- This Post is a Copy of a Comment left on the previous post. I felt it needed to be repeated.
- I don't want to get into a war of words but I am posting on this blog to say to any expectant mother reading this, to reconsider your choice of choosing Paula as your midwife and reconsider having a homebirth. I wish someone had said to me, what I am about to say to you. Although I have a friend that had a good birth experience with Paula, a friend which I used as my reference for the decision to have Paula as my midwife. I sit here now, after the fact, and beseech any new mother reading this to not make the same regretful mistake as I made. What a tragic mistake it was to literally put my baby's life in incapable hands. While I agree that Paula is a caring person, I wholeheartedly do not believe she has the necessary skills/capabilities of dealing with an EMERGENCY situation. A number of things went wrong the day my baby was born. To all new mothers out there, I urge you to steer away from the romantic homebirth notions that you hear and read about. Because those notions can quickly turn to a nightmare that you never expected you would see. I never imagined I would have the difficulties that occurred during my birth. I had the healthiest pregnancy any woman could have. Frankly, I also had the 'that would never happen to me' attitude. Please, please, please put your unborn child's life in the trained capable hands of today's medical professionals instead, because you can never know what will go wrong during your birth. It’s a decision that I will regret for the rest of my life. However, If I can help but one mother make a better decision than I made....well, then I feel at least I have done something good from my tragic situation."
- August 11, 2009 12:08 PM
3 comments:
First of all my heart goes out to you, I don't know the particulars of your situation but clearly you have suffered. Thank you for coming forward to speak about your experience with Paula.
I think everyone should know that there are currently three cases of Paula's being investigated by the Medical Board of California. All of the complaints originate with both the parents and the medical personnel that care was transferred to.
I don't agree that homebirth is unsafe when attended by qualified, competent providers with a low-risk mother and a hospital within 20-30 minutes. Everyone should be aware that the unexpected can happen and there should be the equipment, training and experience to deal with it. It is unfortunate that the bad eggs ruin the reputation of homebirth and the midwives that provide those services. Please heed the advice of the earlier blog and do your research and get references regardless of the birth location you choose.
I have been considering this post for some time now, so here goes.
As the father of "Regretful" I can tell you that as a man, husband, father and now Grandfather, I have never felt so helpless. I am a guy who "fixes" things. In the hospital immediately after the birth, I could not fix my precious baby granddaughter. I could not fix my daughter's deep hurt and anguish. I could not fix my son-in-law's obvious pain. I could not fix the pain of watching the two new grandmothers try to console each other. I was helpless, helpless. All I could do is Pray.
When I got home I went to Paula's web site and read how wonderful she was and all of the beautiful pictures of successful home births. I got angry, I GOT ANGRY. I AM STILL ANGRY.
I went to the California state midwife licensing web site and after some difficulty finally found Paula's licensing information, pretty straight forward, current license number etc. I then went to the California licensing web site for Registered Nursing. Wow, what a difference! Same basic information regarding the licensing with one exception, "Disciplinary Actions". Not listed on the Midwives license web site. Something to hide here? I then went to the several midwife associations I could find, nothing negative or even cautionary for the "researching" mother to be. The sad conclusion, unless the new mother to be is somewhat cynical, web sites or blogs of this nature do not "pop up" and are at least hard to find, resulting in an unreasonable and uninformed expectation of a blissful birth experience for the new mother. Unfortunately, for my family, it ain't so.
What I did "experience" at the hospital is the "miracle" of today's technology. A technology that hopefully helped "fix" my grand daughter in some way. I "experienced" the amazing tender care by an unbelievable crew of dedicated professionals. One RN assigned to my granddaughter I will forever remember. He was the one guy who did the most to "fix" my granddaughter. Simply amazing young man.
As I now watch my granddaughter grow I wonder when the next bomb is going to drop? Will we all have to worry about her future development forever? I can't "fix" that either.
My regret.......FOREVER!.......is........I did not challenge my daughter on her birthing decision before this family nightmare occured.
My one REQUEST of the custodian of this blog, Please do what you can to have this blog or website "pop up" for those new "mothers to be" to help educate or offer an alternative view.
I wish that we could discuss the issues that come up about a particular midwife without being pushed to never homebirth. It's hard to step forward about individual midwives because there are so many out there hell bent on removing our right to birth at home, which I truly believe is the healthiest choice.
While I did experience negative things under Paula's care during pregnancy and postpartum (one which could have been dangerous and was technically neglectful), I did have my healthy home water birth after all. There was definite knowledge and skill in most areas that we encountered, and probably most moms will be okay in her care, to be honest. But the issues we encountered outweight this. Oh how I wish I had nothing bad to say!
At the time she was not the senior midwife and I don't believe she was considered a primary midwife, but I dealt with her alone an awful lot and both my husband and I were left with a bad taste. I often felt a bit harassed and her behavior changed when the senior midwife was there. In fact, at one point we began to ask the senior midwife to remove her from our case, but we were worried no one would get to the birth on time without them working together. We thought having Paula was better than not having Paula. But how unsettling a feeling that is to go into your birth not completely trusting your team.
I had my healthy, easy homebirth but cannot stand up for Paula. I do not feel she should be a primary midwife, even with more experience, because of deep character flaws (her penchant for lying and blaming and not listening to my needs) which I feel negate any experience she may have over the past few years. It might cause lapse in judgment and wrong choices. If nothing else, it might hurt another mother like me who desperately needed support.
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