Birth Choices
MomThought.com Episode #136
Welcome to Momthought. I’m Joan Romero at Momthought.com. Thanks for joining me today.
Today’s Momthought is Birth Choices. We live in a day and age and in a country where you have so many choices of how you want to give birth and what you want to do. Hospitals today are becoming the employee of the patient. Especially when it comes to something like child birth.
You can plan your birth. You can plan how you’d like to see things go. And then shop around for the best place that matches what you want. Personally, I had a regular hospital birth. I had a home birth. And then I had a C-section. So I have some experience in different choices in what the pros and cons are.
Eden was born in a hospital about five years ago. Things were going rather smoothly. I was full-term. I started having my contractions at home and called my doctor. She told me to come in to the hospital. My husband drove me the agonizing 20 minutes there. I thought the red lights would never turn green. I felt sorry for the people parked next to us seeing me to through a contraction. And it was everything you would expect from a bird. There was some screaming involved. I did a lot of breathing. And by the time that we were settled into our room; by the time my mother arrive; by the time my husband had gotten back from taking care of the car; I was able to focus and I was able to get serious about having a baby.
I had done a lot of reading on relaxing and using the pain as information to help me make better decisions: as what position I’d be more comfortable or more how much I need to relax in order to let the baby drop and come out. So all in all it’s a good experience. My mother was able to be there. I had nurses coming in taking care of me, but I had wanted to have a home birth but I wasn’t able to find someone who could help me do that.
So with my second child, I again, planned on a home birth. I was able to find a midwife who could come and help me. So three years ago, I was able to have my homebirth here and I didn’t have to drive to the hospital. I didn’t have to sign in or worry about paperwork or have other people tell me when I needed to lie down and when I needed to do this or do that.
I was the one in charge. And I could say, Hmm, I think I want to walk around now or someone get me some hot water or whatever it was that I needed that I could ask for. And I could feel like I was captain of my own ship. And so that was a very pleasant experience. I had a very nice homebirth.
So of course, with the third child, I thought well I could just repeat that experience. I could have another homebirth. So I had the same midlife. We had made plans, but before the baby had gone full-term. I was already dilated. I was a having contractions that he was used to. I thought I was having practice contractions. They were lite, mild, uncomfortable but not unbearable.
I called my midlife and she stopped by. And through an examination, she discovered that I had dilated to 8 cm so she got on the phone with a doctor. He told us to come into the hospital. We called Ruben’s mother to come get the children, and we all met at the hospital; transfer the car seats. The kids were on their way to grandma’s house. Ruben and I went in and found out that the baby was in a horrible position to be born in. And that if my water should break, that we would have an emergency on our hands.
Frankly, I was in shock. I thought I knew what this birth thing was all about, but this was something I did not expect. But after letting everything settle. After coming to terms with where I was and what was happening here.
We went ahead and signed the papers and had a cesarean section and I was very grateful for that experience. I was grateful to know there’s a time to be in control and there is a time to share what you want or what will feel better, and how you’d like things to go. And there a time to say, “Help me.”
It’s all up to you. Because everything has its place; hospitals, homes, midwifes, doctors. And I was grateful to have good experiences on both sides of the spectrum. Birth is one of those life experiences that you are dealing with life and death. It’s good to be informed. It’s good to have information. And it’s good to know what you want.
What kind of experience do you want to have? There’s all sorts of types out there. So give it some thought. Plan the best you can, and in the end. Your story is going to be unique. It’s going to be all about you and your baby and what happened on that life-changing day.
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Thank you.
Joan Romero
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