Hello everyone!
We did the maternity ward tour this morning and I was hoping it would help me make up my mind about where to have this baby (23 weeks) but it's done the opposite.
I've pretty much narrowed it down to Life Fourways (where my gynae works) and the Genesis Clinic in Saxonwold. The hospital is a great and beautiful hospital but it's still a hospital, and their delivery room is so sterile and almost hostile looking. They have a bath there for pain management but they don't allow water births, you have to get on the bed when ... push comes to shove, as it were :) I worry about outdated rules like that, like having to give birth on your back. That's designed to make the caregivers' lives easier, not the mother's.
On the other hand it's very comforting to know that a wealth of doctors and anaesthesiologists are literally around the corner. At the active birth unit (Genesis) they have to get called in in case of an emergency. I'm a first timer so I do worry about these things.
It's made all the harder by not knowing what to expect (and I'm sure I never will). The thought of the pain scares me but I want to go natural if I can, it seems better for me and baby in the long run. Then again, at the hospital, there's epidurals etc...
Oh, decisions, decisions.
Of course, it'll all be moot if this baby stays in breech!
Do you have stories about hospital births or more naturally inclined institutions, especially the places I'm considering? I'd love to hear them. Thanks.