Jonell’s Story

Advanced. Maternal. Age. Duhn-duhn-duhn. I was a late 37-year-old when my spouse and I decided to try to have a baby. It was a difficult and well-considered choice. I worked hard to prepare my body to host and grow another being. But pregnancy did not come easily for us.

When all the basics had been covered and I still wasn’t pregnant at 39, I decided to look into further treatment, and my first stop was an OB at Sandpoint Women’s Health. She recommended we flush my fallopian tubes to rule out any blockages, and we scheduled the procedure two weeks out. What a relief that I didn’t have to consider taking an entire day off work to travel to CDA for this appointment.

As luck would have it, I got pregnant before I went in for that procedure. Yay! But now, at 39 years old, we had another big decision to make. I’ve always looked at all sides of every coin, and with health care I walk the fence between Western medicine and more holistic and natural approaches. Knowing that my due date was likely after my 40th birthday, it was a tough decision whether to go with the perceived safety of a conventional birth or to follow my heart for a home birth. I split the difference, choosing a birth center a mere five minutes from the hospital, should any complications arise.

The stars aligned and I had a textbook birth, in a tub, on my terms. But I NEVER would have made that choice if I didn’t have access to BGH’s OB care as a back-up. In fact, I likely never would have tried to start a family knowing that all my prenatal appointments were over an hour away. Working in a male-dominated industry was a big reason I delayed pregnancy in the first place, and I would not have felt supported to take so much time off work for appointments, nor felt safe having to travel 71 miles from our home to the hospital.

—Jonell