Midwifery

I am a planner. Often I enjoy planning an event more than the event itself. While I certainly hope this won't be the case for my (fingers crossed) impending parenthood, part of the beginnings of this process has included thinking about the logistics. I've had the same gynecologist since I moved to the city nearly seven years ago, referred to me by a former colleague mostly because his office was in my neighborhood. And I like him. He's calm and cool, which works well for me, his office staff is great, he's taken all of the various insurances I've gone through. I don't have any complaints about him at all, yet I can't imagine going through childbirth with him.

All of my friends have had babies in hospitals with doctors. I am not so hippie-inclined that I think that's bad, but I do question the medicalization of childbirth. I'm a history buff, and I've seen enough episodes of Little House on the Prairie -- not to mention Gone with the Wind more times than I can count -- to know that women have been having babies for a really long time, often at home with only the help of relatives. The natural-ness of this seems lovely to me. Of course things go wrong, but things always go wrong. I'm not saying I want to have a baby at home without a trained professional. But I knew that I did want to explore my options.

The mother of one of my former students was a doula for many years before she went to nursing school. In the two years that I taught her daughter and the years since that we have ket in touch, I've learned a lot about the other side of childbirth, the part that is often blown off as being crazy. Traditional hospital births are seen as the norm, just as huge, expensive extravaganzas have become the standard for weddings. I didn't go that route, either. Not my style. It just made sense for me to question what many women take as a given.

Working with a traditional gynecologist/obstetrician during childbirth tends to mean getting through labor and delivery as quickly as possible, and surgical procedures are often used unnecessarily. Midwives, in contrast, aim to help women through "typical" pregnancies and births as naturally as possible, including offering support for the first six weeks of the baby's life (breastfeeding, etc.). They do not interfere with the labor process unless necessary, and of course refer problematic issues to specialists. Many of them do home births, but many also deliver babies in hospitals. All of this sounds right up my alley.

So I've made an appointment for an orientation meeting with a midwife in my neighborhood. I know it's early, but I figure the more I can sort out now, the less I have to stress me out later. I feel good about this decision, and even better because my husband didn't think it was as nuts as I thought he might. In the meantime, I have one last appointment with my gynecologist -- my yearly check-up and a final check-in with him. He's a great doctor. Just not my style.