Written by Meghan Wardlaw (Booker's mom). Shared with permission. Read about why we are sharing birth memoirs here.

"I don’t know why my birth stories are always so lengthy… I just want to remember stuff!?

Booker is my third babe. My first labor was a hellacious experience of doctor/hospital over reach, a 40+hour long labor, and a c-section that I was not ready or awake for. It left me with some real postpartum/PTSD issues.  My second was an elective c-section because of life things at the time and probably mostly the fear of repeating what had gone down before.
I decided this third time was my time. I was going to attempt the VBA2C (Vaginal Birth after 2 Cesarean Sections) and do everything in my power to make this a natural, safe, controlled, happy time for my babe and me. So we set out to do that.

Having your baby at Princeton? Awesome! We love going to births there!

Here’s some information we’ve gleaned while working at Princeton as doulas. We hope these tips will help make your birthing experience as wonderful as possible:

Planning your birth?
One of your most important decisions will be WHERE you choose to have your baby.
If you choose a hospital, you have SEVEN different options here in Birmingham.

So how to decide?

Well, what are you looking for?
Do you want to labor in the tub or in the shower? Do you want your hospital to supply you with a birth ball or peanut ball? Do you want to have the option to push using a squat bar? Do you want access to wireless monitoring so you can have freedom to move around the room, and even down the halls, while you labor?

To help you make this important decision we have created a chart comparing available options. We hope this will be an EASY way for you to compare hospitals and use this information to inform your decision.

Questions? Don't hesitate to contact us, we would be happy to help!

Before Adam and I started trying for kids we knew that if we were to have a child, I would have a natural, unmedicated birth. I did a ton of research and reading and I knew that I wanted as little intervention as possible. We believe that pregnancy and birth are very normal and natural processes and we wanted to experience it as such.