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Natural Birth
margaret_howell
member
May be having a home birth
margaret_howell
member
Fingers crossed.
I just sent DH a message telling him I now really want a home birth. I had originally talked to him about this early in my pregnancy and he was uncomfortable with it. I am not sure exactly what he is concerned about, we didn't discuss it in depth. I'm sure some of it is the fact that if something goes wrong, we're not in a hospital already. I know anything can happen, but the fact that I had no complications with my first pregnancy and with this pregnancy I have not had anything pointing to high risk, I feel comfortable with birthing at home.
So, if I can convince DH, then what? I know midwifery can be covered by insurance as long as it's a midwife-nurse. So I'm hoping we can search on our insurance's website to find a midwife who will be covered. What then, do I need to do to prepare my house? And what kind of supplies will I need? I'm sure when we find a midwife she will give me all of this information but my husband will want to know what we're getting into.
I am really excited about this so I hope DH will agree. The main thing that got me wanting a home birth is I found out from a Dr.'s website that the hospital I was planning on delivering at has a 60% c-section rate. yikes. I already wasn't sure how easy it was going to be to have a natural birth so I was looking into doulas. Then, I was just like, home birth is legal in Missouri so I may as well do that and hire a midwife.
I feel bad breaking up with my OB. She is very nice. Up until this point though, I haven't discussed with her what my natural birth plans are. She may be totally on board with them, but if I'm able I would rather have a home birth. With my first child I didn't really discuss anything before hand. I kind of went into my birth blindly. I knew that I wanted to have no meds but I didn't know about anything else I could have refused.
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Re: May be having a home birth
I started out exactly as you but with a CNM at our largest area hospital. I could not connect with them so I eventually convinced my hubby to go in this direction.
We were given a very extensive homebirth handbook and contract to sign before we began prenantal care with this practice. We also did a meet and greet with one of the MWs whiich set us both at complete ease - I'd recommend that to you and your hubby so someone else can calm his fears!
Most MWs direct you to people who sell a "kit" specific to them. Our's is around $60 I think. She also gave us instructions to make what they call a birth blanket and a list of some other things to prepare.
GL! I'm SO excited to get to stay home this time around!! Def did the hospital-intervention happy first birth with my son!
I just got this reply from DH
"If you can find it in our insurance and don't do it on the couch you can do it however you want"
(The couch comment is mostly because we just bought a brand new white couch. lol)
I'm so excited now!lol YAY! Great news! I would start by finding out the info you need from your insurance about which MWs are covered, check out their websites / philosophy on birthing / etc., and set up consultations with the ones you like best and want to meet. That's what we did, anyway. We went armed with all of our questions and concerns, were given the handbook / contract and forms to fill out and bring back for our first appointment if we decided to contract their service.
Congrats again!
Best of luck to you! I had a wonderful HB experience with DS. Our midwife was awesome. We had a prepackaged kit of birth supplies to buy online (more of the medical stuff, gloves, chux pads, clamp for the cord, etc) and then a more general shopping list that we were able to complete at Target (shower curtain liners, tin foil, large plastic bags, Gatorade, etc.) and all of those things had to be ready by 36 weeks when my midwife and her team did their home visit with us. I think the only other thing we had to do, besides keep the house clean, was have some food ready to have around for the birth.
The midwife we went with was the only one we met, but we loved her immediately. She had great answers to all of our questions and I felt very comfortable with her experience. My birth was not totally smooth - I had a posterior cervix, DS had an OP presentation and was pretty big - but she helped make things as easy as possible for me.
That's so exciting! I loved giving birth at home.
Our midwife gave us a list of things to have on hand (chux pads, sealed small bottle of olive oil, washcloths/cut up old towel for warm compresses, towels and sheets that we didn't mind getting ruined, garbage bags, etc.). We bought some cheap plastic painting dropcloths to layer between the sheets on our bed to protect it, we had 3 sets of sheets on the bed! The thin dropcloths are better than shower curtains as they are thinner/more flexible and so more comfortable. Also pick up a peri bottle, some cheap oversized underwear that you can throw away, and of course a whole bunch of large pads. I don't think there was anything else that we got specially for birth, besides snacks and popsicles.