green ramblings: What kind of birth do you want?

So I admit, I had no idea there was any alternative to hospital births before I got pregnant. Then somehow I found www.mothering.com, and my world opened up. There are birth center births, water births, home births, unassisted births, taxi-cab births (well maybe not intentionally). This forced me to ask myself, "what kind of birth do you want?".

To be honest, the image of a woman lying down on a hospital bed with a needle in her spine, an IV in her wrist, her legs hoisted up high and a doctor peering in her hoo-ha waiting to catch the baby was never appealing to me. It looked so...so unnatural. Why do women give birth this way? And then you have the whole C-section thing. Turns out Piedmont and Northside hospitals have the highest C-section rates in the state - both almost 40%! WTF? That is major surgery...for childbirth!

Now, I'd always loved my gynecologist. It was a pleasant office to go to once a year for my annual exam. I liked my doctor and the P.A. However, during my first OB visit, I timidly inquired about midwives and if I would be able to have one. My doctor rolled her eyes at me (towards the med student sitting in on our consultation) and said, "no. We only have doctors deliver babies." Basically I would have to leave their practice if I wanted a midwife!

I couldn't believe it. I wasn't sick; I was only pregnant.

So, after a lot of searching, I found a practice that had a very highly recommended midwife who would do waterbirths (the midwife's epidural, I've heard it called). I started seeing her and was pretty happy the first few visits. Now, I'm not going to get into all of the OB vs. Midwife politics in Atlanta, but there was some stuff brewing and I knew my midwife was not happy at her practice (which is run by a doctor). Her attitude reflected this, and my pre-natal visits were pretty short, which is more typical of an OB, not a midwife. This didn't seem like the right choice for me, either.

At that point, I really started thinking about giving birth at home. My two main constraints were my age (ripe old 35 - "high risk"), and money (since insurance won't cover the home birth). I realized that my age has nothing to do with a healthy birth as long as my body is healthy. The second constraint was a bit harder to overcome. It's not like we don't have the money; the issue was that I had already decided to leave my job prior to the birth and we can't just be throwing our savings out the window. My very loving husband gave me the "out" I needed. He told me that having the birth I wanted is more important than money, and to pursue a home birth.

We interviewed a few home birth midwives, and decided on one that is capable, experienced, convenient, and just happened to be a few hundred dollars cheaper than the others (and comes with her own birth pool!). We now have our one-hour pre-natal visits at our home. I continue to do shadow-care with my hospital midwife so that insurance will cover any additional lab work that needs to be done. I'm super excited.

So far only D's family knows about the home birth. I've composed an email that I will send out in the next couple of days. Text is below. I would recommend the resources below to everyone.

Dear Family,

We want to give our family an update on the pregnancy. We are due towards the end of October and beginning of November. We’re getting excited about meeting our little one!

Some of you may know that we are planning to birth at home. We interviewed and selected a professional midwife that has 17 years of experience, mostly in Michigan. She is very capable and we feel very comfortable with her. We are doing pre-natal visits with her, but in addition to that, M is continuing her pre-natal visits with a certified nurse midwife that is affiliated with a hospital. This allows for all lab work to be covered by insurance, and also ensures complete monitoring of this pregnancy, which so far has been healthy!

No doubt some of you may feel concerned about the safety of a home birth, so we would like to allay your fears with some suggested reading and videos. Please rest assured that M has put in no fewer than 50 hours of research (reading, going over statistics, talking to mothers who had homebirths, etc.) prior to making this decision.

Suggested Movie/Videos:

The Business of Being Born – available on Netflix. This is a very good documentary.

Natural Born Babies Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7DrP4-po5U

Natural Born Babies Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvONLKYfaIA

You Have a Choice - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nmKL86MoWU