Some people give birth at 36 weeks, I switch hospitals

Vision this, Jason and I touring our original place of birth at 35 weeks.   We walked (Jason walked, I waddled) the halls hand in hand, envisioned the day our baby would be born, listened to the hospital tour guide share her list of top hospital birthing room essentials, watched a tired looking woman hair frazzled and eyes red with tears being wheeled into the operating room for a C-section…(insert sound of screeching car wheels)…

WHAT!  At this point the dreaded C-section was now my worst birthing fear.  After much research I was now striving for a natural, drug free birth.  A far cry from the scheduled C-section birth I had dreamed about in my early months of pregnancy.   

In all seriousness, deciding on the place where you deliver your baby is more important than you think.   After we were married and I moved to Maryland I started to go to an OBGYN recommended by friends.  After I became pregnant I figured I would deliver at the same hospital with the same doctors.   But as I began to think about my ideal birth experience I started to feel that the hospital where we were scheduled to deliver wasn’t meshing with my ideal birth plan. 

We went for a tour, spoke with all three doctors in the practice, discussed our birth plan but something just didn’t feel right.  Maybe it was the fact that our original hospital has one of the highest C-section rates in the state of Maryland, maybe it was the fact that one of my doctors told me that if all else fails he would just cut the baby out (um, was that suppose to make me feel better about this whole birthing process).

I was 36 weeks pregnant.  Some women give birth at 36 weeks.  My baby could technically be done cooking.  My belly button had popped weeks ago.  This was not a time to make a drastic change. 

I decided that I would give birth at our original birth location and then switch my OBGYN and hospital for baby #2.   But after lots of tears (damn you pregnancy hormones!) and repeating of the million-dollar question, “What should I do?” to everyone who would listen I finally came to the realization (with the help of our doula) that the birth of my first baby would determine how I would birth any additional babies in the future.  In addition, I started to ask myself, if I had an incredibly negative birth experience would I want to give birth again?   

I was at a loss.  I was technically full-term and could give birth any day, yet I just did not feel comfortable delivering at our originally hospital.    Now if you really know me you know that I am both stubborn and only make significant decisions after a lot of research and debate.  So, I did what I always do when I have to make a difficult decision; I prayed and Googled.  Googling “should I switch doctors at 36 weeks?” I received about 2,310,000 results.  Clearly I wasn’t the only mom struggling with this same question.

I have a pretty terrific husband who was very supportive and encouraging through this process.  I think he also wanted to end the crazy pregnancy hormone crying.  But in the end his actions helped me to make the decision to switch doctors/hospitals.  Jason reached out to two co-workers to learn about their experiences with our new possible place of birth as well as with midwives.  

Two of his co-workers emailed me sharing their positive birth experiences. One of his co-workers, who I will forever be grateful for her the email response she sent, decided to switch her doctor late in pregnancy and encouraged me to follow my instincts to make the best decision for our baby and me.

So just as Oprah told her viewers (oh Oprah, I miss our 4 o’clock dates), “Listen to your gut”.  Trust your intuition.   When that little voice starts to nudge you, then begins to push you.  Listen.  There is a reason why you may be feeling a certain way.

It may be pregnancy hormones but it may just be your body telling you to take a step back and reassess.  No matter what stage of your pregnancy- 4 weeks or 40 weeks, make the decision that will make you the happiest and most comfortable. 

I would be lying if I told you the switch between doctors was a stress free experience.  But in the end the switch to a new hospital and medical staff was one of the best decisions I could have made as it allowed me to achieve a positive, life changing birth.  Shoot, I think I might just do the pregnancy thing again!