Counting down the days

33 Weeks and counting!  Just in this past week I have suddenly gone from feeling totally fine to feeling like I am ready to not be pregnant anymore.  I'm just feeling slow and sore, but actually still pretty good.  It's just getting hard to move around quickly, and my left hip is really causing me trouble on and off.  So I finally feel as though I am slowing down.  Last week I was not able to do my weekly spin class.  I started it but quickly felt like I wasn't going to be able to continue because of my hip so I stopped.  I might try it again, but won't feel too bad if I can't keep doing it, even though I wanted to do it right until the end.  We'll see what happens.  I'm still planning on going to the gym regularly to workout on the elliptical and strength machines, and I do a little bit at home as well with my weights, stretching, pilates and still a bit of hooping.  I've also been doing a lot of walking which is great too.

Still feeling good and sleeping good for the most part which is great.  My midwife appointments are pretty uneventful as nothing is ever amiss and I never really have any questions.  I'm now down to appointments every two weeks to make sure everything is on track, which it always is.  I'm consistently measuring a few weeks behind, but the midwives say that is fine because I'm growing and that is the most important thing.  I think I've gained somewhere between 30-35 lbs so far.  Hoping to make this the pregnancy with the least amount of gain, so need to come in under 40 lbs!  I'm sure I will.  I am definitely just belly though and haven't really gained weight anywhere else though which is nice.  Feeling much smaller this time around than with the boys.

I'm still getting occasional heartburn but even at it's worst it's just an annoying, nagging feeling and nothing more.  It's still the most heartburn I've ever had in my life!

Baby is still very active and moves around a lot.  As far as the midwives can tell it is head down, and I am sure it is too as it feels very much the same as my last pregnancy.  A breech baby feels very different, with it's large head way up high.  I'm fairly certain I don't feel a big head anywhere near my ribs like I did with my first baby.

Right now I am planning both a home and hospital birth.  Since my husband is still not entirely comfortable with a home birth, it is only fair that we prepare for both.  I'm going to the hospital in a few weeks to fill out all my registration paperwork and have a look around.  I'm going to make sure I have a hospital bag packed and ready to go.  But I'm also going to make sure I have everything on the homebirth supply list so that if things are going smoothly we don't have to leave.  Everyone I talk to agrees that's a good plan.  That way we're prepared for everything.  The midwives don't seem the least amount worried about a homebirth for me, even being a VBAC, and especially since we are so close to the hospital anyway.  One of my midwives even lives on my street and could walk and still be here in 5 minutes!

I'm getting anxious to know what we are having.  I go back and forth between boy and girl.  I think we have some names narrowed down for either, but once again we will not be sure until the baby is born.  I think we should probably sit down and come up with a proper list though, right now we've just talked about a few but not sure if we have actually agreed on any!

We are feeling pretty relaxed about the whole thing.  Though there is a lot I'd like to get done around the house before the baby comes and it seems like time is flying by so we better get a move on it.  We tend to be last minute type people by nature anyway.  But I really need to do some serious cleaning and organizing.  We're still hoping to move the boys into the same room, and I would have liked to have done it by now to give them lots of time to adjust, but we just haven't had the chance to get the right furniture and move everything around.  I need to clean up all the baby clothes and get the cradle set up in my room.  The living room desperately needs to be cleaned and the kids' toys need to be organized, so that I can bring up some baby stuff from the basement and set it up.  I guess I better get out the infant car seat as well!

We also really need to get a van!  There's no way we could get 3 carseats in my tiny car.  Hoping that we get that sorted out soon as well, otherwise we'll be walking everywhere for awhile.

In terms of baby stuff there's nothing we need desperately.  In fact pretty much everything I'd like to get can wait until the baby is born.  Not to say that I don't want to run out and start buying stuff now!  But I don't need to yet. 

I'm not sure that the boys are getting terribly excited yet about the baby.  The older one talks about it a lot and he knows the baby is going to come soon.  I think he will be so excited to have a baby brother or sister.  The younger one gets that the baby is in my tummy, and that's about it.  He doesn't seem to know that the baby will actually be here, and I do worry that he might be a bit jealous or upset at losing some of my attention.  Though I am sure he will be a great big brother as well.  I'm glad that they will have each other to play with after the baby is born.

The weeks are really flying by and I am really enjoying myself.  I am so excited to meet the baby but I am not wishing the time away, even though it will be nice to not be pregnant.  I know I will be very sad once it is over and I will never get to do it again, so I'm just trying to enjoy every last minute because it really has been a wonderful pregnancy.

Halfway!

I'm halfway through this pregnancy.  Which means 20wks down and 20wks to go.  It's hard to be patient sometimes.  I really want to enjoy every minute of this last pregnancy because I know I'll never do it again, but at the same time I already feel like I'm tired of being pregnant.  It seems like with every subsequent pregnancy my body has just given up a little bit more, and some days I feel like I'm much further along than just 20wks, which makes me scared for how I am going to feel at 25...30....35wks!

Still can't really complain though.  Well, I can, but I shouldn't.  I feel good, am eating well, sleeping fairly well, and managing to stay active. 

Not sure how much weight I've gained at this point though, maybe around 15lbs.  I'll check it out tomorrow at my midwife appointment.  I feel huge sometimes, but actually when I look at pictures from my last pregnancies at this same point I look about the same, so I don't think I'm bigger than I should be for 20wks along.

We had our big anatomy scan last Thursday and it went really well.  The ultrasound tech was really nice, but the scan took forever, or at least that's how long it felt as I lay on the table needing to pee so badly.  It's really cruel making a pregnant woman drink so much water and then not letting her pee.  I don't like scans simply for that reason.  But everything looked good as far as we could tell, of course she couldn't actually tell us anything and we'll have to wait to hear if anything looks amiss from the pictures.  We saw two arms and two legs, and it looked like baby had all 10 fingers and toes.  I was surprised that I wasn't even tempted to find out about the sex!  It's too late now, we really have to a wait until baby arrives. 

I'm feeling tons of movement and have been for many weeks already, since about 14wks.  I have always felt movement from 14wks on with all my pregnancies, which I know is early.  Now I am feeling full out kicks and can even feel them with my hand on the outside.  All of my babies have been super active in utero, and this one is no exception!

One thing I can complain about though is I am experiencing a lot of discomfort in my hips already.  I have felt it before in my other pregnancies, but it occurs earlier and earlier since my body is more relaxed from having gone through this before.  It's just given up!  So while I stay active and I feel great when I am exercising, by midday and the evening I'm often in a bit of pain.  It's affecting my legs which get tired and sore very easily.  I have been seeing my chiropractor and a massage therapist which really helps, but I am pretty much always aware of the discomfort all day long, every day.  It's only going to get worse I imagine!  One thing that really helps is sitting on my exercise ball instead of on a chair or couch, so I try to do that every evening as well as stretching.

I'm coming to terms with the fact that this will be my last pregnancy and feeling pretty good with that decision.  My hubby has made it clear that he is not interested in more children after this, and while I really did agree I also found it hard to shake the feeling of not going through it again.  It was hard to close the door on pregnancy and babies for good.  But as time goes by, I am actually looking forward to being done with this stage.  I have always loved being pregnant so much, and so I'm sure I will always miss it, but I am very ready to move on and focus on me, and get my body back!  There are things that interest me that I haven't been able to fully pursue because I've either been pregnant or breastfeeding or taking care of small children.  So I look forward to the days when I will get to do more stuff for me again. 

On a related pregnancy topic, I finally got my copy of More Business of Being Born!  I have watched two of the four dvds so far, the one in which they visit the Farm Midwifery Centre in Tennessee and speak with Ina May Gaskin and the other midwives there, and the one about VBAC.  They were interesting for sure.  I look forward to watching the other two dvds as well, hopefully sometime this week.

Will try to post pics of my last ultrasound if I get around to scanning it onto the computer, and will write more after my next midwife appointment as well.

Home Birth and Home Birth After Cesarean (HBAC)

Ok ok, I've put it off long enough.  I have been avoiding doing this post because I haven't been in the mood to sit and think and write.  But really, I don't think have to think about much for this post if I don't want to.  All I really wanted to do was link up a bunch of information I've come across in my research about home birth and HBAC so that if anyone is so inclined they can have a peek.  That's easy enough to do!!

I guess a little blurb on what home birth means for me is in order though.  The first time home birth may have come up between my husband and I as on option for birth, it was not something we would have considered.  I think I may have read a little about it during my first pregnancy, but did not think I would ever be comfortable with it.  This is probably something that is really common for most first time parents to think.  Childbirth and becoming parents can seem like such an overwhelming experience the first time around.  It's uncharted territory. 

When I was pregnant with our second son, while I did know more about birth and had more confidence in the process, I still would not have considered a home birth, mainly because I was having a VBAC and also it was not given to me as an option by my midwives.  I'm sure I could have pressed for it had it been something I really wanted, but given my births were going to be only 20mos apart, it was not recommended and I was fine with that.  Plus, since I hadn't laboured or given birth naturally with my first, the birth process was still very unknown to me, even though I had taken the time to educate myself a lot more than I had with my previous birth.

My husband likes to remind me of the fact that we had previously decided that home birth was not for us.  I am not so quick to go back to my ways of old thinking.  I know a lot more now, I have been through a lot more.  I would like to consider a home birth this time around.  He on the other hand is not so keen.  Let's just say we have had two arguments about it thus far (months ago already) and have not spoken a word on the topic since.  It is still early, and I have no desire to bring it up again this early in the game.  But trust I am not laying down and giving up on this one.

For me:  I have experienced childbirth in two different ways now, both in hospital settings and both positive experiences.  I have spent the last several years reading and learning about the birth process, and have come to have confidence in this process and in my body.  While I did have a positive hospital birth with my VBAC, in my heart I just want to be at home.  I know it is safe, I know it is where I want to have my child.

For him:  He has not read anything on the safety of home birth (or anything on birth for that matter), and is still following the ignorant point of view that it is best to be in the hospital.  He cannot shake that fear that something could go wrong where we would need instant access to care.  He feels I am putting myself and my baby at risk and am being selfish for wanting to do this.

Well, how much detail do I need to go into here really?  I have been secretly compiling information on home birth (as well as HBAC) for him to read, because the bottom line is he has not read anything and does not have significant information to back up his side of the argument.  Right now what I think would be fair is if this discussion is only brought back to the table once he has read the same amount of material as I have, for only then will he be allowed to have a say in this choice.  He is free to try and dig up as much anti-home birth information as he can find, but I think he will see that what I have researched is accurate and much more compelling. 

The stats and the research is there:  Planned home birth under expert midwife care is just as safe and maybe even safer than hospital birth.

My case was not helped by our first meeting with the midwife, who in her inexperience did not seem nearly as comfortable with an HBAC as I would like.  I made the mistake of having my husband at this appointment, and let's just say he was rather shaken by her lack of confidence in the matter.  This of course was very disappointing to me, because I know a more experienced midwife would have had a calmer manner and more accurate information and experience to share with us.

There are other factors as well that are making it hard for me to really express why this is so important to me.  Most of the time when asked why a woman wants a home birth, her response is so that she can avoid medical intervention.  In my VBAC hospital experience, we arrived and had no issues with doctors or medical staff trying to intervene.  It all went really well.  So my husband might argue that there is nothing to try and avoid, we can have the same birth at the hospital that we could have had at home.  On the other hand, we would be giving birth in an entirely different hospital this time around, so there is no guarantees that I wouldn't still fall prey to a cascade of intervention.  I will admit though, that this is not a concern of mine.  Already having had one fully natural VBAC, I would be confident enough to say that interference from the medical staff or unwanted suggestions of intervention is not one of my concerns.

Our midwife did make a very interesting point though and that is the hospital in this town (unlike the hospitals in the city where we had our other children) is only a class 3 hospital (or was it class 1? I can't remember the order they go in), meaning that obstetricians and anaesthesiologists are not always on the premises, rather they are on call.  So the time it would take to assemble the team in the event of an emergency would be about the same whether I was at home or in the hospital.  Of course my husband's argument to this would be that nevertheless, there would still be staff on hand to get the ball rolling, if let's say I needed blood asap or something along those lines.  I think what he fails to realize is that midwives are professionals equipped to deal with all sorts of emergencies, including hemorrhages, and they carry all the necessary equipment and medications in such an event.  He also fails to realize that incidents of maternal hemorrhaging are actually higher in hospital settings.  All information I plan on relaying to him, in good time.

And of course, there is the little factor of HBAC that I have to contend with.  Perhaps persuading him to go for a home birth would be easier if it weren't for that one little thing - having had a previous cesarean section does put me at a higher risk for complications.  This risk is really so minimal though, and I have information on the safety of VBAC to back it up as well.  Not to mention the fact that I have already had one VBAC already, which significantly increases my chances of another successful one. 

But putting all this information together to support my case is not as easy as it sounds.  I KNOW all this in my head already, I have read it, researched it, and fully believe it.  Getting it across to him is not so easy, as I don't have much of a way with words (or arguments) and really I just come off as a blubbering mess whenever the topic has been brought up.  Which is why it is important he reads it for himself.  Unfortunately he doesn't want to be an active participant in the pregnancy or birth planning process, which makes it hard (and also wants to make me say "Hey, if you don't care to be involved, you have NO say in this matter and I'm giving birth where I want to!").  He is not interested in reading any information or doing his own homework.  It is all up to me.  But don't worry, I have lots for him to read, I'm just waiting for the timing to be right.

We will be attending a home birth information session at the midwives practice in April.  The baby is due in July so there is still time to read and discuss further this matter.

So WHY do I want to give birth at home?  Well, my last birth happened so smoothly, that I look back and think, "Why didn't I just stay home?".  I mean, I could have.  I spent almost my entire labour by myself at home, and not even the slightest bit uncomfortable.  Why would I want to move on to a setting that might change the outcome?  Even while my hospital birth was a positive one, I still can't help but feel I'd be better off at home.  I remember when I got to the hospital, at 9cm and almost ready to push, there was just this feeling of being 'there', and wanting to get on with it.  All I could think was, "Get me on that bed and let me push this baby out".  It's like my mind switched over, and I just stayed there.  I pushed and gave birth on my back, resulting in horrible tearing.  It's almost like from the moment I got there, I gave up my 'natural birth' and succumbed to the 'get on your back and push' mentality.  I feel as though staying at home will help keep me focused, and help me want to stay upright and stay moving, and birth this baby without having to be cut or tear really badly. 

I would also like to consider the possibility of a water birth, something that is not an option in a hospital setting.  Again, maybe the feeling of the water will help me avoid giving in and giving up during that last gruelling stage, so that I can have a less traumatic and more peaceful birth.

And really, who wouldn't want to be in the comfort of their own home?  To avoid having to pack a bag that is usually overpacked because you didn't know what you'd need.  To not have to sit in a car while in the throes of labour, in pain as you go over every bump in the road.  To avoid arriving at the hospital, moaning in pain, and being wheeled to L&D while people watch.  To not have to check out and go home again.  To be able to get up and go take a shower in your own bath tub, and sleep in your own bed.  It's really too appealing to pass up.

He'll ask me "But what if something goes wrong, how could you live with yourself?".  Well, first of all you have to inform yourself and weigh the risks.  Birth is not without risk, where ever you are.  Heck, life is not without risk.  And if you do your homework, you will know the risks are there, but they're small, and the midwives are equipped to handle almost anything that could happen.  Of course I can't say that I'm 100% sure nothing would go wrong, but I am sure enough.

So as promised, before I go on any further with my own dribble, some information I dug up pertaining to home birth and VBAC/HBAC (I've included info that is strictly VBAC because it helps when deciding whether or not to go for HBAC).  This is essentially the same list of links I have saved to send my husband, when I am ready to bring it up again.  (I have more links to news articles about the studies on VBAC safety but have omitted them since I have included the link to the very study that all info in the articles refers too).

VBAC Facts - HBAC

Midwife Thinking - VBAC, Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill

Midwifery Today - Home Birth After Cesarean

CMAJ Research on the Safety of Home Birth ***well documented and acknowledged Canadian study on the safety of home birth with midwives vs hospital birth with midwives vs hospital birth with doctors that provides accurate numbers supporting the safety of home birth***note: if you read the whole thing, it does state that once the VBAC subgroup was removed the outcomes were not significantly different

Ontario Midwives - Birth at Home

I'm sure this is just the tip of the ice berg.  I'm sure I could find even more compelling information to support home birth.  And I'm also sure than someone who is anti-home birth could find equally as much information supporting the dangers of home birth.  Such is how these things usually are.  Another fantastic resource that I have mentioned, and I will mention it time and time again, is Ina May's Guide to Childbirth.  Her statistics are undeniable proof that home birth under the proper care is safer than hospital birth.  And I would also recommend the documentary, The Business of Being Born (which I was able to get hubby to watch with me, so I'm hoping that has opened his eyes somewhat).

Now, as it is time to get the kiddos up from naps, that will be all from me today (didn't I think this was going to be a quickie just to post some links?).  Maybe someone else might find the information I've dug up helpful as well.

Support Midwifery!

I had a little bit of a 'crazy lady' moment as I was certain I had already posted here about my support for midwives and their cause to bring birth centres to Ontario, but I looked and couldn't find that post.  Turns out I had posted it on my other blog, Life on the Bay.  No worries, because I am back to post about it again and show my support!

I have posted before about how with my first pregnancy I started out with OB care but soon wised up and switched to midwifery care at 29wks, and have never looked back since.  NOT that I don't believe obstetricians aren't important, in fact in many cases they are absolutely necessary, but for my uncomplicated pregnancies and births, using midwives was the better choice for better care.  Even during my planned cesarean with my first son, our midwife was present to take care of the baby after he was born, and midwives attended to our postpartum care.  I have had nothing but positive experiences with our midwives so far (from 3 different practices in Ontario) and consider them an invaluable resource which is too often taken for granted.

Obstetricians are experts in complicated birth situations, but the midwives are the experts in birth.  Choosing a midwife for your uncomplicated pregnancy and birth means you are making the best possible choice in prenatal and post partum care, for you and your baby.

In many parts of the world, especially in Europe, midwives take care of most of the births that happen in those countries.  In fact it is quite the opposite of how it is here in Canada.  Here when you are pregnant, you get referred to a doctor and have to seek out midwifery care.  In many other countries outside of North America, you start with a midwife and are only referred to a doctor if the need arises.  Countries who use midwives for all uncomplicated births often show lower statistics for medical interventions, surgical births, and even maternal and baby deaths.

Midwifery in Ontario is growing and gaining support.  From a sheet I received from my current midwives, produced by the College of Midwives of Ontario, "The number of births attended by midwives in Ontario has been increasing each year since regulation.  Last year approximately 10% of all births in the province were attended by midwives.  Approximately 20% of midwife attended births take place at home."  As you can see midwifery in this province is gaining momentum, and good thing too!  You can check out their website linked above and on the side of my blog for more information.

I feel so fortunate to live in a province where midwifery is funded, supported, and easily accessible, and where women are given choices in how they would like to birth.  Many woman in other parts of the world do not have easy access to midwives and often have to pay and fight for a normal birth or else be under the mercy of harsh hospital and doctor policies, and heavily overused medical intervention.

Ontario Midwives are currently working to try and bring birth centres to Ontario.  I think this would be an absolutely amazing thing if it were to happen.  I would no doubt choose to give birth in a birth centre if it were an option.  To help bring awareness for the need for birth centres in Ontario, the midwives have made this lovely video which you can view here.  To create this video they asked women who have given birth in Ontario to submit pictures of them during pregnancy, and/or pictures of them with their midwives.  I was happy to participate and sent in two photos.  You can see a photo of me during my second pregnancy at 17 seconds into the video, and one of me and our wonderful midwife Marlene Sagada from Riverdale Midwives in Toronto, the same day I gave birth to our second son at 1 minute and 10 seconds in.

Read more about how you can help support midwives and bring birth centres to Ontario here.

I doubt I will ever get the chance to give birth in a birth centre unless there will be one built before July!  But I hope that more women in the future will choose midwives for their care, and will have the opportunity to birth in a birth centre here in Ontario.

More compelling information about how mothers in any country can benefit from a midwifery model of care can be found in Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, which I have already mentioned before.  If you are interested in learning more about how midwives are good for birth, please read that book, and if you'd like to learn more about midwifery care in Ontario and how you can support it, please check out any of the links I've posted above.

And in other pregnancy and birth news.....

.....we are expecting!  This will be baby number 3 for our lovely little family, and we are very excited about the new little addition.  I'm posting about it here because, well it doesn't get more pregnancy and birth related than being pregnant and preparing to give birth!

So what does this mean for my doula ambition?  Well, I do think it will not be happening any time in the very near future as I had originally hoped.  Not that I must put it on hold to have a baby, but I do think it will have to wait.  Which is fine.  I knew that we were planning another baby in the next few years, and at first my ideal plan would have been to start my training before I got pregnant, and then I could have continued it through my pregnancy and (slowly) through the early baby days, finishing it just in time to be in a good place to start working as a doula.  Now that the baby is actually a reality, all I can think about in terms of money is saving as much as possible for all the changes that are going to happen with our family in the next year or two.  It doesn't leave much left over for my course fees.

But the nice thing about this ambition is I know it will still be there when I'm ready.  And it doesn't mean I have to stop reading and learning more every day.  In fact now that I am planning another birth, I'm sure I will be more in the thick of it than ever.  It is a learning process that never has to end.

As I mentioned previously I am reading Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth, which is fascinating as I knew it would be.  I have also received a copy of The Business of Being Born (with a copy of More Business of Being Born on order for me as well) which I am anxious to watch. 

I have already had my first midwife appointment and am excited to be starting a new relationship with the Midwives Nottawasaga.  I know from my past experience with my midwives that the relationship between a pregnant woman and her midwives is a very special one, and I look forward to getting to know my new midwives better and ask them all my questions.

So despite not starting my doula training just yet, this blog is not going anywhere anytime soon.  I will still have lots of come here and write about.  In fact soon I would like to do a post with some information about homebirth and homebirth after cesarean (HBAC), since it is something I would possibly like to consider this time around.  I have been doing lots of homework on this topic so have lots of great info to share.  Hope you keep coming back to read about it!

Everyone Has to Start Somewhere

I could sit here and write out every detail surrounding my two pregnancies and births in the order in which they happened.  I could probably fill pages with this kind of stuff and would gladly share my stories with you any day.  But it might bore you to death.  If you were interested in reading a bit more about this kind of stuff, I have touched on it on my other blogs.  You can find it all here:

Life on the Bay - Finn's Pregnancy

Life on the Bay - Finn's Birth (VBAC)

Dear Children, Love Mommy - Tristan and Finley Birth Stories

As I have briefly mentioned, I did not put a lot of thought into my first birth.  I read about labour, the stages of it, and the options for pain management.  I knew early on that I wanted a natural birth, free of medications that might harm me or my baby.  But midwife care vs OB care?  Hospital vs home birth?  Cord clamping and cutting?  Birth plans?  How to breastfeed?  Fetal positioning?  Nutrition and exercise?  There was so much information that got overlooked.  I guess I just figured it would all play out, that I didn't have to do anything to prepare.  Sure, we took our Hypnobirthing classes (with Jennifer Elliot from Life's Journey) and we did learn a lot, but somehow so much of it went over our heads, like we somehow didn't need that knowledge because it would just fall into place.

When I found out I was pregnant, my first move was to see my family doctor.  I was curious about midwife care but didn't know anything about it (and assumed that I would need a referral as with an obstetrician).  I enquired about midwife care through my family doctor and she really did not have any information for me but said she would look into it.  A few weeks later the only thing I heard from her was that she referred me to an OB and my appointment was booked.  I figured that was that.

I was under OB care for the first two trimesters of my pregnancy, and never felt satisfied.  It's not that she was doing anything wrong per se, it was just so....impersonal and cold.  I would go there, the receptionist would hand me my stick to pee on and tell me to bring it back.  She would check it, write down the results, then I would sit and wait.  The waiting room literature consisted of pamphlets about cord blood banking, and long outdated fashion or home magazines, with maybe a parenting one thrown in.  Finally I'd get called in, the receptionist would weigh me, then I would wait in the examination room for the doctor.  She would usually come in, head down reading my file, rush over and feel and measure my belly, listen for the heartbeat quickly, then rush back out again.  Sometimes she'd ask if I had questions, and other times she was gone before I could say a thing.  If I did have a question she gave me this look like I was ridiculous.  It was not a particularly enjoyable experience, not to mention the fact that under OB care your baby is not guaranteed to be delivered by your own doctor, rather it would be whoever was on call, and I was not really comfortable with this.

It wasn't until 29wks pregnant that I wised up and switched to midwife care.  We were moving anyway so I took the opportunity to make sure I was under the care of someone I trusted.  We were fortunate that the practice took us so late in our pregnancy, but they accommodated us no questions asked, and from the minute I stepped into their office I knew this was the care I wanted.  It was open, bright and comfortable, with shelves of books about pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, parenting, and everything in between.  The atmosphere was warm and inviting.  You peed on your stick and relayed the results to the midwife yourself, not having to hand it into someone else to look at (gross!).  There was a scale in the bathroom if you were interested in how much you weighed, but it was not necessary to use it. 

When I would go to my midwife appointments, I never felt rushed.  We would sit and just chat.  She would always ask me if I had any concerns.  She would listen to the heartbeat if I wanted, but didn't make a big deal about it being necessary.  She had so much more information for me than I ever hoped to get out of the OB

Not that I would say having an OB is the wrong choice.  For many women pregnancy holds complications and being under OB care means peace of mind.  And I am certain that so many doctors are warm and inviting, and offer more information to their patients.  But the choice between OB and midwife care was just one more thing that had I been more informed and done more research from the start, I would have done differently right away.

A healthy woman with an uncomplicated pregnancy should consider midwife care.  Birth need not be a medical event, and unfortunately all too often it becomes one when medical interventions are offered with what would otherwise be a normal, healthy pregnancy. 

Now, in my case even with midwife care, medical intervention was still present and was a huge factor in how my son was born.  I do not in any way think it was anyone's 'fault', but I do find it interesting to think about the circumstances and what could have been different.  While I felt very comfortable with my midwives and was happy with their care, something stands out to me now after having gone through pregnancy and birth with another practice.  As I have mentioned, my son was breech, and we wanted to try a technique called a External Cephalic Version or ECV.  I had done a little bit of reading about the procedure and from my understanding it would usually be done without any type of medications, and although uncomfortable it is not generally considered painful.  I had also heard through a friend who was also pregnant with a breech baby, that the midwives at her practice performed the versions themselves.  At my practice they did not do them, and referred me to an OB at the hospital who did.  When I met with her I was told that it would be painful, and therefore they recommended performing it under epidural anesthetic and also scheduling a c-section at the same time so if the ECV failed they would go ahead and deliver via c-section.  Additionally, if it did work they would go ahead and induce me the same day.

Well you can imagine that this was not what I wanted, and did not sound right to me.  But at that point I felt like I was entirely in the hands of the OB, and she more or less told us that it would be too dangerous to allow me to go into labour with a breech baby.  When I asked about having the ECV without the epidural, I got a bit of a "tsk tsk" and "Well, you can....but I would not recommend it".  For me, with my limited knowledge from what I had read, I was almost ready to stand my ground.  But my husband, who had not read a thing, was of course ready to follow everything the OB said.  And I did have to respect his wishes too.  I was not nearly as informed then as I am now, and as new parents we only wanted what was best for our baby (according to what the doctor said).

I think what surprises me the most here is that in this case the midwives did not have more to offer.  I know now from talking to others, from my own research, and from my experience with a different midwife practice that this should not have happened.  I should have been more informed.  Someone should have said to me "it would be better for you and your baby if you wait to go into labour", or "you do not have to do this if it's not what you want".

Also at the time, to attempt a vaginal birth with a breech baby was not entertained.  I might have tried, if someone had said to me "You can do this, we can do this" and had been confident in it.  But I was given a flat out no.  I do know that there were practitioners who may have tried, but I didn't know where to find them at the time. 

After my son was born though recommendations have changed, and I am happy to hear they no longer automatically suggest booking a c-section for a breech baby.  A trial of labour is recommended providing there are no complications.

Of course I do not blame anyone for anything.  If anything I should have been more informed myself.  I was clueless at the time, and my lack of knowledge led to a lack of voice to stand up for what I would have wanted.

I am happy to report that although our ECV failed and they were unable to turn my son around, I did have as wonderful a c-section experience as one can hope.  There is always a bright side, and ours it that everything went smoothly, and both my son and I were healthy and had no complications.  I have learned from this experience, learned to be more knowledgeable when important things are at stake.  And this is one part of what makes me want to be a doula, so that I can inform others and help them to find their voice.