A long way from the Fort

I was born at Fort Sanders, a long, long time ago. Fort Sanders is a hospital near the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville. It's situated near the apex of a long, dolomite ridge and thus was a nice defensible position - hence the building of the Fort. Fort Sanders is also a neighborhood inhabited by raucus UT students and ne'er-do-wells who cling to their student life like a barnacle to a ship. (I've lived there in both student and barnacle phases). My parents and my grandfather have lived in the Fort. My brother lives there now (as a barnacle). In some ways, I feel like the Fort is the pole to my existential globe.

Why do I wax on this now? Katie Allison Granju, Knoxville blogger, is looking for a place to birth her baby. She seems to be looking at the Fort, but is disturbed by their lack of consideration for her wishes.

The staff seem to be much more concerned with limiting liability than in supporting a positive experience for Katie and her husband. In my view (and this as someone with no real experience of childbirth, but whose time is less than 2 months away), childbirth should be seen as natural and normal until it's not. You can labor in a hospital because it's convenient to interventions, should you need them.

Reading the comments, others have had similar experiences (not all at the Fort). Interventions against their wishes, etc. To me, this sounds like hell. This is what I fear the most about birth. Secondly (and perhaps shallowly), I fear the dismal, dingy surroundings of the NHS delivery suites and post-partum wards where I might have to share a room with 3 other people and their squawling offspring. I fear the fear and anxiety which might make me "fail to progress" in labor. My blood pressure surges every time I step into that hospital.

This is why I'm choosing a home birth, despite the fact that I'm risk averse by nature and afraid of ruining the the upholstery of my sofa. And that's why, even if I can't have a home birth (e.g. if I develop complications later on), I plan to stay at home as long as possible with a doula (kind of a birth consultant). Of course, I do live right across the street from one of the best acute care neo-natal facilities around. It's a five minute walk from my front door - though admittedly it's more like a 10 or 15 minute waddle.

I won't go into my mom's birth story at the Fort - since that was in 1970, but suffice to say it was pretty archaic. I was apparently the first baby to be roomed in - ever. And when my brother was born 8 years later, it was at St Mary's.

Rachel, from Women's Health News, has more.