Home Birth

I neglected to say in my last post that, like all our children, Reese was born at home (on purpose!). When people here that we had a home birth we are often asked "was it on purpose?". So I just wanted to take a moment and say how wonderful our home births have been and to anyone that is pregnant suggest that you consider home birth as an option. All four of ours were born at home so I don't have anything else to compare it to, but for us having our babies at home was such a great experience.

I'm often asked what made me consider home birth in the first place. It's not a really popular option here in NC. I have my mom to thank for that. She had me at home and my younger sister. Throughout my life whenever the topic of birth came up she always painted such a great picture of labour and birth at home. Movies, tv, and many people portray the birth experience as something awful, painful and scary. But not my mom, she always said her home births were nothing like that at all. And I believed her and knew that when I had a baby I wanted it to be at home. Initially, Chad was not sold on the idea at all. But thankfully he eventually agreed to it and after our first home birth he became a total home birth advocate.

So a huge thank you to my mom for giving me such a positive view of labour and birth. I truly believe that that was a huge contributing factor in how well all of my births went.

And also a huge thank you to Chad for fully supporting my desire to have home births. I know many women who would like home births but their husbands aren't supportive and I am so thankful to have a husband who was willing to give it a try with our first and so happy that it was your preference for the rest of our births. I don't know that I've ever thanked you for that before but it really means the world to me.

Why did we choose a home birth? The bottom line for me is that I believe birth is a natural process that God created and does not need to be medically managed. I believe it is the safest option to have my babies at home. There are soooo many contributing reasons and I don't know that I can put in to words how important home birth is to me but here are a few reasons:

1. You don't have to leave your house, I am most comfortable and most relaxed in my own home and can therefore have the best birth here.

2. There are no strangers participating in this very private moment. Only the people you want to be there are there. I read somewhere recently that only the people that were there when the baby was created should be present when they baby is born. For myself, I could not agree with that more.

3. You can eat/drink whatever you want whenever you want.

4. You can do whatever you want and be in any position you feel comfortable in, labouring on your back as is most often done in the hospital is the worse position in which to labour/birth.

5. You and the baby are not exposed to all of the hospital born bacteria or infections. A shocking number of people die from hospital acquired infections and/or mistakes every year.

6. No arguing with the nurses/doctors that you don't want fetal monitoring, an IV, an epidural, or pitocin. At home your labour can progress in the way it is naturally supposed to, you're not on some set schedule that was arbitrarily decided by someone of how quickly you must progress through labour.

7. No one telling you when or how to push (in a natural labour your body does that all on its own without instruction).

8. You can leave the cord intact until it stops pulsing and you're ready to cut it.

9. The baby never leaves your side so there is no chance of the baby having any unwanted and unnecessary things done to it and no chance of the baby being mixed up with someone else's baby or kidnapped (I know it's rare but those things have happened).

10. You can get in your own bed and have a peaceful rest after the birth. No one coming in to check on you or the baby, no loud noises, no bright lights, just peaceful bonding with your family and the new baby.