INTJ Pregnancy Experience/Advice

[Collex]

Hi,

Apologies to everyone in advance but this post is a bit narrow in its focus as I am keen on hearing feedback/exp from parents who are INTJs or 5w6. (Don't worry if you don’t know what that is it’s just a MBTI with a heavy introversion focus).

I am interested in understanding if there were any measures you took to make giving birth a better experience (I.e. private hospital) for you?

Thanks

I'm INTJ, or at least that's how I came out when I took the test a long time ago although I think it's somewhat discredited.

I don't think it affected anything about pregnancy. I don't really trust private hospitals, especially if anything went wrong so certainly didn't consider that.

I liked that there was none of this continuity of care business and all my antenatal appointments were at the hospital with whichever midwife was free so I didn't have to pretend to make friends with them.

I came out as an introvert when I did that test decades ago.

I don't think I put any thought into my introverted nature when planning my birth. I ended up being induced anyway due to GD and a big baby so my plans didn't really matter. As it turned out the midwives were patient led anyway, there was monitoring that was necessary to make sure DD and I were ok but between those I was left to my own devices, I wandered around the hospital in the early stages, and was left to pace around the bed by myself the rest of the time, well DH was there but he sat quietly and waited for me to tell him what I needed.

I don't like the whole MB thing as it's reductive hokum imho, but I'm an extremely introverted person.

I planned a home water birth in my own environment with a community midwife I trusted.

I was blue lighted to hospital and had every intervention going...

I’m INFJ and neurodiverse. I’d say it was my neurodiversity I considered (before official diagnosis) when considering my birth plan, not my MB profile. Not sure if this helps, but will explain in case.

I hate strong smells and lots of strangers, so I chose a home birth. (I have fast labours.) I asked for no touch (internal or external) unless they were concerned labour wasn’t progressing/seeing signs something wasn’t right. I chose a birthing pool because I feel calmer in water. (Pool smelt of hospitals but was better than the intensity of smell in hospital room.) I put on scents that helped me. We had dimmed lights and soft candles. I had on audio that i found soothing. I had a bed set up a few steps from the pool and so could go there and snuggle my dd straight after birth. I’d done hypnobirthing which I found helpful.

Both my labours were too fast for midwives to make it, but by the second I was prepped for this and had an ‘if that happens’ plan. I ended up giving birth alone in the pool (told midwives would be there) with my DH in the same room as me. It was a wonderful experience for me and very much the privacy I needed after the previous birth that was chaotic with paramedics who’d never witnessed a birth and no warning of the risk of fast labour (they should have mentioned it due to my Hypermobility).

We’re thinking of having a third and, if we do, I’ll choose the same home birth again (but preferably with midwives present in case something goes awry).

edited to add: obviously had I needed medical intervention I would have gone for it, I’ve just happened to have straightforward but very fast labours. The first sucked because of the way it was handled through pregnancy and after by the hospitals, the second was magical and the hospital, registrar and midwives were great.

Thanks to everyone for replying so thoroughly and so quickly too!
Useful to show that it isn’t something to overly think about which is handy.