Almost immediately after we watched The Business of Being Born, a documentary by Ricki Lake about how giving birth has become big business in America, we decided we wanted to switch from an OB/GYN to a midwife. (I write about this decision in an earlier post.)
We severed our relationship with Dr. Scott Postell at Long Island College Hospital when I was 20 weeks pregnant, despite the fact that we had not yet found a midwife, which we learned was no easy feat.
I told Jason that I was nervous about severing our relationship with Dr. Postell. Not because I wasn’t sure of the decision, but because I liked the man and did not want to hurt his feelings. My husband Jason was shocked by this. Not that I didn’t want to hurt his feelings but that I was too timid to tell him it was over. So after I was examined and I was hesitating, Jason interjected and told Dr. Postell that we were going to continue our prenatal care with a midwife.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, but the doctor was a bit perturbed. (At which point I wanted to crawl and hide under a table.) But then he began to say things to us that I found troubling. For starters he asked if we thought I’d have a less chance having a c-section with a midwife. We told him yes. That in fact we could NOT have a c-section with a midwife since she was not licensed to perform such a surgery. He then said he could tell what neighborhood we lived in based on our decision to use a midwife.
Despite the fact that he just stereotyped us, I tried to save face by telling him if by chance something did go wrong during my birth, I hoped he would be the doctor on call that day. Kind of dumb, right? Here I am firing the guy because I was scared he would give me an unnecessary c-section while at the same time saying that if I did need one, I’d hope he’d do it. Ugh!
However since we’ve found a midwife – by the near-skin of our teeth – I’ve wavered some about our decision to fire Dr. Postell. Especially when Beverly recently told me she’d heard that Dr. Postell had a patient who delivered using a squat bar! I am a month away from my due date now and only time will tell if we made the right decision.