Advocating for yourself during birth

No I don't feel comfortable advocating for myself during birth. With my son my husband was there to make sure I got everything I needed. I was very out of it even before medication came into play. Without him the nurses would have barely paid me any mind. It is against CDC guidelines to make a woman give birth without a support person. Especially because of Covid-19 that is still true. Any hospital not complying with that you can sue for emotional trauma. I would never be able to give birth without my husband or my mom there.

No i didn’t feel capable, i felt “out of it” even before i had the epidural, my bf advocated for me.

I have been taking Aviva Rom’s #ideservebirthsupport class on Facebook, she talks about this a lot. I am a FTM but I think because of her I’m more aware of my options for self-advocacy. I honestly believe that this is why doulas are perceived by birthing people to be so valuable- they know YOU *and* they know the DRILL- I’m hoping that by the time I deliver in November, I’ll be able to ave a doula attend my birth.

I felt so out of it and I only had gas and air, I just went along with anything they said because I was in so much pain.

This time I'm going to let my partner know everything I want/dont want so he can speak for me when the pain gets too much x

I didn’t know if I would be able to advocate for myself when I was in so much pain so I had my mom and husband (mostly my mom) advocate for me but I also had a midwife and I never felt like I was being pressured to do anything.

Both of my births were induced with a pill. Just over 41 weeks with my first bc he was measuring big. A few hours later my water broke and labor started. They wanted to give me pitocin but i said i wanted to labor on my own. I ended up needing it bc they dont want your water broken for more than 24 hrs. My son was 10 lbs 4 oz. I did not get the epidural. My aunt is a labor and delivery nurse at a different hospital and she thinks i would have ended up with a c section at most other hospitals.

My second birth was with twins at 39 weeks. I did a lot more research on advocacy bc i did not want a c section. So i listened to a lot of podcasts. Baby a was head down but could not get b to flip, a c section was recommended. I wanted to try vaginal but they said if b didnt flip after an external version, i would need a c section. They encouraged the epidural for this reason, and it is easier to flip the baby if I am not resisting bc it hurts. Continued..