39 weeks and a new camera.....

yup.....39 weeks! we got a new camera, so we can have better shots of the baby and no 30 second delay between shots. our old camera was needing an update. clearly (ha!) we need to take more time practising. sorry, this shot is a bit blurry. we'll get it next time.

we had a check up yesterday and our doula, stacy, joined us. our doctor was so excited to meet her. things are going well in the planning of things as natural as we can get them. dr. song has relaxed many routine (and i believe, unnecessary) procedures for us. we are so thankful for her willingness to work with us for the best possible birthing day, assuming everything goes well. she has said many kind things to us over the past few appointments, which help make me feel like we chose a good place to have our daughter. a couple of weeks ago i was about to leave.....so this is very nice and reassuring! she told us yesterday that she feels that we are very good people and that she likes me very much, so she wanted to give our birth plan a try. she even admitted to turning away other foreign couples who wanted a different birth than she's used to, but that she wanted to work with us. i am so thankful for that. i have liked her from the beginning and love the fact that the clinic/hospital is only 10 minutes away, so i didn't really want to switch to a different place........but things like supplementing my colustrum with formula and having the baby taken care of by the nurses, routine episiotomy, etc. etc..........wasn't settling well with me. she (along with the nursing staff) have agreed to let me breastfeed asap, have my baby with me at all times, and some of her compromises surprised me. for example, she seems willing to give my parineum an oil massage in order to prevent a tear (or episiotomy). i was shocked because she seems to sure that episiotomy is the way to go in preventing a tear. stacy asked her about holding the baby back for more stretching time and about the oil massage, to with the doctor said (basically) let's try it. it is so nice to have her willing to try our wishes. that's about all we could have asked for.

to end this post i'll show you the first photo taken with our new camera, for laughter's sake. teddy looks really impressed that i wanted the first one to be of us, huh?