Ready for a long post about something that may interest no one other than myself? A super duper long post? Since this is my blog, after all, and since I want to remember some of this down the road, here it is.
When we first found out we were pregnant with this baby, I hurried and got in touch with my wonderful midwife from Easton’s birth. I love her and loved everything about my experience with her. So, you can imagine my disappointment when I found out that she is taking April 2013 off from attending births. She does this every year–picks a month to take a rest from deliveries. She still does her office visits, but she makes sure not to accept clients due in that month. She runs her own practice and does everything herself (scheduling, prenatal visits, deliveries, home visits), so I completely understand the need to take some time off. I was just so sad that it happened to be during my due date month. She posts her plans on her website well in advance and if we had been planning this sweet little surprise, I would have planned accordingly. But, as I’ve told Bryce, this baby just has his own plan.
In the aftershock of my disappointment about my midwife (I’m not even exaggerating–I cried about it!), I planned to just go back to the midwifery practice I went to with Amelie and Calder and deliver at the hospital. I knew the care would be rushed, I’d often have to wait a while for my appointments, and that I’d be back in the hospital where I find laboring difficult. Something about all the people and poking and checking and strangers. But I was okay with it. Then I had my first couple of appointments and all the things I’d remembered were just made so real. Appointments were hurried, I often waited 20-30 minutes just to see someone, and I found out that I wouldn’t be able to deliver at the same hospital I’d been to with Amelie and Calder because of our insurance. The hospital thing was another bummer because the American Fork Hospital (where I delivered before) is known for being a little more friendly to moms trying to birth without pain meds and has a jetted tub in every room to help during labor. You can’t have a waterbirth in a hospital in Utah, but at AFH, you can at least labor in the water. The hospital I’d have to go to this time only has one room with a tub and it’s first come first serve. So, not only would I not be able to have a waterbirth, but I might not be able to labor in the tub at all.
See, I told you this would be long….
Anyway, I basically realized that the things I’d loved about Easton’s birth–the tub, the waterbirth, the intimacy of the environment, the trust I had with my midwife–none of those would be possible at the hospital with this practice of midwives. So, I switched my care to a group of midwives in Orem called Better Birth (www.betterbirth.com). This practice has a birth center and although it wouldn’t be with the midwife I had during Easton’s birth, I felt it was a step in the right direction. My care with them has been awesome so far. I never wait for an appointment, they are attentive and caring, their office is beautiful and calm, and the know their stuff. I never feel rushed. Ironically, since most people assume midwives are less technical than doctors, I’ve found my care with them to be much more modern than anywhere else. They take my blood pressure with a digitized wrist band, swipe a cool thermometer device across my forehead, and my glucose screening was a simple finger prick. These are little things, but they’ve been nice. I’ve had my ultrasounds right there in their office with an ultrasound technician. And the cost is the same as our minimum cost through our insurance if we had stayed with the hospital plan (we have a high deductible plan). You can see pictures of the birth suite here. Sorry they’re such small images. And if anything were to go wrong or if they decided the birth center wasn’t the best place for me anymore, I’d be transferred to the hospital right away. They are very cautious and careful.
So, anyway, that is the very long story of how I ended up with Better Birth.
The End
