Birth Plans?

I was wondering how many people made a birth plan. If you did, was it followed when you had your twins? I know that emergencies come up and plans change, but do you think they are worth putting together? Also, did you give them to L&D or you OB?

TIA!

 

i didn't do a written birth plan - but i did talk through my "plan A" with my husband, doula & OB. i felt that writting it down might make me feel more locked in, so to speak, and less able to psychologically adapt to changes to the plan, if that makes any sense. i had a very strong image in my mind of how i wanted my birth to go & very strong opinions about what medical interventions i did and did not want but i also tried to keep an open mind & to remember that i can't plan birth.

at any rate, yes, everyone was very respectful of my wishes & had they not been i would have spoken up loud & clear. the best question i learned to ask both before & during my birth was "why?". if a doctor or nurse recommended it i wanted to know why specifically so that i could make an informed decision as to whether it was something i actually needed/wanted. had i been unable to make those decisions my husband (with input from my doula, if needed) would have made the decisions for us. we were very much on the same page for how we wanted our birth to go & i would have trusted him to deviate from the plan as needed.

 

My O.B. told me the fastest way to jinx a birth was to write up a birth plan! :lol: After a lot of thought I finally decided there were only 3 or four things that I really had any control in anyway.

1.) I wanted to be told before the dr does something. Even if it's an emergency and needs to be done regardless of what I say, I want to know what is going on.

2.) I don't want any one but my DH around in the L&D room.

3.) No formula for the babies. I got that covered.

I forget what the others were. I think the pp is right, ask why! Ask any question you want. And if you get a non-answer, demand better! Stand up for yourself and you babies, but keep in mind everyone there wants one thing: Babies and Mom to be ok! Everything they're going to be doing is toward that end.

GL with everything!

 

What's a birth plan? Is it like a will?

 

I did not do a birthplan - all the reading i did said that for the most part things rarely go as you plan. I just made sure dh knew that I was ok with taking meds, or csection, whatever needed to be done.

 

I did write up a short list of things we wanted to do that were (a) different from standard hospital procedures (It helped that our doula had done a lot of births there and knew what was and wasn't done, and (b) OK'd by our doctor. So things like having intermittent monitoring and staying on the L&D bed for the delivery even though we were in the OR. That way the nurses knew what was approved by the doctor. I think it did help, although we had such great nurses and doctor we didn't really need it.

 

I have discussed my birth plan with my Doctor, husband and my mom. I will right down a list of things I feel very strongly about, to have with us at the hospital. Since my first birth of my son did NOT go the way I wanted, with a lot of things happening that I did not agree too, I want to be sure this does not happen with the girls.

 

I didn't have a birth plan for the twins because they were such a unpredictable pregnancy anyway. My doc knew I really wanted to try for a vaginal birth and that's all that really mattered to me at that point.

With my VBAC, I did have a birth plan and it was very important. We were in L&D for a long time and it kept the many nurses, midwives, and doulas we went through on the same page. Every doc & nurse is different so it can be important to make your wishes known right off the bat. I guarantee you are not going to want to repeat yourself 10-20 times to cover every medical professional that comes into your room. We were having a slightly unconventional birth with the VBAC as well so the birth plan let everyone know what to expect and kept me from having to answer constant inquiries that had no relationship to my birth. I was a little too busy anyway.

 

I didn't have a "plan" written down but I did discuss with my DH and dr. a few specific things that were very important to me.

I needed to know everything that was going on, I had to know why certain medical things were interfereing, I did not want them to use a vaccuum, NO formula and NO pacifiers/bottles!