the great debate...

So - 4 babys, 4 different births?

Nope. 4 babys, 2 different experiences, 2 different health care systems.

AND I KNOW EVERY ONES EXPERIENCE IS DIFFERENT. THIS IS MY EXPERIENCE.

First and second were inductions - both at some stage early morning, not working, so needing other stuff done like drips and waters broken etc. Both ended up being "assisted" by epidurals and both took around 8 hours ish. Both were in a Private hospital with a private OBGYN.

Third and forth were both very quick with no medical intervention required at all and no pain relief. Both took around 1.5 hours to be born. Both were in public hospitals with Midwifes.

Is there a pattern here?

The cost of private health cover is expensive, add onto the normal cost of your policy the hospital excess, the cost of the OBGYN ($3k) , costs of visiting the dr, ultra sounds, blood tests - the list goes on and on. A rough guess on how much we paid for 1 and 2 would be $5500. The hospital was great and had a nice view - but was it worth that?

I look back over all 4 of mine and wish that I had more knowledge and understanding of what goes on and why. Even with 4, I still had questions about things... I have mixed feelings about the Private system now - after having such positive birthing experiences 3rd and 4th times - I feel like I could have had more of a say the 1st and 2nd times, instead of the Dr just "telling" me what I was going to do or making decisions with the other staff instead of with me. With #2 I was having terrible chest pain and it turned out the baby was ready to be born - the midwife was about to go and call the anesthetist to order more epidural for me...

Yes - the public hospital is just that - sharing a room and bathroom the whole time, food pretty ordinary etc etc, but the care was the same - if not better in the public system. The midwifes that delivered 3 and 4 were fantastic, encouraging, helpful and knew exactly what was going on the whole time.