When preparing for a hospital birth I gained a lot of knowledge about everything under the sun. From the reality of insurance in relation to doctors, to who advocates for you in the hospital and their view of pregnancy. Just in case I come off at any time in this post like I’m trying to give you medical advice…let’s squash that thought now! I’m not, I promise I have no professional medical education or experience, I’m sharing everything I’ve learned from the knowledge I’ve gained from my personal experience and I hope it helps you to better prepare for your next hospital birth.
1.) Finding The Perfect Doctor
Alright, let’s get to it, one of the very first things I have to talk about is finding the “perfect” doctor. The truth is you definitely want to find a doctor that you are comfortable with, someone who has wonderful bedside manner, cares about your concerns and supports the way that you would like to birth. The last one is extremely important, if you desire to do a natural birth, ask questions such as, “what are your thoughts on natural birth?”, “what’s the percentage of natural births to c-section births you’ve done”, “what are your thoughts on c-sections”. These are all great questions because they allow you to see where the doctor is coming from, which often is based off of the personal experiences and exposure they’ve had in the medical field. I asked my doctor these questions and she gave me a response that was extremely comforting and let me know she wanted what was best for me! Her response to my question about natural birth and c-sections was “As a doctor, a c-section is more convenient, it’s consistent and can be quick surgery, but as a parent natural birth is what I would want for all of my patients if that is what they want. The recovery for a natural birth is typically a lot easier than a c-section recovery. My concern isn’t only for you while you are pregnant but postpartum too and it’s a lot harder to take care of a new baby and nurse and recover a c-section wound”. Being a mama who wanted a natural birth, it was really nice to hear but the truth is, there is no guarantee that your doctor will be the one to deliver your baby, especially for a natural birth unless you schedule an induction on a day/weekend they are scheduled.
The doctor-patient relationship is a bittersweet one to me when planning a hospital birth because you can get so excited about your doctor, but nothing is guaranteed. Doctors have scheduled weekends, they have personal time such as vacations that are scheduled so if your due date or birth clashes or doesn’t line up with their schedule, the bond you build might feel like it was built for nothing but I’d say it just isn’t as special as you thought it’d be if they weren’t the one to help you through such a special moment you prepared for together. There is a lot of trust created between the doctor and patient during pregnancy. Despite that they will be there for the postpartum care in most cases, which is a plus. Either way my point is, find a doctor’s office that has a team of people you would feel comfortable with helping you through this journey, because if your specific doctor isn’t available, it will typically be someone else from their team that will assist you with this special moment in your life.
2.) Due Dates & Insurance
On to the next, your due date and insurance! Ugh I’m dreading this one due to a personal experience I had but my situation was extremely unique and I pray it never happens to you, but first let’s talk “due dates”. Firstly, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, “due dates” aren’t when your baby is going to be born or has to be born. It’s just an estimation of when baby will make a debut, a lot of factors play into this but mainly the size and development of the baby is what helps to determine when they may come. Your due date is typically set when your pregnancy is estimated to be 40 weeks, which in the hospital setting that’s considered more than enough growing time in the womb. Something you should know about your insurance and due date is: if you conceive and are due in the same year, you dodge a major bullet. What bullet? You may ask. The bullet called your deductible. For example: if you conceive in January then you will likely deliver sometime in September. When you reach your deductible through your doctor visits and delivery that’s it! BUT, say you conceive in December and deliver late August you’ll be in charge of TWO years of deductibles, one for the visits that took place in the conceiving year and one for the visits and delivery that take place in the delivery year. It’s kind of tricky really. Besides the due date and insurance being a confusing situation, Insurance and your appointments can be another one when the year of conception and year of delivery are different. We conceived our second daughter in April and delivered her in February. In December we came to find out that the insurance my husband had with his company changed from December to January in the new year. He worked for a small company and the insurance we had covered maternity and gave me access to see my doctor whom I had come to really like. In January that all changed, the company switched the insurance from one company to another and it went from covering maternity to NOT.
I had called to set up my next appointment which was at 37 weeks, all to hear that unless I was able to pay for the birth of our daughter in full ($6000) by the appointment I wouldn’t be able to see my doctor. This was really devastating and overwhelming for me, for multiple reasons but mainly because in the midst of all the pregnancy hormones I felt like my doctor didn’t care about me at all. But come to find out, I don’t think our doctors are even told what the situation is, I believe they just think we changed our mind or something and stopped coming in. This could have been a unique situation for just me, I hope but I still believe unless you know your doctor personally, they won’t be calling you, to see why you haven’t made it to your appointment. The communication between the front desk staff and doctors is minimal. The front desk verifies, collects funds and the doctors, nurses and medical staff keep track of all things medically related. Now that I’m writing about this, I’m realizing as personally as I took this, it probably would be some type of violation to call a patient, as it’s their decision to continue, treatment, services etc…funny how when you take time to think things through how you’re enlightened with a new perspective.
3.) Ultrasounds, Blood Tests, Doppler Scans & More
Ultrasounds, Blood tests, Blood pressure, Doppler scans and Urine tests! Oh and the good old glucose testing…how could I forget! Something you should get accustomed to when preparing for a hospital birth is each visit you have with the doctor. The nurse will come in and check for life each time, making sure they hear the baby’s heartbeat and you will always leave a urine sample before the end of your appointment. Hearing the movement and the heartbeat of your little one through the doppler is always exciting…when they can find it. Something I came to realize though is if you go to an appointment and the nurse is having difficulty hearing the baby, don’t panic they will move you to the ultrasound room to check everything is safe with you and baby. Something about anyone working in the medical field as doctors, nurses and surgeons, they aren’t in the business of taking unnecessary risks. They have procedures in place to learn the facts and know that next steps are instantly. So when it comes to using the doppler and checking for signs of life, it is a practice and procedure that has been put in place to protect you and baby. Urine tests, I mean does peeing in a cup ever sound exciting lol? It’s really not, I dread it every time but it is another practice and procedure put in place to make sure everything is okay with Mama from detecting diabetes to dehydration.
Blood tests! Ugh. I feel like no one enjoys getting their blood drawn but then again, I could be the odd woman out. Not painful at all (personal opinion), but I do always look away because when they are taking 5-7 vials of blood every couple of months you start to wonder, if vampires are real haha! But on a serious note this testing is important as it helps detect any iron deficiency which if not monitored can lead to a blood transfusion. Glucose testing should occur one time unless they have further concerns about your blood sugar levels, this is to check if you have gestational diabetes (where you don’t have diabetes regularly but you get it in pregnancy). You’ll be given a high sugar drink to consume in about 10 min from what I recall. Then you’ll need to go, pee in a cup (I’ve pondered on a better way of saying this but it is what it is…peeing in a cup) and this will reveal if you have gestational diabetes so the doctor knows how to help or treat you moving forward.
Finally, Ultrasounds! you won’t have them often and some offices may send you to a specific ultrasound place to get them done. If they can’t do them there in office or for things such as confirming the gender of the baby an out of office clinic that specializes in that will have to do that ultrasound. Ultrasounds can be extremely exciting especially for first time parents as you get to actually see the beautiful life forming inside of mama’s belly. Ultrasound technicians can give you limited information, but anything you need to know will be relayed to you by your doctor. Be sure to ask for prints of your baby’s ultrasounds each time, so you can keep the prints for years to come.
So you found the perfect doctor! You have some type of insurance or way of paying for your birth be it Medicaid (due to my situation with the insurance change I had to apply for Emergency Medicaid which worked out in my favor but I’ll explain that in another post), company provided insurance, out of pocket healthcare from Marketplace or just out of pocket without insurance. You are fully prepared for all that is coming with your upcoming doctors appointments, but how do you prepare best for the hospital? Know who advocates for you, know who is in place to help you, and know who will be by your side! Your Nurses! It wasn’t until after I gave birth in the hospital that I realized, finding the perfect doctor might be great, but your nurse(s) are the ones you will interact with most. And I hate to break it to you, but my delivering physician or doctor wasn’t who I expected, you can read about that HERE. Each floor or area of the hospital you will have different nurses.
In Labor and Delivery I had a team of nurses who were extremely fast acting and thorough on making sure our baby and I were safe and passed a list of things. This is another system in place for the protection of the staff and facility…like I said before a lot of practices and procedures to avoid risky situations. While in Labor & Deliveries care I was moved to surgery for a minor laceration that occurred during the birthing process, I met the surgeon (who did come check on me the following day), the Anesthesiologist (who in my opinion was too relaxed, walking around with coffee in his hand), and another nurse or maybe she was the assistant to the surgeon, well no she had to have been a nurse because she wasn’t assisting the surgeon. Anywho, the nurse in Labor and Delivery was so kind to me, she spoke to me through the procedure and held my hand in an effort to help me stop shaking. Every woman is different but I shake for about an hour or two after childbirth. Both times, I believe it’s due to the shock and loss of blood but I have yet to verify if that’s true.
After moving back to my room in Labor and Delivery, I moved to Recovery which was a different area of the hospital, (which is one thing I can say about hospitals and babies. High security, no one gets in and no one gets out without them knowing which I loved). All of the nurses I interacted with during my stay were AMAZING! That’s why I say if you are going to make a friend during your stay, it should be your nurse(s), they will help you with everything, from using the restroom to latching your baby properly for nursing to making sure you are sent home with all of the proper essentials. I can honestly say the Nurse or your team of nurses are the real heroes of my Hospital birth experience. Your doctor is in charge of when you and baby get released from the hospital but the Nurses once again make or break your stay. Remember your nurses are people, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters and can be your friend. Show them kindness, respect and hopefully you will have a beautiful hospital experience. If you are in the Houston area I highly recommend Memorial Hermann Cypress their staff was amazing and facility was so clean, I linked their pre-registration form because that is another thing! Hospitals like to know you plan on coming, so if you can pre-register!
Before I let you go, here is a list of What you really need in your hospital bag:
- A change of comfy clothes for You and Baby to go home in (keep weather in mind)
- A journal (you might need to write something down)
- A portable charger or extra long charger (6ft-10ft) with wall block
- A cozy blanket if you like extra cover
- Deodrant
- Toothbrush & Tooth paste + Mouthwash
- Brush
- Scrunchie
- Chapstick
- Shoes you can easily slide on
The hospital will supply you with and give you extra to take home: Diapers, Wipes, Postpartum underwear shorts, giant maxi pads, squirt bottle and dermablast.
I hope this post helps you better prepare for a hospital birth.
With Love,
Classically Faith
