Air lift or unassisted home birth?

Things are popping here and when I say “things,” I really mean “me.” It surely won’t be much longer, particularly if I take up jump rope as my mom has suggested.

Here’s the problem:

My mom (who lives on the property) took an emergency trip to the coast in our all-wheel-drive wagon. The other cars are front wheel drives. She plans to rush back if I end up in labor, but she’s four hours away from us and 2 1/2 hours away from our hospital. That all seems reasonable except that we just heard that a winter storm is forecast for the weekend with snow down to 1500 feet. We could well have a foot of snow here at 3500 feet elevation, depending on temperatures and time between snow fall.

“Here” requires some explanation because there really are few places like it. We technically live in the Sequoia National Forest (on our private land). We’re at 3500 feet elevation, so the big redwoods people associate with Sequoia are not right here. The southern-most stand of redwoods is about fifteen minutes away by car.

The population of the area is in the triple digits, busting into the quads on holiday weekends. For the most part, folks are retired or have vacation cabins. Year-round residents in our age group are somewhat uncommon, though we have managed to populate a junior 4-H club with our children. There aren’t enough older kids to create a slate of 4-H officers, so a regular club is a no-go.

The nearest hospital is 45 minutes away. The nearest hospital we would hope to use is one hour and twenty minutes by car. The fastest way to get there would either be in the community-sponsored ambulance or by helicopter. Folks are lifted out on occasion when their situation is dire. Community volunteers with EMT training drive the ambulance. The EMTs include a plumber, a handyman, a former school psychologist, and a psych nurse. Luckily I’m not in need of a psych nurse these days, so perhaps if I end up having the baby in my bathtub, we can hope that the plumber is on call. He can at least clear the bathtub drain should that become an issue.

Facing the prospect of a foot of snow and a front wheel drive car, we may end up vacationing in civilization over the weekend should things seem necessary, but I’m actually a bit torn. I figure if we go it’s very likely we won’t have the baby (just because that’s how things tend to go). I really want to have the baby soon. If we stay, we could well end up having more excitement than we’ve counted on. I don’t know if I’d choose the helicopter, the plumber in the ambulance, or just have a birth right here and call no one. (Actually, I’d choose unassisted at home but the rest of the household would freak out.) The helicopter would surely be a great story and would become part of the memorable stories locals like to tell, such as when Max’s property was raided for marijuana and we all sat on a neighbor’s bench drinking beer and watching the plants get confiscated. There is also the time the big bolder rolled into the road and had to be dynamited out. People showed up at a ranch with a view, picnic lunches in hand.

We make our own excitement around here. Someone has to. Hopefully I won’t be making any this weekend.

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