Should I confront my midwife re overmedicalized first birth?

[Galatea]

In a few weeks I have my 1st prenatal appt. with my midwife group. I happen to be seeing the one who caught ds. Though we planned to birth ds at the birthcenter, I ended up being induced due to low fluid. I was induced in the am with pitocin and after about 12 hours got an epidural. I don't remember being in a lot of pain before the epidural, but the anesthesiologist said he was leaving for the day and the midwife said that she wanted to break my water soon as I was not progressing, and that the epidural would probably make it more comfortable. I got the epidural, and it was great for me, b/c I went from 3-10 cm in 2 hours. However, the midwife decided that she wanted internal fetal monitoring b/c the external monitors weren't picking the signal up continuously. She put in the internal monitor, and actually poked ds in the scalp - he still has a little round scar to this day. I pushed entirely in a reclining position, and he was born after 2 hours of pushing. No episiotomy, and the midwife was cool in many ways - she let me eat secretly, she didn't let the nurses take ds away, she didn't bother me or dh, she let dh catch ds. Overall, I feel I had a good experience. Still, though, I have always wondered why I had so much instrumentation and stuff crammed in me, and if this is normal for her, or was she trying to go along with what she thought I wanted. Should I ask her about this? Would that be putting her on the spot for something that wasn't her fault? How should I bring it up?

[Quirky]

I definitely think you should ask, and figure out what was going on - whether it was her preferences, hospital policy, what she thought you wanted, etc.

I found out the hard way that the birth center I gave birth at was a lot more med-wifey than I had anticipated, and I ended up with a lot of interventions that really screwed things up for months (long story). At my post-partum visits I was still too shell-shocked and intimidated and tired to ask all my questions about why the heck my midwife did certain things I had NOT wanted (like AROM, episiotomy, purple pushing....) She's gone now, and I still haven't had the courage to read my records. If I were to go back there (which I am not) I would hash it all out with the current midwives before I could be comfortable.

Bottom line, you need to be comfortable and secure that your health care providers will respect your wishes as you express them - not as they perceive them. And that they won't ignore your wishes in favor of hospital policy where there is no good reason to do so.

[doctorjen]

I would definitely bring it up. As someone who attends births, I would want to know if someone wasn't happy about the way things went in the past. I'd want to know how to support them the next time, if they were still gracious enough to offer me the chance.
(And just for the record, an internal monitor is applied by screwing a thin wire under the skin of the scalp - it requires poking a baby in the scalp. Why it was placed is another issue, but that is how it's applied.)

[pamamidwife]

I agree - I would probably mention that you're hoping this birth can be different for you and explain the reasons why.

[Galatea]

Originally Posted by doctorjen

(And just for the record, an internal monitor is applied by screwing a thin wire under the skin of the scalp - it requires poking a baby in the scalp. Why it was placed is another issue, but that is how it's applied.)

After I posted, I realized I screwed this up. What I meant to say, is she put in this thing that was like an air tube that would tell her how hard my contrax were (this is how she explained it). She was thinking that I wasn't having regular strong contrax, esp. b/c the epidural worked so well. So it wasn't a fetal monitor. I think.

[pamamidwife]

Lilli, what you described is what is called an IUPC - an intrauterine pressure catheter.