My previous birth was a home birth through a MGP which was amazing but I found that in Lithgow, there are only limited options for pregnancy care and birth. I wasn’t happy about birthing at hospital at all. I asked if I could be looked after by the midwives at the hospital for antenatal appointments but apparently that’s not an option at Lithgow hospital. I was stuck seeing a doctor for antenatal appointments which I wasn’t a fan of. When I arrived in labour, my doctor was called to attend even though I specifically asked the midwives not to call him because I didn’t want him there at the birth. Then I was coerced into having iv antibiotics for GBS because I had not yet done the GBS swab and they wanted to treat me as GBS positive. I refused continuous monitoring so I could be comfortable and the main midwife looking after me was ok with just using the doppler intermittently to check on baby during labour. I was constantly interrupted and hardly left alone for the whole labour. I declined internal cervical checks many times before finally giving in and letting them check me so they would leave me alone to labour in peace. The main midwife did the check and said she couldn’t feel anything so in came the doctor to do another internal on me. This was the most intense pain I had felt during the whole labour! The doctor said I was 7cm so I’m not sure how the midwife couldn’t feel anything. One of the midwives offered to fill the bath for me to labour in to which I gratefully accepted. The ‘bath’ that was ‘allowed’ was a great big inviting looking corner bath but was filled to merely ankle deep! Absolutely useless for any sort of comfort or pain relief. The main midwife got me loads of pillows (all the way from other parts of the hospital too) and was very helpful at getting me into a comfortable position for pushing. During pushing, as my baby was crowning, my doctor asked if I had ever torn before! I ignored his question and he continued to ask multiple times until the main midwife got right up to my face and said “The doctor wants to know if you have torn before” so all I could think about was the worry of tearing, why were they asking me this now!? I did not tear at all in the end, only slight grazing. Everyone was happy with my choice to have hubby catch the baby which was fantastic! Once my baby was born I had to specifically ask for a warm blanket because we were both freezing. One of the midwives made me an ice pack for my pad which was amazing! Then I was left alone for at least half an hour to soak up my new baby which was also amazing. After that, I went and birthed my own placenta over the toilet which is exactly what I wanted. A few hours later I strongly advocated for myself to be ‘let go home’ so the main midwife got me all of the paperwork I needed to get out of there which I was so grateful for because I was worried they would make me stay the night. If I had to go through Lithgow hospital again, I’d hire a really good, strong minded doula to take with me for the birth. It’s really hard to advocate for yourself strongly when you are in full blown labour and are very vulnerable. I suspect that the doctors at Lithgow hospital run the show and the midwives hands are tied. Evidence based care is something you’ll have to fight for if you find yourself needing to birth there.