The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS, a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA

Hospital Disregarded Wishes

My first two births were both vaginal. The first birth went as 'natural' as most hospital births. The only interventions were an amniotomy and an epis. My husband was there and a terrific labor support person - he could be a doula ;-) My best friend was also present and had gone to childbirth classes with me. She was very squeamish and to this day would rather have ME have her kids for her :-(

With our second, I was aware of the harmful effects of pitocin and avoided it like the plague. They kept asking me every few minutes if I had changed my mind. Same with the amniotomy. The epis. was done during an exam. He asked if I had had one previously then %% snip %%! I had signed papers at their request and verbally told them repeatedly that I did not want these interventions, but they won! The pit was the worst part - the dr. looked at his watch and laughed and said I'd be outta here and back in the recovery room by dinnertime I had violent, uncontrollable cont. contractions until our daughter came (in less than an hr!) When I was ready to push they told me to wait because the SOB (as I personally refer to this particular OB) was no where to be found.

Nie Wieder (Never Again!)