Hi, my name is Sara and I am currently thirty three and a half weeks pregnant. You may have seen my posts on the Home Business, Genealogy, and Money blogs here on Families.com. I’m excited to join the Pregnancy blog even at this late stage in my second pregnancy because between this experience and my pregnancy with my twenty seven month old son, there is plenty to talk about.
As anyone who has been pregnant more than once can tell you, each pregnancy is completely different. Some of the things that are different with this pregnancy are things that I have done and others are things that are not within my control. The major difference between my current pregnancy and my first pregnancy is the type of prenatal care that I am receiving. Prenatal care is very important for the pregnant woman and the child, and my family’s experience with our first pregnancy also proved that prenatal care affects husbands and fathers, too.
When we found out that we were pregnant with our son, we did not think to look beyond the local hospital for prenatal care. It is ten minutes from our home and it has a birthing center as well as a team of midwives so there is the option of receiving care from them instead of an OB GYN. Oh, and did I mention that we also happened to know that the food at that hospital is better than that at any restaurant in town?
Later in the pregnancy, things fell apart. I am not a medical professional, so it is not my place to say whether all of the things that happened were right or wrong. I’ll just say that my husband and I have our doubts about whether all of it was really necessary. What is more important is how we felt about the whole experience, which is grateful that our son was born healthy and strong yet rather displeased with how we were treated during the last few weeks of the pregnancy, labor, and delivery. I felt like any amount of control that I had over my birth experience was ripped away from me. My husband felt like decisions were being made for us without our input. He tried to ask questions, get information, and protect me during that vulnerable time and was treated with disrespect.
This time around, we have chosen to work with a pair of independent midwives. I am grateful to live in a state where I have access to this type of care. I feel very well cared for, and as I will discuss in a later post, very empowered. My husband feels confident in the midwives and in my ability to work with them to have a healthy pregnancy. If the next two and a half weeks go by and my health remains as solid as it is right now, I can give birth in the comfort of my own home when the time comes.