the new one arrived at last, on october 29. nine days late. we had the c-section scheduled for four days later. her original due date was october 20. my mom had flown here to help out, and to see the new baby, of course. mom arrived on the 15th, just in case the baby was early, and was only going to stay until the 31st. as it was, punkin kept her waiting almost until it was time for her to leave.

the birth went very well. since this was a vbac birth, we were all prepared for any of a whole slew of problems to occur, but none did. the hospital was all prepared, too, with an emergency surgery team standing by, scrubbed up and ready to go. in order for a hospital to offer vbac as an option to women, they need to be able to reserve an operating room and a surgical team for the exclusive use of just that mother, so that she can get an emergency c-section within 15 minutes, if needed. we had an hour drive to get to the nearest hospital that could offer this. and not just on the big day, but to many of the prenatal appointments as well. some of the other prenatal checks were able to be done closer to home. we had changed providers in the middle of the pregnancy when ephelba had learned of this hospital's program from some other mothers. ephelba had always wanted to do vbac, but the doctors she was working with just weren't supportive of that goal, and seemed very intent on scaring ephelba out of her decision. it is riskier than other births, but the one question they would not answer was "is it riskier than a c-section or not?" so, when ephelba heard about this other place, she jumped on it. they were glad to answer the question, and their answer, after looking at ephelba's risk factors was "no question about it, vbac will be much safer, and a quicker recovery for ephelba, too. and if there are more children, they will be better off as well." we were at the right place. not because they agreed with our inclinations, but because they looked at data and came to conclusions. ephelba was not blindly wedded to the concept of a vbac birth. she'd have given it up in a minute if someone had said its risky and unwise. but those first idiots we saw would not say either way. very frustrating. so the new place was better. still, i marvel at the disparity of difference in the level of available health care between here, our newish home in upstate new york, and our old abode in ann arbor, michigan. peanut was born at the university of michigan hospital, and i didn't know it at the time, but we were having our baby in the lap of luxury. for one thing, our room was heated to a comfortable degree. this apparently cannot be done at the hospital we were at here. the night we got there, i told three different people that the room was way too cold. they would all smile, nod, and say "the rooms do get cold at night." and how much are we paying for this? then during the day, the room was heated to a degree resembling a sauna. ephelba was actually feeling sick from the heat. finally, maintenance came along and turned off the heat, because either you have it on or off. the concept of thermostatically controlled heat hasn't landed here.