A great hospital birth experience

When I was pregnant, I read a LOT of birth stories. I guess it's just what was interesting to me, and also I wanted to have an idea of what to expect, especially since I was hoping for an unmedicated delivery. I was disappointed in what was available because there are VERY few positive natural birth stories out there that took place in the hospital. In fact, most hospital based stories end with "next time I will birth at home" and many homebirth stories start with a horror story about a past hospital delivery that convinced the mom that birthing at home was her only option. I found this kind of discouraging, so I want to list some of the ways that our hospital experience was really great (in fact, when it was all over, Josh and I both looked at each other and said, "I am so glad we were not at home for that!"). Now, please understand, I am NOT condemning homebirth at all-I think it is great if the woman is comfortable with that. I really think this is one of those areas where there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach...some women will do better at home, some at the hospital, some at a birthing center.
My original plan was to use a midwife-run birthing center in Austin. However, when we moved in the middle of my pregnancy, it became clear that the options were true homebirth or hospital birth. There is a birthing center here, but it is nearly 3 hours away-we didn't feel that would be a good option. I was just not comfortable doing a true home birth with my first child, so we decided to go with a hospital birth, and we tried to stack the odds in our favor as much as possible. We went with a family practice physician who is known to be very natural birth friendly (his wife had both of their children naturally) instead of OB-my reasoning being that since he can't do C-sections, hopefully he will know a lot about preventing them! We hired a doula who was a little expensive, but also is a lay midwife, and so is very knowledgeable about the birth process-and she has been a doula in many scenarios, including many hospital births. I read a LOT and tried to educate myself as much as possible.
Anyway, we were VERY pleased with our hospital experience, for the following reasons:
1. Even though we were having some kind of emergent situations there at first (see Ben's birth story for more details), everyone was very supportive of our desire to birth vaginally, and naturally. The OB resident read our birth plan very carefully, and I think that one of the reasons we were allowed to continue monitoring instead of just going to a C-section (provided Ben's heart stabilized within 5 minutes on its own-which it always did) is because she knew we wanted to birth vaginally if at all possible. She explained everything very thoroughly and made us feel that we were part of the process. She and the family practice resident were constantly working together to try to keep us up to date and try to go with as much as they could from our birth plan (we had to toss a few minor points out the window-I was attached to an IV and fetal monitor the whole time-but they did allow me to move around, change positions, etc.).
2. The nurses (both L & D and postpartum) were beyond great! The first one we had never chided me for changing positions, even though almost every time I did, she had to come back in and find the baby again with the fetal monitor. She helped me find comfortable positions, suggested ways to deal with the nausea, and even hand-held the monitor for about an hour because the only position that it would stay on the baby was no longer tolerable for me. Everyone was very attentive, helpful, suggested comfort measures, etc. On postpartum, our night nurse both nights was a lactation consultant, and really helpful in teaching Ben and me how to eat (I didn't know that was so complicated!). We are still having some mild issues with that, but she got us off to a good start. Everyone was so nice to us and really went out of their way to do everything we wanted. They knew we wanted to stay with the baby, so almost all tests and exams were done at my bedside instead of (their normal) the nursery. They also encouraged us to kangaroo care as much as we wanted (skin to skin) and though they caught us cosleeping several times, no one minded!
3. Our doctor was very encouraging and gentle during the whole birth process. Another great thing about him being family practice-he can take care of Ben too! It was so encouraging to have his gentle encouragement during pushing...when Josh said "Jenn, Dr. K is here!" it made me feel much better even though I was really pretty out of it at that point. There was no shouting, and he gave pushing tips but let me push how I wanted. He also helped me try different positions-we started in sidelying, then switched to quadruped when that wasn't comfortable anymore. I finally pushed the little guy out in tall kneeling because quadruped slowed the descent. They were working on getting a squatting bar up so I could try that, but Ben came too fast to get that installed.
Anyway, just wanted to say that I am so thankful that we had such a great experience at the hospital. I don't know if that hospital is just better than average, or it's because of the great management from our natural birth friendly doctor, or if it was just the hand of the Lord directing everything (or all of the above) but I really feel that for us, the hospital birth was the right choice. The hard things about the labor/delivery had to do with my perceptions (and the monitor!) more than the setting. I hope the last post didn't make it sound like I was disappointed or sad about the birth experience...I really wasn't, just was chronicling raw emotions as I felt them. And even now, just over a week out and still pretty sore and processing, I know I will want to do this again one day. :-)

 Just for fun...3 days before I delivered Ben...(little did I know!)

 And 4 days after....

And my treasure! Sooo worth it! :-)