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Week 24
A New Obstetrician? Oh My...
Today, after a perfectly normal checkup, my monthly breath of relief, my obstetrician told me he was moving across the country before my due date. I immediately burst into tears.
I like my OB just fine, though I didn’t expect to weep over his relocation. Something about having to make a change, even to another doctor in his group practice, made me come undone.
Although we haven’t agreed on everything, we were able to come to an understanding about my birth plan, and that alone had put me at ease. At Henry’s birth, I had refused an epidural and avoided an episiotomy, even though my labor was induced with Pitocin and the contractions were frequent and intense. Even though the night nurse, between sucks on BBQ chicken wings, chanted at me that I’d never be able to do it. Even though the interns took bets on my ability to succeed. The guy with the soft eyes and short haircut won.
I did it. No pain medication whatsoever. It was the greatest accomplishment of my life. Because of that, I know I can withstand anything.
But I didn’t do it alone. I relied on my labor support doula to see me through, and tracked down a floor nurse who had been a midwife in Ireland and understood how to manage drug-free births. She found a birthing ball in some storage closet and hoisted me in and out of the shower as I approached transition. When the sleep-deprived resident came to check my cervix, surgical scissors in hand, she practically hurled him out of the room and told him I was at 7 centimeters. And while I delivered in a hospital known primarily for its high cesarean birth rate, I managed to have a healthy, successful, unmedicated vaginal birth. I plan to do the same for baby #2, and I knew my OB would support me, even though he secretly thought I was insane.
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I suppose his departure offers me the opportunity to search for an OB who actively supports natural births, to seek out a birthing center instead of a cesarean delivery-happy hospital, or to find a midwife. It would make sense, after all, to partner with people who believe in drug-free births instead of persuading more traditional physicians to let me try it my way. But I’m 39 years old—high risk. Henry came 3 weeks early when I showed signs of preeclampsia. Plus, I was Strep B positive and required an IV...any one of those issues would not only cast me out of a birthing center in minutes, but also require the expertise of an experienced OB. I’m simply more comfortable in a hospital setting, which makes me unrecognizable to the natural-birth community (“Try a home birth,” they urge me) and the AMA alike.
So I’ll befriend the other doctors in the practice and somehow find the power, yet again, to embrace an unmedicated labor. Now that I’m approaching my third trimester, I need to build up my inner strength. That’s my focus moving forward: prepare my body and my mind, and make it to the 37th week.
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