Natural birth and OB concerns

I read a birth story on the Nest yesterday and I showed it to Mr. Ibis because it was a perfect example of the kind of birth I want to avoid. Induction with pitocin, followed by an epidural to deal with the pain of pitocin contractions, followed by lack of progress because the epi slows everything down so much, followed by the doctors feeling like everything is going too slowly so they just do an emergency C-section. I know that labor is unpredictable, but man that is becoming such a familiar story the more birth stories I hear and read.

I know this is a controversial topic and I do respect other people's choices in childbirth, so I'm not going to get all preachy about the dangers or horror stories about epidurals or C-sections. I just know that I do not want to hop on the Pitocin-Epidural train. I am aware that you can't control all that much during labor, but I do want to do whatever is in my power to avoid medications, and I do have my reasons, which don't have anything to do with being a hero or wanting to win some kind of Natural Birth Mom of the Year award, but they're just my personal reasons I feel strongly about them. And Mr. I is fully supportive of me on that.

After I described to him what a typical medicated childbirth is like, he said suddenly, "You know, if you don't feel comfortable with Dr. J [my OB], maybe you should find someone else." And this is something I have been contemplating. The reason I have stuck with Dr. J so far is because she was with me for my first pregnancy, and through the followup on my loss, and aside from a brief blip of grief-anger and general rage at the medical profession's inability to prevent my miscarriage, I felt that she did a good job handling it and not over-medicalizing it but not trivializing it either. I felt she took a middle road of making me feel cared for but not like a broken or diseased body and I was comfortable with her care. When I got pregnant again, I felt that during my first two appointments she was very sensitive to my state of mind and Mr. Ibis's too, to how scared we were about another loss, and that she was understanding and reassuring.

It was after that that things started to go a little sour for me. I had three appointments since then and I would say two of them were unpleasant and put a bad taste in my mouth. I kind of want to give her another chance, because everyone has bad days, but my confidence in her is definitely shaken. I'm actually nervous to go back to her in three weeks because I am dreading being pressure to get a flu shot, and I don't think it's good to feel that way about your prenatal care practitioner. I am wondering if a midwife would just be a better fit for me, but it seems like such a big move to "break up" with a doctor, especially one who has been with me this long.

I don't know if there is any logic to this, but I kind of want to meet with our doula candidate first and pick her brain a little. I wonder if I would be fine with Dr. J as long as I had the doula beside me at delivery to help me get what I want out of it. But then, I will have more decisions to make during my pregnancy and I'll have to make them alone in the room with Dr. J (unless I start bringing Mr. I again) - do I want the flu shot (no), do I want the H1N1 shot (no), do I want to be induced if I am close to or just past my due date (no), and so on. On the other hand, I know that my hospital is natural birth and breastfeeding friendly (and has a below-average C-section rate), and so far I have no reason to believe that Dr. J isn't, so maybe I'm prematurely judging her. On the other other hand, I don't owe Dr. J anything and switching to the midwives in the same practice would be relatively simple - in fact it is an option that Dr. J herself mentioned at my very first OB appointment.

Decisions, decisions. It's tough because I want people's input, but I also don't. I don't want advice if it's just people telling me what to do. But that is really a whole new topic for another day.