March 25, 2011

delivery issues

crisis: my current OB's practice has been 'bought' by a group practice. instead of having the stability of ONE doctor, there is a chance of having any one of FIVE doctors. it's something i'm not happy about. child birth is crazy enough as it is, to throw a curve ball of not personally knowing your delivery doctor is just something i am NOT comfortable with.
i switched to him this pregnancy to avoid delivering at the same hospital in which i had kullen and was excited to try a new hospital.

solutions:
try to find another single practice doctor [but i don't think there are any] that delivers at the new hospital.
go back to my old OB and suck it up and deliver at old hospital. out of the question right now.
suck it up and deal with one of five doctors delivering my child to remain at new hospital.
find a midwife and birthing center locally.
find a midwife and consider delivering baby at home.

right now - i'm looking into the last two options.
when i was pregnant with kullen, i wanted to do a water birth so badly. the hospital i was being delivered at did not offer this and since it was my first pregnancy, i decided to just have the traditional hospital birth. i hated my experience. if i could choose to NOT deliver at a hospital, i think i would. the ONLY thing i liked about the hospital was the catheter. [haha, don't judge! peeing gets old REAL quick] i feel like a lot of my resentment towards my experience came from the hospital and staff.

HOSPITAL BIRTH -
CONS:
-labor was forced. [i am not going to blame the hospital/doctor entirely for this one, i pushed for it as well]
-2 bags of water were flushed into my uterus and never FLUSHED back out, causing me to develop a fever and infection.
-because of the fever/infection present in myself, kullen was treated as if he had the plague and taken from me to receive antibiotics.
-he continued to received antibiotics TWO days after adam and i were discharged, when he had no infection/fever present.
-hospital rooms were uncomfortable and limited space for guests.
-HOSPITAL FOOD - need i say more.
-rude staff/nurses demanding to take my baby for this and that which ended up being all unnecessary.
PROS:
-medicine [epidural/antibiotics/etc...]
-educated staff [which at the time was important to me, now that i've experienced it all first hand, it's not of as much importance]
-tools/staff/treatment if something were to go wrong.

MIDWIFE/AT HOME BIRTH/BIRTHING CENTER -
PROS:-delivering in the comfort of your home. sitting/kneeling/showering/laying - whatever i choose.
-immediate bonding with the baby after birth versus baby being taken from me.

-video taped birth/pictures taken. [something i REALLY wanted for kullen]
-family being close and not having to come visit ONLY between certain hours.
-kullen being with us the entire time.
-a personal one on one experience with the midwife.
CONS:-something going wrong; endangering the baby and/or myself.
-critics [tolerable]
-panic. HAHA!
-no pain medication/epidural [not a huge deal]

so - those are just some of my random thoughts on the subject. i am not committing to anything right now but i'm also not ruling anything out. i have an appointment with my OB on wednesday and plan to discuss all of this stuff with him. i'm going to tell him that i don't like the idea of any one of FIVE doctors being my delivery doctor and because of that, these are the options i'm considering. hopefully he will give me an unbiased opinion.

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