Women's Pavilion

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've already had my first appointment with a midwife at Aurora Sinai Medical Center. However, what I didn't mention, is that I didn't care for the medical center that much. I really loved the midwife -- she was great -- but the office had a very cold atmosphere and wasn't anywhere near the comfort level of all the other women's health offices I've been to in my life, which then made me worry about the actual birthing center. After doing a little more online research, and my sister talking to her husband's cousin who is doing her residency in Milwaukee, I learned about the Aurora Women's Pavilion of West Allis Memorial Hospital. I was little upset at myself for not looking into medical centers more thoroughly before I had made my first appointment, but I was anxious to get an appointment and make sure everything was okay. I called the Women's Pavilion to see if they have midwives and was told they do have one, Cheryl Jaeger, CNM. I asked if she was accepting new patients and they told me she was. So I scheduled my next appointment with her at the Women's Pavilion on September 15. I'm really hoping I made the right decision by switching -- I do feel good about it though. I called to cancel my appointment with the other midwife at Sinai and then I had to go and sign a Release of Medical Records...kind of a pain, oh well.

I logged onto a message board on http://www.milwaukeemoms.com/ (a great resource for ways to connect with other Milwaukee moms) to see if anyone could tell me anything about the nurse midwife, Cheryl Jaeger, at the Women's Pavilion and I got a couple encouraging responses, one of which is below.

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"I delivered with Cheri and it was just wonderful. She took so much time with me at each appointment to make sure all of my questions or worries were answered. She has a calm, unhurried bedside manor. I delivered during office hours, so she was there with me the whole time. I remember she told me that she would try her very hardest to be there if I delivered in the middle of the night and she wasn't on-call. She sat by my side the whole time I was pushing. The Pavillion was a really nice place to be during labor and delivery. The nurses didn't pressure me to get an IV "just in case", and they let me get into the whirlpool right away after I checked in. They were all super positive about my desire to not use pain meds. Like a bunch of cheerleaders!"

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So I think I feel pretty good about my decision at this point, we'll see how it plays out. I'll keep you posted. Assuming all goes well, I will be 14 weeks at my next appointment.