Homebirth General Discussion #15

[HotI]

Keep talking WM and others. Hopefully it helps you, and it will be helping someone else now or in the future. WM, i hope you are talking to your midwife too. The benefit of having a homebirth with an IM is you have that contact that you can call any time. Please open up the conversation if you haven't already.

My labour with DS was pretty good, especially the actual birth bit. I didn't really push, didn't get ring of fire, just pressure and breathed him out. I am a bit worried that i won't be able to achieve that again.

I so agree with Arcadia that it is a good thing to know that it is supposed to hurt, and you are not doing anything wrong it it hurts or have periods where you question all your plans. It can still hurt, you can have doubts and cry or swear and have a tanty, but you can still get there.

Does anyone else cry in labour?

[Mum2twoBoys]

Yes hoti I have spoken to midwife, and we will discuss it more tomorrow at our appt. How to deal with the anxiety and relax a bit I think.

[Cassius2]

ok...so I'll step in and say i am one of those that has experienced a truly painless and totally joyous birth (in that there wasnt a moment of fear or pain). and it was AMAZING. it was my first HB (so DD2s birth). it was more magical than my wildest imaginings. i had read that account of Read where the first time labour of one of the women he witnessed and she turned around after he asked her why she didnt appear to be in pain and she responded: "was it meant to hurt?" before i had DD2 and didnt understand it or believe that it could actually be true. after DD2s birth i realised just how true it could be. it is truly, one of those life experiences i will never forget.

I didnt get that the third time around though despite similar birth conditions (home, same IM etc). but i had some triggers from my not so nice first experience....and i will put it out there that I *really* dislike giving birth at night. dude, i just wanna sleep LMAO! i was alot more grumpier this last time TBH and didnt get the huge high or rush. it was a bit too matter of fact for my liking . i mean, it was magical and all and i was stoked, but it was a bit too, well, normal. i guess i wanted a bit more of a special intense experience like i had with DD2s birth. like Cricket i have really quick births and i think that also contributed to DD3s birth being a bit 'wham bam' all done and dusted before the festivities could kick in IYKWIM.

I hope that if i ever get the chance to have another baby that i get to honor the journey and the upcoming birth with the respect and awesomeness that it deserves. i got to blase after DD2s birth

WM: i was the same with the threatened preterm labour of DD3...i was so so worried that i wouldnt get my home waterbirth...it really plagued me until i hit that magical 36 week mark and i knew that we could stay home. big here's to the next few weeks passing without incident so that you can go back to just getting into labour-land!

[Cassius2]

ok...so I'll step in and say i am one of those that has experienced a truly painless and totally joyous birth (in that there wasnt a moment of fear or pain). and it was AMAZING. it was my first HB (so DD2s birth). it was more magical than my wildest imaginings. i had read that account of Read where the first time labour of one of the women he witnessed and she turned around after he asked her why she didnt appear to be in pain and she responded: "was it meant to hurt?" before i had DD2 and didnt understand it or believe that it could actually be true. after DD2s birth i realised just how true it could be. it is truly, one of those life experiences i will never forget.

I didnt get that the third time around though despite similar birth conditions (home, same IM etc). but i had some triggers from my not so nice first experience....and i will put it out there that I *really* dislike giving birth at night. dude, i just wanna sleep LMAO! i was alot more grumpier this last time TBH and didnt get the huge high or rush. it was a bit too matter of fact for my liking . i mean, it was magical and all and i was stoked, but it was a bit too, well, normal. i guess i wanted a bit more of a special intense experience like i had with DD2s birth. like Cricket i have really quick births and i think that also contributed to DD3s birth being a bit 'wham bam' all done and dusted before the festivities could kick in IYKWIM.

I hope that if i ever get the chance to have another baby that i get to honor the journey and the upcoming birth with the respect and awesomeness that it deserves. i got to blase after DD2s birth

WM: i was the same with the threatened preterm labour of DD3...i was so so worried that i wouldnt get my home waterbirth...it really plagued me until i hit that magical 36 week mark and i knew that we could stay home. big here's to the next few weeks passing without incident so that you can go back to just getting into labour-land!

[Cricket]

WM - have you tried calcium and magnesium for the irritable uterus? And apparently cramp bark is supposed to be quite helpful too. I'm doing cal-mag for crampiness and leg cramps and it is definitely helping. Probably your midwife has given you all that info already though. Hope things settle down for you soon! There's enough business in the last few weeks without adding the extra stress and strain of preterm labour!

[Mum2twoBoys]

Yes cricket, I started taking magnesium a couple of weeks ago to help with the leg cramps. And I'm still taking elevit. Got midwife appt today so hopefully she has a few more tips. Just trying to do relaxation methods currently, to see if they help. Gym ball has been helping to get comfortable and rotate hips.

[Arimeh]

I've been getting restless legs of a night time, just in my calves, so I get DH to rub them instead of my feet if they are really bad. The extra blood flow seems to help I think?

I'm feeling slightly better about birth now, I think it was as was mentioned before - a crisis of confidence (thats what it was wasn't it?) I was thinking last night while I was putting DD3 to sleep (because I will be birthing in her room) and I was breaking it down in my head - my midwife doesn't expect me to labour longer than 5 hours, if I manage my breathing. Surely I can manage my breathing for that small amount of time. Then I was getting into the nitty gritty, if I have a contraction every 5 minutes, thats like 20 an hour, so 100 contractions that I would have to get through. At least half of those would be early type labour and very manageable, and in my last labour it was really only the last half an hour before pushing that I found them harder to manage - so thats like 6ish contractions that could possibly be harder for me to manage.

Overall - that doesn't seem like very much so in my (somewhat illogical) brain - of COURSE I can do this!

I've done it before, I will do it again and it won't be like Eden's labour because I didn't know anything back then. I didn't know that the more it was hurting the closer I was getting to the end - I know that now. I didn't know that I would survive it - I know I will now.

So thats just my musings for the moment.

On a different matter - why are so many people against homebirth? I don't get it? The biggest thing I get is - "aren't you scared of birthing at home instead of in a hospital?" and "what if something goes wrong and the baby dies?"

I don't get what can go wrong at home that can't go wrong in the hospital? Its like babies don't die in the hospital or something - and its only home birth that is risky. I think if you have any medical professional that isn't good at what they do, then something could happen any where... Maybe this is just coming from my personal experience - my sister lost her baby at 38 weeks and the week before she was contracting and losing fluid, but refused to ring the hospital and go and get checked up. Maybe if she had a midwife that she trusted, she might have told her what was going on and then she may not have lost her? I dunno, just random thoughts in my head that I have to get out, so I apologise to everyone for my random thoughts here.......

*cough cough* Uh. Carry on.

[Mum2twoBoys]

On a different matter - why are so many people against homebirth? I don't get it? The biggest thing I get is - "aren't you scared of birthing at home instead of in a hospital?" and "what if something goes wrong and the baby dies?"

I don't get what can go wrong at home that can't go wrong in the hospital? Its like babies don't die in the hospital or something - and its only home birth that is risky. I think if you have any medical professional that isn't good at what they do, then something could happen any where... Maybe this is just coming from my personal experience - my sister lost her baby at 38 weeks and the week before she was contracting and losing fluid, but refused to ring the hospital and go and get checked up. Maybe if she had a midwife that she trusted, she might have told her what was going on and then she may not have lost her? I dunno, just random thoughts in my head that I have to get out, so I apologise to everyone for my random thoughts here......

Was speaking to midwife about same thing. It's funny that apparently you're more likely to lose your baby at home rather than in hospital. Considering I've actually heard of deaths happening at hospital but no one I personally know has died having home birth.

And I love your brains workings. I think whatever helps to make the whole process easier.

[Arcadia]

I think the term 'home birth' is used too broadly to encompass free birthers as well. I've heard of a few deaths of babies in the freebirth community, but very rarely in the Homebirth (as in midwife attended birth and good prenatal care).

[Jennifer13]

Scan showed all fine, baby GIRL measuring a bit smaller than my dates, so thinking 6 Jan is a realistic guess for birthing.

But I was a bit surprised at the extra risk aversion in the scanning - said they now do a routine internal to provide even more analysis of cervix. I politely declined, since the u/s indicated all fine there anyway. Placenta is on back wall, currently 2 cm from cervix, again, just fine for this stage. Sonographer said some obs like it to be 5 cm away at term - what the?! I told her I wasn't seeing an ob, but a private m/w and in any case, even when I had, he was after 2 cm away at term with DD1's pg. I second guess even that advice!

All of my low lying placenta research classified it as a problem either over, or verging on cervix and there is some support for concern at less than 2cm, but 5cm seems just ridiculous. The no of 'elective' c/s you'd be scheduling at that point would be much higher.

[TeniBear]

Woohoo for a girl

I think 5cm is a more than sufficient to be safe, so I don't know where the tech was coming from there :-/ As you said, it's 2cm or lower where "they" start worrying, really.

My scan on Monday was all good too, finally got a few pictures where baby looks like a baby Still on that annoying X-ray film though, so to share it I've had to hold it up to the light and take photos that way. We even went to a different radiology place for them! The staff were much nicer though, so that was good

All plodding along nicely here, still a couple of weeks until my next appointment. The new bed/mattress has helped my hip pain, now it's just groin pain :-/

[meow]

Congratulations on your little girl!!!! What a wonderful little group of sisters they will be

Ugh at the risk stuff!!! An internal scan at 19 weeks to check the cervix on a 3rd time mother??? WTF? And I *love* how he's talking about making the "high risk" banner bigger with the 5cm clearance. More and more women keep being declared 'high risk' when they keep moving the goal posts closer and closer in.

[HotI]

They did a similar thing with GD, when they lowered the threshold from which women were declared to have GD.

[*The_Mrs.*]

Jenn- Congrats on your 3rd girl!!! We are having 3 girls as well!

I had my midwife appt today and we had a long discussion about homebirth. She told me all of the procedures for IF there is an emergency and it made me feel SO much better. This sounds horrible but I kind of thought if there was an emergency you were just screwed o.O She put all my worries aside and even told me she has birthing tubs she brings so I dont have to rent one! Im getting so excited! We discussed pain and I asked the golden question " What happens if Im in pain and start to wimp out" and she said something that has empowered me " Than I know you are about ready to have that baby". <3

[Eenee]

Jan 6 is a good day to have a baby Jen

Sorry haven't replied/acknowledged everyone's reply to my question about the GTT, haven't been in the best place lately.
Anyway just gave in and did it this morning as I hadn't been feeling the greatest despite other things being ok so blood sugars were the next thing to check. What a horrible test, blah! I still feel sick after drinking that stuff! Question (I should know this!) oes anyone know what fasting BGL should be? They did a test strip as well as taking blood and from what I could see (was distracted by DS) it was 6.0mmol I'm thinking that would be borderline for fasting levels but I'm not sure...

[TeniBear]

I just melted from cuteness I gave reading "Hello Baby" with Amelia another shot, this time just pointing at the pictures and talking about what's going on in them; and on the page where it's just the baby right after it's born, she leaned over and kissed the picture Then on the rest of the pages she found the baby and said "aww! Izza babby!"

[Cricket]

We love Hello Baby. It's currently MIA at our house - got to find it back!

Congrats on the baby girl on the way Jenn! Girls are wonderful.

Saw the midwife today - all is well. She said "baby is sitting low!" and I was like "I KNOW!" Measuring 33cm now at 35 weeks, but I'm sure he'll move up and down a bit from here. He's healthy and active from what I can tell, and I'm feeling mostly good. Full term in TWO WEEKS! Lots to be thankful for!

[Arimeh]

Oh god cricket, don't say full term in two weeks - you are freaking me OUT!!! hahahaha!!!

I wrote a blog post last night on home birth, just needed to get it out and clear up some stuff that I know my friends and family are concerned about. I don't think I was too ranty - I was worried when I started writing it because I was getting a little worked up, but I don't think its too bad. Well, everyone who has read it says it is fine hahaha!!! (unless everyone is lying to me *shifty eyes*)

I read the kids Hello Baby when I was pregnant with Sahti, but I don't have a copy of it any more. Sad panda.