herongrrrl
Does your insurance cover Sally Avenson? She has privileges at Group Health, so maybe there’s a loophole there, and last time I checked she would attend VBACs. She is wonderful about not intervening when it isn’t necessary. As a doula, I have attended several births with her both at home and at GH and I have seen her do some amazing things to prevent unnecessary interventions with great outcomes. I’ve never attended a birth at Valley but I have heard other doulas say they aren’t a great place for natural birth, so I would assume VBACs would go with that…it’s been around 6 years since I last practiced, though, so things may have changed.
I wish you the very best of luck. I know it is SO frustrating to try to have a VBAC here now…when I was pregnant with my youngest I had to hunt high and low for a midwife willing to help me at all. If you haven’t considered it before, I highly recommend hiring a doula to help you–Rebecca Shepherd at Sacred Sprout was absolutely phenomenal for us.
Have you connected with the local ICAN group? They might be able to give you some insight about the hospital issue as well. http://icanseattle.wordpress.com/
I wish you the very best of luck!