One of our midwife team, Ami Burnham, came over yesterday for our first checkup. I love so much that they come to our place. We found out first hand when we were interviewing another midwife that driving through city traffic and trying to find parking and the building doesn't leave us feeling so warm and baby happy.
This was an experience like I have never had with any other medical professional. She came over, had a cup of tea and we sat in our living room and she apologized that the first few sessions are paperwork heavy. No problem by me--I was happy that she was explaining why they needed whatever medical info and how it would be used. Also, aside from the normal family medical history questions, she also asked about our relationship and how Regina was feeling and gave us a few things to try for the nausea that we hadn't tried before.
A great example of why we chose to work with these midwifes is our discussion of sonograms. We were debating whether we should have the 13 week sonogram and Ami referenced a study that showed potential side effects from long term and massive amounts of sonogram use. I, being a slightly neurotic research hound had read the study and was impressed by her take on it--that the study used such an extreme case that it was not really applicable, but that the safest thing to do is only have them done if there is specific and important information needed from it.
For the actual checkup Ami had Regina lie down in the window seat and felt around her belly and used the Doppler to try to find the heartbeat. It ended up being too early to hear yet.
The whole process was the opposite of going to Kaiser--reassuring rather than stressful, relationship building rather than alienating, being a person rather than a (medical) number.
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