EmmaRea
Wifey/Mom Extraordinaire
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2011
- Messages
- 545
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After planning and consideration on the part of my hubby and myself, we found out I am pregnant 13 days ago. Now, he and I are not well-off enough to afford health care through our employer (we work together), and we make too much to apply for the state-organized policy, but its free and guarranteed for pregnant women, so I set up an appointment today to enroll myself on the Oregon Health Plan (OHP, as its called locally). At first, I was shoved into a crowded room and made to wait for one hour while I watched woman after woman come through and be treated extremely disrespectfully by the office staff at the OHP office. I became one of those women who were treated as lowly because I can't afford health care of my own. It made me extremely upset to feel like a cow in a herd, and that's not just hormones talking.
I had been considering (read: hoping for) a home birth. This is my first child, I am fairly young, and feel confident that I can achieve a successful home birth. After my experience today, and being told that I would have a LOT of hoops to jump through to get OHP to cover a home birth for me, I returned home and began speaking with my loving older sister. I told her about how I had learned that, in order to get OHP to cover a HB for me, I would have to 'move' to a different county and not apply for coverage until the 3rd (!!!!) trimester, and yet, I still managed to find a midwife who would assist me. She immediately began telling me that I would have no choice but to accept a hospital birth because 1) I do not make enough money to get any other health insurance, and 2) this is my first child, and "my body doesn't know what its doing, so why would I risk complications in a HB?"
My BIL is a paramedic here, and we are an hour away by ambulance from any medical intervention that could save the life of my baby or myself should something go wrong. He was telling me horror stories about what he has seen go wrong with some home deliveries. He saw a baby die just this Sunday because a midwife did not have the proper medical intervention when the baby was having respiratory distress.
I don't believe this would happen to me. But I am at a lose to explain how I feel about it. I still want a HB, but when I try to tell my family why, my arguments are weak and futile. I do not appreciate the idea of being "guilt-tripped" into unnecessary medical procedures by doctors in a hospital who have important boating trips in Mexico to go on, who don't know me from Adam, and see me as a single red number, because I cannot afford health insurance of my own, and they won't be making any money off my delivery anyway, so why go out of their way to accomodate me?, just like those ladies being treated poorly by office staff today. I want to give birth in a joyful setting, drug-and-unnecessary-intervention-free. I want to feel like I gave birth, not somebody pulling my baby from inside me.
What am I to do?
Sorry for the length, but like I said, its my first time, and I am lost.
I had been considering (read: hoping for) a home birth. This is my first child, I am fairly young, and feel confident that I can achieve a successful home birth. After my experience today, and being told that I would have a LOT of hoops to jump through to get OHP to cover a home birth for me, I returned home and began speaking with my loving older sister. I told her about how I had learned that, in order to get OHP to cover a HB for me, I would have to 'move' to a different county and not apply for coverage until the 3rd (!!!!) trimester, and yet, I still managed to find a midwife who would assist me. She immediately began telling me that I would have no choice but to accept a hospital birth because 1) I do not make enough money to get any other health insurance, and 2) this is my first child, and "my body doesn't know what its doing, so why would I risk complications in a HB?"
My BIL is a paramedic here, and we are an hour away by ambulance from any medical intervention that could save the life of my baby or myself should something go wrong. He was telling me horror stories about what he has seen go wrong with some home deliveries. He saw a baby die just this Sunday because a midwife did not have the proper medical intervention when the baby was having respiratory distress.
I don't believe this would happen to me. But I am at a lose to explain how I feel about it. I still want a HB, but when I try to tell my family why, my arguments are weak and futile. I do not appreciate the idea of being "guilt-tripped" into unnecessary medical procedures by doctors in a hospital who have important boating trips in Mexico to go on, who don't know me from Adam, and see me as a single red number, because I cannot afford health insurance of my own, and they won't be making any money off my delivery anyway, so why go out of their way to accomodate me?, just like those ladies being treated poorly by office staff today. I want to give birth in a joyful setting, drug-and-unnecessary-intervention-free. I want to feel like I gave birth, not somebody pulling my baby from inside me.
What am I to do?
Sorry for the length, but like I said, its my first time, and I am lost.
I went to the hospital's urgent care center and waited nearly 45 minutes in horrible pain. I miscarried my baby right as they put me in a room, where I waited another 45 minutes with blood gushing from me. The doctor walked in, told me I was experiencing a miscarriage, asked me if I wanted a narcotic painkiller, and when I refused and just asked to use the restroom to clean myself up (where I passed the remains of my baby), he walked out. That was it. 
