Today was exciting! I am so very lucky to have two neighbors who are nurses. One of them is a labor and delivery nurse at Salinas Valley Hospital where I was planning to give birth since Aetna won’t pay for CHOMP, which is about 3 minutes from my house. Salinas Valley is about 35 minutes away without traffic and an hour with rush-hour traffic.
My neighbor was so kind to offer to give me a tour of the maternity ward. I took her up on the offer because I thought she would be more likely to give me her honest opinion about things I am concerned about. Like how Charlotte was put under a warming lamp for what seemed like an eternity. Why can’t I just do skin-to-skin? It seems like torture to shine a bright light on a baby who has just spent the past 9 months in darkness.
Well, it turns out that the rooms at Salinas Valley are not so great. Many of the recovery rooms have a shared toilet and I would have to use the ONE communal shower! Yuck! Honestly, I shouldn’t be there for much longer than a day so it’s not that big of a deal, but it turns out I actually have some other options so now I am looking into that.
My neighbor and her co-workers brought up a good point about me seeing Dr. Marki-Dunn instead of my regular OB Dr. Laughlin because Dr. Laughlin only delivers at CHOMP. Well, since Dr. Marki-Dunn likely won’t deliver me anyway because the doctors in her practice take turns being on-call, then why not just see Dr. Laughlin and have who ever is on-duty deliver me? Why didn’t I think of that!?
The other revelation is that I can go to a hospital in Santa Cruz, which is only 15 more miles away than Salinas. There are two options, Dominican Hospital and Sutter Maternity and Surgery Center. I have to call Aetna to find out if they cover Sutter, which would be my first choice. Also! I discovered that Aetna covers three midwives in Santa Cruz! I’m not exactly sure what the difference is between a doctor and a midwife, but I imagine the midwife will be more accommodating to desire for minimal intervention.
I don’t plan on getting an IV pain medicine this time as I did with Charlotte. It didn’t relieve the pain enough and that makes it hard for me to justify putting a narcotic into our systems.
Ideally, I would love to have a home birth with one of the Monterey midwives, but Shane is against it. Besides, Aetna doesn’t cover it and it would be a huge cost that we just can’t spend our savings on.
I have some phone calls to make tomorrow. I should have a better idea of what I will do. It’s making me excited! And I am happy that I am being so proactive about how I want this birth to go. I think I’ve just relied on the doctors and nurses to tell me how things should be. But after three kids, I definitely have an opinion!
-No medication
-No one is allowed to break my water
-I don’t make noise when my contractions are most painful, so please don’t keep asking me questions as if I’m ignoring you
-Don’t attach me to any machines, I want to walk around
-My husband will cut the umbilical cord
-I will hold my baby skin-to-skin for the first hour
-No heating lamp
-If my baby doesn’t want to nurse right away, back off, I’m not doing formula
-We don’t do pacifiers
