I love this post and I wish I had seen it before my first birth. I had a birthing plan and a "supportive" hospital, but it wasn't really. The natural birthing room was "mysteriously" occupied both times we tried to use it. I was encouraged to walk to a certain point. I now know that I was right to the point of being ready to deliver, I was checked and told it would be hours and I needed Pitocin, which meant I needed an epidural, which meant I needed an episiotomy. One thing lead to the next, but thankfully not to a C-section. We did two hospital births, the second being induced all night long the day after my due date with the nurse holding the baby in while the doctor ran in and caught him. Good fun. Then three homebirths with a midwife, which went much better than the original two. Had we known about vaccines, choices, being with our children the whole time in the hospital, it might have felt better. We were happy to have healthy babies, true, but we just did what everyone else does...no research really. A birthing class or two, but no real research. I think it is great that you go to all professional appointments with your kids. I hope that you will be able to continue to do that. I have heard of parents being locked out of doctor appointments while their kids are asked questions and told the parents won't find out. My husband says we would just find a new doctor if we were in that situation. Anyway, this is a great post! You sound like great parents! :)
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Thank you so much for your support and reading my posts. Every time I was in labor I was afraid the birthing rooms would be taken already too. There are only a few of them at our hospital and they are on a first come first serve basis. We were blessed to have the same room each time. So I can imagine your frustration, I would have been bummed as well. Wow that’s exactly the stages our Doula spoke about...they lead you right down that road. I’m so glad you didn’t have to go through a cesarean. Did I read that correctly...a nurse held your baby in? Wowsers I can’t imagine what that felt like for you.
That is amazing that you had three home births. If we could have afforded home births that would have been our first choice so we went with the next best which was midwives at the hospital. I used to imagine me giving birth at home in a pool but that never happened.
If I didn’t have health problems back then I’m not sure if I would have researched so much. It’s kind of like one thing led to another. I researched about getting healthier and different alternatives to medicines and better foods and then my health got much better. We then decided to go further with the thought “let’s see what things are good for babies for when we have them” and it just went from there. That’s when all of our decisions about vaccines and meds were clear. I always say this “there is no place in this hospital that our baby can go but we can’t”. If someone ever tried to stop us from following our babies I’m not sure how we would have reacted. We probably would have took them home early or something lol. I have been hearing about children giving their own consent to medical treatment and procedures in some states. That’s ridiculous to me. No minor of ours is going to make decisions like that. If this were to ever happen we would find another place too.
Yes, she held in my son, but I was on an epidural, so I had no idea. Right after delivery, they told me I was "this close" to having a C-section because the baby's heart rate kept dropping and they kept making me flip from side to side. Then they finally checked and hello, I was completely ready to have this baby. Just craziness. I am glad they didn't give you any grief for wanting to go where your babies went! It seems these days like the hospital feels like they own the patient. "You can't leave until we say. We know better than you do. You will do what we say." Anyway, I think it's pretty much like that everywhere. Crazy.
That’s just sad how they do that to mothers. They give them drugs and then say “oh no your baby’s heart rate is dropping we gotta get him out asap, over to the operating room.” I once heard of a family that challenged that. They were told the baby’s head rate was dropping but they chose to believe the baby was fine and allowed the mother to continue on birthing naturally. Turns out the baby was fine and she had a healthy normal delivery. They took a chance because they heard that was a scare tactic to get parents to consent to a cesarean. You just never know but it would be scary to take a chance like that.
I’ve had my experience of telling doctors no and expressing my concern with things. They do try to intimidate you by their knowledge but I have knowledge too. 😁