Heather

I was considered a “geriatric”; pregnancy, a term that is upsetting at best, but that is applied to any woman over the age of 35. And therein lies the problem with our healthcare system. I was going to a high risk practice because I had had some losses previously. After 3 months, and high blood pressure brought on by the hysteria in the office due to my “advanced age”; I switched to a home birth midwife. From that moment on my pregnancy was wonderful. As opposed to the doctor’s in the high risk practice, with whom I would have to bring a list of problems so that I could fire them at the doctor who had one foot in and one foot out of the door during my appointments, when I attended check ups with the midwife, it was in a homelike environment. First, she made me a cup of tea. Then we discussed my pregnancy without hysteria as she calmly examined me. My “advanced age” was never brought into the conversation as we prepared me to take control of my birth. When the day came, I was in touch with her by phone. She advised me to sleep, then walk by the water, then go home and get in the tub. At midnight she finally came over and at 6 am I started to push. My son was born at 9:42 am. I never once was made to feel that I was in danger. It was not an easy birth, but it was a natural one and an experience that I will always be grateful for. My midwife told me after that I had hit at least 5 markers where I would have been C-sectioned had I been in the hospital, the first being my walking through the door. I was 46 and I would never have been allowed a natural delivery. To this day, I hold the distinction of being the oldest first time birth mom with my midwife. I am blessed to have fallen in the arms of a knowledgable, gifted and skilled practitioner, one who was able to play the role of supporting me through my journey of birth. The only real danger I was in through the whole process, was the one of stress that I was placed under for the first 3 months in the NYC practice of high risk doctors. And the only high risk that I experienced was caused by their hysteria and lack of humanity. I now have a healthy son who is presently attending his freshman year in college.