Looking for info about BirthCare in Alexandria and/or natural births at Inova Alexandria

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have any information and/or experience with Birth Care birthing center in Alexandria, or with how the nurses and hospital deal with mothers who are interested in non-medicated births at Inova Alexandria? I have been planning to deliver at Inova Alexandria but am still feeling uncertain as to how open they will be to my preference for a non-medicated birth. But i am not sure I am ready for a non-hospital option. Any thoughts? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

I know nothing about Inova, but I delivered at Birthcare and had an AMAZING experience.
I felt supported and well-cared for throughout my prenatal care and have nothing but good things to say about the midwives.
I had a VERY long labor and felt encouraged to trust my body and work with it. The natural methods suggested by the midwife to help labor progress were successful, and I ended up delivering a healthy boy. Not sure that I would have been "allowed" to labor so long in the hospital w/o more interventions.
There is a birthcare group on yahoo you could join to get more info and connect with more moms.
Congrats!

[Anonymous]

Search the forum for previous posts on Birth Care and Inova. I'm sure there have been some prior threads on both. Also, check out www.birthoptionsalliance.org If you scroll down the homepage, you will see a link to a Yahoo groups listserve. You can post your question to that group as well, and I am sure you'll get lots of thoughtful, detailed answers. I've found it to be great.

FYI - Birth Care does have a loooong wait list right now. I wanted to use them for my birth (I'm due Nov. 21), but when I called at about my 12th week to see about transferring to them, I was told they had a wait list, that I was pretty far down, and they'd never get to me. They referred me to some other midwifery practices.

[Anonymous]

Yes, Birthcare has a really long wait list -- OP if you are due in 2009 then you might have a chance of getting in with them, but I would call immediately.

INOVA Alexandria is a crap shoot when it comes to a low-intervention birth. You might get lucky, you might not.

There are other fabulous birth centers and midwifery practices in the DC area, who are just as great as Birthcare. If you are truly interested in that type of birth, then I recommend you seek out the other practices if Birthcare is full.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

It depends on your practitioner for IAH.

We went with P&M and had almost no interventions. The only thing was an internal fetal monitor as I kept moving around too much for the belt to be able to monitor the baby effectively. Apart from that, I didn't even have a hep lock (and no pitocin afterwards).

The midwife on call knew of our intentions for a non-medicated birth, and helped us have that.

But, I was flexible as well, and had let P&M know (in advance) that if there was a medical necessity for any type of intervention, that we would be okay with it.

Make sure that your practitioner knows what you are aiming for and that they are on the same page as you are.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

We used BirthCare but it was 15 years ago on August 7th! Just checked and I see that Alice and Marsha are still there. They were wonderful.

I didn't have a strong need to have a midwife deliver but I met with about the only obstetrics practice in my Virginia town and they annoyed me so much it gave me the impetus to track down BirthCare. I found that by going there, I was required to be an active partner in monitoring my health and I felt a lot more in control of the process. I'm sure this is nothing new for you new moms today (my old town has lots of nurse midwives now) but at the time it was quite a contrast with the other practice I investigated.

I found the BirthCare folks to be very level-headed about safety. When they thought I might have that pregnancy-related diabetes (been a long time, forget the terms), they sent me to a doctor and had me checked out. (was not a problem) When I gave birth, I went right into transition (labor was less than 4 hours long) and this apparently was stressful for dd. Marsha told me that my dd's heart rate was dropping and I had two choices -- to get into an ambulance and go to the hospital or have an episiotomy. Sure fine, cut me, it's no big deal.

Granted, this was 15 years ago so you should talk to someone who went there more recently -- but I felt that they worked with me (and they made me be responsible) and that they did not have any kind of doctrinaire opposition to medical intervention if it was necessary. I think you would do fine there, OP.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I can only speak about Birthcare, as I gave birth there six months ago. Like PPs have said, they are extremely personable and invested in you and your baby, and really made me feel supported andempowered about my pregnancy and what my body is capable of. I loved their practice and the midwives there, and am recommending it to everyone I know who is pregnant or even thinking about being pregnant!

As mentioned above, I know the wait lists can be pretty lengthy, but it just depends on the month so it's worth checking out. I was due in February and transferred to Birthcare when I was 20 weeks along, which would have put me at the botton of the list for most months but for whatever reason there were still some available slots for my month. I know the 2 months before my due date month and the 3 or 4 after mine all had waiting lists of 5-10 people, but I was lucky and got in a bit late in the game!

Good luck OP with your decision. There are tons of birth options out there and it can be a bit much to navigate at times, but go with where you feel comfortable and supported!