For myself, I would of loved to have had an opportunity to have a home birth, in fact I threatened my care providers a number of times that unless they pulled their fingers out I would refuse to come into the hospital at all and I would have my baby at home where I would feel comfortable. Unfotunately, with my medical condition, everyone pushed me to avoid a homebirth because of the complications that could occur.
As for siblings at the birth, Bella was there right beside me as I gave birth to Pat and she absolutely adores him.

As a doula, my first birth was an unplanned homebirth. I was 10 minutes out when bub was born and he was born on the front verandah of his parents house in front of his big sister. She was freaked out about it at the time but by the time we went to the hospital, she had calmed down quite a bit.