(24 weeks pregnant)
At 20 weeks pregnant I received word that my prenatal care would likely change and I would not be able to deliver at the birth center of my choice.
I.was.crushed. If there was a need for a more dramatic word I would have to put it here!
(Picture of me ugly crying from all the phone calls and emails being told, "no")
I began to get quiet, fall into myself, toil in my mind the options I had, the belief that this would turn into a reality and then the possible disappointment that the plan I had had for years would not become a reality.
At first I thought it’s not happening, but the writing on the wall became evident a few days later. This spiraled me into anxiety and kept me up for days mourning the loss of my beloved gentle birth place. Then came anger and fear in truck loads! What was I to do now? Where do I deliver? Who will deliver me?
(This is me after I chose my transfer care, I was relieved and smiling again)
After another week or restless sleep and conversations with anyone I could talk to about birth options, I began to think more clearly and ask better questions.
I began to ask, “why did I want a birth center birth?” “Who do I actually want at my delivery?” “Who do I want to deliver me and be there in my time of need?”
These were better and harder questions!
The first one revealed a lot of fear I had of my first hospital birth- literally trauma-PTSD to the full.
I can call it what it is now, something I knew a few years ago when choosing my birthing options, but now I had to relive it all again, and it was terribly painful.
I had to relive it because I called and emailed every midwife in the state of NC for a home birth. Literally, no one was available. I considered driving and hotel staying wherever I could to deliver at another birth center and then briefly, for a few hours considered an unassisted birth. None of these are what I wanted, nor felt was the birth for me and my family.
Then hospital birth options became all that was left and I felt angered all over again and frustrated that I was even here having to choose one.
First, I had to choose a birth idea and then choose a hospital. I KNEW hands down, no matter where I went, I wanted to see women there to meet me in my time of need. That mattered to the most to me. Women have this innate sense of what other women need, this gift of empathy, this quiet, gentle spirit in birth that can calm the whole room. This is how I felt when I reflected on my previous births, and those women that stood in the gap for me in my pain and pushing.
(almost 30 weeks pregnant!)
I finally chose to transfer care three weeks later to UNC knowing I would deliver at the hospital I used to work at, with the nurses I worked with, in the spectacular care of midwives. I reflected on the time I spent working at UNC and all the amazing things I saw in a high risk field, the medical care that was bar none and the life saving job of the medical teams. More keenly, I remembered those quiet, intense, emotional, fantastic, vulnerable moments that the midwives gave to their patients. My heart rested. <3
Now almost 30 weeks pregnant I wait in angst for this baby's arrival and for a smooth and gentle labor and delivery. Please pray for those that wait on the other side of the hospital doors for our perfect timing and that we, as a little family, would grow in knowledge and love of one another as we wait for this sweet little baby.
Comments