Hospital

The hospital visit was fantastic. It really made all this ‘baby’ and ‘pregnancy’ stuff seem real. I had an introductory meeting with both a midwife and an obstetrician and was happy to see the words ‘low risk’ and ‘normal’ written many times throughout my patient folder. I got to hear my baby’s heartbeat on the Doppler – that was amazing and very reassuring.

Only two downsides to the experience:

I had to get weighed… OMG, I have put on so much weight! I am now (cringe) 89.25 kg (with winter weight clothes and shoes on – does that make it any better?!). Mitigating factor: I am 6 foot tall, so my BMI is 27 so it is just inside ‘overweight’ if I was not pregnant and ‘healthy’ since I am 19 weeks pregnant.

However, I am officially (slightly) heavier than my husband. Aaaarrrgh!

Other (and less superficial) downside was getting a pap smear test done. I was so nervous my blood pressure went up to 180/70, and I kept asking for reassurance that it would not pose any threat what-so-ever to my baby.

I was told to expect light bleeding after the test, and always the optimist, I expected, light bleeding. You know, maybe a few, hard to discern speckles of blood… What I did not expect was that they should have given me a pad after the test because my undies were so badly stained I will have throw them out!

Thankfully all the blood came at once and despite several trips to the loo per hour for the rest of the day (and well into the evening), no more ‘spotting’ occurred.

So, after being told about how ‘normal’ and ‘low risk’ my pregnancy was I was offered to elect to use the Family Birthing Suite rather than the normal labour ward.

I sounded quite good, my husband will be able to sleep in the room with us for our stay and will be fed too, the rooms look a lot more like a bedroom than a hospital and I will be guaranteed my own private room, and all my visits from now on will be with the small team of midwives (a couple will be with the obstetrician of their unit) who will be there to deliver the baby.

The midwives let you decide how much pain relief you need, but they advocate other techniques such as massage, music and movement being used first. In the suite they are able to give labouring women gas and pethidine but not epidural. I wanted to avoid epidural anyway (if possible – I have no idea how bad the pain will be though) and if for some reason I wanted/needed it I can be wheeled upstairs into the normal labour ward.

Ditto for if something goes ‘wrong’ in the labour (or in the pregnancy meanwhile which would make me a higher than ‘low’ risk), I can just be accepted upstairs with no drama.

It all sounds great, but I am still a little worried. All the machines for monitoring the baby in normal labour wards are deemed not necessary in the birthing unit, however midwives check using the Doppler every half hour and I have read that by not using the machines the nurses will monitor other signs more closely and not rely on the machines as much as they can in labour wards.

My other concerns are that I can only stay in the birthing suite 1 or 2 nights after the baby is delivered (I can go into a normal labour bed afterwards is something is wrong, or if I feel I need more time to rest & recover), and that I won’t be able to bear the pain (although I really hate the sound of an epidural anyway, not so much the needle bit – although that is icky – but not being able to feel my legs scares me and I have heard the experience of not knowing when to ‘push’ can take away from the labour experience.

So I signed up for the Family Birthing Suite, I hope I am making the right decision… I guess I can always change my mind.

Any comments/opinions on this type of labour?

19 weeks