Thank you so much for reading Tegam. I have really appreciated your support and caring through my whole journey xx It really was a spectacular birth and the crazy thing is you can't plan the unplanned so I could never have planned for it to surprise me in it's awesomeness like that... but I wish I had known and not have had to go through the damn rollercoaster ride my pregnancy turned out to be!
Congratulations Boomba!!
Freya, I didn't have the energy to reply to the posts in the FB group but I think there was a little too much focus on the CMP and publicly funded homebirths letting women down. I guess, honestly, they do risk women out more often than an IM would but I think the homebirth scene has become very risk adverse with the witch hunt that goes on. So I think you're seeing more and more IMs risk women out of their care for more minor reasons too. I don't think it hurts to talk to your CMP MW and get her honest opinion on the program. And it doesn't hurt to talk to some IMs and get a conversation going there too. I changed MWs at 30 weeks so it's not too late if that's what you decide to do.
Im making an appointment to sit down and discuss options with the My Midwives branch here in Perth. They are medicare eligible and Ive discovered our health fund also allows some rebate for ante/post natal and birth costs for private midwifery. If I can utilise those things to get the costs down to manageable I think DH may be persuaded to let me go the IM route. I still dont feel entirely comfortable with the whole hospital program thing so yeah, cant hurt to look in to other things.
Either way I had my 20wk scan today, baby is looking great! Placenta is well out of way of my cervix, bub is measuring above 65th percentile which means no small-for-dates/IUGR concerns. Everything was where it should be and doing what it should be. So now we grow and wait!
Bella my Mw cam to my appointment at home and was all relaxed saying yay yeah all normal, nothing will be a problem, you have until 42weeks before the hospital will require monitoring! Then a few hours later I get a text saying "oh actually now I can't be certain your baby isn't breech, you have you'll have a scan" the text came out of no where but after everything I went through with dd3, my two big triggers were scans and internals. My DH called her as I was a mess and said "what's going on". He got off the phone and not an hour later she and her back up midwife are at my front door! Un invited! The back up Mw wanted to feel babies position. She had a feel and said she was 90% sure the baby was head down but she wanted a scan or to do an internal. I said no and asked that they not ask me again. I was feeling bub kick high, I was getting hickups down low and she, my Mw and my mum (a midwife) all thought the head was down! I said that I needed to know that this was agreed and they were not going to move the goal posts on me again. They promised that it was no issue and left. Next morning I get a phone call from the back up Mw, my Mw is sick so she is now my primary and she and her backup had talked and they were not happy to continue care if I didn't have the scan. I said "you are telling me that if I don't do this you are withdrawing care" she said yes, I am withdrawing care as of now until you have a scan or internal. Now of you knew dd3's story you would understand why I was so upset. And these MWs knew my history. But yelp I was left with a decision. She said it was about building a trusting relationship and I had to placate her concerns, nothing was said about me, my feelings, my trust
The language they used was just like being at an OBs appointment. So sad that our private MWs are so worried about legality that they didn't once look at the women. All for a 10% chance that the baby might be breech.
Long story short I have the stupid scan, I allowed the lovely man at a private place to stick the probe on my belly for 2secomds, we saw head and bam the probe was off, I refused to go to a hospital to have the scan.
Then I was left with the decision to call these women when I went into labour. Anyone surprise we free birthed??? All this when I was overdue!
Thank goodness my DH is so amazing and that ds2 allowed me to have a beautiful, natural, loving birth with just my husband there to catch! The kids then ran in and it was about our family not the MWs.
Freya: I think that sometimes forums and Facebook groups attract people that want/need to be heard. And yes it can become a bit of a "my story is worse" I understand that's ironic seeing I've just written a poor me post, go figure the logic of that one. But what I'm saying is take it all with a pinch of salt. Talk to your mw and yes do some research to see your options, sadly the MWs I was talking about above were from a "my midwives" practise.
Yay on the scan, glad your little one is swimming about in perfection half ish way! Time will fly!
Cass: the whole thing cost between $3000-$4000 I haven't added it up and we got some money back on Medicare. I still got charged the full amount even though she didn't get called until after bubs came! Wish I'd at least birthed in the middle of the night so I'd called her out of bed, but no it was middle of the day, such a polite time to come on over!
Tegam that sounds horrible so sorry you had to experience that. I actually usually feel fairly iffy about freebirth but I can see why you went that route in the end and don't blame you one bit. Might have done the same in your position except called an ambulance instead of those midwives. *hugs*
Meow thanks for sharing your edited version here, so nice that you got your homebirth in the end! But sucks that you had such a stressful pregnancy. Glad you didn't bleed too much at birth .
Freya I went through the public home birth program here in Melbourne which I think is similar to the cmp. I loved my midwives and enjoyed the care during pregnancy and post partum, but during the actual birth I ended up having to transfer as baby was posterior and just kept getting stuck behind a bit of lip which I think was starting to swell too. So I did enjoy my experience but I think if we can afford it next time we'll go the IM route or at least have an awesome doula if I choose to go public homebirth route again so that someone can stand up for me during labour as dh and I are both ninnies in that regard.
ETA: just to clarify, I enjoyed my pregnancy and post partum care, the birth itself I've only recently come to terms with.
Oh Tegam I had no idea that's horrible . You are amazingly strong
I don't know if I could have called them after being treated like that :-/
It makes me so angry for you . How can women be treated like that I just don't get it
We had an independent midwife payed 5000 but got some of that back through Medicare. I told her shes worth a million dollars . It was an up and down journey but in the end she really came through for us .
Is it true there is no public funded home birth program in Qld ?
Oh Tegam! You didn't say! I had no idea. I'm so sorry honey. I'm glad it was ok in the end and that his birth was just about you. But I am sorry they treated you like that. That just isn't ok. My mw was happy and confident enough to have a feel and we trusted each other that my baby was head down. If they arnt confident of their palpating skills, what the hell are they doing practicing independently. All women don't need a scan at 40 weeks to check babies position. What a load of rot! So sorry love.
Kellbell, we have no publically funded programs here. And I for one am not devastated by it. Only because I don't want publically funded ones to push independant midwives out of practice. When we have public ones, they can call them the 'safe ones'. The ones that have all the restrictions that don't allow mothers autonomous choice will be considered the only safe ones and then it will be thought that only eligible Mw's who work in a system that doesn't support choice are able to safely practice independently. Then the insurance issues will be brought to the fore. They will cover the publically funded homebirths and so they will tell us we have options, even tho most of the women on this thread would be risked out of a public hb program, or like me, never let in in the first place, but they will point and say, "look, there are choices here". Even tho they will never allow me access to those choices and they will stop my preferred carers from caring for me on pain of fines..... I can see where it is headed, and Mark my words, until we enshrine a woman's right to chose in our culture and our midwives duty of care to their women, regardless of those choices, then we are going to loose our best and brightest and we will make collateral damage of any woman who is too fat or too old, who has had too many babies or by the 'wrong route', or who had an elevated bsl once...... Sighhhhhh...... Sorry for the rant. I'm not against the hospital funded programs as such, just of where they are leading us...
The whole midwives thing is rather frustrating and I see as only to get worse with the looming cut off. But annoying how MW aren't happy doing what they may have previously been happy to do at home all because of legalities.
Just a quick post I can never reply properly or write properly when I'm tired and I'm always tired!
I thought I would come here and say hi. After three good hospital births I really really want to have a homebirth this time. My biggest problem will be convincing DH about the price. I know he will say going to the hospital is free but to me it is so much more then that but he will struggle understanding that I think. I must admit I have been a bit suprised by the price myself. I had an idea but so far it has all been a bit above that.
I am still waiting on a few replies from MW that are closer to me though.
Luckily DH is overseas until Nov so I have time to look into it and get info and prepare everything for when he gets back.
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Re: Homebirth General Discussion #22
half ish way! Time will fly!
glad the birth made up for it.
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