My Pre-Birth Story

Well, it's been 5 weeks since I had my littlest munchkin, at home, with two amazing midwives from Gentle Birth Care, my loving and tolerant husband, my mum, my oldest munchkin, and my sweet dog Maully.

Since then I've had loads of questions and people asking me to share the details of our slightly unorthodox birth, so here it is in two parts. First is the back story that lead us to our decision to have a home birth, and then still to come is Part II, the ooey, gooey, birth story.

As most of you know, we have an amazing, bright, & beautiful 1.5 year old girl who I lovingly refer to in cyberspace as Big A (We've given both of our girls "A" names, and this is a great way to refer to them with a bit of a throwback to Dr. Seuss's ABC's). We were living in England when I gave birth to her and was blessed to experience the NHS. Seriously, NO sarcasm there. I loved the NHS. Especially for childbirth. It was minimalistic. No one treated me like I was sick. And even though I was routinely checked to make sure things were progressing well, I wasn't really "treated" at all. I had a lovely midwife for office visits and a luck-of-the-draw midwife that attended my hospital birth. There are many things about Big A's birth that I knew I wouldn't want to have happen again...but all in all, it was a wonderful experience. She & I were discharged 12 hours later to go home feeling healthy & elated & sore. :)

So, second time around, we're in the good ol' U.S. of A. Neither Jake nor myself had had much experience of health insurance. In college we were still on our parent's insurance, when we were first married, we were uninsured, and then in the UK we had the beautiful NHS. When we first arrived in Chicago, the insurance plan that UChicago postdocs had available to them was United Healthcare. I desperately wanted a midwife. I'm a low-risk 20-something 2nd time mother, planning an unmedicated birth. I don't need a highly trained OB/GYN, for all intents and purposes, a surgeon, to deliver my baby. I need someone who performs normal run-of-the-mill boring old vaginal births. But, that's not how things work in the US, and the only "in-network" midwife available was in Milwaukee, almost two hours away. And even though they would contribute to an out of network midwife, it would have cost us thousands of dollars out of pocket, and frankly, we don't have thousands of dollars to spare at the moment. So, I reluctantly went to the U of Chicago hospital across the Midway from our house, and found a lovely OB/GYN who my insurance would cover 100%. She was very nice and tolerated our millions of questions, such as, "Does the hospital require the baby have the vitamin K shot, erythromycin for the eyes, would I have to have the pitocin shot after birth, could I be mobile, would I have to be continuously monitored, and how long after going into labor/waters breaking would I have to be induced or have a C-section?" Quite a few questions she refused to answer, brushing them off with "We'll have plenty of time to worry about that." I felt gutted that I was going to have to settle for an over-medicated, and therefore higher risk birth, but she was nice and the best that we could afford (which totally kills me since an OB and a hospital birth costs the insurance about 3 times more than a home birth with a certified nurse midwife...but I digress)

We rang in the new year and the University of Chicago decided to ring in a new health care company. We were changed to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois PPO, and suddenly the sun came out. There were a gagillion in-newtork midwives in the Chicago area, but the University of Chicago hospital didn't allow midwife deliveries, so I would have to deliver at a hospital further away, which worried me for many reasons. First of all, I was worried about driving, in traffic, in labor. Blech. I was worried about being so far away from Big A. And from the little research I did online, I was worried that a midwife delivery in the hospital wasn't going to be very different from what I could expect at U of C. So, I continued with my prenatal care with my OB/GYN.

I had my 20 week ultrasound. Things looked good, but the baby wouldn't change positions, so they weren't able to see a few things. A few weeks later I went back for a re-scan. The baby still proved to be slightly uncooperative, and they were unable to see a chamber of the heart. The sonographer said everything seemed fine, but they might want to reschedule one more scan, but since the baby was running out of room it was unlikely they would get a good scan anymore. So we saw the OB/GYN who said we would probably need to have a fetal echo cardiogram. Jake & I both reassured her that we were not concerned and that we felt that seemed excessive. She said she would consult with her colleagues and get back to us with what they felt would be best. A few days later I received a phone call that emotionally blackmailed me into consenting to the test. It was pretty much phrased that if I wanted to take a life or death risk with my unborn child that I would be a horrible mother, but that it was my choice. Ugh. So, Jake & I decided to have the test the first of March. When we arrived the nurse who showed us into the exam room asked if we knew why we were being referred since she couldn't see any high risk indicators on my chart. Then the sonographer came in and asked the same question. Argh. He then performed an HOUR long ultrasound. Next we were ushered into another room to wait while the cardiologist reviewed the images. The first thing he said to us when he walked in was, "So why exactly have you been referred?" I explained the previous scan issues and he just seemed perplexed. He explained that there were no abnormalities and that I hadn't needed to have the test, but that he was sure my doctor was just being overcautious, and how great that was. Jake & I left so angry at the whole ordeal and at the system that perpetuates the time and money wasting of highly trained specialists. On our walk home we decided we were done with U Chicago Medical Center.

I began researching midwives and set up some interviews. And then I came across some midwives that would do home births, and that some of them were in-network, and that my insurance would pay 100% of that! I wasn't sure that I wanted a home birth, but I liked that we had a new option and I started meeting with some midwives that only did home births. Some were weird. One was so awkward with Big A. Some were so new age touchy-feely that I wanted to puke. Another was also a nutter Bible-thumper. But then we met with a hospital group of midwives that seemed like just what we were looking for. But while speaking to one of the midwives it came up that we had been considering home birth and she asked if we had met with Hillary Keiser. Hillary had helped start the West Suburban Midwife Assn., and had left a year ago to do home births. She couldn't say enough positive things about her and really urged us to meet her before making a decision.

So we met Hillary and her assistant Tera and we were sold. They were exactly what we were looking for. They said everything we wanted to hear. Hillary has years and years of experience both in hospital and at home, so laid back but so experienced. Tera is young and a recently certified CNM and so zealous and full of excitement, and she was amazing with Big A. She didn't care that I was entering my 3rd trimester. She didn't care that I was overweight. She didn't care that we live in Hyde Park. She didn't care that we had a dog, or that I wanted my 18 month old to be present. They were perfect and we made the switch.