PICKED OUR BIRTHING SPOT........

We have reached our half way mark for this marathon, alomst 21 weeks and 19 weeks to go! Feeling a little more confident after making the official decision where we will be delivering and it actually may be a surprise.

 

Today we had a sonagram appointment scheduled at the hospital that our midwives office is located in which is Miami Valley Hospital South. The Family Begginings Birthing Center I attended on delivering at is located at the Main Campus. We asked if we could have a tour of the birthing center and we were misguided to the maternity floor at Miami Valley "South". After getting the confusion straight we were very surprised to find out how amazing the maternity center at the Miami Valley "South" location was. I have decided to list on the reasons this hospitals maternity ward is so amazing...

1. The hospital is only 5 years old and the building is beautiful! It is decorated with neutral- home like colors.
2. The people are very kind and helpful. Everytime we seen someone that worked there in the hall they asked if they could help us. We didn't even havea tour scheduled, but they found a very helpful RN to give us a tour and she was very happy to do it.
3. The hallways we very quite and the hospital was not at all busy.
4. There is a special maternity center entrance straight from the parking lot. You do not have to get on any elevators or walk far at all to get to your delivery room.
5. They go by all the same rules... they will allow me to have a waterbirth, no IV, and the most natural approaches as possible.
6. The rooms are HUGE! The Post Partum rooms are very large also.
7. The rooms are lite with natural lighting by the oversized windows, which are located on the first floor which is located next to a beautiful garden to look out at.
8. The Jacuzzi Suite is huge and most of the time  avavilable, if not there  are Blow Up Birth tubs located in every room!
9. This is the same hospital my prenatal visits are at.
10. It is 20 minutes closer than the Family Begginings Birthing Center.

 



After going through the tour we knew the bar was set high for Family Begginings. We bcalled and were able to get a tour the same day which I thought was very nice. After driving 20 minutes further north we started to make a negative list.

1. We have to drive 20 min further.
2. The hospital is located in the middle of the city unlike the South location.
3. We had to park in a garage, take two elevators and walk a good distance before we got to the birthing center.
4. The smell and conidtion of the hospital wasn't so great.
5. The maternity rooms were much smaller than expected.
6. The place did not look anything like the pictures.
7. The rooms were very dark with no view.
8. The tubs were located in a tight fitting bathroom instead of an open area in the room.
9. Was more hospital like than the other center.
10. Chance the Family Birthing Center may be full.
11. The Post Partum rooms were VERY small.

The only positives we found that were different than the South Maternity location was...

1. Full Size Bed and in some cases if no one needs my room Walter could sleep in the bed with me overnight.
2. Experianced staff with Water Births.
3. They had really nice bassinets that go up against the bed to co-sleep with baby.

As you can see the choice was pretty simple. It surprises me that we choose a more hospital-like setting, but obviously it shows that the hospital was pretty amazing!

So our choice is MIAMI VALLEY HOSPITAL SOUTH!!!

Choices..... choices.... choices.....

I am now 19 weeks and I have been on a roller coaster ride these past couple of months. As I had said before this baby was a surprise to us so needless to say we were not prepared financially. This made it very difficult for us to choose a home birth because the typical home birth (paying the midwife, buying supply, paying doctor for parallel care) cost between $2,750-$3,500.

I truly believe that if it is God's will anything can happen. So I decided to go forward and interview a few midwives. I quickly discovered that even though I believe these midwives were well capable of delivering my baby and caring for me, and one even had the same spiritual beliefs as me, they just weren't Sora. There was something very unsettling with paying so much for a home birth in hopes for the same experience I had with Jameson, with Sora as my midwife. I decided to pray about it.

The biggest struggle for me was if I choose to settle for a birth experience that was any less as amazing as my experience with Jameson's birth it would make me feel guilt and disappointment. This baby (even though unplanned) deserves the same amazing welcoming experience into this world as Jameson did. Not only an amazing experience, but a safe experience.

I decided while I prayed to leave my options opened. I decided to looking into Bethesda North Hospital. This hospital is known for delivering babies naturally. It is also the hospital that Dr. Bowen (my parallel doctor with Jameson) delivers. I signed Walter and I up for a tour. During the tour I felt a huge amount of anxiety. I went from laughing out loud by comments such as "For your comfort you are able to walk around with your fetal monitor pack device and IV". The woman in the picture looked like a walking robot! Then tears filled my eyes as we heard statement after statement that began like this "Hospital policy is..." "State requirements say that we must..." "It is mandated that you must..." Which none of the things following those sentences did I have to do with Jameson. After the tour I quickly approached the tour guide with many questions. Come to find out all those statements that address "policy and requirements" you are able to opt. out of most of them! This made me feel much more comfortable. She also said my birth experience will depend on what doctor I use. She then gave my information to a nurse manager to help give me information on doctors who strongly support natural birth. This made me feel more comfortable, but it still was not a home birth.

There was also one big issue that was not solved. I know that I am strong enough to have a home birth, but I also know that the water was a HUGE benefit for me during labor and delivery. Even though the hospital agreed to allow me labor in the water I still would not be able to deliver in the water. I emailed Water Birth International to explain my situation. They have a 90% success rate at changing hospital policy for allowing water births. After I did not receive a response I realized I was going to either have to come to the understanding that I was not going to have a water birth or I would have to go somewhere else.

During the last few months I have decided to take up reading once again. Instead of reading books to prepare me for Home birth I was reading books that would prepare me for a natural hospital birth (eccchhhh I even hate the sound of it). The books helped me so much! I really feel God finds many ways to speak to us and for me it tends to happen through writers in books. I was almost halfway the a book called Child Birth, when I hit a chapter that talked about three choices we have home birth, hospital birth, and the best of both worlds a birthing center. I stopped reading and thought of course a birthing center!

 I think at this point I began to talk to God out loud! I said "Okay, God I know the nearest Birthing Center is 1 hour away in Dayton. I will call and ask them 4 questions and if they answer 'yes' to all 4 then I know this is what you want me to do." So I quickly called the center and asked these 4 questions...

1. Do you typically get clients from Cincinnati?
2. Do you accept my insurance?
3. Do you allow water births?
4. Are you accepting patients?

To my surprise she said YES to all four questions! In the past few weeks many people have expressed their concerns for me going almost over an hour away to deliver. Especially my sister who will be riding in the car with me on the way to the birthing center. After taking in every ones concerns with the center being 1 hour away I picked back up the book I was reading and continued. To my surprise again the very next paragraph was a lady saying that the only birth center close to her was 1 hour away! She drove there for all her appointments and drove there for delivery and had no problems what so ever! Now if that's not a sign from God I don't know what is.I have decided to continue to leave this up to the Lord. We have our first appointment with the midwives on Monday (6 days). After we go to that appointment we can schedule a tour of the birthing center. This is when I will make my final decision. I have continued to read about many women who have decided to have their birth at a birthing center and drive up to 3 hours!

Meanwhile.... the fun stuff!!! We had a ultrasound at 17 weeks that told us our little baby was another boy! :) We are very excited! We decided to gather family and the kids and share the news. The kids loved finding out by opening a box of blue balloons! We are truly blessed!