Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Going the Home Birthing Route
Looks like baby #2 is going to be born at home.

We discovered late last week that while the new maternity wing at East Toronto General Hospital was officially opened last month, as yet the have insufficient staff to run it, so it will not be operational until September. This, of course, is one month after baby is due. Great.

After visiting the existing facilities there, the idea of having a home birth became more and more appealing to Erika.

After talking to some friends and other mothers she knew about it, she became sold on the idea. I was still a bit leery, so I wanted to ask Erika's midwife more about it.

Feel much better about the whole thing now, after having spoke to the midwife. Was reassured that they know the signs when it is necessary to head to the hospital, that they bring certain emergency equipment with them, and the fact that there will be two midwives present at the birth. The fact that we are a 5-10 minute ambulance ride from East General should anything go wrong is also highly reassuring.

She also gave us a list of the things we need, such as plastic sheets, a floating thermometer (Erika wants to birth the baby in the large bath-tub we have), a bowl to put the placenta in, etc.

Am also heartened by the fact that on average, a second birth is 1/3 shorter than the first by about. It won't make the possible 5-6 hour labour any easier for Erika, but knowing it is likely to be shorter is a relief (at least to me).

Now I need to gather the missing items, and help to get thing organized.

TFT FPD!
As a bonus for sticking with the firm for over a year, my boss gave me one of the excess flat panel displays from work to take home. It is a Samsung SyncMaster 570S. Mine for keeps! Sweet! A pretty nice bonus -- when new, these screens cost about as much as it took for me to fly my family to England and back. Prices since then have dropped, but it is still a real treat.

Installed it to my main work system at home this morning, replacing my behemoth 5+ year-old 17" screen. The 15" Samsung screen is smaller, but it is flat and bright and it is a pivot monitor, making it perfect for writing purposes. Particularly noticed its brightness while taking a break to play online Quake -- making it harder for anybody to frag me from a dark recess. ;-) Overall, I also find it less eye-straining than a regular CRT monitor.

Did I say it was sweet? Sweet! ;-)