My Midwife, My Choice
Dear ____,
I don’t think I ever told you about the time that I helped organize community support for the Connecticut Women and Childbirth Center? Now seemed like an appropriate time. I’m reposting my originally published story here, with a link to the site I built with other volunteers. It was originally published here on May 20, 2022.
xx,
m
Our protest at Nuvance, May 28, 2022
May 2022
TLDR: Danbury hospital is shunning professional midwives and their patients. Here's why this is a huge problem.
I never planned on having kids, but when I was ready (and 36) I found I had to go through a complicated IVF process. Between my age and the IVF, I was considered "high-risk" though I had no actual health problems.
This was problematic for me because I'm "crunchy" and wanted to let my body birth my beautiful baby on its own, with as little medical intervention as possible.* Unfortunately, from the moment I told my original OB, I realized I wasn't going to get a lot of support from traditional medicine.
When I told her: "But Connecticut Women and Childbirth Center is right across the street from Danbury Hospital, I can have an intervention free labor unless there's an emergency -- I'm just minutes away." She continued to dismiss my preferences and highlight my statistically small risk factors. I gritted my teeth, glared at her and promptly called CT Women & Childbirth Center. Was I eligible to receive care there? Yes. Their Certified Nurse Midwives reassured me that I could receive care with them and that, even if I needed (or wanted) to go into the hospital, they could stay with me, assist my labor, and likely even still deliver my baby (unless I needed a C-Section).
It was critical to me that I have a midwife - a medical professional who shared my mindset. I didn't want to be left alone and pressured into a highly medicated experience (which I'd already experienced with my OB). Even if I needed an emergency procedure which my midwives couldn't perform, I knew I could rely on them to be with me for emotional and medical support.
I drove faithfully from Barkhamsted to Danbury (70 - 80 minutes each way) throughout my pregnancy, which was healthy, uneventful, and, dare I say it? Enjoyable. Toward the very end of my pregnancy, the midwives picked up on a slight concern related to my baby. It was nothing life-threatening, but they practiced safety first.
My midwife told me that when I came in for delivery, she'd have to do a no-stress-test on me and my baby at the birth center. If I passed (aka if my baby showed no signs of stress) then I could deliver as planned at the birth center. If I didn't, well then she would simply accompany me to the hospital for a slightly-less-desirable experience -- but still within my preference. This seemed fair, and when the time came just 2 days later, we zipped down to Danbury and I went right into the Birthing Center's comfy rooms, passed the stress test with no issue and, at long last, into the birthing tub.
Our Midwife, Sarah, was supportive yet intuitively let me and my husband manage most of the labor experience until it came time to push. Our baby was healthy on all counts and I experienced no serious issues myself. All told, I was at the birth center for about 9 hours, 5 of which were spent in active labor without any interventions (hey not even laughing gas!). Although, my husband did have to warn me not to bite his hands (they did look tempting). After the birth I needed some medication and a catheter to help my recovery. The midwives and nurse assistant performed these standard procedures in the birth center with no sweat and no fuss.
We went home that night with our beautiful baby and never looked back. My peace of mind came from knowing that I could have my midwife AND that emergency services were just minutes away at Danbury Hospital, where my midwife was welcome to accompany me.
This is a critical point. It is a woman's choice to have the kind of birth that matters the most to her and THIS is what the administrators at Danbury Hospital are missing.
They run one of the only hospitals in the state, in the region really, that partners with a midwife practice at this level. The midwives are independent practitioners with permissions at the hospital. This means their patients can get the care they need and want no matter what.
As the hospital administrators are threatening the access midwives have at the hospital, they are simultaneously and unmistakably violating a women's right to choose her own healthcare experience.
As one of few institutions in the region following this model, they have the opportunity to act as a leader in women's choice in healthcare. However, they are choosing to limit, restrict, and undermine women, women's bodies, and women's choices. This is a crying shame. What would this have looked like for me if I failed my stress test? I would've been taken to the hospital and bid goodbye to my midwife. Been faced with a cadre of doctors and nurses whom I had never met before, who weren't familiar with my preferences and, who (I knew from my own experience) would dismiss my preferences and pressure me toward choosing more "mainstream" medical interventions at a very vulnerable time.
Would I have survived? Sure. Would it have been infuriating and traumatic? You betcha.
Many women who go to the midwives are like me - lower risk women who want an intervention-free birth at a free-standing birth center. For some it's a religious or spiritual preference. For others, it's for the literal freedom (to move around, to eat more than ice chips). For me it was to honor my body's natural capacity to give birth, and out of curiosity to see what it was like. Some women go to the midwives for prenatal care never planning to deliver at the birth center because they already know they'll want to go to the hospital for pain medication, or because they're at higher risk for serious complications. Either way, the midwife is there until the baby is born. Whether or not a woman NEEDS to deliver at the hospital is irrelevant.
What matters is that we know there is a medical professional OF OUR CHOOSING. Someone we trust not only with our own lives, but with our babies'. It is our CHOICE as a woman, as a mother, to birth our children however we see fit. Women who wish to birth with a midwife deserve choice and respect. Women who wish to receive fewer medical interventions deserve choice and respect. Women who want a less medicalized birth experience DESERVE THE SAME RESPECT AND CHOICE as women who choose a more mainstream birth experience.
Just as a woman can choose to have an epidural, or any other birth-related intervention, then WE deserve to have the choice not to. Just because it is "unusual", just because it isn't the "Standard of care" and just because it may make administrators uncomfortable is NOT a reason for shunning the midwives and their patients. Even if we need an intervention, it is our choice to have our midwife attending as our primary caregiver, advocate, and support person.
Limiting access to midwives is an outrageous act of discrimination against women's right to choose their healthcare.
It is a dismissal of women's autonomy over our bodies. A dismissal of our intuitive and instinctive ability to birth a child. There are no substantiated reasons for Danbury Hospital's criticism of the midwives and their practice. This is simply an attack on women's choice because it is not "mainstream".
My own mother birthed my brother and I at home back in the '80s. Her first childbirth experience at a military hospital was unempowering at best and demoralizing at worst. She arrived insisting she was in active labor and they sent her home. She returned another hour later-- this time she was really close to delivering my big sister. She couldn't stand the way the hospital treated her. She called it "Old fashioned" and "ridiculous" that they dismissed her so readily and forced her, without option, into their protocol.
While I didn't consider a home birth, the only place that could accommodate my was the Connecticut Childbirth and Women's Center, over an hour away in Danbury. My Certified Nurse Midwives were amazing. Knowing we could move seamlessly to the hospital if needed was amazing. The Certified Nurse Midwives and their staff deserve to be treated with the same respect as any other medical professional at Danbury Hospital.
And I, along with all women, deserve to be treated with respect regarding my choices during childbirth.*
To learn more and sign the petition urging Danbury Hospital administrators to reconsider their handling of this situation, click the button.
* There is no "right" or "wrong" way to deliver a baby. This is not an argument for "natural" birth. The only thing that matters, in my opinion, is that women have a choice, and that our choices are supported and accommodated as much as possible by the medical community.
