Appointments? « Back to Group Discussions

[maydaymom10]

This is really targeted for those considering home births, but feel free to share anything that could be helpful.

I'm just wondering what you're doing for your first appointments. Are you calling your midwife/screening for one right now or are you waiting a bit to make that first appointment? Also, are you going to your regular doc to confirm the pregnancy before seeing your midwife or not?

I know when I got pregnant with DS that I went to my PCP to confirm the pregnancy, but in retrospect it seems like a waste of time. I'm pretty sure that they just did a dip test and then talked to me. Then I called the birth center to make an appointment, but didn't go in until I was like 8-10 weeks or something. We still have to interview for midwives (assuming we're going this route -- still need to confirm with DH), so I guess I'm thinking of timing. I still feel like this isn't real and if I call someone this early that I'm jinxing things. I know, it's weird. Also, we're getting ready to go on a weeklong vacation this Sunday and I don't know if I should go into the doctor before we go to check everything out. Ugg. You'd think I'd be on the ball with this after going through it before. 

[revolting]

I started interviewing midwives during my last pregnancy. There's only two midwives that I really want to interview at this point before I make a decision, and it felt horrible to cancel all these appointments. If I have a miscarriage, I will not be using a midwife due to financial reasons. Also, I'd prefer to wait to hear the heartbeat until we can hear it with a doppler, around 18 weeks, and I don't want to do any kind of genetic screening. For these reasons, I'm going to wait until 12 weeks to interview midwives, and then make an appointment once I've chosen, but I won't have any special appointments for this pregnancy before that. I know a lot of people have their first appointment earlier, but with both of my full-term pregnancies, I started prenatal care between in the middle of my second trimester. I've never confirmed the pregnancy before starting prenatal care. Hope that helps!

[babytoes]

Since this is my first home birth, and my youngest DS is 8, I wasn't sure how to go about this either. I just called the midwives I knew I wanted to use after I found out I was preggo, and they made an appointment for me and DP to go in and meet them. It's basically a introduction, and then we say either we want them or we don't. I am assuming that after that appointment I will probably go in about 9-10 weeks. 

Originally Posted by maydaymom10 

 I still feel like this isn't real and if I call someone this early that I'm jinxing things. I know, it's weird. 

I totally know what you mean!! I was so blown away when I got the two lines on the home pregnancy test, I honestly did not think I was. Its only over the last two or three days that it has really started to sink in. I have recently, finally, felt pregnant. Its very odd.

Good luck on your midwife hunt! And no worries, everything will happen when it needs to...

[kalamos23]

I am stuck because our insurance will ONLY cover CNMs, but I really don't want a hospital birth and our birth center has a 70% transfer rate (meaning that only 30% of the moms actually birth at the center, the rest are risked out). Plus, they treated my friend like dirt and I was with them for about 8 weeks with DS and wasn't thrilled. SO. We are probably looking at a homebirth again and paying out of pocket.

[kalamos23]

Ok, booked our first interview, I really liked her on the phone so *fingers crossed*!

[wp135]

Midwives here are covered by our provincial health care plan.  We either get an OB or midwife but midwives are scarce.  I was lucky to get one with my first pregnancy since I transferred around 24 weeks.  I called the practice and they have already accepted me again, I should find out by the end of the week who exactly my midwife will be and our first appointment will be at 8weeks.
 

[carmen358]

Midwives are also covered by our provincial health care. I will wait now until after a 7/8 week u/s to make sure it's a viable pregnancy (I've had multiple losses) but with my DD I think I saw them for the first time around 8 weeks.
 

[LightForest]

The last time around when I went in early to confirm the pregnancy the nurse dipped the stick as I was holding the cup of urine - then the midwife at the clinic told me my due date based on my last missed period. All in all it was pretty useless for me. I don't do any early ultrasounds or testing, so I'll wait till 12 or so weeks when a midwife can hear the heartbeat with the doppler. (i noticed that another poster mentioned 18 weeks as the earliest you could hear the heartbeat with a doppler but this was not my experience. maybe she's thinking of a fetascope???)

I also wanted to mention that my last homebirth was with a CNM - I know these things vary so greatly depending on where you live (another poster mentioned that only CNMs were covered by her insurance).

We're moving to a new city soon so I'm going to have to learn all the quirks of a whole new homebirth community. I kind of wish I could just have the baby before we move, simply because I have the "system" more or less figured out where I live now!

[kalamos23]

I am the one that mentioned CNMs - if we lived where we did before (2 hours north of where we live currently), I could have had a CNM attended homebirth, but there are no CNMs that attend home births here, which totally sucks. I live in the hippiest city of a hippie state, you would think that they would! 

I met with the midwife on Friday and then we had our first prenatal yesterday (she is going out of town for a couple of weeks, so next prenatal is not until 9+ weeks). Love her. She is medically minded like me (I like to know the how and why things in our body work the way that they do) but midwifey and calm and centered and holistic too and will deal with things naturally vs synthetically if possible. I also trust that she would transfer if necessary. So I think we are going to go with her :)

[revolting]

Yes, I meant fetascope! Oops!

[LightForest]

kalamos23: I do know what you mean about the scarcity of CNMs... We're moving to a new city in a few weeks and I'm finding this out first hand! That's awesome that you found someone you clicked with though :)