Experience w/Birth Center after IVF?

nicsyn · October 2020

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??

nicsyn · February 2021

@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!

coldlife2 · February 2021

Glad to hear you found a place! Yes, generally AMA and/or ART alone are not reasons to preclude you from an OOH birth.

If you’re looking for more info, if I recall correctly, @businesswife did IVF and then planned a med-free birth. She ended up with a CS, did IVF again, and then had a low-intervention VBAC.

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