Has BellyBelly Changed Your Thoughts on Homebirth?

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

Not mine but DH's! He's forever reading over my shoulder! I've wanted a HB for years, and DH always said he would prefer my first birth be in a hospital 'just in case'. Since reading some of the more traumatic stories from mums on here, as well as some of the great stories, he has agreed that we'll have a HB, health permitting - YAY!!

Thanks BB!

[lindsaymaree]

Belly Belly has been a saviour for myself and DP, this is our first pregnancy and we were totally blind to anything to do with pregnancy & birth.

We'd gone into this thinking...do what we're told and make things as easy as possible by taking what ever drugs numb the pain. A homebirth was totally out of the question, I couldn't think of anything more scary or "unsafe".

It's wasn't untill halfway through our pregnancy that I started to raise my concerns with DP that I really didn't feel like I had any idea of what was going on...yes we had regular doc appointments and they monitored the pregnancy well, etc. But they weren't telling us WHY they were doing such and such, or explaining alternatives, just giving us their reccomendations. I'd purchased one fairly mainstream pregnancy book but still didn't feel it was answering all my questions.

So I started doing some extra reading online, purchased some DVD's, etc....became fairly addicted to reading every article posted on belly belly ;p I couldn't beleive the volume of information I might have missed had I not found a site like belly belly.

I feel so much better educated...and so much more confident in my pregnancy!! I'm no longer racked with fear about the labour, I'm excited for it!!!

So getting back to the question ;p YES belly belly has definately opened my eyes to the misconceptions I'd held in regards to pregnancy and birth. I can see the positives on a natural, comfortable labour in a home environment and would consider a homebirth in future!

[fionas]

Yep, definitely changed my views. I don't think I was opposed to homebirth before given that generations and generations of women have birthed at home, just that I was unaware of the statistics about the safety. The cruncher for me is that a hospital will take half an hour to prep for a caesarean and I'm only 20 mins away from a hospital in heavy traffic.

Having said all that, I wouldn't personally do a homebirth. My last birth has not given me confidence that I can get a baby out vaginally (even though I did with forceps) and TBH a vaginal birth is just not that important to me. I respect the fact that it is for many women, but I just don't have that emotional need for it. Maybe it's because I'm immensely proud of my last birth and if I got pregnant again, I know I'm in for a lot of pain throughout the pregnancy again that I just don't want to 'do' labour again. For me, the pregnancy itself would be like doing nine months of labour that I don't want or need to do the pointy end of it.

But without the health condition that gives me so much grief during pregnancy, in an ideal world, my ideal model of care would be this:

Give homebirth a go with a midwife that I'd seen throughout my pregnancy.
If I needed to transfer to hospital, take my midwife with me and be greeted by my obstetrician who I'd also seen throughout my pregnancy.

Unfortunately, we have to choose midwives OR obs and that seems crazy to me. I want to get to know both.