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csberryWent to meet the new midwife today at her home south of Fayetteville, TN (house is maybe 3 miles over the border). She seems nice. She has a double-wide trailer next to her house which is where she does the births. It's rather spacious and much better than one might fear.
JD and I were laughing recently on where our children have been (will be) born. Calvin was born in a restored Victorian house in a historic district on the east side of downtown Dallas. Nigel was born in a rented house on a county road on the edge of a tiny town. Monkey will be born in the middle of the country in a trailer home.
One bit of improvement with this birthing situation from Nigel's is that we are much closer to a hospital in case of an emergency. While JD assures me that it only took Nigel 30 seconds or so to start breathing after delivery, it felt like 15-30 minutes to me because I know part of me had enough time to second-guess choosing an option 30-40 minutes from a hospital. There is a hospital right off Hwy 231 about 10 miles from the new birth house.
Really, the only negative I feel about the switch is that there isn't a convenient place for JD to walk around. It is a narrow, winding country road with no shoulder. There seem to be a few subdivisions a few miles away that we could drive to, it's a bit of a hassle compared to the walking environment at the last two births.
JD and I were laughing recently on where our children have been (will be) born. Calvin was born in a restored Victorian house in a historic district on the east side of downtown Dallas. Nigel was born in a rented house on a county road on the edge of a tiny town. Monkey will be born in the middle of the country in a trailer home.
One bit of improvement with this birthing situation from Nigel's is that we are much closer to a hospital in case of an emergency. While JD assures me that it only took Nigel 30 seconds or so to start breathing after delivery, it felt like 15-30 minutes to me because I know part of me had enough time to second-guess choosing an option 30-40 minutes from a hospital. There is a hospital right off Hwy 231 about 10 miles from the new birth house.
Really, the only negative I feel about the switch is that there isn't a convenient place for JD to walk around. It is a narrow, winding country road with no shoulder. There seem to be a few subdivisions a few miles away that we could drive to, it's a bit of a hassle compared to the walking environment at the last two births.
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Date: 2007-08-22 01:56 pm (UTC)To naturally get through the pain of childbirth, it is helpful for the mother to move around, stretch, and occasionally drink. Many hospitals hook up monitors which essentially strap the "patient" into the bed, where little can be done about the pain so it's just a matter of time that the mother goes to the only available source of relief - drugs/epidural. My wife doesn't want to be forced into taking non-essential drugs. In addition to that, Alabama has a high rate of c-sections (nearly 30% of all births are c-section). We've heard from numerous students in JD's childbirthing class of doctors bullying the mothers into a c-section, stressing out the mother with tests and then saying she's too stressed to deliver naturally, or deciding after 8-12 hours of labor that he HAS to do it or (insert scary scenario here).
In addition to that, I'd rather pay the midwife about $2600 for all the prenatal exams and delivery. With a hospital and insurance, the cost of the procedure shoots up drastically and invoices/statements are made to confuse and not disclose all the charges. Lemme have some Tylenol in my bag if my wife needs it after delivery, don't let me go to a hospital where a nurse just hands drugs to the patient and silently charges an arm and a leg for it.
Maybe if we lived somewhere with those progressive hospitals you see on TLC's "A Baby Story," we'd go to a hospital.