Too many tests

I had forgotten how many tests pregnant women take. Pee tests, blood tests, glucose level tests, vaginal exams, Group B Strep tests, etc etc. Cathy (midwife) is obligated to offer me all of the tests that are available (and in fact mandatory, if I were under the care of most docters) and I have started to decline all of them. I still pee on a stick every few weeks to check for protein and glucose (i think?) but I find these fairly unobtrusive. No ultrasounds, no blood tests, no group B strep test, no vaginal exams, no gestational diabetes tests. If pregnancy was that bad for you, we would not have a population problem. I think the tests themselves may be part of the problem to begin with.

Lets take group B strep. Here is a bacteria found in a quater of women. In Canada, they test everyone for it around 36 weeks. One problem with this is that your status (positive or negative for the bacteria) can change, so a + or - at 36 weeks does not mean you are + or - when you give birth. If you are + when you give birth, your baby has a REALLY small chance of getting sick (very sick though, it kills 1 in 10 babies it infects). Things that increase the risk to the baby include:
-breaking the water artificially (done in almost all labours in the
hospital to speed it up) and
-having multiple vaginal exams during pregnancy/labour (I have not had one, nor will I have one, even when i'm in labour, unless something is wrong, or really unclear. i'm sure the docter "checked me" at least once an hour during labour, and at every
appointment when I was pregnant with Maddy.)
There are other risk factors as well, but the others cannot be controlled (such as preterm labour, and your water breaking more than 18 hours before the baby is born). Maybe we could lower the risk to babies by not having docters stick their hands inside you every chance they get!

Anyway, pregnancy is normal, and there is no need for me to be poked, prodded and "checked" to make sure everything is going properly. The chances of it not going properly are pretty low, and there are other signs for how well a labour is doing besides how your cervix is. This whole midwife thing feels so much better than having a docter ever did. I am more comfortable/confident with her care than I was with the docter. Justin is actually going to be able to be part of it, instead of just watching it unfold, and I will be able to feel like i'm a part of it, instead of just a tool in the delivery of this baby. Of course, maybe i'm totally deluding myself as to my abilities of pain managment, but we'll see :)