Birth decisions

When we first started talking about getting pregnant again, I was pretty sure that I wanted to use a different doctor's office this time. We didn't have a bad experience with the doctors and hospital we used with Nora, but I'd had several friends switch to a different practice that they highly recommended. I had also been thinking I would like to use a midwife and possibly a birth center this time around. Like I said, we've never had a 'bad' experience delivering in a hospital, but there were plenty of things I didn't love about them either.

With Nora, the nurse on duty for the first two hours we were there was awful, every time she came in our room she was complaining about how much she didn't want to be there. We were super relieved when the shift change happened and we lucked out and got an amazing nurse. With how awful Nora's labor and delivery was, I really don't think I could have handled it without her. She was so nice and genuine and had so many ideas of different positions to try sitting/laying in, etc. to help relieve the back labor I was having. One of the biggest reasons I wanted to switch to a birth center is that I don't want to leave something like that up to chance this time around. I get pretty annoyed with Marc when I'm having a baby (through no fault of his own), so having someone else there that I can rely on during labor is really important to me.

All of T's nurses were good enough, I don't have really strong memories about them one way or another, and honestly everything happened so quickly with Teresa it wasn't really a big deal. Hospital-wise, I am still a little irritated that Teresa very unnecessarily spent three days in the NICU, which was a big pain in the neck, not to mention incredibly expensive for us.

Anyway, I went ahead and had my first appointment with my current doctor, just because I was going to Texas in a week and needed to get my nausea drugs before I left. We returned from Texas under the impression that we would be moving to Georgia sooner rather than later, most likely in April. Since it looked like I wouldn't be delivering here anyway, I decided not to bother switching doctors just to switch again once we got to Georgia.

Then we stopped hearing anything about Georgia at all. Marc kept trying to find out what was going on, as April was fast approaching. Long story short, at this point, it looks like we won't be moving until October-January, if we end up going at all. Things have been pretty unpredictable, so in the midst of all that Army drama, plus with being so sick, I didn't really have much brain power to devote to thinking about switching doctors.

I stopped going to the chiropractor after we got back from Texas because I was too sick - I've thrown up in probably more than my fair share of public places, and the last thing I wanted to do was throw up at the chiropractors office. But finally my back pain started to be worse than my nausea so I had to go. She was actually pretty excited when we got there, because she specializes in pre-natal chiropractic. I was excited about that too, especially when she told me she could pretty much guarantee against having back labor again! She also gave us a pamphlet about the birth center I had completely forgotten about being interested in.

So now I have to actually make a decision about where to give birth to this little guy and it is so hard!

I really, really like the doctor I use now. I've never felt this comfortable with a doctor, ever. But I'm not a big fan of any of the other doctors in her practice. And not switching doctors because I don't want to offend her is like, the worst possible reason to not switch.

On the other hand, I love every thing I've read about the birth center, especially the fact that they will let you go home as soon as four hours after giving birth. And they usually only have 1-2 people there giving birth at a time. They also send a nurse/midwife to your home to check on you three days after you have your baby. The absolute only con I've found is that they don't do epidurals.

My epidural with Teresa wore off when I was about 8 cm and didn't get back up and running until I was being stitched up. And honestly, T's delivery wasn't that bad. I mostly thought it was extremely uncomfortable, but I don't remember it being super painful. But even with Nora's perfectly working epidural her delivery was way, way worse than with Teresa. T was out in thirty minutes, but I pushed for more than two hours with Nora. I know it was mostly because she was facing the wrong way, but I'm still hesitant to commit to doing it without an epidural this time around.

I'm probably just being too picky, because the birth center also has a hospital option if I chicken out, but if I have this baby at a hospital I want to do it at Howard County, where we had Nora, and not at the one the birth center uses. I'm very aware of what a whiny sounding, first world problem this is, btw.

We are planning to tour the birth center in the next week or so, so hopefully that will help with the decision making.

If you made it this far, here are some pictures! T was wearing her super girl shirt last week so Nora wanted a cape as well. They informed me that superheros need to have five pigtails in their hair. Forty-five minutes later their hair was done, and I found myself strangely grateful that this baby is a boy...