skybie: i liked your ticker so much I had to get the same for myself, I hope you don't mind!

I would really prefer homebirth (and waterbirth too).

BUT, what I've read is that the midwives charge thousands to do a homebirth, and being in a rural area too, it seems out of my reach for that reason. I've heard of women using the baby bonus to pay for the midwife, but we need that money to get us through the early months as I'll have to have a few weeks off work, and once I'm back at work, reduce my hours to outside of my partner's hours till our baby is old enough for the local childcare.

I'm also a first time mother, which makes the docs say I can only birth at a bigger hospital, b/c first-timers are high-risk already without doing anything! Plus I'm positive for anti-cardiolipin antibodies too, with a history of finding it difficult to fall pregnant, and one possible miscarriage as a teenager, never confirmed. So they tell me I've absolutely no chance at all of even the bigger hospital 60km away, (forget the local one) and I have to go over 100km and go to major hospital like Bendigo, Ballarat, Horsham. So there's no way in hell that I'd be able to be allowed to have a homebirth.

But.....

If birth comes on really quickly at home, and you have to accidentally birth, with ambulance called at the last minute, what would they do? Prosecute you? Some babies do not even last the ambulance trip, they arrive on the side of the road!

On the same philosophy, water birth seems still frowned upon by the hospitals, you can labour in the pool, but you must get out to birth. If you don't they pull the plug! You have to sit on the plug to prevent this! They don't like you to do it, but what do they do afterwards, ban you from having a pool anymore? Too late, baby is already here.

Yes I would go underground, providing I could afford the midwife, as things get more expensive when they become illegal due to the risk.