I had my pregnancy booking appointment last Friday at 16 weeks, should have been at 12, but the hospital is flat out.

I went there with mixed feeling, I had a rather traumatic birth with Maggie, the ob I had was just plain awful, wont go into details but I will not let her near me again. Also last birth ended in an emergency c-section, so I was really hoping to allowed to attempt a VBAC and was expecting to have a fight on my hands, especially since the head ob had recommend a c-section for any future births.

Well as I was waiting at reception I head the first name of the nasty on being called, I hoped it was a coincidence and they were calling for someone else of the same name, I started to feel all panicky. I doubted I would come across her again, though she might have moved on. I looked the whiteboard behind the desk and there was her name on the list of ob for the booking clinic. Suddenly I was in tears, the thought that I might have to deal with her was just awful. I spoke to the receptionist and was advised that I would need to talk to the midwife, who I would be seeing first.

I was suddenly fearful that I would be classified as high risk due to my anxiety about my last birth and also due to my weight. Thankfully the midwife was understanding. I could request to not have that ob have anything to do with me whilst I am at the hospital and she was fine with my weight. She was a lovely woman and we had a good chat about birthing practices and our sadness as the closing of the Family Birth Centre. Spoke to her about having a Doula, she was very happy about that and stated that she had "seen Doula's perform magic with mums in labour", so I started to feel more positive.

Finally got to see the ob, a nice guy actually and he had no problem with me wanting to attempt a VBAC, in fact he was going to recommend it. It does come with conditions though, which I will get clarified in another post. Ended up having a good chat to him about hospital funding and how overbooked the hospital is.

So very mixed feelings, happy to be not forced into a c-section, but realising in myself that I really need to debrief more about my last birth.