This is becoming a pattern...

Guess who switched OB's at 32 weeks pregnant? Again.

Yes, that would be me.

I made the decision today to move my OB care from a doc to a midwife. I have a great relationship with my doc... he's super supportive of our natural birth plan, and was an incredible resource when I was dealing with my postpartum depression. He's a fantastic doctor (great bedside manner, respectful, knowledgable, etc.), but he's also a really busy guy.

When Will was born, our doc was out of the country (his family lives abroad so he travels quite a bit). He normally doesn't take patients with due dates that overlap his travel schedule, but Will was 15 days early, so he happened to be out of the country. Unfortunately, the doctor on-call that day was awful. I understand we weren't her patients, and she can't be expected to know everything about us or our wishes, but she was blatantly disrespectful of our natural birth plan. Luckily, we had a great birth (everything to plan) and a very, very supportive nurse, but the experience with the doctor still bothers me a bit.

So as BG's due date approaches, I find myself thinking about my options if our doc is unavailable. Though he's not traveling near our due date, he practices at three different regional hospitals/clinics, meaning there's a very real possibility that we may get the on-call doc instead. And quite honestly, I'm not too fond of the other docs in the practice.

When we moved to this practice for insurance reasons in 2010, they didn't yet offer midwife care. But in the last year, they've added midwives to the practice, making it an option for BG's upcoming birth. I happened to meet with one of the midwives last month when my doc was gone, and I loved her. Today, I met the other midwife and she was equally fantastic. So I made the decision to switch. The midwife ethic is just better aligned with our birthing goals, and no matter which practitioner I get, I'll be happy.

Win-win.