When we had our initial meeting with our doula she mentioned coming back, within a few weeks, to discuss our birth plan. I hung on the phrase birth plan much like when you stop listening to the rest of what someone says once they use a word you’re not familiar with; a word not within your known vocabulary.

I didn’t do anything between that first meeting and our second, in regards to my homework, the birth plan, but figured we’d have her over anyway because – well – we like her.

When I arrived at the hospital to be induced to deliver Hooper, the only instructions I gave my nurse – through choked up words and a few tears of defeat – were, “please don’t offer me an epidural”. Words I’d later regret around the 6cm mark but no longer have the ability to form verbal sentences to retract.

By the time the ambulance got me to the hospital to deliver Van, there was no time to make even the meekest of requests; things were happening to me, not with me at that point.

Needless to say, a plan has never proved itself needed and it almost feels sheepish at this point to put any sort of words down on paper as if experience itself hasn’t taught me that plans are, in my case, for the birds.

So when she asked me, all I could come up with is “you… you’re our plan… and to get the baby out as safely as possible”. So that’s the plan: I’ll make some calls when (hopefully) labor starts, we’ll go to the hospital, and we’ll deliver a baby. Sure there’s lots of holes in that plan but I’m going to allow them to fill themselves in.

Did you have a birth plan? How close did what played out relate to whatever plan you envisioned? Did your plan change as events unfolded and if so, how?