One thing we soon found out when we found out we were having a baby is that you have to make a lot of decisions. They all have different deadlines, but some of them have to be made relatively soon. The decision about who to tell and when was probably the first. I might have written about this before, but we wanted to tell people pretty much as soon as possible that we were having a baby. I know it's sometimes customary to wait until a safe period of time has passed in case of miscarriage, but we felt that we needed the support of family and friends as soon as we could, this being such a huge thing. Then we had to decide which hospital.
There are 2 in our area, just down the street from each other. 2 things tipped the scales in favor of Carle. One is that several friends had delivered there and were enthusiastic in recommending it to us. Second they offered a midwifery service. Once we researched it a bit we decided that that philosophy is a little more in line with how we see childbirth. Midwives usually have less interventions, so there's less chance of things like a C-section, epidurals, or epesiotomies. The C-section rate with doctors is upwards of 30%, the highest in the world, and with midwives it's about 4 or 5%. The difference lies partly in the difference in philosphies. The way we understand it, and obviously this is not untrue for all doctors, is that midwives tend to rely on the woman and her body to tell her what to do. Pain is a natural way the body communicates and prepares for birth, so it should be present during the labor. We could see this in our labor. Ray, the midwife, asked Suzanne if she was ready to push. We looked at him, expecting him to check how much she'd dilated, not really knowing what to say. Suzanne asked if she was ready to push. He said, what does your body tell you? Just listen to your body. Soon enough, she felt like pushing and 30 minutes later we had Amia. He also never told us what to do, aside from some specifics to make pushing easier. For example, Suzanne's water hadn't broken by the time we were admitted. He said that if she wanted he could break her waters to speed things along. We asked what he suggested and he said, It's up to you. There's no right or wrong here. At first it was a little unnerving, but it also showed a great trust in both Suzanne's body to tell her the right thing and her self to do what was right.
We also liked the services the hospital offered. As I've written, they offer tons of classes. We went to just about all of them, with the exception of one. By the end we felt as ready as we could be.
They also offered a doula service. A doula is a trained support person who works with the mother and father during labor. Number of interventions and complications, length of labor, and intensity of pain all go down with a midwife, but they go down ever further with a doula. They help with the mother's breathing, they are the interface between the couple and the family and medical staff, they normalize things that happen during labor letting us know things are going ok, they massage the mother, suggest a variety of laboring positions, give the father breaks if he's looking tired or stressed, and they never leave the mother alone. If there's an emergency C-section they can be with the mother the whole time, while the father has to be somewhere else while they prep the mother. And they also take pictures. All the pictures we have during and after labor were taken by Anne, our doula. In short, we are really, really glad we had her there.
The labor and delivery floor has a number of labor aids, like a jacuzzi, birthing balls, birth bars, showers, a water birthing pool, and a stereo in the room. The jacuzzi helped immensely. It really helped relax Suzanne's muscles and make the transition labor smoother. Obviously with intense pain it's easy to tense up. That only makes everything more painful and of longer duration. The birth ball is just a big bouncy ball that the woman can use in a variety of positions. Suzanne sat on it with the doula behind her massaging her lower back, which is where it usually starts to hurt as the baby travels down the birth canal, and with me in front so she could lean on me. It's a softer surface than the bed, helps spread the mothers legs, and also has her upright which lets gravity push the labor along. It can also be used to lie on giving her back a break, or in any one of a number of positions. The birth bar, sometimes called a squat bar I think, attaches to the foot of the bed and can be used by the mother to help her sit up, again so she can use gravity to her advantage. The shower helps by encouraging the release of oxytocin, which is triggered by the warm water hitting the woman's breasts, which helps the uterus contract and making the labor shorter and also more relaxed. The virtues of the water birth I've mentioned already. It made the birth shorter probably, definitely more relaxed, involved less tearing, and probably was a smoother transition for Amia to go from a warm watery environment to another one. As soon as she came out she was put into Suzanne's arms so there's no real chance of anything bad happening. And it turns out (I can't remember if I mentioned this) that the baby's first breath is triggered by the change in air temperature, not just by being born, so the chance that they'll breathe in water is very small. And the stereo, which we didn't use mostly because we didn't have time, helps make the environment less hospitally.
After the birth we appreciated all the support too. We stayed for about a day and a half, but could have stayed another day if we'd wanted to. It was nice having nurses and lactation consultants (who help with breastfeeding. Surprisingly, or maybe not, there's a lot to know in terms of how to help the baby latch on correctly, what positions to put the baby in during feeding, what to do about complications, and how and when to use a breastpump) standing by ready to answer any questions. It was also nice being able to have meals made and delivered to us any time we wanted. There was also a kitchenette I could use that cookies, coffee, soda, stuff like that. And in the postpartum room we stayed in there was a fold out couch for me to sleep on. This hospital was also good in that they encouraged us to have the baby in the room with us as much as possible. It wasn't really an issue since we wanted to anyway, but it's not really healthy, in terms of the emotional health of the mother and baby, to have the baby in the nursery a lot of the time, which I guess used to be common practice.
That's all I have to say about that...
P.P. If you're like me try to memorize some new songs before the baby comes. They love it when you sing to them, but right now the only song I can remember past 2 verses is "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" by Public Enemy. I sang it to her happily, but pretty soon she's gonna figure out what it means then I'll be in trouble. I guess "Welcome to the Terrordome" is out too (that's another Public Enemy song. I got into them at a very impressionable age).
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