reflections on prenatal care {part two}

this is a continuation from my post yesterday. check it out here.

now where was i...? oh yes. my thoughts on prenatal care.

after all that raving about how amazing midwives are, please understand that...
3. not everyone who goes with a midwife will have excellent care. i had a friend in canada who actually ended up transferring her prenatal care to a doctor {from her midwives} because she didn't feel like she was being taken seriously and the concerns she had weren't being addressed properly with the midwife practice she was with. in the end, an OB was the best choice for her and her baby. and that's okay. i think the important thing is that she went with her gut and in the end did what she felt she needed to do for her peace of mind, her health and her baby's health.
my friend in the UK is currently with a midwife who is one of 2 midwives in her area who attend home births {this friend is hoping for her first home birth, although it will be her second birth!}. due to the high demand, my friend has only had a few appointments with this midwife and in some of them she has seemed scattered, unfocused and rushed. this made me sad and a bit annoyed for my friend as this midwife should be seeking to offer a quality of service that she seems unable to provide for her clients due to taking on too many {or so it would seem to me!}. i hope in the end that my friend gets a wonderful home birth experience and that her midwife is able to offer her support and care that is timely and comforting in the time she needs it most. it just seemed sad to me as she commented that she had gotten to know her OB better when she was pregnant the first time. midwife does not always equal nurturing, quantitative {45 mins-1 hr appointments!} care.

4. just because you're in a first world country does not mean prenatal care is going to be awesome. another friend of mine had a beast of a doctor for the first bit of her pregnancy. his rude and unhelpful comments stressed her out and in the end, she fired him and found a better doctor who listens to her and validates her concerns without being condescending or unhelpful. sometimes you have to do "the needful" {as they say here} and leave your OB/midwife if your instinct is telling you that it's not what you want/need.

5. my care here in uganda has been good. i had a midwife {from the UK} giving me my prenatal care up until 36 weeks and then i was transferred to a doctor at the hospital she works closely with and had nothing but rave reviews for him. i am so thankful to have had michele as my midwife here and have nothing but positive things to say about her. she gave me a realistic perspective of what to expect from giving birth in a hospital and in uganda. she gave me insight into the system here and helped me to feel confident despite being an expat "mzungu" {white person}.
i've had two appointments with my doctor and he is soft-spoken but seems competent and confident and from different interactions with people i know here and strangers i've met, i've heard nothing but good things from them as well. i have mixed feelings about giving birth here and in a hospital {mostly the hospital part, to be honest}, but i think that this experience will help me relate to those who have had hospital births in the past as well as give me an opportunity to make the most of this situation - despite the fact that it's not my ideal.

while in the past i might have pushed home births and midwives, i am a little bit older now and hopefully a bit wiser, too. and i am so incredibly thankful for modern medicine, doctors, surgeons and hospitals for the births that are higher risk and more complicated than mine have been. we are blessed.
i have several friends in canada who had high-risk pregnancies due to heart defects, being pregnant with twins and several other issues. i am so incredibly thankful that they had access to the care that they needed for them and for their babies. in another century, who knows what would have happened? so please don't think i am anti-doctor/hospital/medications. i am not.
i think now what i would push is for women to educate themselves. what is best for you and your baby may not be best for everyone. so seek to find out if you like the care presented by doctors or midwives better. maybe you want a home birth but aren't completely comfortable so you look into a birthing center and that becomes your best choice/option. maybe you look into it and decide that a hospital with an epidural is the way to go for you. if you've done your research, i say go for it. {i'd also like to add, that you are stronger than you think you are. and that pain in and of itself isn't necessarily something to be afraid of.}

perhaps with the arrival of this baby i will have begged and pleaded for an epidural. maybe i'll have back labour or maybe my labour will be long and arduous like neither of my other two were. who knows? only God does {as noah likes to remind me}. and so i put my trust in Him and trust that this body that has so graciously and amazingly and miraculously birthed two other babies before baby B can do it again.

i am so looking forward to the journey and the story and sharing it with you when it does happen!

*as always, i love to hear from you, your experiences and dialogue with you. if anything i've said offends or strikes you as incorrect or needs clarifying, please don't hesitate to comment! i understand that the nature of our choices as women and mothers can sometimes cause tension or judgement and that's not my intent at all. i just wanted to share some of my thoughts and reflections on my personal experiences.*

reflections on prenatal care {part one}

a couple of nights ago, as i was standing in a nice, steamy shower letting the somewhat decent water pressure stream hit my big, pregnant belly, i reflected on the prenatal care i've received both here in uganda as well as in the past. and then i started reflecting on others i know who are pregnant and the kind of care they receive.

i had a few thoughts;

1. i love, love, loved my midwives in canada. a friend and i often joked after we had had our second babies that we dreamed of getting pregnant again just to see and hang out with our midwives. they were so attentive and caring but also thorough and careful. i always got the sense that they truly loved what they were doing and really took part in my joy. {they inspired me to one day consider going back to school for midwifery!} my midwives taught me that i can have the birth i want and that sometimes you need to fight a little bit, but it can {almost always} be done. yes, by the very nature of birth, it is unpredictable and things happen, but it shouldn't stop you from exploring every option until you've exhausted all measures within the boundaries of what's safe, keeping in mind what's best for mother and for baby. in my case they booked me not one, but two appointments with two different doctors until i got my prescription for the antibiotics i would need due to me being GBS+ with jude. the first doctor declined to give me a prescription but the second agreed and i was able to get the antibiotics administered from the comfort of my own bedroom to have an amazing second home birth. 

shortly after giving birth to jude at home

my midwives also taught me that i have choices. i can choose to say no to the tests and procedures i do not want. they taught me to educate myself and figure out what i want, rather than just blindly follow what someone else says i should do. when i made up my mind on certain things, they supported me and informed me more fully if they didn't think i had considered all the facts. they taught me that it's okay to ask questions and make sure i know as much as there is to know {or as much as i want to}. 

my midwives were protective of me and my needs; i remember after i gave birth to noah, my sister was the first to arrive and one of the midwives opened the door and asked {somewhat sternly, apparently} who she was before she let her in. i appreciated that. my sister, on the other hand, was expecting someone who was older to be my midwife and thought that my friends had beat her to meeting her nephew and was a bit ticked off!

my first home birth. holding noah in the comfort of my own bed.

2. i am thankful this is my third birth. i am more confident in my body's ability to do what it needs to do. i am more confident of my rights as a pregnant woman. i don't "know it all" and so of course i will always listen to my healthcare provider and take his/her advice/recommendations under consideration. but i'm not just going to go along with what they say. i know that i have a say in things. i also know the general flow of care that happens during prenatal care. this pregnancy has been a lot more "hands on" for me. i have had to go and get my scan {ultrasound} booked and taken care of. i have had to carry around my paperwork - which hasn't been bad, it's just amazing i've remembered to bring it to every appointment thus far! with my midwives, they booked everything for me. it was so great and worry-free. it just makes me so incredibly thankful for the care i received from my midwives in guelph.

my only regret would be that i didn't get any pictures with my midwives!

so i split up this post so it wouldn't be one huge long monster blog post. stay tuned for more tomorrow!

*as always, i love to hear from you, your experiences and dialogue with you. if anything i've said offends or strikes you as incorrect or needs clarifying, please don't hesitate to comment! i understand that the nature of our choices as women and mothers can sometimes cause tension or judgement and that's not my intent at all. i just wanted to share some of my thoughts and reflections on my personal experiences.*

check out part TWO here.