Lauren’s Story

I am 34 years old. I have a two-year-old daughter who was born in Oregon, and I am currently carrying our second child.

The closure of Sandpoint's hospital access to medical care through pregnancy and birth has completely altered my birth plan. My first birth with my daughter was at a birthing center about 15 to 20 minutes away from a hospital. That gave me so much comfort because I knew if anything went sideways at the birthing center, we were within driving distance to get to a hospital where we would receive care. My plan with our second baby is to have a home birth because I love the journey of being able to have the midwives come to the house after the baby is born. Not moving after you have a baby is nice because after you have a baby, your whole body has been turned inside out, and not having to drive an hour to get checked out a couple days after birth and then a week after birth really helps with the postpartum care. It allows you to drop in to your journey with your new little family, your new little baby.

I am on this journey of having our second child. I must make some hard decisions. And it's added a bit more complexity to everything because I just figured I would give birth at home with a local midwife. Sandpoint does have amazing midwives. They're doing all they can to find solutions in terms of how to handle situations, such as emergencies, if they do come up. But there's only so much you can do. One of the options is something called air flight - you would have to be taken to the local hospital, Bonner General. Then you go to the ER and then the air flight picks you up at the ER and they fly you down to Kootenai. That's just not very practical because that will take just as long to drive down there. I'm exploring my options of what to do and I know I'll find a solution, but it's very frustrating.

I'm very fortunate that I have the time and a supportive family and supportive partner. There are a lot of people out there that don't have that same support, or the resources to have the birth that they want, or even be able to explore options. This closure of our birthing center and access to women's health care is detrimental to all families but mostly to those that don't have the resources to get adequate care.

This is going to have a ripple effect. It's going to ripple into how babies come into the world. It's going to ripple into the support system that new moms or new parents need after they have a baby and that's going to ripple into who moves here. Sandpoint is booming, but not being able to give birth here in a hospital setting, will not make it appealing to people to move here, because having a hospital that can handle birth and women's rights is standard and expected. I understand why they had to close. I think that it's a message being sent that women need access to proper health care. This whole closure is very frustrating and sad, and I really hope that we take a hard look at what we value in Idaho. Thank you for listening.

—Lauren