I went to the hospital today to register for birth there and it went really really well :)
We have a choice of 3 hospitals where I am, the big city one which is probably the most "medical", they take all of the high risk cases (if I go into labour before 36 weeks I have to go there) but it's still pretty nice, and then there are two smaller ones. I didn't really research that much in the end, I just heard a lot of people recommend one of the smaller ones in particular and I decided to investigate that one. I mentioned it to DH and he googled it and decided it was in a good place on the map 
for walks etc 
... anyway. He also started asking around colleagues etc and had heard really good things from everyone who had been there, which was also reassuring. I was tempted to go to the big city hospital as they are the only one with gas and air but I heard they make you get a hep lock and are a bit more rigid in their rules, so I wasn't sure about that aspect.
I had been planning to go to the info evenings/tours for all three but I didn't bother in the end, just decided to register for this one. We had gone to the info evening but only understood about 30% of what was said (language barrier) so just kind of went on the recommendations of friends and though why not.
So I tried to call last week to register as they said we need to register between 34-36 weeks and they did a big intake of breath and said ooh it's very late and they could only give me an appointment on the 23rd Aug which is 3 days before my due date and they said was too late. So I was told to come in this morning and expect to have to wait around if it was busy. Luckily it wasn't and despite not even being on a list (!) a midwife said never mind let's just sit down together and do it. So we went through all of the paperwork, medical history etc and she was so lovely! I managed to get through probably 80% of it in German because she was so clear spoken and patient and she switched to English when it got more complicated or she felt I needed to be more comfortable.
She asked me if I was planning to breastfeed and whether I had breastfed my son and for how long. I said four years and did that weird slight blush thing where you expect people to find something weird but she didn't find it weird at all. She said what could be wrong with that, it does good, which was nice. She took at my word that I've been feeling movement since 13 weeks which I also always feel a bit sheepish about. When it came to psychological disorders I told her I have ADHD and she laughed and said so does my son, it's not an illness, not a bug, just a feature :) So that was also really nice. Later on when I said this is a bit weird but when I've had local anaesthesia it seems to take longer than expected to kick in with me and sometimes I need multiple doses, she wrote that down as well and then mentioned that it's sometimes correlated with ADHD which is something I'd never heard before.
Then she asked about my wishes for the birth. I said I want to use water - fine. I asked about the hep lock/IV canula and she said no we only do it when it's needed - perfect. They do monitor continuously apparently but it's one which you can move about with (telemetry) which is fine by me. I'd prefer doppler monitoring but I'm not bothered by the telemetry system either, as long as I can move around freely. Can we wait for the cord to stop pulsing before cutting it? Yes, that's their standard procedure and they wait for the placenta to deliver naturally as well unless there too much bleeding - exactly what I want! Then they deliver the baby onto your chest and cover them only with a blanket (no washing, wrapping, dressing) and you generally get to stay there for 2 hours before they do any observations other than APGAR. I gave consent for vitamin K (which they do orally - interesting as I opted for that with DS but I didn't think they did that any more) and I said no to a catheter as long as I can still move around but I might agree to one for the pushing stage if it comes to it, as I vaguely remember having one last time and it helping since I couldn't move any more.
We should be able to get a family room (only DH can stay, not DS) if there's one available, and she even wrote down my dietary requirements (I can eat anything but cheese makes me ill) despite them not being any recognised kind of diet.
Then at the end of the appointment I said I needed the toilet and she managed to give me a sneak peek of the labour wards by letting me use the toilet in there. There was a cute squishy newborn being pushed around in a little wooden cot on wheels (I think it was a BabyBay actually!) which was so exciting :) I feel seriously positive and excited about giving birth there now!