was owed by my own little pocket. My city/county/state employed teacher friends like to brag that they paid a mere $25-100 for each of their births. My UK friends brag that it's entirely free over there!! In Japan, childbirth is not covered by insurance, but your city pays you a healthy stipend after you report the birth (part of their attempt to reverse their ever decreasing birth rate), usually around $3,000 I believe, which basically covers prenatal visits, birth, and ONE WEEK (luxurious and relaxing) stay at the birth clinic. But America's ridiculously problematic health care system is no surprise, after all...

So, what was your birth experience like? Gimme the good, the bad, and the ugly!