Midwife

November 9, 2009

Last week Andy and I had an appointment with a midwife at the UIC Medical Center Midwife Group. We really liked the midwife and the medical center is only a mile from our house, but we were not very pleased with the limited birthing options that group offers. Its a large midwife group with 17 midwives, so at delivery I would have whichever midwife was on call (most likely one I never met before). Also UIC hospital does not offer many alternative birth options such as water birth and their postpartum rooms are shared so Andy can't spend the night with me. However, we booked another appointment with her but decided to visit other midwife groups as well.

Today we had a consult appointment at the West Suburban Midwife Association in Oak Park. We loved the midwife, Gayle, that we met and their birthing options. I have been interested in water birth so asked Gayle to explain it and its benefits. We will be able to have the baby in an Alternative Birthing Center instead of a regular hospital room and water birthing tubs are available in each of the private birthing rooms. After learning, more about water birth I am very excited about having that option. We are going to keep our December appointment at UIC due to convenience, but we will be switching to West Suburban Midwife Association in January.