Do you really think that watching someone lose a child and blame the choice she made results in an off the cuff remark?! Wow. Trust me, that is NOT an off the cuff remark. AND these people did look at their options. They just believed that the intervention was not necessary. Turns out, they were wrong and they’ll live with that for the rest of their lives.
*Please *know that this is not always the case. Labor sometimes does in fact fail to progress as it should, or progresses so slowly that it presents a danger to the mother and/or the baby. Many people assume that because birth is a natural process, the best thing to do is just let your body do its thing, on its own time. This is often, even usually, true. But our bodies are not machines, and they screw up all the time. And even if everything is going right, and the baby is fine, an extremely long labor (which is common for first-timers), or even a short but painful one, can wear you out so that you don’t have the energy to push, prolonging things even further, and at the most dangerous point.
And then there are situations like mine: my water broke, but I had just barely started contractions, and was not really dilated at all. This is a dangerous situation, because once the amniotic sac has ruptured, there’s increased risk of infection, so it’s best to deliver within 24 hours. My labor was “progressing” normally, but after a while, it was clear it was not going to be fast enough, so I was given Pitocin. And yes, those contractions were extremely strong and painful, and I endured several hours of them (walking, squatting, getting on my hands and knees, sitting on my birthing ball, doing whatever I was comfortable doing), before asking for an epidural. But it didn’t slow things down; quite the opposite. I took a nap for two hours, and in that time, I went from 2cm to 10cm, whereas I had only gone from 1cm to 2cm over all the preceding hours. I woke up rested and ready to push, and had the baby in about 20 minutes. I’m convinced that the epidural helped me let the contractions happen, rather than brace against them, which was extremely difficult *not *to do, in spite of all the breathing, moaning, massaging, and even singing I did.
I did deliver on my back, it’s true - but I was really sitting up at an angle (easily managed in a hospital bed), so I was in an ideal position to push really hard and had gravity helping, and it was pretty damned effective. And if I hadn’t had an epidural, I could have delivered squatting, on all fours, or even hanging from the birthing bar conveniently installed over the bed. The hospital and my OB left it entirely up to me, and encouraged me to do whatever I felt most comfortable with.
I could go on and on about how great the hospital was and why it was so great, but I’m honestly not trying to convince you to go the hospital route. What I am saying is that you shouldn’t assume that whatever you’re looking for in a home birth can’t also happen - and possibly, happen more easily - at a hospital.
I’m not exactly sure when it happened but at some point, women became convinced that childbirth is a process they can control by force of will – by wanting it to happen a certain way badly enough, or planning for it to happen a certain way, it will.
It doesn’t work like that, as far as I can see. Not because of the mean ol’ doctors, but because it is simply not a process that can be directed by preferences stated in advance, beyond certain, relatively minor details.
My friend wanted to labor walking around – except she found excurciatingly painful to stand! Turns out the most comfortable position for her was [del]being oppressed by the man[/del] lying down.
That’s a really good post, Heart of Dorkness. 
I want to stress that I’m not in any way against natural childbirth…if a person wants it, and the situation indicates that it’s appropriate, I think it’s great. But, as HoD points out, it IS possible in a hospital environment, and in a place where the NCB movement is strong, like in Boulder, it’s probably not going to be hard to find a doctor/midwife/hospital that will respect your wishes while at the same time allowing for interventions should they become necessary.
I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve never known anyone who had a stillbirth, and it’s pretty rare, so you knowing two - both for the same reason - is astounding and horrible. 
I think this is the problem in opening threads like this, the people who have home births are adamant and the people who had hospital births are as well. I don’t necessarily believe one is better than the other, but the option to have a choice is important to us.
This is incredibly tragic and horrific event for a couple to go through and knowing they had a choice and chose wrong is all most unthinkable from my perspective.
I was probably putting some of the angst I have felt from our OB that home births are now, and always will be the wrong choice to make when having a baby. That is the impression I had when we met with her last. There was only one way to the baby and it involved her hospital. She even said, “if you come in and nothing is happening we’ll induce you so we can get you in and out as soon as possible…” That is not the experience we want to have. That is why we hired a midwife who our insurance allows at the delivery, so we do not just have the opinion of the Dr. but we have the opinion of the midwife as well. Frankly, we have no idea what is going to happen…but having an informed choice is important to us.
Heart of Dorkness - thank you for your honest words. We are not - at this time - set on any one way to go, if Mrs.P needs to be at the Birthing Center, we have no problems with that at all. Luckily our Midwife is allowed to be in the room the entire time. Plus, the rooms at this particular birthing center are more like apartments with a huge tub, birthing ball etc…
Well there’s yer problem! [ /Hyneman ] Go get a new OB, stat. My OB and hospital would have said, “If you come in and nothing is happening, go home - or if that’s too far, go grab a burger and we’ll check you again in a few hours.”
And it’s worth noting that on the day I gave birth, they were absolutely slammed. They ran out of room and had to put some of the moms in another wing after delivery. But we had no idea about this until days later - at the time, they were completely calm and did not try to rush or pressure me about anything in any way.
If that OB and hospital are your only options, though, I can see why you’d want something else.
Oh, and one more thing: I noticed you’ve said a couple times that you’ll go to the Birthing Center if you “have” to or “need” to. I fear that you’re setting yourselves up to feel disappointed if things don’t go as planned: “We had really hoped to do it at home but unfortunately, we had to go to the Birthing Center”. Instead, I encourage you to think of it as a *choice *you will make if you feel it’s the right thing to do: “We were going to do it at home, but decided it was best to go to the Birthing Center”. Remember that whatever happens, if you’re putting the health and safety of baby and mom first, there’s no reason to be disappointed or regretful about any choices you make.
We talked about this very thing last night - and we are more than happy to have very few expectations for this very reason. We want the birth to be as natural as possible, and it’s no big deal if it is in the Birthing center or not. We are getting a lot of support - I mean all in-laws want to be there - and we have already had to put up some boundaries around that… Also, we are not young parents [mid-thirties] and so choice is important to us. Personally, when we found out the midwife could be there with us -at the birthing center- we were very excited!
I’m about as crunchy-granola, hippie-dippy, naturopath-having, green-smoothie-drinking as they get. I understand the reasons for wanting to have a home birth, I understand a mild mistrust of doctors, all that. But you’re not making the choice for yourself. Your making a choice that affects your baby.
I guess all I’m saying is, I sometimes make a choice to avoid modern medicine when I feel there is a ‘natural’ alternative. But I’m an adult, and I’m the only one that’s affected. If it had to do with the hypothetical life growing inside me, and there was the most teeny tiny chance that I wouldn’t have time to make it to the hospital if things went wrong, then I owe it to that baby to do things in the safest way.
Everyone wants a good birth story. But a healthy baby and mother are the most important thing. Everyone on both sides is going to have opinions and agendas, even those of us posting in this thread. The ONLY person whose ONLY goals are the health and safety of Mrs Phlosphr and Phlos Jr is you, Phlosphr.
Ugh! With an OB like that no wonder you don’t want a hospital birth. UGH.
I (again) agree with HoD. Regardless of whether you do a home birth or hospital birth, get a new OB.
(When I got to the hospital I still had a ways to go, and they told me I could go back home if I wanted, though I didn’t. 6 hours later my OB asked if I wanted my waters broken manually. I told him no. 4 hours after that I changed my mind. The point being here that people asked me what I wanted to do and I had a choice and it was about me and the baby, not about getting in and out as soon as possible.)
They weren’t quite the same reason. One was an overdue delivery. The other was something was wrong (some sort of infection in Mom) and they needed to rush delivery. In both cases the people in question felt that the intervention wasn’t necessary and that their best chance of things turning out well was to wait it out and not induce.
I know a lot of older moms. Get to be 35 and risks increase.
You really want to find a provider (and if that is a midwife at home, that is fine - it isn’t my baby or my body and I think you have every right to do what you want) who will work with you. My OB was wonderful in terms of saying “I’ve been doing this for years, and you make the choices - I just won’t support the ones I think carry too much risk.” Inducing simply to get you in and out as soon as possible isn’t a risk - that is an unnecessary intervention. Shop around for an OB who is more supportive of your natural choices - but CAN cut or prescribe if it turns out to be required. If you want choices, that will give you the greatest number of choices in the heat of the moment.
My extended circles birth experiences have been sort of tragic - two still births, one baby with severe CP, one mother who almost died. Only two of my close girlfriends and myself have managed to give birth vaginally - the rest have ended up with the emergency c-section - and one of those is the one that almost died. In all cases that were tragic or nearly so, the mom was pretty set on getting her way in terms of letting nature take its course. As I said, I know a lot of older moms.
On the other hand, I know women - none of my girlfriends - who have easy labor and deliveries and would have been fine giving birth at home. We are cursed.
(Of all my girlfriends, I probably had the easiest labor and delivery in that despite wanting drugs, I almost went natural because my nurse was a non-interventionist. I was FAR more comfortable on my back as Hello Again says “being oppressed by the man” - my natural childbirth nurse wanted me to walk (nope), bathe (that felt good for about ten minutes, then labor got too intense), sit on a ball (are you kidding, I can’t keep my balance during contractions!), or sit in a rocking chair (baby’s head felt like it was going to rip a third hole).
This has been mentioned, but should probably be reemphasized: a lot of the characteristics you’re ascribing to hospitals likely no longer are accurate. We had a child last year at the hospital, with doctors every step of the way. The hospital also offered a midwife team, if we had chosen to go that route. I believe we even had the option of bringing in outside birth specialists of our choice if we wanted. They had a huge variety of ways to labor, including birthing balls and a pool if my wife had wanted to do that. During the labor and delivery, they had a strong policy against any intervention unless absolutely necessary. The doctor just sat and waited. There was no pressure to speed things up, there were no forceps or episiotomies, or anything like that.
So I’d say check out your local hospitals and doctors before making any decision. Also, I have to admit being a bit baffled about this idea that it’s having a wide variety of choice that’s important. In the end, you’re only going to be having one birth from this pregnancy, so you’re only going to be able to do it one way. I’d say it’s having one choice that you like that’s important - the number of choices available that you decide to reject seems irrelevant to me.
Congrats, Phlospher!
If morning sickness is still an issue, try keeping a sleeve/baggie of saltine or Ritz crackers next to the bed, on Mrs. P’s side. Nibbling a few before getting out of bed can be a life-saver!
Remember that the ultimate outcome of giving birth is winding up with a healthy baby and healthy mom. However that is best accomplished is the way to go. I had to have all of mine by C-section, and read on a number of message boards about women who were ‘disappointed’ in the birthing process because they had to have a section. Would it have been nice to experience vaginal birth? (Well, ‘nice’ may not be the right word; maybe ‘preferable’; I dunno) Yeah, I’d have liked to have tried it. In fact, with my second daughter, I purposely went with an OB who gave me a good chance of VBAC; no dice. But I wasn’t disappointed in any of the experiences because all three of them resulted in healthy babies. That’s the most important thing.
Now a question: can I be an honorary Gramma? Pretty please? I’ve been ready to be a grandmother for some years now, but as you well know, none of my daughters are yet ready to be mothers! I want a grand baby! Can I borrow yours? (Electronically, of course!) I’ll nibble on it’s little tiny baby toes; I’ll buy it ridiculously cute outfits; and when it’s older, I’ll let it stay the weekend with me and eat Oreos for breakfast! 
You’re gonna be an awesome Dad!
Of course they understand that. What they don’t understand is why you’d take the risk.
The upsides of a home birth are… well, something vague and subjective, I guess. I honestly don’t get it, but that’s just me. The downsides are potentially REALLY bad. Your wife is going to go through a really, really huge medically important process. To a lot of people, planning to go through that in a place well suited for dealing with medical problems just seems like common sense.
As beartato and HoD point out, what you and your wife want is not that important; what’s good for your baby is what’s important. It’s your choice, but understand who you’re making it for. After the fact, nobody’s going to give a shit where your baby was born. They, and you, will just care that your baby is healthy and happy. The delivery will probably not go according to plan no matter where it takes place, anyway.
If your OB is honestly a jerk, well, you might wanna find another.
Sure! 
There are a couple other grandmas but there will be plenty of cute to nibble on!
Yay!!!
Nibblin’ the cuteness! ::Nom, nom, nom, nom!::
Hey Phlosphr, congratulations! I’m really happy for you!
I haven’t read every single response, so forgive me if I repeat what others have said.
I’ve had four babies, all with midwives at a freestanding birthing center. I didn’t want hospital births because of fear of the “cascade of interventions”. I didn’t want homebirths because I don’t think I would feel particularly relaxed at home. (it’s already too messy here, god knows what it would be like after a birth). The birthing center was perfect for me. All my births went pretty smoothly.
some ideas:
Don’t watch any reality birth shows. Don’t read a lot of birth stories. You don’t need to add to your mental catalog of “things that can go wrong”.
read the forums at mothering.com (just not the birth stories)…it’s very homebirth friendly over there.
for pregnancy nausea plain doughy things like white bread, scones, biscuits, helped me, as well as going with my cravings… different each pregnancy (chocolate with one, peanut butter and jelly with another, roast beef sandwiches and finally, with the last one, the classic pickles and olives) Incidentally I don’t think being a first time mom has anything to do with severity of the nausea…it got worse with each pregnancy for me (never horrible though)
The most important thing I learned on baby number 4: Don’t push. Pushing was the hardest part of labor in the first three births. By the last time I wanted to know what I was doing wrong and posted my question on the aforementioned mothering.com and the predominant answer was Don’t push. Don’t push because they tell you you’re fully dilated. Don’t push because they tell you it’s fine to push now. Don’t push because you want to get the labor over faster. Push only if your body is pushing…let your body do it, don’t you do it, if that makes any sense.
The pushing phase with last baby was amazingly different from the first three using that guideline…much shorter, much easier, and much less traumatic to the vaginal tissues.
I know someone will come on and say “my baby would’ve died if I hadn’t pushed!” Ok, push in that situation, just maybe try not pushing if that’s not the case.