Experience w/Birth Center after IVF?

nicsyn

Hi everyone,
I always envisioned myself having natural childbirth, something as close to a home birth as possible, ideally a water birth or something like that. Now, at 37, finally 8 weeks pregnant after our first IVF cycle due to MFI, I'm wondering if that is still achievable. Long before our IF journey, I had already picked out a couple of birth centers in my area that seemed like the ideal situation for me. They are very close to hospitals and have connections with them to ensure a smooth transfer in the event you want or need to suddenly birth at a hospital instead, but otherwise focus on holistic, natural midwifery care and help you to have a natural, low technology, home-like birth. The internet seems to have varying responses on whether or not an IVF pregnancy is considered "high risk" and the birth centers I've been looking at do not mention it specifically as a disqualifier, but they do say it is for healthy women with no major risks (example listed include: gestational diabetes, VBAC, multiples). One in particular even mentioned that age is NOT a risk factor. My GYN does not do labor and delivery so she only supports through the 1st trimester, but when I brought up the idea of a birth center with midwifery-focused care to her, she was very against it. She said due to my AMA, she didn't think it was a good idea to not have a physician overseeing my pregnancy and said they wouldn't know what to do in case of an emergency. I'm a very healthy person, with no issues on my side. All of my IF tests came back within normal levels and I've never had any kind of health conditions. Based on my research, midwifes at birth centers are very well-versed in emergency procedures and boast better odds for healthy natural deliveries with fewer complications and caesarean sections than hospitals, but curious to hear if anyone out there has any experience??

cait32

@nicsyn I know this is from the fall and you probably already made your decision but ivf isn’t a factor at my birth center unless there are other issues. Ivf on its own doesn’t make a pregnancy high risk, and the risks of age are generall things that are caught during the pregnancy (through blood tests, gestational diabetes, ultrasound, etc.) Your gyn’s reaction is unfortunately typical based on my experience. Doctors (surgeons in the case of OBs) are trained for worst case and most seem to have an aversion to birth center care. I doubt it’s about IVF.

i had my first in a pretty much perfect birth center experience. During my second, I was at the birth center and my son had heart rate decelerations so I took an ambulance to the hospital. Once I was there is heart rate was fine (I think a bumpy ambulance ride knocked him off his cord) and I delivered him naturally about 20 min after arriving. I’m obviously fine with the transfer but I hated being in the hospital. We were able to leave at the 24 hour mark but it was still too long. At the birth center I went home 6 hours after delivery and it was glories!

nicsyn

@cait32 Thank you for sharing! Thats great to hear and how wonderful that even your transfer went natural and smooth. I did end up ditching my OB and found a lovely birth center that had no issue with IVF or AMA as long as i had no other high risks like you mentioned. I am looking forward to the experience and just hope we don't have any surprises to end up at the hospital. I'm planning to get a doula that would come to the hospital with me to help ensure most of my birth plan is still carried out just in case I need to transfer. Thanks again!