Tony, Megan, Hadley, Lainey, Lincoln, and Sage.

This is a long post of which most won't read or want to, I just wanted to throw my opinion out there on why we had Lincoln at a birth center, in a jetted tub.
Let me count the ways......

-First off, I am lucky to have fast births. Hadley and Lainey were born with the aid of pitocin. Hadley 6 hours, Lainey 4. If I just let myself go into labor naturally, I wouldn't need a hospital.

-I believe womans bodies know how to give birth without a lot of outside help. We've messed up the experience by letting doctors decide how we give birth.

-with my first, they broke my water then gave the pit. within an hour the pain was intolerable so I got the epidural 5 hours later the baby head was right there, but my doctor wasn't so since I had the epi they made me wait an hour until she arrived. Think of the trauma my body must of been going through, laying there for an hour while a baby was in my birth canal!

-The baby was coming out and still my doctor gave me an episiotomy, (she just wanted a nice clean incision to stitch up instead of letting me tear naturally, because when it's natural it is a lot harder to stitch.) The healing from that was awful!


-With Lainey they just put me on the pitocin without breaking my water (my doctor was asleep at home it was 11:00 at night) But, that made the contractions bearable and I was able to have the baby without the epidural. I had Lainey too fast so she was delivered by the resident and as she was coming out, a total of 5 min. pushing, the doctor still tried to cut me! I had to tell him to put down the scissors and not cut me!

-I also tested positive for group strep B so they gave me antibiotics in my iv. The baby came too fast and wasn't able to get the full dose. They told me Lainey had to stay in the hospital for at least three days to see if pneumonia would develop. The chance of this happening is 1% of babies can get it. I would have had to leave the hospital without my baby! I fought them hard and signed all kinds of forms to take her home "early."

-That is the problem with hospitals, they are great for high-risk pregnancies, emergencies, but not a run of the mill birth. They have to watch their backs on the smallest risks just in case. Which I understand, but doesn't work for my births so far.

-After I have my baby I kind of become a mamma bear and don't want them taken away, they just came from my body, I don't like it when they want to take them to the nursery constantly. I learned that the second time around when I nursed Lainey constantly the first day and my milk came in the next. With Hadley my milk didn't come in till 5 days later, nobody told me to nurse often as in every hour instead of every three. So Hads starved for awhile and it was traumatic for us, we didn't know what we were doing. I guess I can't really blame that on the hospital.

-We had a couple of baby doctors see our baby in the hospital, (you know take their pulse temp.), they weren't on our insurance and we were charged the full price!

-But truly the number one reason I didn't want my baby born in a hospital is the cost. Even with insurance to have a healthy normal pregnancy and birth costs upwards of 5 grand! Give me a break. You mean, I do all the work of growing the baby and giving birth and I pay doctors and hospitals and insurance companies thousands upon thousands of dollars?! Doesn't make any sense.Anyway that is my opinion on the matter, I usually don't have strong opinions on certain things, or I don't voice them. But this situation, I know what I want.
(if I really had my way I would have had Tony deliver my baby at home, but he said no.)