our birth wishes

Around thirty or so weeks my midwife asked me to prepare a birth plan. Our doulas also encouraged us to write a plan. The word “plan” in this circumstance makes me a little uneasy, honestly. Birth rarely goes as planned, and one cannot fail at birth. Therefor, I like to refer to my plan as more preference based.

Since we are hoping and planning to deliver at our birth center I wrote up two plans: a detailed one for our center and a more simple, infographics style in the event of a transfer. While most birth center to hospital transfers are not emergent, I still wanted something easy and simple to follow as I’d be meeting a whole new care team.

Our main birth plan includes some basic details: our names, the best way to reach/contact us, those who will be will us {my mom, best friend, photographer, and doula}, and our plans for after our daughter is born. I chose to focus on the things I do want to happen, not a laundry list of what I don’t want. This has been something I’ve learned through our birth class, Hypnobabies.

There are many templates out there, but I didn’t like any of them so I made my own in Photoshop. I’m planning on printing a few of these and having them in sleeves. Our birth center and doulas already have copies 🙂