I Want a Home Birth

. . . and someday I will get one, you mark my words! :)

I was talking to a mother of many (who births at home and is a CNM) recently and she said that when she was pregnant with her first her husband told her:
"Honey, I don't like the idea of you having the baby at home, I'd feel more comfortable in the hospital."

And she said: "That's fine, dear. You can go to the hospital and hang around there in the waiting room where you feel comfortable and I'll stay and have the baby at home where I feel comfortable."

Now, I think that's what I am going to say next time! (If I can bring myself to be so bold!)

All these feelings and desires for the birth of my baby are coming out again now, so strongly as the birth day gets closer.

I don't like hospitals. They make me feel uneasy, vulnerable and condescended too.
I don't like the high possibility of staph infections present in hospitals.
I don't like having my "vitals" checked every X hours, in case I might be dying.
I don't like my so-called "big" baby's blood being drawn every day to check if it's diabetic.
I don't want to interrupted mercilessly while I or my baby is sleeping.
I don't like being made to record times of nursing and pooping and which side and how long.
I don't like hospital food or hospital beds.
I don't like being told, when the baby's temp is (heaven forbid) 99*, that it might be infected.
I don't like the nurses looking askance at me when I say "No thank you I don't want . . . . the Hep B vac, the Eye Prophylaxis (I don't have gonorrhoea!) or the synthetic Vit. K (plus fillers and binders and preservatives) shot."
I don't like being asked "why?" when I ask that the baby not be bathed. (Because, it's clean! It has nature's perfect lotion still covering its skin! Because I don't need to be shown how to do it!)

I realize that I am ranting! :) I also realize that hospital care has to cater to the lowest common denominator. Some women don't know how to wash their babies. Some women do need to have their vitals checked and some babies are infected. Some births have to be medical events or emergencies. I think especially more and more these days women know less, are less healthy, and babies have more problems. That is why they always expect and plan for the worst. And I do acknowledge that that is valid and even necessary at times.

But birth is not supposed to be a medical event. It is a normal, natural, beautiful part of life that everyone has become afraid of today. I don't want to be afraid. I don't want the people around me to be afraid.

Someone said once that you can choose the amount of fear that you wish to live in. All the genetic testing, the time tables for labor, the high rate of intervention, the attitude that "something will go wrong unless we DO something" is a product of fear. We no longer trust our bodies or nature or God. We have to get in there and take control, fix it, make the pain go away, make the baby come when we want it to, dispose of it if it is "defective," etc.

Part of all my frustration with a hospital results from Turtle's birth. Along with what I have mentioned above, there was the plain fact that I was treated badly, particularly by the person who was supposed to be providing me with care. I realize that I am no longer with the same care provider and so everything could be quite different this time around, but all the same, I don't want to do this again in a hospital. It's just not for me. If everything is normal and "low-risk" I don't see why I shouldn't just be home.

After Turtle was born I saw so clearly that birth was not about control or my schedule or my desires. It was about surrendering, trusting, loving and relaxing. God is in control. Only God. It's about saying "Yes" to Him. "Yes" to your body, which knows what it is doing. "Yes" to the little one you are loving out into the world. It's about peace and letting go.

I want a home birth. Everything inside of me resonates with this thought. The peace that I feel when I think of this happening is so far beyond any mere acceptance I have of the hospital experience.

All that being said . . . I was told yesterday that this baby is in a posterior position. It's backbone is against mine.
Posterior labors are longer, and harder, with sharp back pain, and possibilities of temporary and frustrating stalling as the baby tries to fit through the pelvic bones in an non-optimal position. Posterior labors have higher incidences of Pitocin administration, c-sections, epidural requests, and simple uterine exhaustion.

And so I am tempted to fear. Tempted to think the unthinkable, the what-ifs and the maybes.

And yet, this is why I want a home birth. I need a home birth. I don't want defeatism and negativity. I don't want to be afraid of this challenge. I want to work with someone who knows about the ways to turn babies and instead of saying "Pitocin" and "slow labor" and "epidural" and "c-section" to me will know how to help women get through long hard stalling labors. I want to be in my own environment, without options or pressure or tension. I want to be encouraged. Told that this can work. That I can do it. That my body is strong.

Instead, I'm going to a hospital.

Thy Will be done.