Why I Chose a Midwife: Part 2

Why a home birth?

Like I mentioned before, we did not deliver at home like I had planned, because I wanted to be induced immediately once we found out Luke was no longer living. I didn't think I had too much to say about this part, but realized it took a little more explaining than I thought. So for those of you that might be wondering, here's the scoop on how I came to the decision of a home birth.

There are different ways to become a midwife. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here. It's been over a year since I did all the research about this so the details aren't quite so clear.)  1) Go through a midwifery school, 2) Go to nursing school then have midwifery training, 3) Apprentice under a certified midwife. If I remember correctly, with all of 3 routes you have to attend a certain number of births and pass certain exams to get your license.

Usually the midwives that are also nurses are part of a practice with an OB/GYN. At first I thought this might be what I wanted, but with a little more research I realized that I wasn't interested in this route. Why? Usually you would see a group of midwives and whoever was on-call would be there for your birth. Nope. Not for me. I wanted to know for sure who was going to be at the birth and have a relationship with her.

Other midwives either have practices at "birth centers" or deliver at home births. Birth centers vary, but the ones that I toured consisted of a room with a really nice bed, a tub, a kitchen area, and a living-room area for friends and family to hang out in. That's it. Sometimes they had a fetal monitor but it is rarely used because the midwives monitor fetal heart tones with the Doppler regularly.

I considered birthing at a  lovely birth center in Orem called Bella Natal, but decided against it because their midwives also rotate for your appointments and whoever is on-call comes to the birth. No dice. Sherri (the midwife I selected for my birth) has delivering rights at Feels Like Home Birthing Suites so that's where I planned on having our birth take place.  

Feels Like Home Birth Suite

We ended up moving from our tinny studio apartment in Provo to a lovely home in Payson, when I was about 8 months pregnant. Towards the end of my pregnancy I realized there was no difference between the little Victorian home in Pleasant Grove (aka the birth center) that I would birth in and my own, except for the fact that I'm more comfortable in my own home. Also if I birthed at home, I wouldn't have to pack a bag. I wouldn't have to stress about making sure I had everything that I might want during labor with me. That seemed like so much less stress and so much more comfortable. And I was sold. Besides, if the need to "transport" to the hospital arose,  it was a shorter drive from our house to the Payson hospital than it was from the birth center to the Mt. Timpanogos hospital (both hospitals that we'd go to because they're in our insurance network).

It seemed like a good option to me, so I was set and ready to go with all the extra birth supplies that I would need for our home birth. Oh and as for the clean-up (that some people have expressed concern about) the midwife and her assistants take care of that.

I felt good about my decision and, with everything surrounding my prenatal care and birth decisions, was prayerful about it and didn't feel like I needed to plan anything differently.

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More about why it was such a blessing to have a midwife on the next post ...