Great tips! Thanks so much!

I always tell people that a birth plan is great, but you really need to work with your doctor to get him or her to put some of your wishes down as orders. Doctor's orders have a lot more push than birth plans and the nurses have a much easier time meeting your needs that way. As an example; what if you wanted to walk a lot? You may put in your birth plan that you want to walk a lot, but the hospital may have set orders that state "continuous monitoring." That makes it really hard for the nurses. If you come in with orders from your doctor that say, "15 minutes of monitoring every hour until..." then the nurses have to follow that and you get your wish more easily. The time when you are not monitored, you can walk and walk and walk. Also, make sure you talk to your doctor about how much of your birth plan is applicable at your hospital. For example, I once worked at a hospital where people would want to labor in the bathtub, but there was only one bathtub for all the labor rooms. If that's the case, you may want to look into a different hospital. http://www.lousymom.com

This is a pretty emotional one for me, not because of the hormones, but because the concept of writing a birth plan insinuates that you have choices. I don't. While I agree, the concept of writing out what note of Claire De Lune the doc is supposed to cut the cord on is a little extreme, I think so many women go into labor without fully understanding what is going to or could possibly happen. The process of just thinking about a birth plan will force you to think about decisions you may have to make & you should not only have an idea of where you stand on these things, but take the opportunity to educate yourself on what effects those choices have. Because trusting your doctor to give you objective information is just so incredibly naive. Doctors are going to do what is in their best interests, meaning, what is least likely to get them sued. I trusted my doctor to help me & ended up with a traumatic cesarean. Just leave it at traumatic. No one told me the hospital I was birthing at had a 52% rate of cesarean. No one told me that there is not a single doctor in 3 counties that will do a vbac. I wish I HAD looked at that birth plan form just a wee bit harder, because then maybe I wouldn't have let them induce me at 37 weeks.

Once you have had your child if you need any parenting advice I would recommend Empowering Parents.