Wow, thank you for all the replies guys - especially RoyaUK as it is good to have the process described by someone who's gone through the same thing!

LoriRae - I will be refusing the HCG as it seems like unecessary trauma to me. I can't see the point of it, other than to scare already nervous pregnant women! There's nothing they can do if your HCG levels are low anyway, is there? I doubt I'll need a dating scan as I know I was ovulating on the 23rd July, but if it means getting an early sneak peak...

Schmickers - thanks for clearing up the hospital concerns. I think my nearest hospital with a maternity ward is the Angliss. I've read a fair few reviews from people using this hospital and it seems to be well liked. Well, as much as you can like a hospital! It also has a birth centre and I would really like to have a non-interventionist birth. I'm still deemed to be clinically obese (bah!) and I also had to have a manual placenta removal last time, which I was told would happen again.

Do you guys think I would be accepted or turned down based on my last pregnancy and birth?

Tinkerbell - I think one of the OBs for the Angliss is actually one of the GPs at the practice I'm registered at (Boronia Medical Centre, on Boronia Rd, by the road into the MCHC..?). Is it likely that I would be referred to that OB (Chris Davenport), because I've read on several forums that he's pretty good and very well respected?

RoyaUK - if I'm not offered the nuchal fold scan, am I allowed to ask for it and roughly how much would it cost? I would like to be prepared were there the chance that my baby may need special care. I did the same with Freyja.

My husband was excellent during the birth of Freyja and was incredibly supportive. Poor lamb was pretty scared the whole time too and became terrified when my waters broke. It wasn't the meconium (sp!) in it that scared him, just that there was soooooo much of it and it exploded out of me after I decided to push. Just as well I did because Freyja had been in distress for sometime and they'd never have noticed otherwise

Anyway, we don't really know anyone here or have anyone that we could leave Freyja with whilst I go to the hospital, so I'm a little concerned about having to go on my own right now! How much does a Doula or independant midwife normally cost and how do you go about arranging one?

Thanks again everyone!