Alisa Gambrell

"Dr.Gambrell was the on-call doctor when I delivered my second baby. My second baby was a 70 hour labor. To prom, Dr. Gambrell provided me with a lot of good information and details, but by far the biggest thing, she gave me autonomy, as long as me and baby were healthy, she allowed me to labor naturally and deliver my baby naturally without interventions. Without interventions. This was important to me, as I did not intend originally to give birth in the hospital again but rather with a professional certified midwife at home. But since my water broke at 36 weeks, I had to go to the hospital whether I wanted to or not as that was the safest place for a pre-term baby. I was grateful that this doctor was patient with me as I was with myself, and gave me autonomy. She did not try to push procedures on me and was there when I needed her at the end and was very reassuring through the whole process. As a doctor, she recommended pitocin to speed up the process and to not allow any type of infection to form, but I told her since my health and my heart is fine and the baby's heart is fine and there's no funky smells or colors coming out of me with my water broken for this long, I am okay with trusting God in his timeing. And to just let things happen naturally, and she said as a human being, I respect your decision. That's huge! For a doctor to respect and trust a patient. I know she has a wealth of knowledge, and she is an amazing doctor, and I appreciate that she allowed me to labor naturally and to trust my body in the process. Birth, natural birth, is a painful process, especially when something unexpected like this happens, however, that is the process- and I think many doctors, are trained to alleviate us from pain, but pain in birth is telling you how close you are and it's guiding your body, it's necessary for things to progress, so I think doctors are trained to take us out of pain, to provide us the medicines, to provide us the advances, to make our lives easier, and I appreciate that she still respected my choice to go about this the old fashioned way, thank you! Some woman become mothers through labor of children, but some women even if they do not have children, are mothers laboring for children, children that are not even their own, and that's commendable."