I did a response on your birth plan thread, dear Mrsy, but also wanted to say:
we're not doing vit K this time unless it is a traumatic birth. It's one of those things that the hospitals like to do because the benefits and convenience (to them) of giving vit K to the tiny tiny percentage of babies who have a really traumatic time and end up very bruised and might have clotting problems outweigh (for them) the nonsense of giving vit K to thousands of perfectly healthy babies.
I would be very very very hesitant about allowing anyone to break my waters this time. It's an intervention just like a sweep or an augmentation drip. It gets in the way of whatever your body is meant to be doing. I've been reading a great book called "Let birth be born again" which is all about optimal foetal positioning, and she talks about how, if a baby is in an awkward position and therefore not coming down onto the cervix efficiently, and not getting down the birth canal with the twist and wriggle it needs, then the WORST thing you can do is break the waters because then the baby has lost the buoyancy which would have helped it turn, and both of you have got the bone-to-bone friction as they try to do so. I say this advisedly, as someone whose waters were broken last time (after having been on an augmentation drip for about 6 hours with no meaningful progress going on). I then went from something like 3 cm dilated (After erm 30 hours of labour) to fully dilated in about an hour, and then gave birth to a sunny-side-up baby. i.e. they never did turn, they came out the hard way. And oh my dear God, the time from the waters being ruptured to the beginning of pushing were intense. So yeah, if things aren't progressing, see if you can find a way of having some micro naps between contractions and get in a good spinnning baby position and see if the baby will turn on its own (and therefore speed up the labour massively). I really felt a momentum last time, that I was emotionally committed to being in labour, and so were my birth partners, and so were all the medics, when actually what might have been good would be for someone to have persuaded me to take an aspirin and have a rest rather than trying to hurry things along.
And I'm another who will not be having the placenta jab unless I am haemorhhaging. I wish I could spell that word. And yes, I retained it last time. Somewhat galling, to manage my epic labour with just the (ack ack horrid) hour on entononx, and then find myself being given a full spinal block and wheeled into theatre to pull the damn thing out after the baby had arrived. So I'd rather let my own hormones do the job rather than injecting artificial ones, since I don't have all that much faith in the artificial ones...
What do you mean, "O&U seems to have baggage"?????