Home Birth FAQ

Mothers love to share birth experiences with each other. Actually, everyone loves to share birth experiences with mothers. I've heard birth stories from husbands and parents and siblings of mothers. As soon as I share that I've had two natural home births, people usually have one of two reactions: the minority are genuinely curious about how I liked it and how it worked. Sometimes they've even been looking into home birth themselves. The majority, though, look at me with horror, like I'm some kind of negligent hippie freak, and after a few condescending questions try to nervously redirect the conversation. Here are some of my most frequently asked questions about home birth:

Q: Home birth? Ugh, I could never do that. I wanted pain meds.
A: If you wanted them, then I'm glad you had them! I wish every woman's birth experience would go the way she wanted, if it was safe for the baby.

Q: Wow. I couldn't have done that. I wanted the option of professional medical care right away if my baby or I needed it. 
A: So did I. That's why I chose a midwife to attend my births who is a Licensed Direct-Entry Midwife (LDM) and a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) who has attended over 1000 births and has only excellent recommendations from other mothers in the area. Oregon LDMs are trained in and authorized to use oxygen, IV therapy, anti-hemorrhagic medications, local anesthetics for suturing and vitamin K and ophthalmic antibiotics for newborns. Oregon LDMs can order lab work, obstetric ultrasound and newborn metabolic screening. And she has the experience to know when it's time to take a woman and her baby to the hospital, where she is a wonderful patient advocate for both mom and baby. If I hadn't wanted experienced professional medical care, I would have just had my babies at home with my husband. (That actually never would have worked. He was an EMT and had possibly a negative amount of interest in delivering babies himself.) Or I would have built a mud birthing hut in our back yard. (And, realistically, everything still would have been fine, though a lot less comfortable.)

Q: Home birth wasn't an option for me. I had medical problems/ My baby had medical problems/ I have a family history... it's a good thing I was in the hospital.
A: Then I am glad you were in the hospital too. I have known people with "family histories" who had successful home births, and I've known women who were otherwise healthy and wanted a home birth and ended up needing to go to the hospital. If you wanted or needed to be in a hospital, I'm glad you and your baby were there.

Q: ...It's a good thing we were in the hospital: the cord was wrapped around my baby's neck!
A: I know, right? Mine too. What with not having any room and moving all those little limbs out of a relatively tiny space, umbilical cords get tangled all up in babies' business all the time. Diana was born with the cord around her neck- Lisa just unwound it. She's seen babies born with the cord wrapped multiple times around necks, shoulders, etc. It just has to be untangled. It's usually not as big a deal as the movies would have you think it is.

Q: So what about all the required tests/examinations/vaccinations you/your baby gets at the hospital? Does your midwife perform those? 
A: Yes, she performs the newborn screening "heel prick test" that is required in Oregon to check newborns for a host of potentially worrisome conditions. She can do vitamin K injections and newborn eye drops. I think you have to take your baby to a pediatrician to do most of the other vaccinations a hospital would perform right after birth. She tells you about what vaccinations and procedures newborns would normally have performed on them in hospitals, and you can opt out of some of them, I just can't remember what they are right now.

As you can see, most of the questions I get aren't questions at all. In fact, mostly people get very defensive when they hear I've had home births. Look, babies are born every day naturally, by C-section, by VBAC, in hospitals, in taxis on the way to the hospital, breech, with epidurals, in a yurt, etc. I'm not trying to convert people to a home birth mentality. Sometimes when I'm in groups of other mothers, if someone shows an interest in home birth, the other mothers will actually rally to try to dissuade them from it, saying they can have natural-birth options in a hospital or birth center setting. Of course that's completely true, but honestly it feels like I am spreading a dangerous idea that other women need to be protected from. Seriously. The prevailing unspoken response I get from most people is that I am a selfish idiot having children via witch doctor in a mud hut. Are they worried I am trying to trump their birth experiences by saying I've gone all-natural and not even in a hospital?

Personally, I think we're completely indoctrinated throughout our lives with the idea that women and babies need professional medical intervention during pregnancy and the birth process. There is an overall feeling of fear about the whole thing. (Not that it's completely unwarranted- the United States does, after all, even with it's advanced medical system, account for more than half of all first-day deaths of newborns in the industrialized world. That's about 11,300 babies. In addition, American mothers have the same maternal death rate as mothers in Iran, according to the most recent State of the World's Mothers Report.) New moms and dads are consumed with worry about birth, as if babies and women's bodies weren't made for it. When we interviewed the midwife who has delivered two of my babies, many of my nieces and nephews, and even some Joseph's siblings, she described herself as a lifeguard, which is exactly what she acted like during my births and was exactly what we wanted. I liked that every step of the way during pregnancy and labor, she only ever made me feel confident that if I kept myself healthy physically and mentally, I would have no problem having a baby.

Here are some questions nobody ever asks me:

Q: Why did you choose home birth?
A: I chose home birth because I believe women's bodies were designed to handle childbirth. I am a private person and I hate doctors, examinations, and hospitals, but of course none of that would have mattered if I had thought that a hospital birth would be best for my babies. I don't like the idea so prevalent in the American medical system that everything is a dire problem coupled with my experience that doctors never have a solution or really any idea what the problem is exactly. If I didn't have to be a part of that system, I wanted to try a peaceful experience with a few people I trusted because I feel that childbirth is an intensely personal event that I want to own, instead of being in the passenger's seat directed by doctors who are probably more comfortable with medical intervention.

Q: Did you enjoy the experience? Would you do it again?
A: I enjoyed it so much I did it twice and hope to do it a third! I don't have a hospital birth experience to compare it to, but I can say that it worked for me and it was exactly what I hoped for. Someone put on peaceful music, I never felt rushed, I received a few words of encouragement and some helpful suggestions, and I was left to do my own work. My EMT husband was impressed by my midwives' knowledge and medical expertise and my mother (who was amazingly skeptical of home birth during my first birth) was impressed by how beautiful and peaceful the whole process was. (She even told me she wondered why she hadn't done that with her kids!) And can I say again how much I loved my midwives? Lisa was amazingly supportive and knowledgeable. She checked my babies' heart rate throughout labor to make sure they were doing well. I never worried about my kids with her around. Her assistant, Rachel, (who is now a licensed midwife herself) was also sweet and supportive. I had various complications with healing and nursing in the early weeks of having newborns, and I called Lisa day and night to ask her questions or just talk.

Q: How did you evaluate the pros and cons? Weren't you concerned for your baby in case of an emergency?
A: Especially during my first pregnancy, we worried (like most new parents) that there would be some medical emergency and we would lose precious minutes needing to transport to a hospital to get more care than the midwives' could offer. However, when we evaluated the likelihood of a medical emergency, it seemed like we were taking a comparatively small risk having our baby at home. Once we saw how "normal" my births were, we became more confident that we had made the right decision. And in the intervening years we've had the opportunity to hear from friends and family members how Lisa reacted in the event of medical emergencies during birth and I'm pretty certain that we'd be in good hands.

Anyone have any questions? Did you get the birth experience you wanted? If you had a home birth, have you had the same experiences with other people and mothers? Am I really just a selfish hippie freak who consorts with witch doctors and preaches heretical ideas about birth at the risk of my children's health? Comment below!

Baby is a....

Today we went in for New Baby's first ultrasound. We're very happy going the home birth-midwife route, and insurance doesn't cover that, so it doesn't cover full diagnostic ultrasounds either. Luckily, occasionally our local Pregnancy Resource Center puts out a call for ultrasound models to train their nursing staff. The ultrasound is free (!) they just can't medically diagnose anything, including gender. It's great if you just want to make sure there is indeed a baby (instead of a pterodactyl or something) in there, that they have all their limbs and vital organs, and they're moving around in a healthy way. Since that's mostly what we want to do, it's a great fit for us. Unfortunately, I'm terrible at reading ultrasounds. ("Oh, is that it's little eye? It's the stomach, you say?')

I remember when we had Diana's done around 20 weeks and the tech was repeatedly scanning the Area in Question and asking "Does that look like anything to you?" "Can you see anything that's there or missing...?" No, I couldn't. Joey thought afterward that he saw a distinct lack of anything, and he was right. The same thing happened at Liam's ultrasound and he definitely thought Something was there. Later on, to satisfy my curiosity (in a very expensive way), we had a full diagnostic ultrasound done at the local hospital and confirmed that Liam was our Liam boy. This time, Joseph wasn't able to make it, so I didn't have any help. In fact, I had two small people in the room gleefully competing to make the loudest dinosaur scream, which is the opposite of help.

(Oh my gosh, Nichole, we don't even care about your rambling. We're just here to see whether you're having a boy or a girl. JUST TELL US IF IT'S A BOY OR A GIRL.)

I have an oversharing problem, and I warn you all it's just going to get worse as this pregnancy goes on. Anyway, when the Area in Question was scanned in passing a couple of times, I really thought I distinctly saw Something. However, as the nurse pointed out later, the cord was showing up very strongly, so I might have been seeing the cord passing over the Area in Question and connecting to the body. When I asked if they could just scan that general area again for my sake, though I knew they couldn't tell me anything, they came up from the underside, as if the baby was sitting on a glass table and we were looking up from underneath. Honestly, I didn't see anything there. So who knows, maybe we're having another girl. Rather than spend $200 and a trip to Portland to get a diagnostic ultrasound when we're pretty sure the baby is healthy otherwise, I think we're just going to leave this one a surprise. We're already prepared either way. We're not hoping for one more than another. I think Liam would probably appreciate having a little brother to rough house around with (Heaven help us all) more than Diana would enjoy having a little sister, but I know I'd have fun dressing up another little girl. (Moms of girls know they have a way better clothing/accessory selection.) We already have a short list of boy names, so we'll pick some girl names and be surprised in late January, I guess!

Baby in profile at 21 weeks! Can you see the little heart? It was beating at 140 bpm.

Another baby profile shot.

Next Baby

Stop! It's a trap!

You probably followed this link here from Facebook, thinking you'd read about how I've been feeling physically this past twelve weeks. On that subject, Liz Lemon said it best, because she says everything best: "Oh, little achy and nauseous, but I'm hanging in there." We'll get to that in a few paragraphs. (I saw you, you were just going to skip down a few paragraphs and see if you could find the non-hormonal and ranty stuff. Forget it, buddy.)

Instead, I'm going to address how I'm feeling that I'm pregnant, because that seems to be a much more important issue. 

When we had Liam, we would have been just as thrilled if he'd been a girl, but instead we got our Liam boy. It was great. And apparently, we'd won the genetic lottery, or so EVERYONE told us. Friends, acquaintances, and especially complete strangers would congratulate us. "How wonderful," they said, "you have a girl and a boy! Now you can be done!" It's a little gratifying to be congratulated, but also puzzling. Now we can be done? Sometimes it was much more certain. "Oh good. You're done!" Joseph even had a stranger say it almost as an order, as if we shouldn't have any more children. 

I don't go in for conspiracy theories, and I don't believe there's a war on large families, but why is two children the perfect number? Joseph's family is one of the happiest I've ever met and there are 13 children. (P.S. Thirteen is not the number we're shooting for.) Adjusting to two children was exponentially harder than adjusting to one. It was a real challenge for the first few months. Sometimes it's still a challenge, and Joseph and I weren't certain that we were ready to be outnumbered, because the chaos of dinner and bedtime is so much easier when we can each take one child, or if I can help/carry/care for one child with each hand. But as Liam grew up and needed less babying, we wondered if a family with just two children would seem small. 

We've been uncertain about the idea of growing our family for a while now, and most of our friends and family knew it, so maybe that threw some people off. But it has become very apparent that with this pregnancy we have stepped from the sparkling pedestal of family-of-four bliss to the realm of "You idiots, you just ruined your lives." It's uncanny. It's actually quite baffling. Some of the first reactions I received when revealing I was pregnant were "Congratulations, I guess. You know it's going to get a lot harder," and "I'm sorry this happened to you at such a busy time."

Can I just take a moment to address those thoughts? "You know it's going to get a lot harder"??? Really?? I had no idea! I'm already pregnant, so what on earth did they suppose I was going to do about it at that point?? I think I replied, "Well, we'll handle it." What else can I do except handle it? "I'm sorry this happened to you"?? I'm not! This isn't a disease, this is a baby! Soon it will be just like the adorable kids I have running around me. 

Those are easily the most extreme responses, but they aren't uncommon. Strangers don't congratulate us now. When people hear we're expecting, the reply is "Oh!....." occasionally with some weak fake enthusiasm.

There have been some people that were genuinely happy for us, and we appreciate every one of them. If you were one of those people, thank you. Parenting is hard enough without getting any negativity. Even if parents seem completely fine, cheerful support is always appreciated. 

So for both of you still reading at this point, I would like to address some very important points about this pregnancy:

This baby is wanted, loved, and expected.

This baby was given to us by God, created in the image of God, and as an amazing gift to us, it is a combination of us: two people who love each other deeply. How amazing! How lucky we are! Of course we love this baby. From the moment we knew we were expecting another baby, it was a welcome member of our family. Sure, we're not sure how it will be adjusting to three kids, but we'll manage it, and the chaos and uncertainty doesn't mean we love any of our kids less. Also, it always baffles me when married people are asked "So was [your baby] a surprise?" Since marriage involves sex and since sex makes babies... and since no birth control is 100% effective... can any baby be completely a surprise? Really? We're two intelligent people who know how this works. This baby was not a surprise, nor an accident. We hadn't made up our minds about having more kids, so we knew it was only a matter of time before I got pregnant again, and we were both okay with that. 

Q: "What are you hoping for??"

A: A healthy baby. A genius would be nice. Somehow we need to vicariously live out our dreams of Rhodes
Scholarship. (I'm going to be disappointed with one gender or another? Come on, there are so many more important things to worry about.)

And that's pretty much it. I've been holding all that hormonal ranting in for eight weeks now. You're welcome. If you're one of the two people who had the time and/or stamina to read this post to the end, well done! Now we get to the more mundane stuff:

With the third pregnancy, you don't get a lot of time to focus on being pregnant. Weeks 8-11 were pretty rough for me. I was really tired all the time and nauseous, especially in the evening. The smell of raw onions made me gag. I didn't feel like eating anything at all, though I usually felt better if I had something plain. Preggie Pop Drops saved me for those few weeks. Initially I craved LOTS of red meat, which makes Joseph think this baby must be a boy, but after that it was mostly carbs and sodium. I ate lots of sour cream and onion chips, ramen, pasta, and chicken nuggets. I know it's not healthy, but when the thought of most food makes you sick, you go with what you can. I'm feeling almost back to normal now, though Pinterest with all its pictures of food still sometimes makes me nauseous. 

That's all, folks. I'm already feeling healthier going into this pregnancy than I did with Liam, and I got more time to recover and enjoy my baby, so that was a nice vacation from being pregnant. I'm due January 24 (give or take two weeks, of course), at which point Diana will be three and Liam will be almost two (20 months). Keep checking back for more pregnancy updates. 

A day in late pregnancy

Here is a timeline of my day, which could probably be considered a typical day in week 39 of pregnancy:

12 AM- Finally pass out after two hours of tossing and turning because sleeping on one side makes the baby kick and wiggle, the other makes him push on your cervix (OW.), and your back and hips are killing you either way. Plus, bathroom breaks and random contractions.

5 AM- Unable to go to sleep after waking up for probably the fourth time during the night to go to the bathroom because the sun is starting to come up, and the combination of light and having your eyes (barely) open makes for the perfect opportunity to start worrying about everything.

7 AM- After numerous trips to the bathroom and tossing and turning (punching from the inside, pushing on cervix, the occasional Braxton-Hicks), fall asleep again.

8 AM- Wake up to hear your sweet child asking for "Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?" from the next room.

8-10 AM- Change the little girl, feed her, clean up, manage to get in some breakfast yourself, fold some laundry, take care of the dog, try to entertain and distract and clean up after an 18-month-old and a puppy.

10 AM- Put baby down for a nap (yes!) and try to get a nap in yourself.

11 AM- Get up feeling helpless, enraged and frustrated because, yet again, your baby won't let you sleep.

Take a relaxing shower, dissolve into tears because of pregnancy hormones you're so tired.

Share a little of the raincloud with your sweet husband who is working from home by telling him everything that's bothering you and all your hopes and fears and aches and pains. These are definitely real, overwhelming problems and probably not just pregnancy hormones gone awry. Husband (who has dealt with a pregnant wife once and knows how to handle these sorts of things) sympathizes gently with you, which is greatly appreciated. As a solution, he suggests you down half a beer to settle yourself and the baby down to sleep, which suggestion is not greatly appreciated.

11:45 AM- Toddler wakes up again.

Around 12:30 PM- An angel or sister-in-law, it's difficult to tell which, calls out of the blue to ask if she might take Diana sometime during the day to play and make cookies with her, while giving you the chance to nap. Almost begin weeping again at divine providence.

1 PM- Make and feed everybody lunch.

2 PM- Drop happy toddler off with many happy relatives and go home.

2:30 PM- Attempt to go to sleep. You know you'll have no problem because you're incredibly tired.

3 PM- After bathroom breaks, punches, and particularly vicious attacks on your cervix by a surprisingly energetic inside baby, give up the idea of sleeping with much more teeth-gnashing and tears of frustration. Feel like punching the kid back just because you're so tired.

Husband again talks you off a cliff of rage and desperation (helpful). Again suggests using beer to calm the child down (not helpful).

Decide to use your time sans baby to get things done around the house. Pick up toys (including the dog's toys), vacuum the entire house (a feat because everything's harder when you're pregnant) and start making potato rolls.

~5 PM- Amazing sister-in-law drops off your very happy child AND cookies.

5:30 PM- Sweet husband comes home from the gym with flowers, encouraging words, and fresh French bread.

6-8 PM- Husband plays with his little girl and the dog and finishes putting together the organizing system in the kids' closet (which you've been hinting you'd like finished). Everyone eats a happy dinner, the rolls are finished, the little girl gets a bath and goes to bed with minimal fussing.

8:30 PM- Sit down, relax, feel humbled by all the blessings and wonderful people in your life. Resolve to try to have a better attitude even when life is physically difficult. Realize that it's not your baby's fault that life is so uncomfortable and allow yourself to think about how wonderful it will be when he's born, how much you want to see him, and how much you love him already. Wonder if it's too late to try some ice cream....