When a woman discovers she's pregnant, there are about a million things she'll probably consider: How will I take care of this thing, she might ask herself. Who's going to teach me to take care of this thing? How much alcohol had I consumed before discovering I was carrying this thing? And the all-important question, will I ever have the opportunity to go out and get hammered again?

My friend Natalie has been asking herself these questions for nine months, now. The first two have been answered in the form of her born-to-be-a-dad husband, Richard. The last two? Well, they'll just take a wait-and-see approach on those.

But several years ago, Natalie and Richard uprooted their lives in Ontario and planted themselves firmly into the heart of LalaLand -- Victoria, B.C. And as such, there are many, many more issues to be addressed. Because in trying to simplify their lives, the granola freaks (my friends are not included in this group, of course) who run barefoot, wild and free through the province have fashioned whole new methods of complicating things.

Prenatal boot camp or yoga? Midwife or doula? Home birth or hospital?

Natalie assures me that even hinting at the disposable versus cloth diaper question would get you banned from the island and province altogether. So they just don't talk about it. They will do what they're going to do. And they will be very, very quiet about it.

But while attending one of her prenatal yoga classes, Natalie was smacked over the head with a whole new element, a whole new level of granola living. This, by one of the freaks in the class.

"Would anyone like some literature on the Diaperless Baby method," Granola Freak asked earnestly.

Now, I have personally witnessed the diaperless baby method in the Third World. Baby doesn't wear pants. Baby crouches barefoot in a giant pile of broken glass, garbage and rodent feces and does its thing because he/she doesn't have a choice. Baby's mother would probably give up everything for the opportunity to choose between disposable and cloth.

But apparently, according to Granola Freak, if the mother (or father) never, ever, ever takes their eyes off their baby's face, not even for a second, they will learn to read the extremely subtle facial signals that baby makes when he needs to go potty. And then they can whisk him away to the toilet toute suite.

And, of course, the money the parents save on diapers can go to something the baby will need later in life. Like a psychiatry fund. You know, for when the now-15-year-old overly smothered baby has locked himself in his room in the dark and is throwing his collection of ill-gotten knives at the door.

And then there was the couple from up-island, from rural British Columbia, who Natalie and Richard met in their prenatal class. The couple who felt no heat in their wool tuques and cords in the middle of summer. The couple who live so far out, they're nowhere near a hospital. Of course not. There are no hospitals out in the forest.

Not that they would have their baby in a hospital, mind you. But they did want to be safe and therefore be close to it, just in case. And they didn't want to impose on their midwife by delivering their baby in her home.

So they announced to the class that they'd be delivering their baby at the Comfort Inn, just within spitting distance of the hospital. They got the idea, they said, from friends of theirs who'd delivered their baby there.

Now, for the record, I phoned the Comfort Inn in Victoria (there's only one, apparently). And the general manager swears she has no record, no recollection of anyone delivering a baby in their hotel. And I believe her. It's something all the staff would be talking about, don't you think?

Not to mention the cleanup. Would you like to be the poor staff member to draw the short end of that stick?

So we don't know what happened to the Comfort Inn couple. If they had the baby on the floor of their tree house at the last minute or what.

But I throw this out there for all of you the next time you find yourselves in what you think is a clean hotel room. Have you really thought of every possible activity that might've taken place there? Think about that now ...

snadler@thespec.com