Kelli’s Story

I had two births at Bonner General Health. My first was in 2018, Ryder. We found out we were pregnant and started prenatal care at Bonner General immediately and were met with just amazing care from all the physicians. Pregnancy went smoothly, but around the 37th week we went in for our final ultrasound and found that Ryder had stopped growing. We were met with a lot of difficult decisions. They wanted to monitor me closely, so I ended up going from a smooth, uneventful pregnancy to a really scary one where I had to check in with a doctor every day or two and do tests to make sure that Ryder was still progressing and alive. It was terrifying. After a week and a half of that, around 38 and a half weeks, the doctors decided he really hadn't grown much and the best thing to do was to set up an induction date and so we did.

We set a date for Monday. This was Friday. They said go enjoy yourself. By Monday you're gonna check in and have a little baby boy. So that Saturday night we said, all right, there's a bluegrass band, Sam Bush, playing at the Hive, and let's go dance this baby out. So we go to the Hive, and sure enough, my water breaks. It could not have been a more fantastic experience. I danced the night away. He ended with the song Midnight Rider, my son's name. We had already chosen that name, but it was just so perfect. And then we said, well, we're just going to hop in the car and drive the three blocks over to Bonner General.

The birth was scary just knowing that Ryder was really small and that he couldn't withstand a lot of birth trauma. I wanted to just have a c-section. I want him out, I want him safe, I want to hold him, and I just want to see him. But the doctors talked to me gently, laid out my options and said listen we're here for you. If things go south, we can do a C-section and we can have him safely in a matter of minutes. But we want to give you the chance to deliver him vaginally. I'm so grateful that they gave me that strength and that ability to safely have him. And I did. They were there with me. They were joking with me. And they let me play my music. And they let us eat food. And they let us do everything. And it just felt so special to talk to our nurses and our doctors and make connections with, oh, you like to go hike here? And it was a very personal birth. And it was fantastic. Everything about it was just beautiful.

Ryder was born really small. He had jaundice. He wasn't gaining weight. We had to stay for three nights, four days longer, and it was really difficult. We had to juggle a lot of things at our house. My second birth was at Bonner General. I was nervous because of my first birth experience. I was scared that something else would go wrong, that it was going to be small or that we were going to have to stay in the hospital for an extended period and juggle childcare. We were lucky that we were able to just go to the hospital five minutes from our house and my husband was able to leave me in the care of the doctors and go home and check on our oldest who was staying with my mother-in-law who was visiting. We're thankful that he was able to bounce back and forth.

I think [not having labor and delivery here] is going to be a huge change in the character of the town. We're not having any more kids, but if we were even thinking about it, I think it would push us to the side of not having kids. We wouldn’t be able to afford the drive to Coeur d'Alene for our prenatal visits. We wouldn't be able to afford to take time off to be in the hospital for that long. And I can't imagine a young couple wanting to move to this beautiful town and then hear we have no women's healthcare here. You cannot deliver a baby here. You're going to have to drive 45 minutes to an hour to get care. I think it's going to shape our town in a negative way. And I think we're going to see a lot of maternal health risks as a result of it, too.

—Kelli