What would you do?
I’m 35w3d with baby#5 and we are planning on a home birth. My last baby was born 4 years ago at home and we had planned to use the same home birth midwife.
After confirming multiple times throughout my pregnancy that my midwife would be available around my due date, at 32 weeks I received a voice message through text from her. I had just seen her for an appointment two days before. She said, “oops, I’m sorry, I had a note to mention this to you, but forgot to when you were here. We are actually taking a family vacation and will be out of town the week before you are due. My mentor midwife, the one that also delivered my babies, will be covering for me!” I was shocked. I’ve never met her mentor midwife and from what I know, she lives almost 1 hour and 15 minutes away from us. m
I tried to be calm, but the week she is planning to be gone is most likely the week I’ll go into labor. The week she will be gone I will be between 38w2d-39w2d. All of my babies, so far, have been born in exactly this time frame (I usually go into labor 1-2 weeks early) we haven’t had an appointment with her since she shared this news with me.
Then, last week, she texted me and said, “just wanted to give you a heads up, here is your total cost (she inserted the number). I prefer cash payments” I texted back asking what would happen if she wasn’t there for my birth. She said I would still pay her the full amount and she and the midwife covering for her would work it out, that they have a system for this.
Does this seem reasonable to expect full payment even if she isn’t there and it’s her changing things on me? We are also a bit frustrated that she waited so long to tell us that she will be out of town (most likely) when I’ll be going into labor. We have never met this midwife that she has covering for her and we aren’t sure we’re comfortable with a complete stranger being the one to show up for delivery, it’s one of the reasons we chose to go the home birth route. We liked knowing who would be there. Honestly, her handling of the situation has felt pretty insensitive.
We are meeting with her tomorrow, my husband is coming along and we are leaving our kids with some friends so we can discuss this situation with her without any distractions.
What would you do?