🤰expecting
Anonymous User
8 months ago
Birth plan - did you stick with it?
I'm due in early April and am starting to think about a birth plan. I feel like it's something that I'll do to keep me busy but wanted to ask if anyone successfully stuck with their plan. What was your secret? What would you change? And do the providers at the hospital respect it? I'll be delivering at NYU in NYC.
Anonymous
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8 months ago
I think for me the most useful thing was having a framework to think and talk through things with my partner and birth partner before being in the throes of labor. To have an advocate who I trusted for the gray areas and the unexpected. Ultimately, it wasn’t about cervical checks or a birthing ball, but I was glad we talked about it all because it gave insight to what stresses me out, what might be triggering, what it looks like when I need something done or communicated a different way. For me that partner was my spouse, for some people that’s a doula, or both.
content warning for labor complications ahead —
Concretely, we had something of a birth plan and stuck with a lot of it for awhile, but I had a uniquely supportive environment (midwifery center and they asked us about all the things ahead of time as standard practice). But also, stuff I thought would be a big deal/help in the moment ended up not (thought I’d want more privacy then literally got naked in the hallway on the way in, lol), stuff I thought I didn’t care about ended up coming in clutch, and after a long labor I had an emergency c-section. It was really not what I planned, but it made a lot of difference to me afterward, especially as I made sense of the whirlwind postpartum, to know that we got there from a considered place with an informed advocate at my side, and not from being caught making big pressured decisions in an extremely physically and mentally stressed state. When we transferred to the trad hospital, birth plan was out the window, but it was my partner’s familiarity, his sense of the wishes and fears and everything behind it, that helped me feel like I had agency. And god, a sense having an experience that felt like my own, felt like ours—that was precious to me.
Anonymous
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8 months ago
We had a birth plan and stuck to it- I gave birth at Lenox Hill with a midwife and certain things were non negotiable for me- no epidural or pitocin, delayed cord clamping, no residents providing care, the ability to eat and drink as needed, placenta to be stored in cooler for encapsulation. If c section were to be needed, we preferred a gentle c section with transfer of gut microbiomes. It was important for my midwife to know and respect all of these things. We also had a doula present advocating for us. What I will say is, know what is non negotiable for you and stick to it. When I arrived at the hospital my midwife was still in transit, and the drs told me to prepare for an epidural and potential c section because my sons heartbeat was decelerating (which I later learned is very normal). And in the midst of fairly intense contractions and nausea, told them I wouldn’t be making any decisions until my midwife arrived, and refused the epidural. Remember- you get to call the shots for your body and baby, even though the hospital will make it seem like you may not have choices.