My First Birth Experience, AKA: Why I Like Homebirth Part 1

 

I began the home birth journey many years ago.

I admittedly began the journey toward a midwife and home birth due to a distaste of hospitals in general, a desire to have only female attendants, and a lack of health insurance. I began to so some research and found a wonderful midwife in Florida. We began developing a good relationship and I was very educated there about the differences in birthing at home or in a birthing center as opposed to the hospital.

 Unfortunately, due to my husband’s work, we had to move to Tennessee when I was 7 months along. I began immediately looking for a midwife in my area. I couldn’t find any at that time that would deliver in my home, but I found a midwife I could go see at a clinic about 40 minutes away that delivered in a hospital a little over an hour from my home.

 I was a little nervous about the distance, but was assured that with my first baby, there would very likely be plenty of time to get to the hospital. 

I found this experience very different because the midwife was under direct orders of a physician. I was immediately labeled high risk. The reason…no prior maternity care….huh? I brought my records from the other midwife to them….I questioned. Nope, I was still “high risk” meaning I would be treated differently in certain situations. Ugh.

 No matter how much I tried to explain to the midwife that my periods were longer than normal and irregular, the overseeing doctor insisted we go by the date of the last period (nevermind that I was not even married or sexually active at that time of believed conception).

 What did this mean for me? It meant that as I went past my due date I became an even bigger risk. I really wanted to wait for the baby to come on it’s own and give the baby as much time in the womb that it needed to be as healthy as possible. The allowed me to wait a little longer, but with stress tests and fetal monitoring.

 Finally, the doctor above the midwife insisted that we induce. Oh the joy…

Long story short, I was in hard labor for many hours. The nurse and my husband were arguing about meds back and forth over the top of me. I was not allowed to eat or drink a thing, strapped to a monitor and IV , lying on my back, told I could  push at only 9 cm dilated which caused the cervix to swell,  the baby was stuck in the birth canal for 2 1/2 hours while I pushed and pushed with all my might (I was no wimp,btw) and finally delivered with a pop (tearing a huge cross in my perineum) with a large blood pool on the side of his head. I had veins in my eyes and my face pop like you wouldn’t believe. I didn’t let any pictures be taken of me….I’m not a real camera person anyway, but that was NOT a pretty picture! Now I kind of wish I had.

 The baby was whisked away for measurements,etc. and my husband followed with a very disapproving nurse.

My midwife was sewing my tears up in amazement and the word must have gotten around because pretty soon a doctor came in with a group of interns. Gee, thanks for asking if you can show my underside off to a bunch of students. Of course, they were male which I had specifically asked not to have in my room. Of course, at the time I was so exhausted that the President himself could have came in and I wouldn’t have cared less.

Finish and read MORE of my story in Part 2 of my blog post…..

http://candomom.com/2010/08/my-first-birth-experience-aka-why-i-like-homebirth-part-2/

Want to share your story with the CanDoMom?

I’m putting together a collective tele-intervew series of labors of love. If you have something to share, contact me at Kim@CanDoMom.com . Those that share will be given a CD copy of the whole group of interivews to enjoy and share!                 

I’ll be waiting to hear from you!

(Don’t like to talk, but like to write? GO ahead and send me your story, I love to read them and you can win great prizes!)