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#1
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Looking for natural birth in WV/MD
Hi!
I had my first two babies in a birth center in Massachusetts--was very happy with the experience and would gladly do it again, and was also planning on investigating homebirth if we had gotten pregnant up north. However, in the midst of thinking we'd never have any more kids, we moved to WV to be near my husband's infirm (and not long for this world) parents. The status of midwives in WV is "ambiguous"--they are not prosecuted but except for CNMs they're not encouraged either. Homebirths are definitely not covered by insurance and I'm also worried about transport (we're at least 50 miles from the nearest "good" hospital). We are near both the MD and VA borders, and could go to either state, but the closest birth center is in Baltimore, about 90 minutes away--and my last labor was 90 minutes. There's no guarantee that I'd have that short a labor again, but in both of my prior labors things got very intense very fast, and I don't want to have that experience in a car. As it stands I have an appointment with a midwife/OB practice about 45 minutes away, but I don't like the feel of it at all--very busy, they only do births in a hospital, they couldn't get me in before 8 weeks (and after three and a half years of of infertility I want a lot more reassurance) and it seems like it's a "med"wives practice rather than the comforting and very low-intervention experience I would like. For those who don't remember me, I'm well educated about birth and would no doubt be an absolute nightmare patient in a hospital--I'd be fighting to give birth upright, no continuous monitoring, no AROM, you name it. I just don't know if I can handle the fight, but if I lost my birth experience I'd be absolutely crushed. The way I see it I have three options (well, four if you count a UC, but I'm just not ready for that yet): 1) Deal with it, use the medwives, try to have a decent experience in the hospital--this makes my stomach hurt thinking about it, but it IS a possibility. 2) Rent a hotel room in Baltimore and hope that I give birth on or close to my due date and can use that birth center. Possibly very expensive, would have to find someone to take the older kids for several days to a week. 3) Go back up to Massachusetts a few weeks before my due date and stay with family in order to use that birth center. Less expensive, but LONG separation from my kids and husband, and possibility that he'd miss the birth. Nothing seems ideal, and it's all making me very apprehensive. Anyone have any advice or possibilities I haven't thought of yet? Joanna Meriwether, 6 Honour, 4 EDD 6/4/04 |
#2
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Looking for natural birth in WV/MD
Joanna Kimball wrote:
The way I see it I have three options (well, four if you count a UC, but I'm just not ready for that yet): 1) Deal with it, use the medwives, try to have a decent experience in the hospital--this makes my stomach hurt thinking about it, but it IS a possibility. 2) Rent a hotel room in Baltimore and hope that I give birth on or close to my due date and can use that birth center. Possibly very expensive, would have to find someone to take the older kids for several days to a week. 3) Go back up to Massachusetts a few weeks before my due date and stay with family in order to use that birth center. Less expensive, but LONG separation from my kids and husband, and possibility that he'd miss the birth. Nothing seems ideal, and it's all making me very apprehensive. Anyone have any advice or possibilities I haven't thought of yet? Have you checked out the availability of local midwives who will do homebirths? If you could manage the lack of insurance, all you're left with is the distance issue and perhaps you could find some clever way to deal with that. How close are you to Alexandria, VA? I would recommend the midwives I used there, if they're close enough. I don't know where you are in WV, but I know people around here who commute daily from WV (though I think they're crazy ;-) Nice to see you back! Ericka |
#3
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Looking for natural birth in WV/MD
Joanna Meriwether, 6 Honour, 4 EDD 6/4/04 ACK!! I was just thinking about you as I've just come back to MKP (we'll be TTC #4 soon) and asked an herb question. Congrats on #3!!! Sophie Charlotte, 5 Patrick, almost 4 Lewis, 20 months |
#4
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Looking for natural birth in WV/MD
"Joanna Kimball" thenospacekimballsatintergatedotcom wrote:
We're quite a ways from Alexandria. We're in the eastern panhandle, about 30 miles south (as the crow flies--the driving distance is more like 45 miles) of Hagerstown, MD and 40 miles north of Winchester, VA. I've thought about trying to swing a homebirth, but money-wise it would be a big problem and there's also the transport issue. With the closest decent hospital being 45 minutes away (and the closest crappy hospital is 30), I don't feel very comfortable about emergency transport issues I have no idea how birth-friendly it is, but Winchester Medical is a great hospital. My mom was there for her emergency brain surgery and outpatient cancer treatment this last year. (I was actually snowed in there for several days last February [at about 10 weeks pg] while my mom was in ICU.) Good luck figuring out birth options. -- z e l d a b e e @ p a n i x . c o m http://NewsReader.Com/ |
#5
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Looking for natural birth in WV/MD
Joanna Kimball wrote:
We're quite a ways from Alexandria. We're in the eastern panhandle, about 30 miles south (as the crow flies--the driving distance is more like 45 miles) of Hagerstown, MD and 40 miles north of Winchester, VA. I've thought about trying to swing a homebirth, but money-wise it would be a big problem and there's also the transport issue. With the closest decent hospital being 45 minutes away (and the closest crappy hospital is 30), I don't feel very comfortable about emergency transport issues. Getting closer to the hospital isn't really an option (unless I give birth in my office, which is in Hagerstown). Selfishly, I also just don't feel good about a homebirth in this house. We've got two kids, two cats, and three Great Danes in a 1500-sq-ft house--it would be an almost impossible task for me to carve out a clean and quiet nest for myself, and trying to do so alone would put a huge strain on me at the end of the pregnancy. One of the things I loved so much about using a birth center is that it was like walking into a hotel--I didn't have to clean up beforehand and I didn't have to do a thing afterward. With any decent midwives, you shouldn't have to do a thing afterwards and the mess is negligible. Also, costs can be quite reasonable with direct entry midwives (in 1997 we paid only $1800 for everything). Of course, none of that solves the distance from the hospital option, but on the other hand with fast labors you might actually be better off on balance by having someone local come to you rather than trying to rush yourself to the hospital in time! And you can mitigate some risk by being more conservative. I.e., if the hospital were very nearby, maybe you'd take a wait and see approach with some situations, but with the hospital farther away maybe you transport instead--and at least you'd have a midwife along for the ride to the hospital! And I think perhaps you overestimate what is necessary in terms of getting a house ready. Ordinary cleanliness is fine and you don't need a lot of room. I would just encourage you to talk to a local homebirth midwife or two just to open the option. You might not take it, but options are nice to have. Also, you might luck out and find a homebirth midwife who lives nearer the hospital who might open her home to you while you're in labor. Then it would be sort of like a birthing center birth without having to travel too far! I know some midwives who would do that, so I don't think it's *that* outrageous a notion. That said, I can certainly understand why you feel homebirth is less than an ideal option for you and why you'd rather do something different. I just figure that since you don't have *any* options that are ideal, you might as well investigate all the less-than-ideal options in case one of them sits better with you than you previously thought ;-) The appealing thing about the homebirth is that aside from finding someone who could be with your older children during the labor, it's the options that requires the least in terms of outside support. If you elect the go-to-a-hotel-near-term, I would put BirthCare in Alexandria on your list of possibilities for birthing centers you could do that with. You wouldn't have any family or friends near Alexandria (or the other birthing center you mentioned) that you could stay with near term, would you? I do think if you can bring in family to be with you near the end for support, that would be lovely. Extra hands always help. Well, okay, *supportive* extra hands always help ;-) Good luck, Ericka |
#6
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Looking for natural birth in WV/MD
"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message ... With any decent midwives, you shouldn't have to do a thing afterwards and the mess is negligible. Also, costs can be quite reasonable with direct entry midwives (in 1997 we paid only $1800 for everything). Of course, none of that solves the distance from the hospital option, but on the other hand with fast labors you might actually be better off on balance by having someone local come to you rather than trying to rush yourself to the hospital in time! (snip) You wouldn't have any family or friends near Alexandria (or the other birthing center you mentioned) that you could stay with near term, would you? I do think if you can bring in family to be with you near the end for support, that would be lovely. Extra hands always help. Well, okay, *supportive* extra hands always help ;-) Thanks again, Ericka (and the others who replied to this thread)-- Yes, I've got lots to think about. I'll be a busy bee for the next few weeks figuring out options--after staying up half the night thinking about it I'm leaning towards going with the close and not-so-fuzzy practice for a little while just to get bloodwork and hopefully a dating u/s done, and then switching to a further practice. I could theoretically make the Baltimore birth center for monthly visits, since they're about 45 minutes from where I work, and then can decide whether I want to put the effort into giving birth there, in Alexandria, or whether I should be looking into homebirth. My husband is also actively jobhunting now (to switch--thankfully he's still employed), so our insurance is likely to change midway through, which will be another complication. Ah, the joys of pregnancy in a strange area! -- Joanna Meriwether, 6 Honour, 4 EDD 5/4/04 |
#7
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Looking for natural birth in WV/MD
Hi Joanna...I'm not pregnant or even ttc...I'm just a lurker who likes
reading birth stories! LOL Anyway, just wanted to say hi, since I live in Martinsburg and you sound like you're pretty close to me...I am assuming that the "crappy hospital" you're talking about is City Hospital? LOL I know the feeling...I live 5 minutes away from it and STILL go to Winchester Medical when anyone in my family gets sick! Nancy "Joanna Kimball" thenospacekimballsatintergatedotcom wrote in message news:3f4fc929_3@newsfeed... Hi! I had my first two babies in a birth center in Massachusetts--was very happy with the experience and would gladly do it again, and was also planning on investigating homebirth if we had gotten pregnant up north. However, in the midst of thinking we'd never have any more kids, we moved to WV to be near my husband's infirm (and not long for this world) parents. The status of midwives in WV is "ambiguous"--they are not prosecuted but except for CNMs they're not encouraged either. Homebirths are definitely not covered by insurance and I'm also worried about transport (we're at least 50 miles from the nearest "good" hospital). We are near both the MD and VA borders, and could go to either state, but the closest birth center is in Baltimore, about 90 minutes away--and my last labor was 90 minutes. There's no guarantee that I'd have that short a labor again, but in both of my prior labors things got very intense very fast, and I don't want to have that experience in a car. As it stands I have an appointment with a midwife/OB practice about 45 minutes away, but I don't like the feel of it at all--very busy, they only do births in a hospital, they couldn't get me in before 8 weeks (and after three and a half years of of infertility I want a lot more reassurance) and it seems like it's a "med"wives practice rather than the comforting and very low-intervention experience I would like. For those who don't remember me, I'm well educated about birth and would no doubt be an absolute nightmare patient in a hospital--I'd be fighting to give birth upright, no continuous monitoring, no AROM, you name it. I just don't know if I can handle the fight, but if I lost my birth experience I'd be absolutely crushed. The way I see it I have three options (well, four if you count a UC, but I'm just not ready for that yet): 1) Deal with it, use the medwives, try to have a decent experience in the hospital--this makes my stomach hurt thinking about it, but it IS a possibility. 2) Rent a hotel room in Baltimore and hope that I give birth on or close to my due date and can use that birth center. Possibly very expensive, would have to find someone to take the older kids for several days to a week. 3) Go back up to Massachusetts a few weeks before my due date and stay with family in order to use that birth center. Less expensive, but LONG separation from my kids and husband, and possibility that he'd miss the birth. Nothing seems ideal, and it's all making me very apprehensive. Anyone have any advice or possibilities I haven't thought of yet? Joanna Meriwether, 6 Honour, 4 EDD 6/4/04 |
#8
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Looking for natural birth in WV/MD
Joanna Kimball wrote:
Hi! I had my first two babies in a birth center in Massachusetts--was very happy with the experience and would gladly do it again, and was also planning on investigating homebirth if we had gotten pregnant up north. We are near both the MD and VA borders, and could go to either state, but the closest birth center is in Baltimore, about 90 minutes away--and my last labor was 90 minutes. If Ericka or Sarajoyo has responded to this thread yet, I believe they both see the same group of midwives, who will do homebirth or freestanding birth center in MD. I'm hopelessly behind in the newsgroup, so if this is old news, forgive me; otherwise, an email to either of them may give you some contacts. Mary S. mom to the Sproutkin, 17 months |
#9
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Looking for natural birth in WV/MD
"Mary" wrote in message ... If Ericka or Sarajoyo has responded to this thread yet, I believe they both see the same group of midwives, who will do homebirth or freestanding birth center in MD. I'm hopelessly behind in the newsgroup, so if this is old news, forgive me; otherwise, an email to either of them may give you some contacts. Thanks, Mary--yes, I've talked to both. They recommended a practice in Alexandria, VA, which DOES sound wonderful but is way, way far to drive (they do homebirths within a certain radius of DC, and we're out of that radius). The "closest" birth center to us is Baltimore, 90 minutes from our house but "only" 45 minutes from my work. My super-great husband and I talked it over tonight, and he wants me to dump the practice nearer to me and just hoof it to Baltimore. He said, "I would rather have the baby in a parking lot than in a hospital!" So as it stands I'm going to try to get in touch with them and see if we can work out appointment times and some sort of a rough plan. If Baltimore absolutely won't work I'll try Alexandria; maybe we can work out a meeting place (a midwife's home or something) that is closer than all the way to the city. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I really want to be seen *soon* and hopefully get some serial HCGs--I know intellectually that there's no benefit to early visits as long as I'm taking my prenatals, but I've been trying and killing myself for three years of infertility, and I just want to have somebody say, yup, you're really pregnant, everything looks good, so I can stop checking toilet paper sixteen times a day. The practice near me can't get me in for another four weeks and were stonefaced to my pleas, so I'm hoping Baltimore will be a little more sympathetic. Thanks again, -- Joanna Meriwether, 6 Honour, 4 EDD 5/4/04 |
#10
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Looking for natural birth in WV/MD
Joanna Kimball wrote:
radius). The "closest" birth center to us is Baltimore, 90 minutes from our house but "only" 45 minutes from my work. My super-great husband and I talked it over tonight, and he wants me to dump the practice nearer to me and just hoof it to Baltimore. He said, "I would rather have the baby in a parking lot than in a hospital!" 90 minutes, yikes. We were 45 minutes from ours, which was a big decision to make, but it was a first birth so the midwives didn't think it was any big deal at all. We had planned to go in at the very first signs of labor, and just stay in a hotel in the area if it looked unsure -- we scoped out some of the little inns and motels and so forth. It didn't end up being necessary (long labor, thanks Sproutkin!), but that's something you might want to consider. Still, that's a long car ride. I hope they can work something out with a homebirth or a midwife's house. Good luck. Mary S. mom to the Sproutkin, 17 months |
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