A lot of people have asked me
recently, “what made you decide to have a natural home-birth, especially for
your first birth?” I’ve been thinking about
that a lot lately. What was it that made
me decide to become part of the one percent in our nation that has out of
hospital births? I guess to really
answer that question I have to go back to the very beginning of my pregnancy.
When I first found out I was
pregnant, I didn’t even think about what would happen at the actual birth, I was
just over joyed to have a baby growing inside of me and promptly made an
appointment at the Women’s Health Clinic in Sioux City where we were staying
for the summer. At my first appointment
things felt like a typical doctor’s appointment. A nurse weighed and measured me, took my
blood pressure, had me pee in a cup and all that usual medical stuff. Then the doctor came in for a few minutes,
poked something up my hooha, gave me “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and
sent me on my way. The rest of my
appointments in Sioux City were almost mirror images of that, minus the
pap-smear.
Meanwhile, I read all of “What
to Expect When Expecting” in a week and was left mildly disappointed. That was what pregnancy and birth was? No wonder women these days hated pregnancy
and childbirth. And yet, I didn’t buy
into all that. I began furiously reading
every ounce of information I could get my hands on that talked about pregnancy
and birth (when I eventually read “HypnoBirthing: the Mongan Method” I realized
that my approach to birth was very similar to that of Marie Mongan’s). I watched birth video after birth video. Most of which were a mix of natural and
drugged hospital births, none of which appealed to me in the least until I stumbled
across a hospital water birth attended by a CNM. THIS was what I wanted. I turned my research to CNMs and promptly
found some Nurse Midwifes in Orem, where I would be returning at the end of the
summer. I wouldn’t be there for another
month, but I called and made an appointment anyways.
I stopped my frantic research at
that point thinking I’d learned all that I needed to and anxiously awaited my
first appointment with the New Beginnings Midwives. September finally came and Brenan I headed
out to Orem Community hospital to meet the ladies that would be delivering our
baby. I was much happier with my first
appointment with Jennifer then I had been with my OB appointments. I felt much more at ease and Jennifer talked
to me about things that were in my medical history, that I’d brought from The
Women’s Health Clinic, that had never even been mentioned to me. I was happy and content with my birth
decision until 28 weeks rolled around and I was in one of the labor and delivery
rooms of Orem community waiting for my RhoGAM shot. THIS was where I was supposed to bring a baby
into the world? I looked around me at all the apparatuses that surrounded me
and felt the crinkle of the bed underneath me.
This was awful. I was anxious to
get out of there after 30 minutes, I couldn’t imagine being in there for 24
hours for delivery and after birth monitoring.
A week later I got a notice in the mail saying that New Beginnings was
closing down the first of January. What? How could this happen in my third
trimester? It just wasn’t fair! But then
again…this opened up more options. I
went to my next appointment shortly after that and Jennifer told me that Orem
Community was kicking them out but that I need not fear for they were currently
undergoing the transition to new doctors and that all I’d have to do was
transfer my records. I left there that
day feeling once again, fairly content with delivering with New
Beginnings. But as the week dragged on I
became more and more restless with the idea of a hospital birth. I knew I wanted to deliver naturally and
began my research once again. Were there
even birthing tubs at the hospitals my CNMs had privileges? What kind of interventions did they use? I stumbled across a piece of info that I
never seemed to have grasped before, CNMs reported to OBs, the very doctors I was
trying to escape. Furthermore, I knew
NOTHING about the doctors that my CNMs were currently under, or the ones they
were switching too. Right around this
time it became clear that I wasn’t going to have Health Insurance for my birth
and we didn’t qualify for Medicaid. If
we paid up front and I didn’t get an epidural, needed absolutely no interventions,
we would be paying $3,800 out of pocket.
It was because of all this, that I began to look into birth centers. I had heard that they tended to be
cheaper. Thanks to Google, I found the
Bella Natal Birthing suites that were run by the better birth midwives, but
another CPM –Cathy O’Bryant—also had privileges there. I mentioned to my mother that I was thinking
about delivering with an out of Hospital Midwife “Oh no! You don’t want to do
that,” she said, “You’re going to want to be in the hospital.” And that was that, or so it seemed. For several more days I just could not get
the idea out of my head and so I decided to call and make appointments with both
the Better Birth Midwives, and with Cathy.
I mentioned what I was doing to Brenan and he seemed to be a little
wary, but willing to look into a Birthing Center because of the cheaper price
and its close proximity to several hospitals.
My appointment with Cathy came up first.
Appointments took place in her house in Payson, a short 15 minute drive
from my home. It was just a sort of meet
and greet but I was hooked. From
what I read about Cathy on her website, and from meeting her in person, I knew
without a doubt she was who I wanted to attend my birth. I loved Cathy and her assistants. I hadn’t known it, but they were what I had
hoped for my whole pregnancy. I told
Cathy that I was thinking I would birth at the Birthing Center, and she was
fine with that, but Cathy has this way when you can tell she has an opinion
that she’s not sharing; she clearly preferred homebirths. I made a prenatal appointment with her and
headed back to Spanish Fork fantasizing about having my baby at home. This was the first time that I even
considered birthing at home as an option.
But surely I wouldn’t be able to get Brenan to agree. It was tricky enough just to make him ok with
the idea of a Birth Center, but the closer I got to home, the surer I was that
was where I wanted to have my baby girl.
The second I walked in the house I began more frantic researching. I learned that whether you deliver with a CPM
in a birth center or at home, there’s no difference in what supplies they have
on hand. So if I wasn’t going to deliver
in a hospital, I might as well deliver at home.
I also learned that statistically, for a low risk pregnancy such as my
own, home births were actually safer than hospital births!
That was it. When Brenan got home
I told him about my meeting with Cathy, took a deep breath, then told him we
were having the baby at home and it was my decision because I was the one
giving birth and his only option was to support me. I could see the objection building and threw
in that it was only going to cost $1800 for the rest of my prenatals, the
birth, and my follow up appointments.
That settled it. Our baby was
going to enter the world at home in our bathroom.
Best. Decision.
Ever.
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