Birth Plans

Something that I keep seeing in my cyber travels around all sorts of different birth/baby blogs and even in some books is talk of Birth Plans. What is a birth plan?

Now understand I can only describe a birth plan from my point of view but I will describe some of the purported Birth Plans that apparently cause medical staff to laugh in peoples faces.

My kind of birth plan is pretty specific in that I dont beat around the bush and make it flowery, but it's not all demanding either. I like to think that my birth plan is pretty fair.
It states things in terms of "I would prefer..." rather than "This is the way it's going down, bitches!!"

I understand that emergencies happen which is why my birth plan covers many contingencies, even the possibility that I could have a cesarean. It doesn't say anything like "A cesarean is the LAST thing that I want" it simply says that if a cesarean is required I wish for the man thing to have skin to skin as soon as possible, if he so wishes.

Nothing too confrontational about that now is there?

Stuff like this *Click Me* is rather counter-intuitive. See, a birth plan isn't actually a PLAN, or at least it shouldn't be because of course birth cant actually be PLANNED. Things can be considered though and those things can be PLANNED for.

A birth plan shouldn't read "I want to turn up at the hospital, be checked and found to be 7cm dilated, I want to have an Epidural placed 10 minutes later that works perfectly and then 3 hours later I want to be checked again, found to be 10cm dilated and then directed how to push. Pushing will take no more than 1 hour and my baby will slip out with no problems, perfect APGARs and then latch immediately. I will have no tears or need for an episiotomy."

That is the kind of birth plan that is definately going to make a health care providers hackles rise. Hell, just writing it is making MY hackles rise!

A birth plan which I think would be better recieved by the health care professionals (be they a midwife, nurse, OB) would be one along the lines of;

I would prefer Intermittent monitoring over continuous monitoring.
I CANNOT have an Epidural so please do not offer this to me. 
I wish to have Entonox avaliable at my request.
I wish to have a birthing tub avaliable for my use if I so desire during labour.
I would prefer to avoid an episiotomy and would rather tear naturally.
I would prefer that the cord not be clamped or cut until it ceases pulsating.
I would prefer a physiologic third stage of labour.

Now some people may think that that sounds a little too pleading but it plainly states how I feel about all of the above. Now, barring an emergency I cant see why any of those "requests" would be ignored. Of course, here in New Zealand the environment and all the attitudes seem to be vastly different to those in the USA where most of the Birth Plan issues seem to stem from.

I have already talked over many of these things with either my midwife or the antenatal classes that I have been attending. I have a little checklist in my notes that states my preferences to things like monitoring and cord clamping/third stage. Still, I wont know what is really going to happen until I'm actually in the process of labouring/birthing so we will have to wait and see how it all turns out.