Did you have a written birth plan that didn't happen?

[MosMom]

I had a written birth plan for my 2nd and it wasn't fully followed but I trusted my OB when he gave me a concrete reason for breaking what he did. He actually asked if I was going to write one and thought it was a great idea. I didn't have a ton of requests though. I had a few which were very important to me and only one of them was broken (no pitocin). I wasn't progressing at all and my water had broken spontaneously so he wanted to introduce pitocin to get things going since my waters had already broken and introducing infection was a possibility at that stage. Other than that, everything was followed. Luckily, I didn't have "No Drugs" on there or I would have broken that as well.

I didn't have set expectations with how my birth should go though, I think there are too many things out of your control when in labor and I didn't want to feel like a failure if things weren't followed exactly.

 

[calypso*a*go-go]

It's kind of hard to have a birth plan when your water breaks @ 26 weeks without any warning and you have to rush to the hospital during rush-hour traffic. I was too busy praying to even think about a birth plan!!!

 

[jwsqrdplus2]

Originally posted by Princess Dot
I understand that people want to express their wishes (i.e. no drugs, want epidural, want to walk around, don't want IVs, no episiotomy, etc.) but much of this should be discussed with your doctor ahead of time and many of the things you think you either want or don't want change once you start labor. Also, some of these things are beyond your control to some extent. For example, you may not be able to walk around while in labor in certain circumstances or you may need an IV for medical reasons.

ITA about discussing with your Dr. For both my DDs, I had discussed options with my Dr (different OBs for each DD since we moved in between). With DD1, things went pretty much how we discussed except that the on-call Dr delivered my DD, since mine was not on call that evening! But the on-call OB was awesome.

With DD2, I "planned" delivery to the point of inducing on Monday when my last day of work was the Friday prior. That one went much faster and easier. In both cases, no written plan, but what I had discussed with the Drs worked.

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

Very cool, Jenn Lynn, I plan to give birth at home, too! I had never even considered it until a friend of mine did just that recently, so I checked out several books on it and decided that's the way I'm going!

 

[kadaten]

Originally posted by holycow
Let nature take its course and when you can take drugs take those too!


I've had 3 kids 3 epidurals (praise be to you know who) and only 1 spinal headache...oh, that just makes me ill thinking about it...but I wouldn't change a thing!

Holycow

No written birth plan since I knew my doc wouldn't be delivering me....it would be whoever was on duty that day or on call that night....so would just tell them what I wanted....as little pain as possible and an easy recovery....

Hmmm.....I have 2 kids....had 4 epidurals (first one didn't take both times)....total of 6 sticks (missed on the first try both times)....and 2 spinal headaches from the knicked dura....that resulted in 2 blood patches.....so 8 needles in my spine!! And I'm afraid of needles!!!!

SAME *&^%$#@ anesthesiologist both times even though the births were 20 months apart.....just my luck! He tried to claim "it's a commom occurrence" then tried to claim I had "weird anatomy" but the anesthesiologists who "fixed" me by doing the blood patches said "no, it's not a regular occurrence" and he just wasn't any good and my spine was straight as an arrow and not weird in any way!! ARGHHH!!!! No wonder I burst into tears when I saw him come in the room for the second kid....but he'd just come on and was the only one for the next 24 hours so it was him or noone. I had told myself it was my fault the first time....that I must have moved since I was so scared of needles....but I was perfectly still and he did it again! The imbecile (sp?)!! Still gets my blood boiling.....

If I had any pain tolerance at all, I'd have gone without....

Oh, and on the second kid when the first epidural failed and he re-did it....gave me a spinal to hold me over until the epidural kicked in...but he OD'd me and I was paralyzed from the neck down! DS just slipped out...no pushing or anything. Of course, the nurses had to remind me to breathe....and almost had to help me breathe....until the spinal wore off....but there was no pain so I *guess* you could say it was successful

That guy should be kept from practicing!!! Sorry....will stop venting....but will punch that guy if I ever see him again!!

 

[Alex]

with DD being an ER nurse and I was a paramedic at the time we had seen all of the things that can go wrong in childbirth. In those jobs you tend to see the bad ones more than normal births. Our plan was very simple. End up with a healthy mother and baby and how we got there didn't matter a hoot. The plan worked!!