Questions... Possibly a bit ramble-y inside.

BlindysWife

So I'll see if I can keep my thoughts/questions concise so that I don't ramble. But no promises., k?

I went into labor 5 days overdue with my water breaking, meconium, headed to the hospital, was dilated to 4 (was at a zero the day before). I was most comfortable and in the least amount of pain when I was standing or sitting on the toilet. But immediately, his heart tones weren't great, so I was made to lay on my left side. Soo much more painful, and that led to me getting the epidural around 6cm, which I wanted to avoid. They had me on and off oxygen throughout the day. I ended up stalling at 7cm for four hours. My mw said she wanted to let me labor longer, but with the heart decels, she thought the c/s was best. I blame the failure to progress on the fact that I wasn't allowed to move around to allow gravity to help, but laying on the left side was the only position that made the heart tones less crappy.

As I think of the coulda-shoulda-woulda's, I wonder if I had stayed home longer (couldn't because of the meconium) if I would've been able to progress/dilate further at home, avoid the epi, etc etc etc. But, had I stayed at home longer I wouldn't have known the heart tones were poor. Could that have led to something catastrophic? I know it does no good to think of what might have been, but I guess I'm just wondering how serious something like that is?

Other totally random question, as I am maybe considering hbac for the next baby... When you deliver at home with a mw, where do you get all the paperwork for naming the baby, getting its SSA card, etc.? The hospital had all that and mailed it in for us. Do hb mw's do the same thing? We're not ttc yet, but I still think of the next baby and birth.

Thanks, ladies!

iris427

I'm definitely familiar with the coulda-shoulda-woulda game.  But it sounds like you made the right call.  I would have done all the same things you did.  Sometimes no matter what we do, c-section is the best choice, and it's not a reflection on you or the choices you made.  If your baby was in distress, it could have been pretty serious.  There's no way to know what would have happened if you had stayed home longer and you can drive yourself crazy wondering (believe me, I've been there!).  You can't change the past but you can look forward to the future.

I had an HBAC.  Our doctor gave us the paperwork for the birth certificate, but we could have gotten it from our county health department too.  We filled it out, took it into the health dept and they filed for the birth certificate and SS card for us.  We also had to take the baby to the pedi 5 days postpartum.  At the pedi they did the heel prick and referred us for the newborn hearing screen, which we did the following week.  All in all, it was not complicated to get that stuff done.  But I live in an area where home birth is *fairly* common and accepted.  I've heard it can be harder in other areas.

lostaspen

My DS is nearly 2 years old and I still go through the shoulda list.  My biggest regrets are not having a doula and letting family come visit on his first day (he was born at 6:14am, after 18 hours of induced, pain-med labor, so I was exhausted and heavily drugged from the surgery).

I'm planning a HBAC this time and asked my midwife about the birth cert--she gives her clients 7-8 days to come up with a name, then turns in the paper work.  With DS and probably with this one, I'll send in the paper work for the SSN.

BlindysWife

Thanks for the replies, ladies. I appreciate the encouragement!