Kaitlyn's birth story-Part 1

Kaitlyn's birth story begins long before the first contraction--in fact, it begins before her conception. (Yes, this is a long story.) After my triumphant, but very stressful homebirth, Stephen was adamant that our next birth needed to happen in the hospital. I was adamant that I would not, and could not have another baby in the hospital. My first birth had so deeply traumatized me that I could barely wrap my brain around the idea of birthing in a hospital again. I am a processor, and especially things that affect me so deeply take a lot of time to process. I had been mulling over my birth options off and on since Daniel's birth. I wanted to honor Stephen's wishes, but I really struggled because for me, the hospital was a place where my wishes were not honored and where my deepest fears in birth were realized.

Finally, after much thinking, praying, mulling, and struggling, I felt very clear direction from the Lord that I needed to submit my desires to my husband's leadership in this matter. I began to seriously consider my hospital options. My experience as a doula, and my exposure to the Atlanta birth community had given me invaluable information about the various obstetric practices. As a VBAC mom, I knew the only practices with excellent records for VBAC were Intown Midwifery and Dr. Tate. Several things began to weigh in Intown's favor. For one, the things Dr. Tate was especially known for had not been my issues (such as his skill in dealing with breech through ECV or vaginal breech delivery, as well as his ability to deal with malpositions through the use of forceps during labor). I knew the midwives at Intown had a reputation for being very patient with slow labor and that they offered hospital waterbirth. I personally resonate deeply with the midwifery model of care, so I naturally gravitated toward their practice. And the fact that they had a great back-up perinatologist in Dr. Bootstaylor was the final stroke in their favor. I knew that many of our family members would be reassured to know the midwives had a high risk specialist available when needed. I also knew that Dr. Bootstaylor's reputation was of unbending support of physiologic vaginal birth, and that made me feel better about the possibility of being under his care.

So, months before Kaitlyn was even conceived, I had come to the decision that Intown was my practice of choice, despite the few drawbacks, the main one of which was the one hour drive to their office and to Atlanta Medical Center where they practice. And Stephen was on board. I felt so good knowing that we were on the same page regarding where our next baby would be born. Not too long after we finally resolved our birth location dilemma (probably our longest standing disagreement ever), we found out we were pregnant again.