There's this great little Jim Gaffigan bit where he talks about having four kids, all homebirths. It's funny, have a look-see:
Some choice quotes:
"Why wouldn't you have it in that germ-infested building where sick people congregate?"
"Didn't your wife want to give birth in a gown someone died in yesterday?"
"Oh, you had your baby at home? Yeah, we were gonna do that, but we wanted our baby to live."
I've seen this bit before and it was funny then, but it's really funny now that we're planning a homebirth.
And now you know: When it's time to birth this baby, I plan on doing it at home.
Like Jim said, "We had all our babies at home, just to make you uncomfortable."
I'm kidding. Kind of.
I'm sure a fair number of people will be freaked out by this. That's OK; I used to think a home birth was for freaks, too.
I had a hospital birth. It sucked. Well... the parts I can actually remember really sucked. You'd have to ask my husband for the details, I wasn't so much mentally present for most of it.
Hospital birth just isn't my bag, baby. You want to birth in a hospital? Have an induction? An elective C-section? Be my guest. (But sweet baby Jesus, please research those things before you consent to anything.) I don't care what kind of birth you have, or your wife has, or your sister has... I care what kind of birth *I* have. (OK, I *do* care about the ways other women birth, because there are too many women going into this blind and ending up with stories like mine. I did the research and I still ended up with a sh*tshow for a birth. I care about how babies come into this world and how birth impacts the mother-baby dyad. But on a personal level, I'm going to respect your choice and your story the same way I expect you to respect mine.)
Like all moms-to-be, a living, breathing, healthy baby is the end goal here.
Perhaps not like all moms-to-be, I believe we can get that done in an inflatable tub in my bedroom.
I'm not even making that up about the tub! It's going to be awesome.
I found a great midwife to attend my birth. She is also a nurse practitioner, which is a nice bonus. At our first appointment, she spent two hours in our living room, talking about what we want our birth to be like, my medical history, and how my pregnancy is going. Two hours. I had an appointment with an OB and it was all of 15 minutes (and that's generous by the standards of some practices). Midwifery care is the kind of personalized care I want. This is the level of attention to detail I need. (And the service pretty much can't be beat... I had an issue after hours, I texted her, and Josh was able to go pick up a prescription for me within 20 minutes of my original message to her. I've had on-call doctors offer much less support.)
I'm high-risk during pregnancy for a few reasons, none of which exclude home birth as an option (my midwife and even my OB are in agreement on that point). I'm informed, I'm preparing and I've got an amazing support team (including my husband, who's all for having this baby at home)...
... LET'S DO THIS THING.
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