From James

This is a brief overview of how I went from unthinkingly assuming that pregnancy and birth must always happen at a hospital to believing whole heartedly that using a midwife and birthing at home is the vastly superior choice. 

Firstly, let me introduce us. We are a married couple with 4 children. I will write this leaving out personally identifying information as much as possible. I am writing from the husband's point of view for the 4 births. 

For our firstborn, we were both in the military at the time. We had absolutely no power over any choices being made, including having a home birth or hospital water birth. There was no communication or back and forth about what we would prefer or want, it was very much people coming in, telling us to do stuff, and we were expected to do it. One of the biggest complaints we had was over scheduling. We saw our primary doctor on a Friday and he told us we had to report directly to labor and delivery. So we gathered ourselves and our things and went there, only to be told upon arrival that someone else took the room we were going to and we had to come back on the following Monday. Then after getting back and having our baby, the lack of communication about what was mandatory or optional really made us feel like we had no power or control over our own child. That was really a wake up call, but we chalked it up to it being a military hospital in a military setting. Surely things would get better at a civilian hospital!

For our secondborn we were both civilians and we gave birth at Shannon Medical Center in San Angelo, TX. This time the check in procedure went better and the giving birth part went smoothly enough. The issues all happened afterward. My wife learned from our first experience and came prepared with a detailed birthing plan covering how she wanted to do things. These expectations were clearly communicated to the staff. Simple things, such as wanting to do immediate skin to skin contact and to allow for delayed cord clamping for the baby. Another basic request was that she did not want anybody to take her baby from her sight for any reason. This request was due to severe anxiety my wife suffers from. Any sort of test should be done in her presence, or if that was impossible she would waive whatever they wanted to do. The staff failed to follow her birthing plan and kept telling her "oh honey we don't do it like that" or writing off her expectations for care. Again, they were dictating to HER how THEY wanted things to go. The most traumatic thing that happened was when they actually took our baby away from her sight, which was something we told them specifically not to do, and one nurse laughed at her as she was suffering an anxiety induced breakdown. That sort of treatment is clearly unacceptable even for basic human decency toward someone else. When you consider the circumstances of it coming from people who are supposed to be trained professionals providing the utmost care for someone going through a huge life event, it makes it unforgivable. Add into that the fact we are PAYING the hospital to treat us this way, and it becomes downright insulting that we - the paying customers - are supposed to accept this standard of care. 

For our thirdborn, we again (How many times do you have to be burned before learning to avoid touching fire?) went to Shannon Medical Center in San Angelo, TX. Our experience here was the worst, due to the incompetence and callousness of Dr. Genevieve Mejia, who we would later learn has multiple times, has been arrested for DWI but had the charges dropped or removed from her record due to her influential brother, Congressman August Pfluger. I include that particular information not out of spite, but because if we had been informed of that we would have been able to avoid any contact with this woman and used any other competent OB, or even better a midwife like Midon. To make a long and painful story short, about halfway through the pregnancy Mejia called and left a voicemail for my wife stating our unborn child was improperly developing lungs and vital organs and that the child would not survive, and that we should look for ways to terminate our pregnancy. To people like my wife and I who love our children even before they are born this was devastating news. We tried to call her back constantly over the next few days, and it was about three days before we could even reach her by phone and only because we involved the patient advocate. After following up with her she confirmed and said it was a 100 percent chance this child will not survive. First off, what sort of person does that? This is clearly huge news - our child is going to be stillborn and not survive - why not talk to us directly and not leave a voicemail? And if that is all you have time for, at least be expecting a follow-up conversation as soon as we try to call back! Again, this is not how I would expect to be treated in any human to human interaction, but it is made especially more insulting due to the context of this woman being our healthcare provider. We spent the next few months devastated as we set up appointments with another hospital to do more testing and imaging. After a huge amount of emotional pain and financial expenditure, the other hospital found that there was in fact nothing wrong with this child. This child is now a bright and lively three year old - she would be dead were we to have followed Mejia's advice. 

Needless to say, we cancelled care with Dr. Mejia and swapped to another OB. This time at the hospital we were done playing along and playing nicely with the staff who would mistreat my wife and ignore our wishes. We refused most tests and told them to leave us alone, and departed the hospital the next day after signing whatever waivers we needed to because the hospital 'policy' was that everyone has to stay a full certain amount of time before they would send you home. The infuriating thing about this hospital experience is how the staff will hide behind the word 'policy' and say that is just how they do things. I suspect the 'policy' of keeping people from going home has more to do with being able to bill insurance companies extra for all those hours that are not medically needed to be in the birthing room. 

For the fourth time we knew for a fact we would have nothing to do with Shannon Medical Center. My wife and I both had experienced the hospital method of birthing and came away really not happy with it. So we looked for alternatives. Our choices were to do it ourselves (free-birthing) or to hire a midwife. I am delighted to say that we chose to use a midwife, specifically Midon Wingo, to provide all of the appointments during pregnancy, to assist with the birth, and provide the postpartum care as well. In every one of these phases of the pregnancy experience, Midon was VASTLY superior to the hospital in every way. First, Midon comes to your home instead of you going to a large building where you get the privilege of sitting in a waiting room until an hour or two after your appointment was supposed to begin. Then, you get to talk to her about why things are done and if it is possible to do things differently in order to accommodate you. At a hospital you would get laughed at, and the hospital staff hide their own incompetence or laziness behind the magic word 'policy', and then they send you an absurd bill. Midon does everything the hospital would do, except better, and likely cheaper. On to the birth itself - at home. No need to arrange childcare for your other young children while you depart for the hospital. No need to get a bag and drive through traffic to an unfamiliar room full of strangers. By this point Midon is like a close friend who you know well. Leave your kids sleeping in their own rooms while you take your wife to the other side of the house. Midon will give your wife as much or as little guidance as she desires through the process of giving birth. After the birthing is over, Midon can do everything that is needed for the baby and mother to make sure both are in good health. My wife's endorsement of Midon is that she did exactly what she asked for, which is something that every hospital staff has failed to do so far. 

After experiencing three hospital births and one midwife birth, I can tell you from my experience that every hospital birth has been a terrible experience, marked by fundamental things - as simple as listening to my wife and I - being unsatisfactory. The midwife experience is vastly superior and it is worth every penny. Midon will listen to you and communicate with you so that you can arrive at the exact standard of care that you expect for yourself. And she will do so at a VASTLY lower financial cost than a hospital. If we ever find ourselves in the situation where we having another child, I would without hesitation call Midon. If I could go back in time and give myself one piece of advice it would be to use Midon as a midwife instead of going back to the hospitals. It is so hard to express how satisfied both my wife and I were with our experience with Midon. The fact that we could both be at home, where we both knew the other kids were safely sleeping in the other room was incredible. No more shuttling back and forth to the hospital parking lot, navigating through the hospital and elevators with other kids to visit mom, or the separation of the family like that. Everyone all together under one roof, and then when the kids wake up for breakfast there is a new baby in the other room. If I had to use a rating system, I would give hospitals a 0/10 and I would give Midon 50/10. I give her my unconditional endorsement for anyone who is going to give birth.