Thursday, June 25, 2009

Meeting with the Midwife

I hadn't been to see her since late April, but went for an appointment today. At 28 weeks, I was due to take the glucose test for gestational diabetes and I figured it had been a while and I had some questions for her. She was so nice and alleviated some of my reservations about having this baby in a hospital.

I had my first two sons in a hospital in Detroit with a doctor who I thought was great. She put up with all my quirks and allowed me to (overall) have the birth experiences I wanted. However, having William at home with a midwife was a real eye-opener as to how things could be. I learned more about birth on my third time around than I had with my first two. With Owen and Sammy, there were a lot of things that were ordered and I didn't have a choice on, such as the routine vaccines they were subjected to when they were just a few minutes old. When they were born, they were immediately taken away from me and bathed, weighed, measured, etc. before I even got to look at them.

My homebirth was so different: William was cuddled and loved for about 45 minutes before the midwife asked "Can I take him to weigh him?" Imagine that! He was my baby FIRST, her patient SECOND! He came into the world so peacefully and I definitely preferred the homebirth a million times over my hospital experiences. If it weren't for the insurance situation, I would be doing a homebirth with my 4th son, as well.

So I have a midwife but will be giving birth at the hospital and my main question for her was where does she fall between the natural aspects of the midwife and the clinical setting in the hospital? Apparently she is much more like the midwife I had for my homebirth but just simply practices out of the hospital. She will allow me choices as far as the baby's care, as well as my own care. She will go over my entire birth plan with me and honor all my wishes, as long as there is no danger to the baby or myself. I felt much better after speaking to her.

The baby is already head-down and measures appropriately. My official due date is September 14 and the midwife will go out of town the weekend of September 25-27, so he'd better come either before or after that. I can't believe how quickly all of this is flying by and that I'm already in my 3rd trimester!

The other day I asked Sammy what he did and he said he had gone to Walmart. I asked if he was good for Daddy and he said yes. I proceeded to give him a small lecture on how important it is to be extra good for Daddy when they go to the store because there is only one Daddy and three little boys. Sammy said to me "Well actually, Mama, pretty soon there's going to be four of us." Very astute observation for a four year old, don't you think?

1 comment:

Michele R said...

LOVED this post! That WAS very astute of your son! So grown up!! Sounds like your have a good midwife and not a "med-wife" :)
I had my first two in the hospital and was lucky enough to have a "homebirth-minded" midwife to be with me. The hardest part was taking my baby away to be cleaned up--even though I held them for a bit first. And I really didn't like how the nurses took over with #2 so I realized I could have the birth I wanted but the baby nurses were so hard to deal with so that led to my homebirth for #3. I understand about the insurance thing. In GA homebirth midwives are not recognized so it is out of pocket pretty much. Too bad not everyone can have all the choices all the time. Anyway, so happy to hear about the good meeting!!
And I am confident that you will birth this baby when the midwife you want is on duty.