You know, this being my third birth, I have a much better idea of when I would transfer:
When I ask myself if I should or, if the words "if xyz doesn't happen/does happen in the next 'whatever' minutes, we should transfer" come out of my mouth.
I don't want a "close call"....I don't want to realize thirty minutes after I think about it, that "if I had been in the car thirty minutes ago, I'd be at the hospital NOW instead of in my house, scared as shit, trying to get into the car" - you know?
At no point during my last two births did transferring enter into my mind. So I know that's not something I do when I'm in moments of extreme intensity or in transition or whatever...so if I DID have that thought, if things were really intense and I thought to myself "I wonder if this is really okay, I wonder if I should be getting in the car" - I'd just rather get in the car. Hell, I can always birth in the car outside the hospital or in the bushes behind the emergency room if everything is "okay" by the time I actually get there! I've been trying to have an outdoor birth since my fist one, anyway! haha. Can you imagine, giving birth behind the hospital and then going home without ever checking in? Geez luoise would that be nuts. But I have been called crazy.
There are certain things I'd straight up call 911 about....fetal distress, certain kinds of blood loss or symptoms of abruption, etc. It always kills me when I read a birth story where abruption causes/almost causes really terrible things to happen and leading up to the "bad part" I'm reading the story and I'm like "this sounds like abruption, why isn't the MW saying that!!!" - so that is stuff I've spoken with my MW about at length. She knows that I don't need her to be "transfer happy" but she also knows that there are certain things that if she even THINKS symptoms are "adding up" to something nasty we need to go...it's also the reason I like the way my MWs work. I tend to be a lone birther, I want them here "just in case" (well, my DH insists on it!) but I like them to hang back. So I have one MW who is more present, but hanging back....and then one (very experienced, many years in the field) MW who is hanging back observing, not in any way hands on. I like it that, because I feel like one MW can get swept up in the whole thing and be very "in it"....but another is observing from a more objective standpoint and I think that lends a better sense of clarity and that the midwife hanging back is the one who is truly able to judge time, intensity, etc. I believe that the MW who is more hands on attending, goes into a "laborland" of sorts right along with the mother and that it can prevent her from realizing until after the fact how things were really going at certain points.
Just my opinion!
I'd rather give birth in a hospital and end up having had nothing wrong....than stay at home because "it's probably just a more intense birth this time, with more bleeding...and more pain...and ummmm, hhmmmm, maybe we should have transferred an hour ago". You know?
OP I'm sorry things didn't go super as planned....but the overall plan was to snuggle a baby, right? So I guess things did kind of go as planned, after all, huh?? Good job listening to your gut, that's what it is there for.
