I’m kind of afraid to ask, but my practice – which has obs and midwives, I’m new to the practice and should hopefully be assigned to a midwife when I go next – delivers at Maimonides, which also appears to be the closest hospital to where I live. I found scary things when I googled, but I found scary things about everywhere (what people say about Methodist really surprised me, because I was in the ER in January for a tetanus shot, and that experience seemed to indicate it was the posher type of hospital you’d expect in Park Slope!), so it kind of worries me more that no one mentions it here.
They make a big deal out of their birthing center on the web site, and they have volunteer doulas. I understand that’s more like a drive-by doula than one of your own, but DP and my mother will be with me. I actually went there for an emergency scan recently, and it was probably as good as that experience can be – the practice, due to a recent merger that my doctor seemed unhappy about, always has someone on-site, so I was expected, and it also seemed to me that even if I wasn’t, the woman at the main L&D desk wasn’t going to shunt me through the emergency room. They have expectant parent tours, which I am meaning to do (ideally soon so I can explore other options if it really upsets me), armed with a list of questions.
That emergency scan was basically my most extensive experience in a hospital as a patient since being born. So my experience in this is nil. The parts of saw seemed kind of drab and depressing, but hospitals always strike me that way, and I didn't actually see the birthing center.
