Lots of people keep asking about our birthing tub—what does it look like, how does it work, how big is it, etc.  We rented an AquaDoula tub from someone in Oakland.  Basically it's like a collapsible small hot tub. We set it up in the corner of our bedroom and filled it for a trial run recently.

It takes about an hour to fill it with hot water, from a hose run from the kitchen sink. There is a heater we plug in to maintain the temperature at around 100 degrees.  When you're done with it, you pump out the water through the same hose (our new Fuji apple tree got a good drink when we emptied it the other day).

It's an option to give birth inside the tub, although we're imagining just using it for during contractions leading up to the birth.

There are several places in the East Bay that rent them and they are becoming more and more popular because women attest that they ease labor pains and make it easier for them to feel comfortable by taking the sensation of their extra weight off.

We still haven't settled on a name for this baby due on July 12th, but we've taken to nicknaming it the "Shape Shifter" because of the shifts in tectonic plates that regularly seem to take place under the skin of my belly.  Paul recently saw a picture of an infant boy who was born with three arms and suddenly we wondered if our child has that many limbs. When most people hear how active this little kiddo is, they usually reply "It must be a boy." My thought on this is "They must not know us very well, because if that's the case, it's more likely to take after me than Paul."

As of this posting, we have a little less than a month until the due date. Most things are in place for the planned homebirth and we're feeling excited and confident about our choice after taking a great homebirth education class through the Bay Area Homebirth Collective, (of which our midwives are members). I thought I'd be more nervous and fearful the closer the time came at the thought of not going to the hospital, but in fact, the opposite has been true. We are so relieved at the idea of laboring in our own home, surrounded only by the people we want to be present, and having the freedom to move about and go through the labor as we please with two midwives we trust who have attended 1,100 homebirths. For those who are wondering, yes, we're renting a birthing tub, but mostly we're assuming we'll use it just for the labor, not necessarily for the birth. But stay tuned - we'll let you know if we have a water baby (and if the baby has three arms).

By the way, we're still taking suggestions for names: first, middle, and last, for a boy or a girl, so let us know if you think of a good one.