The second time around, we knew we wanted a midwife. I actually really wanted a midwife the first time, but everyone (my husband, our parents, our friends) kept saying what if something went wrong? A hospital birth is much safer (hi, turns out they’re not, thank you very much. I love research.) After our less-than-pleasant experience with the OB and a hospital birth, I absolutely refused to go that route again. Sadly, midwives and birth centers are not typically covered by insurance so that meant we had to pay 100% out of pocket. Let me tell you right now – WORTH EVERY PENNY AND MORE. Now that I’ve had both experiences, I would happily pay double what we did for a midwife if I had to. The level of care was so incredibly better compared to what we got with our doctor. I knew I didn’t really like that whole OB experience while I was in it, but after being with a midwife, looking back, we missed out on so much that OBs just don’t do.
First of all, we never waited longer than 5 minutes for any of our appointments. Then each appointment was at least one hour long, sometimes a few minutes longer if we got to chatting about something interesting. Dead opposite of the doctor’s office.
Since this was my second time around being pregnant, we thought we had it all figured out and knew what to expect. Turns out, we had so much to learn. Our midwife was amazing. She taught us something new at every appointment, talked about what was happening in my body, hormones, physical changes, mental changes, sleep, sex, food, etc. At the end of every appointment, she would take a few minutes to explain what to expect for our next appointment. What tests she would be running, if any, and why. WHY – that was a huge difference.
Fighting the Stigma
There is still this false stigma that midwives are these uneducated women who birth babies in farms or something. That is so completely wrong. This incredible woman is one of the most educated and smartest people my husband and I have ever met. We learned that the biggest difference between OBs and midwives is that OBs are really just trained surgeons. They can catch a baby, sure, but their education focuses on surgical skills for C-sections. Midwives, on the other hand, are educated for years (it actually takes quite a while to become a certified midwife) in EVERYTHING pregnancy, birth, post-pregnancy, and women-health related. If something went wrong at any point, then a midwife would have you immediately transported to a hospital. (Our birth center and hospital are a mile from each other. I think this is a requirement for birth centers, just in case a hospital transport is necessary.)
Every test was done for a purpose. We had only two ultrasounds – one at the first appointment to confirm the pregnancy and the second for the 20-week anatomy scan. I didn’t have one single vaginal exam, which was so very appreciated. It was so nice not to have a hand shoved up my vagina every few weeks for really no reason at all. Even the swab test that we did for GBS (Group B Strep) didn’t require a vaginal exam. She had me go to the bathroom and swab myself.
Finally, not only did our midwife educate us on what was going on with my body but she asked my husband how HE was doing. She included him in everything, and even helped him out with some health questions outside of the realm of pregnancy. She gave him information on things he could do to help me, things he could do to prepare himself, and even brought up something I didn’t know existed – postpartum depression for dads.
What kind of provider is right for you?
If you didn’t already guess, I 1000% recommend going with a midwife rather than an OB. It was a much better experience all around for me, my husband, and our baby. Maybe an OB is the right choice for you; I do have plenty of friends who loved their OBs and went back to them for their next pregnancies. I’m so glad they liked their experience. I didn’t.
I’m the type of person who likes to be given information and then given time to look through it, educate myself, and then make a decision. I do NOT like being told how to do something, especially when it comes to my own body. Here’s the thing that bugged me the most. Going the OB route, it felt like my pregnancy was being treated as a medical condition. With our midwife, my pregnancy was a natural, beautiful, powerful thing that being a woman, I was fully capable of doing. We were guided and educated along the way, never told what or how to do something.
Women have been giving birth since the beginning of time. You got this mama. Your body knows what to do. Trust your instincts.
❤
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