Oh dear, I think I may have dug myself a bit of a hole here. My clinic does shared care, which means that at my ante natal appointments I can be seen by one of about 7 people. Today I met midwife number 3, who told me that if my baby is premature I will have to go into hospital to have it. Now, unfortunately, I am the sort of person who automatically says no as soon as anyone tells me I ‘have’ to do something. A heated discussion followed and the midwife informed me that they would be in ‘a very difficult position’ if I refused to go into hospital. Now obviously, if the baby is in danger I will go into hospital, but there is no way that I am going there to have a perfectly healthy baby just because I am a couple of weeks early. The definition of ‘early’ changed throughout the course of the conversation from 37 weeks to between 36 and 37. My baby is measuring a couple of weeks bigger than average so I am fully confident that all will be fine if it does come out ‘early’. The midwife took me seriously when I said that the baby couldn’t be 2 weeks late ‘cos that’s my birthday, and asked about other members of my family and their gestation lengths. She was openly shocked when I told her that my youngest sister was 6 weeks late, and my mother finally agreed to be induced when the placenta gave up and a bit of it dropped on the living room floor. I come from a long line of stubborn women! (My sister is horribly healthy and always has been).
I do want to go and see the hospital though, just in case and they reluctantly agreed that the next visit that they have planned, 2 weeks before my due date is a bit late for me. Hopefully I can tag along to another clinic’s tour next week. There are lots of reasons I want to avoid the hospital; I want people to be looking at me, not a monitor and I do not want my labour to be artificially fitted around shift patterns. The basic problem here is that I don’t trust the medical profession but I do trust my body. The whole system seems to be set up to treat pregnancy as an illness and I am not ill.
I had lots of questions that the midwife thought were a bit premature, such as what do I need to organise for a home birth and when should I let them know that I want to hire a TENS machine. I just want to get everything ready while I can still fit behind a steering wheel to collect stuff. Someone will come and visit me at home to discuss what I need nearer the time, and I should let them know around week 34 about TENS.
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