It's taken me a while to be okay with the pregnancy. Not that I didn't want it, or not that I would have ever considered ending it. It's just that the last go of it was rough on me. And while there wasn't anything wrong with me physically or with my baby. My head wasn't and really still isn't. My current midwife encouraged me to write it all down. I may have written bits and pieces of it. I may have tried to be okay with what happened, but the thing is I'm not. It effected me enough that I had anxiety off and on the last two years and I have come to hate fall. I have been a mess the last two falls, and well that isn't right.
You see last time, around things didn't go right. I was annoyed to say the least, but I didn't understand how much it effected me until I found myself pregnant with a third baby. I mean I knew I had anxiety from Ephraim, but really his non-sleeping bit just probably was the tip on the iceberg. He otherwise was a rather fine baby. It was this time around that I found myself in a frenzy. I could and probably still can work myself up so much that my heart races at ridiculous amounts that it shouldn't while being pregnant. I am even awesome at raising my own blood pressure, not enough to be scary, but enough to know that something isn't right.
So what did happen? Well I guess it came down to the fact that I was let down and made to feel like I didn't matter. I had a great experience in my first birth with Ben that I had come to think that could happen again. I had heard great things about this so-called birthing center. I wanted part of it, because I wanted as little intervention as possible again and well this was the place that was supposed to do it. This was the place with the midwife that was supposed to be amazing. To actually get the midwife that you saw with your pre-natal care. A novelty to me, I had before hand been seen by a group that couldn't tell me who would actually be at my baby's birth. Little did I know, the same thing was happening at the "birthing center" as well.
When I started going for pre-natal care, it was just one midwife, who we will call Cara, what I was signing on for I thought. Then after two more visits another midwife, let's call her Sarah, was added into the mix. I was still okay with this. I figured okay, one out of two, I at least will have seen both of them by the time this baby was born. But apparently by the end of the pregnancy, the office had combined with another office and well, it was the same thing as the first go of it. And while I know this is the norm amongst medical practice now. It shouldn't be. Because honestly, for someone to get the best care, the doctor, or midwife should really know their patient. This rotation of caregivers to the patient doesn't allow that. Instead they become a chart, a number mostly.
Near the end of the pregnancy, I still saw either Cara or Sarah. Cara and Sarah couldn't agree on me. One thought I was measuring very far off, and the other thought everything was fine. Sarah, the one who thought I was measuring off by 5 weeks, sent me in for a late 3rd trimester ultrasound. And well it came back that Cara was right, but honestly, this is the problem with group midwifery, not everyone has the same philosophy or style. I ran into this a bit in my first full term pregnancy too, but it wasn't as extreme. It just was more or less a personality difference than a non-agreement. So I got this ultrasound, which was completely ineffective for what she wanted it to be, but the ultrasound tech said my dates were approximately right.
Another odd, but important fact, was at one appointment at around 7 months in, Cara snapped at my toddler during an office visit. She yelled at him for playing with the bottom of a scale, not because it was breakable, it wasn't, the sound just annoyed her. This made me so upset, probably more so than my toddler, but I held it in until I was in the car. I later called the office and talked to the office manager, Lisa, about this incident, who had had her children with Cara attending. Lisa assured me that Cara must have been having a rough day and that she would not be like this at my baby's birth. This however, did make me switch to just seeing Sarah for a while.
So I went over my due date, and lo and behold I had to sit through a non-stress test for the baby. To make sure everything was okay. I went with a toddler in tow, so you best believe that exam room was destroyed by the end as I had to sit tight for an hour. Because yes, the midwife, Sarah, the one who was so worried about me measuring off, forgot about me. Maybe this should have been a warning sign.
Eight days past my due date, I go into labor post taking a nap. (to be continued)
No comments:
Post a Comment