Hello cricket long time no see and CONGRATULATIONS on the new baby on board!!
Bella: i hear you on creating the right kind of birth space. it can be really hard if there is someone there with even a small amount of anxiety or fear, so happy that you guys have worked out how to work it all out to the best outcome for all of you
Loulabelle: we prepared by reading "hello baby" (not the Mem Fox one lol)...lovely homebirth book. and also watching some truly AWESOME HB vids on youtube where there were other kids present. Leila could really relate to those videos. and we just generally discussed what might be happening etc. also having the appts with the midwife at home really helped as even though she pottered around and played while those appts were happening, she was still present and picked up on a lot of stuff. she also was a big helper with the doppler and measuring the fundal height etc, which i think took away some of the mystery etc.
Bella, my DH did about the same - he wasn't really around for the labour bit, he just popped in to see how it was going every once in a while. He isn't the type to sit around and watch without being able to help iykwim. Then the midwives gave him a call for the actual birth. Worked well for us
Loulabelle, your kids will be similar ages to mine when DD2 was born - they had just turned 4 and 2. I talked about it a bit with DS and we looked at the reproduction pages of his human body books with the diagrams of the baby coming out. He seemed happy enough with that. Didn't really do any prep for DD because she just isn't up to that level of understanding, although she did know there was a baby in my tummy and that soon it would come out and we would have a baby living in our house. On the day they carried on with their normal morning routine with DH while I was in the end room with the midwife. They both came in with DH to see what was going on but didn't have any inclination to stay (or even rummage through the midwifes stuff!). They were aware the baby was being born, it was just what they were comfortable with. They were super excited later when we came out with the baby.
yeah I am really interested in hearing these stories about kids being present. We are toying with the idea of DD being present at this birth. She is going to be 2.5 yrs old. She seems quite empathetic when I am sick, but we would have a gf here of mine who will act as her doula and also provide extra support for DH. She is incredibly calm and laid back so I think that she will be great for both of them. If all else fails my gf can take her away, but I will also need to think about birth vids and books I think to prepare DD for this so any suggestions would be great.
long time no see and CONGRATULATIONS on the new baby on board!!
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