(no subject)

[valancystirling]

So last night we finally went to the hospital to get the formality of a tour out of the way. What a joke. I almost had to keep my hand over my mouth to keep myself from disagreeing with everything the nurse told us. Massively unimpressed. And I had to come home and wash that hospital stink out of my hair. It's the smell of death, even if there is no one dying. I have always hated hospitals. They're for sick people. I'm not sick. I wouldn't want to start my life there, so I will do whatever I can to make sure my own baby doesn't have to. Horrible place.

Yoga in Ithaca tonight.

The midwife I was hoping for in Ithaca will be on vacation in November. Shit.

Comments

[millennialhippy.livejournal.com]

On a plus note, apparently new research shows that home births are just as safe and just as risky as regular births, for low-risk mothers.

[millennialhippy.livejournal.com]

Err, by regular I mean "hospital" births.

And I'm not being freudian at all. I've always wanted a non-hospital water birth.

[valancystirling.livejournal.com]

Now I'm bound and determined to have a home waterbirth. I've read and heard too many horror stories about hospital births. And Lourdes is the most unpleasant hospital we've ever been in, which is saying something. There is no reason a homebirth can't be safe.

[valancystirling.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, I have two hospitals very close to my house, about 10-15 minutes away. I'm certainly not opposed to going if I have a real need. The hospital we went to last night has a maternity ward that they call a "birthing center." I think it's not really. That's what I was really hoping for, to be honest, that kind of compromise. But the place was so sickening in so many ways I will regard it as a last resort at this point.

As for the really long labor...from what I've read, it seems that it's standard procedure to induce labor or attempt to speed things up artificially if you're not progressing at a rate that meets with the doctor's/hospital's approval. I don't like the idea of having someone put a time limit on me, and it seems unavoidable in a hospital. It seems to me that the slightest intervention invariably prompts you to other interventions, ultimately leading you to be completely out of control of your own birth. I really don't want that.

I'm really concerned with finding a midwife who has privileges in one or both of the local hospitals. The one I haven't checked out yet has the NICU type stuff, so at least it's all readily available here.

With your kids, was there advance warning that you would have problems, or did it come up all at the last second? Certainly it would be inadvisable to try a homebirth if there was any realistic fear of complications, and I'm not looking to take unnecessary chances. I still have a ways to go anyway. Anything could happen in the next few months. Right now I just want my options spread out in front of me so when the time comes, with whatever circumstances I have at that time, I will know exactly what to do.

I know this is an unpopular idea. I'm not getting much support except from Jake, but after the hundreds of hours of reading I've done on the subject, I feel like I have to at least try to do it this way.