CARE provider?

This has been the week from hell so far (and yes I know it's only Tuesday). On Monday morning I drove to my normal midwife's office to have my non-stress test done and to strip my membranes (to try and help things along). Well upon my arrival what do I find but that MY midwife has been FIRED! And replaced by a new midwife that can't legally practice on her own yet so the doctor has to sit in on all her clients for the next week.

No warning, Nothing!

So what do you do? At 41+wks prego what options do you have? So I cancelled the appointment and left. Re-thought that decision today but we will get to that part of the story.

About a month ago my husband and I decided which hospital we would like for our birth. Unfortionaltely my current midwife didn't have credentials to deliver in that hospital. So I started to 'see' one of the doctors. I love the hospital and they are very natural friendly. They even allow water births :)

I thought this was just great, even though my midwife was now gone, I still had this doctor on my side. (HA HA HA) I went into my appointment with him and immediately he said "Ok, you've gone long enough we need to induce you by Thursday." So naturally I tried to work with him. If we do a stress test to prove that the baby is doing well can we go longer? So he agrees to the stress test (which baby passed and VERY well I might add). Then he said well we should actually start to try and induce you Wednesday night, and then if that doesn't work Pitocin by Thursday morning. So again trying to be reasonable, I say well what if you check me. See how far along i am on my own, then we can move the induction or avoid it all together. So he checks me... then says "Well the baby is high, I would personally like to do a C-section but we will try an induction first. No worries we can just do that Thursday if the induction fails."

Did he REALLY just say C-section to me? AFTER telling me that the baby and I were both healthy? WTH!?! I honestly had NO idea what to do or say at that point and I will admit I just sat their stunned for a moment. Then to listen to him telling me again "Be at the hospital by 6pm tomorrow and we will get you induced. You will have the baby by Thursday night."

Insert verbal argument here...
"Despite what you read in your magazines...."
"I consider Pitocin as safe as a natural birth..."
"I've been doing this much longer than you..."
"You will have to trust my expertise, isn't that why you came to me?"
"Do you think another care provider will take you on this late?"
"If I let you go later we are risking the baby's life, do you want to end up with a dead baby?"
"All I care about is having a healthy baby, do you want to go against that?"
And then the nurse in the room... "I had pitocin and the epidural, there isn't anything to it. The baby comes faster and you don't feel much."

I'm not 100% sure what my responses were to those HORRIBLE remarks but eventually I just stopped fighting him. I felt beaten down, pushed around, thrown in the mud, and trampled on. What more could I do or say? I KNEW that the baby wasn't at risk, I KNEW that a C-Section was just completely UNNECESSARY and I KNEW that I could in NO way trust this doctor. He continued to talk to me for maybe 10more minutes while I just sat in silence and held back tears. I'm pretty sure I never even made eye contact again.

As I left the office I was handed a hard that had my induction time AND my C-section time scheduled already. I was horrified. I KNEW I wouldn't be doing it but what could I do? What were my options?

Luckily I have the most AMAZING women around me! I called my sister first and told her the disaster that was my latest doc appointment. Both of us just sat on the phone for awhile not knowing what to say. I KNEW she was angry, I'm almost glad she wasn't with me and I think the doc might have died. But deep down I wanted my big sister to defend me, to fight for me. And hearing her so upset, and her desire to verbally rip him to pieced made me feel pretty good :) So after we both calmed down a little (you really can't calm down too much when you are bullied that much) we started to think of my next step. What do I do now? My sister even scarified one of the rooms in her house for me (her children were destroying it and she stayed on the phone with me instead of stopping the kids. I totally owe her one!)

Well we both knew I needed to cancel the induction with the hospital, but that was the hospital that I wanted to deliver at later. Would they now hate me? Would they treat me differently when i went into labor? What if that HORRIBLE man was on call when I went into labor? Oh me, Oh my!

At this point we started to talk about my old practice. I obviously couldn't have my midwife :( but the new lady was starting to look nice. But then we thought for a second... she is UNDER the doctor. OB/GYN's really don't like women to go passed 41wks. Who is to say that my Estimated Due Date was right in the first place? Do all animals in the wild have exactly the same length of pregnancies? Or do they vary 2-3weeks? I think we all know the answer. Doc's are too concerned with their malpractice insurance, well IF something were to happen. IF the baby went into distress. IF IF IF IF IF... I don't care about the IF. That's why I'm in the hospital for that IF, but I will NOT sacrifice my son or myself based on an IF.

Back to the point... what do I do now?

Well my sister and I just happen to have a friend who is a Doula. A doula is someone who provides non-medical support to woman and their families during labor. We thought she might have an idea. So my sister called her (I tried but her phone was busy, she was already on with my sister), and then she called me. We had one more idea. It might be a long shot though.... there is another midwife. Now my insurance will not pay for her BUT she would allow me to avoid induction, still have a care provider, AND deliver at the desired hospital. It all sounded GREAT to me! Another midwife instead of a doctor even!! BUT the big catch, she might not be able to take me and it could be against hospital/professional policies to take a client from another doctor in the same hospital.

You would think that hour that I waited to hear anything would have been one of the longest hours of my life but I had about 8 phone calls in that time from friends/family/ my husband. So it passed rather quickly. I saw the number for my Doula friend pop up on my phone... SHE WOULD TAKE ME ON!!!!

Immediately I felt a sense of relief, a lot of the stress of the day had been removed. If baby would just stay put for 15 more hours I would have a new care provider who actually CARED about me. Who wanted what was best for baby, AND mom. And who didn't make decisions based on IF, but based on each individual case. With my history through the pregnancy I am NOT high risk and there is no need to induce or have a C-Section :) Now today I have to go to the hospital sign some paperwork to transfer my paperwork over to the new midwife and set up an appointment with her. Then I'm free of this mess, I'm free of the stress and the worry and I can go back to concentrating on having a healthy happy baby. And all the 'fun' ways to try and naturally get him to come out on his own. My body is physically ready for this little one, but being at -3 station he isn't all that interested. And now we can wait on him :) God designed us to deliver babies, and I trust that when the time is right I will be holding mine :-D