Progress, I guess

Met with the midwife today.  The practice is friendly and there's no
confusion as to where to go next and no standing around at the checkout
station waiting to be acknowledged.  The nurse who checked me in did a
thorough job with my history and was friendly and not awkward.  At my last
GYN practice, the nurse who checked me in and took my history was a bit
snobby and I want to say incredulous when I answered the history questions.
I kept feeling like she didn't believe me and was trying to catch me in a
lie when she would ask the same question in a different manner later on in
the process.  In any event, I didn't much like it there.  And I just
realized that my friend who's delivered two babies with them was more scared
than she needed to be during labor with her first because she wasn't sure
what was going to happen next.  The midwife I met with (who's from the same
county that I grew up in) assured me that we would talk it through and set
up a plan and backup plans long before entering the delivery room.  She said
she was involved in a labor the night before that took two hours of pushing
and she and the mother avoided cesarean intervention three times over the
course of her delivery, so that gives me a lot of confidence that she'll be
an advocate for me and support my decisions.  I really liked her and talking
with her was very easy and low key.  I explained to her that I'm a
"researcher" and like to be well-informed ahead of time, so she gave me some
printed materials that her practice has developed even though I didn't
really need it yet.  I think I'm going to be very pleased with the practice
and the midwife when the time comes for me to engage their services.

The plan, as it stands now, is to go off of birth control in August and use
alternate contraception methods until after my first "natural" cycle, then
we'll ditch the contraceptives altogether in September and see what happens.
And between now and then, the plan is to finish my various house projects
and try to drop some weight.