First Midwife Appointment

There have been a lot of people asking me about this and asking if I am going to blog about it...the short answer? Of course!

I had my first appointment today. Oddly enough, it was the first time I wasn't scared for baby doctor appointment. I think seeing that everything was so normal and Lucas was doing so well at our big ultrasound 2 weeks ago has really calmed a lot of fears, irrational or not.

I called Monday to see if my records had been sent from my Ob yet and they hadn't so I was kind of annoyed. I faxed the release and info to my Ob LAST Tuesday. So this morning (amongst trying to work, have I ever mentioned I work for a CPA and it's April 15th? AHHH) I called my Ob to check and make sure they A. Got my fax last week and B. if they had sent them yet and if not, could I just pick up a copy on my way to my midwife. I had to leave a message and no one called me back.

I was kind of nervous going in because I knew then I'd have to tell them everything and they wouldn't have the info and stats right there. But my husband and I got there and they had just received them in the mail today! So that was good they had them (great, don't have to deal w/ Ob anymore!!!) but obviously they had not had a chance to go over them yet.

I'm not going to lie...I was a little nervous going in. My Ob was in a brand new section of a hospital in a county here in TN that is really wealthy. Everything was new and clean.

My midwife's building is an older office building and while in a posh area of Nashville, is still IN Nashville and Davidson County. It definitely looked it's age. The waiting room wasn't as nice, but it was nicer in a sense that I didn't feel like I was sitting in a sterile doctor's office.

We waited just a few minutes before a nurse took me back to weigh me. I'm up about 8-10 lbs from my pre pregnancy weight, which for 20 weeks and 3 days sounds great to me. Then she took us to a room (I think we got the worst one of them all! lol) and took my blood pressure. 112/62. Good :)

We waited probably about 15 minutes for Linda, my new midwife. She came in apologizing for our wait and explained she was counseling a patient whom she couldn't help (a VBAC that had some other issues and she could not do who had driven 2 1/2 hours to see her). Of course this was no big deal to me at all, but just the fact that she actually cared and didn't act like it was normal was a nice change from most traditional doctors. She introduced herself and greeted me with a hug. :) I loved her personality already.

We talked a bit about the practice (they are the only certified, and something else, I can't remember) midwifery practice in the region! It's through Vanderbilt and they get to add their input to a lot of regular Ob stuff at Vandy to try to make it better. They are very well respected in the community and have built their practice by word of mouth in the past 10 years. She told me how there are always 2 midwives on call and they work w/ a Vanderbilt Ob if needed who oversees everyone and is there if we need him.

While this doesn't matter so much for me since I don't even want them to talk about drugs during labor and delivery, she told me how she is open to any birth a woman wants and just wants to support those decisions. She also tried to convince my husband that he might change his mind about helping to deliver Lucas with her. I don't think he will (or I really want him to be down there), but we'll see - she says she gets so many dads who say they'll never do it and then can't wait to jump in there with her!

She said she likes to really involve her patients and their partners. After we talked a bit more about how we got pregnant (she has who my acupuncturist was for her daughter and had heard good things about him) and my care thus far (since she couldn't read my whole chart yet) she had my lean back and let my husband find Lucas's heartbeat with the Doppler. She showed him where my uterus was (just above my belly button right now) and where to find it. Together we all heard a nice strong heartbeat from Lucas and she let us listen for awhile. She even felt Lucas kick her while they were finding it!

In the end, I realize it's not about the most up to date carpet or paint, but about the care. And I think our care will be exactly what I am looking for. Linda is so nice and I can tell she is more in tune to what I am wanting out of our birth. Oh, another cool thing? Their episiotomy rate is practically 0% and they have VERRRRRY few C-sections! She said that Vanderbilt always asks them how they manage to do this and she says "time". She gives her patients the time and tools they need to labor properly so they can delivery with more ease, so she just never needs to those things. (Or in the C Section case, have the Ob do them). THAT was so appealing to me in a world where those things are seen as normal to so many moms and pregnant women.

I go back in 5 weeks and will do a glucose test then. I don't have to fast or anything, she said just don't anything really sweet for at least 30 minutes prior to my appointment. I am just nervous about who is going to take my blood then because I will miss Shiloh doing it at my Ob's. That could be really bad since no one can seem to do it without making me pass out and poking around in there. Thanks to Shiloh though, I think I can point them in the right direction of where to go through, so hopefully it won't be bad. I am going to try not to worry about it!