A Mother's Rantings

Avram and I are trying to figure out where to go for Maternity care for our baby. I love having midwives, and that's what I used both with Lydia and Elisheva. Actually, I just love England's approach to childbirth. Everyone has midwives, unless you have a high risk pregnancy, and the whole country approaches childbirth as a natural experience, that is not a sickness. Of course, I do not mean natural here as in they don't let you have an epidural if you want it, since pain medication is totally up to you, but rather that it is not a disease to be treated. And they are very supportive of natural births, and are not pushy at all about many things.

Imagine yourself in America, in an American hospital, while I describe this. So, I needed to have an antibiotic administered to me every four hours while in labor with Elisheva, or after my water broke. So after my water broke at five am one Monday morning in England, we went to the hospital and got there at eight am. It was a busy day, and so I was lowest priority, so they never got around to giving me my first dose of antibiotic until noon. But meanwhile they did bring Avram and I lots of toast and jam, and offered us tea as well. After the first dose of antibiotic (intravenously, but I had a heperin lock, and also the needle used was a thin one, not the same iv mark I would need at all for getting a fluids IV, which are so standard in the States. ) No one mentioned induction to me. No one was worried in the slightest that my water had broken and I hadn't gone into labor yet. So after my dose, they assigned me a bed up in a room they kept for women who had pregnancy complications and so were in the hospital before birth (seemed like mostly for multiple births). Then Avram and I were free to walk wherever we wanted to in the hospital, I could eat whatever I wanted to, and we were as free as larks - except I did have to stay inside the hospital itself since I had the hep lock.

Then, after dinner at seven pm, no one had still mentioned induction. No one had given me a time limit on how long I could go with my water broken before having a mandatory c section. It was the very absence of a stressful situation. And I did go into labor around seven, and I did have Elisheva two hours later. And I had her while kneeling (on a yoga mat) on the floor. And my Midwife, who had an apprentice with her, thanked me for having a natural birth, and not giving birth lying in bed. She was grateful to me, so that she could show her apprentice a natual birth done well. During this time, they did intermittent monitering, but it was a hand held device that the midwife used - no being strapped to anything, including a bed moniter (which did happen with Lydia, and they forgot I was still strapped to it when I started pushing, and I couldn't move, and it was bad. Until Avram figured out what was happening.)

Now, in America. I would have shown up at the hospital, and they would have strapped a ton of gear on me, and probably done internal monitering too. Then they would have induced me. And given me a time limit on how long I could go with my water broken before I needed a c-section. And I would have given birth probably on my back, if I'd had a doctor (my midwife with Lydia did let me kneel, but told me afterwards that I should be grateful that I had a midwife, because a doctor never would have let me give birth in that position - note that it's me who's supposed to be grateful in the States, not the other way around).

I feel like America is stuck in the dark ages as far as it goes for Childbirth. I want to have all my children in England. Luckily I have short enough labors that they don't have much time to harass me, but that's another problem. Because the only midwife group at all that is covered by my insurance I do not like. They have an 18 % c-section rate, which is rediculous since Midwives only can take low risk patients. They are with a group of doctors, which is fine, but then since they cover three hospitals, only one of which I can go to because of my insurance, if the midwife on duty is at on of the other two hospitals, they'll call a doctor to come and deliver me. My labor with Elisheva on the official records - when the hospital decided I was in labor - only took an hour and fourteen minutes. There is no way unless a medical personnel is already there that I'll even be delivered by their docter. Which means some haphazard nurse will deliver my poor baby. And I'll probably still have to pay the stupid doctor anyway.

And I was talking to someone training to be a nurse this last week, and she was saying that in her experience with the labor floor, that the nurses really push for epidurals, because they don't want to have to deal with natural labors. Great. And my hospital, the OSU hospital, is a huge one, with lots of specialized care. Which also means they'll have lots of routines. Smaller hospitals are much more willing to work with individual wants. That's why when I had Lydia in Utah I didn't pick the main Provo hospital, but a smaller one in Orem that was very friendly to birthing. My nurse was even a hypno-birthing instructor, which I had not done, but she did help me with laboring a lot. (Plus she turned out to be my second cousin once removed, or something. Welcome to Utah).

It's enough to make me just want to have a homebirth with a midwife, but that's another $1500 extra than what it would be to have a baby on insurance. And my labors are short enough that I'm currently just planning to grit my teeth and bear it, to save the money (which we don't have to spend anyway).

I'm quite riled up with the Medical maternity situation in Ohio. I feel like Bones in the Star Trek movie where they go back in time to a hospital in the 1980s - where he keeps on making comments about the Dark Ages, and the Spanish Inquisition. That's what I'm stuck in, here. The Dark Ages.

I've half joked with Avram that if we dawdle when I go into labor we can just have the baby here, and he can deliver it. Both Avram and his brother were born at home because they came so quickly. But I don't really want to have that kind of birth, besides which I'd still have to go to the hospital afterwards, anyway.

It's not fair. If we are supposed to have such great Gender equality and all that jazz, and have such advanced Women's Stuff, how come we treat birth so awfully? It's demeaning to me to have to go through the American Medical System. I'm not against pain medication, nor doctors, nor large, specialized hospitals. England managed to have all of these, but also had managed to keep the humanity of childbearing. I wish it was because of their National Health System (ie, Socialized Health System), but that's too much to ask for. I'm sure if America had Socialized Health, it wouldn't solve this, just standardize it further.

I don't have anything profound to say at the end of this besides, "Grump. Grump. Grump."