A new homebirth thread...

[dejags]

I am in the process of making my mind up about having our second baby at home. There are a couple of things which are worrying me though...

1. The noise - my first labour was a very noisy affair, what on earth will the neighbours think? (we live in a semi)

2. what happens if DS needs to leave the house in the middle of the night - he is only 3 and this may frighten him?

silly little things I know but was wondering what you did?

Another big fan of home-birth here. Don't let your mum undermine your confidence - it's your decision and no-one elses (and, I'm kind of guessing, but I bet you've done a lot more reading and research and are a lot better informed than she is).

My worries were exactly the same as yours. On the noise - when it came to it, it really was the last thing on my mind and I bellowed away and genuinely didn't care. Both neighbours claim not to have heard - no idea if they were just being nice but who cares? On the sibling thing - my advice would be to remember that the birth of a baby is always going to be a huge upheaval for siblings. At the end of the day I think you just have to put in place the best plans you can (everyone's situation is different in terms of availability of help/family/friends etc) and accept that there's probably no perfect solution. As long as DS gets plenty of love and attention when his sibling arrives, he'll get over it.

I had dismissed the idea of having mum to stay to look after DD - just the usual mother-daughter stuff - she'd fuss too much, she'd - horror of horrors - hear, maybe even see me naked etc, but in the end, by coincidence, she was there - and it was lovely - she looked after DD - who was pretty upset by the whole thing and it was amazing to have her see DD2 just minutes after she was born. You may have dismissed the idea of someone (family/friend) staying at your house for similar reasons - but give it some thought - it may be a really amazing experience to share.

Sounds like a tacky piece of book advice - but DD bought a present for the baby (and vice versa!?!) and when things had calmed down it was really nice to exchange them.

Good luck

to have as many contingency plans as possible -

not sure where that last random bit came from

i'm planning a homebirth and don't have friends or family close enough (or useful enough tbh) to take ds. i've got my fingers crossed that i will go into labour at night. otherwise, dh and i have agreed that his first priority will be looking after ds, rather than being with me. i definitely want ds out of the way during the labour, for a variety of reasons.

has anyone else been in the same situation - planning a hb with an older child/ren with just dh for both support and childcare?

I was imagining that scenario bk, and it might have happened if we'd still been in Devon when I had dd. Are you going with an independent m/w? Don't forget there will be 2 of them with you, the second gets called when they think you're close to delivering. What about having a doula too? It might be extra support for you if your dh ends up having to look after your ds. Or maybe she could look after your ds if he wakes? (mine, who I didn't end up calling, said she'd do whatever I wanted her to do at the time) Lots of people here said they went into labour at night and their other child/ren slept through it so maybe that'll happen to you. My midwives were insistent that I had a back up plan for ds though in case I needed to transfer. Just my random thoughts in no particular order!

www, thank you. can't see ds staying with a strange doula, tbh. he is brilliant at nursery, but will not settle in hotel creches or with strangers. i am having independent mws - do they always work in pairs? that would maybe help. my mother flaps and my father would be worse than useless. ils are too doddery and far away. sils too far away. my dsis and dbro unable to drop everything at a moment's notice and don't think we could ask friends. of the friends who are close enough to ask - either they don't have kids and would therefore be pretty hopeless (harsh - but true) or they do have kids and therefore would be limited by their own family responsibilities. i will assume i will go into labout at night and ds will wake up to a little surprise in the morning!

bossykate - you might be surprised how many people would actually be willing to help - dd was born at home and we had so many people who we didn't expect offer to look after ds. I don't think they need to be necessarily 'close' friends - as long as they know your ds a bit.

Statistically, I think most babies are born at night, particularly when there is another child to look after. Having said that, I went into labour with dd at 6 in the morning.

If you wanted to consider a doula, she could be your support, and then your dh would be able to concentrate on your ds a bit more.

Good luck!

bk, I should think there will be 2 of them towards the end - there are on the nhs for home births and my sister had two too when she used independent mws in London. I think the idea is one for you and one for the baby.

bossykate - yuor situation re friends family etc sounds not too disimilar from ours - there was no-one who was both physically close enough and a close enough friend to ask to be THE person who was going to be on definite standby to drop everything and come whatever the time/day etc. What we actually did is ask a number of people if they would be willing to have dd in certain circumstances (eg - asked her ex-childminder if she would have her if it was during the week and during the day; asked some friends who live close if they would have her until my mum or dh's Dad could get to us if it was at the weekend/night) it was a bit unsettling not knowing for certain which particular plan was going to kick-in but everyone we asked was very happy to help - and we just made sure that we had asked enough people to cover all the possibilities.

Message withdrawn

Hi - I spent most of labour at home, including much of stage 2 and had 2 midwives (on NHS there) there has to be 1 for you & 1 for baby so tons of support unlike what you're likely to get in hospital. We're in terrace house and neighbours afterwards said thought it was a cat in distress then thought no more about it (they politely claim! At the time, wasn't worried about this at all anyway as completely in my own world (really helped by having birthing pool)Went to hospital at end anyway (my choice, wasn't forced) and no problem, called ambulance for us all and was accompanied by one of the midwives at all times.

I had dd1 and dd2 at home ? dd1 was born in a hired pool; dd2 would have been but - see below. For some reason the fears about "what if something went wrong" were always a lot littler for me than a profound desire to avoid being in the hospital. We didn?t tell people in advance of dd1 because we didn't want to field any concerned or dissuasive reactions.

With dd2 we had contingency plans for taking care of dd1 ? if labour happened in the night we proposed to just leave her in bed since she sleeps well and the room we were using for birth is three floors below dd1?s room. In the event, dd2 came very fast ? after a warning/false start late one evening, labour started full-on at 5am and dd2 was born at 6.40. In fact the midwife did not arrive in time and dh delivered dd2 himself (respect). dd1 rises at 7am and we?d just had time to call a friend to come around then and take her to her house for breakfast, but in the end that wasn?t necessary and dh got her up (a little later than 7) to meet her baby sister. Midwife arrived 5 mins after the birth to cut the cord and everything. By 8.30 midwife had gone and new family was all together having breakfast.

I thoroughly recommend home birth though I think I?ve been very lucky as I did not need assistance or pain relief either time. I recommend calling the midwife (and maybe a paramedic) immediately for second labour though. In fact, if we had been planning a hospital birth, I doubt we?d have got there in time.

PS the neighbours heard me having dd2

Inkstigmata,

just wanted to say hi as it sounds like your second was pretty much like mine - home birth, delivered by dh, with the mid-wife turning up to cut the cord. In some ways I found it all too quick and a bit shocking (we also ended up with a room full of ambulance men which was pretty freaky) but by about 1 am we were tucked up in bed together, at home, with all the professionals been and gone. And it's a great dinner party story don't you think?

Bossykate, I worried about what we would do with ds when I went into labour but in the event he slept right through and did indeed wake up to a surprise in the morning!
Birth story here if you're interested.

Bossykate, I am hoping to have a homebirth and have no family/friends near/able to look after dd1. We want dh to be free to be with dd too.

I have found a lovely birth doula to be with me, so dh can look after dd1. If I end up in hospital, the doula will be with me too.

But I am hoping baby will oblige and come (quickly!) during the wee hours at home!

hi everyone (i was bk btw)

have been meaning to come back to thread for ages - but keep forgetting due to pg mush brain

thanks very much for all these ideas and comments. i think we have found a solution actually - a close relative who lives nearby, is trustworthy, has experience of looking after small children... it is only down to pg saggy brain i didn't think of this before.

there's a good chance we won't need to invoke contingency anyway - thinking in percentage terms how much time ds is either asleep or at nursery, statistically we will be fine...

Hope it works out OK for you serenequeen. I've been through all this with my planned home birth (due in 8 days) and have to say that the thing most on my mind is DS. Although we have the nighttime and nursery (only 3 days though) options. My MIL will come for him and she's an hour's drive away but I'm working out how to get them out of the house as quickly as possible....

hatter - dh is determined to extract mileage from the diy delivery story for many years to come and I'm sure I will be "not again!!" at some point . Too bad for dh that his colleagues at work mostly don;t have kids so the reaction there was "Oh good, whatever ... "

Hi I haven't been back to this thread in ages and ages...

We have decided to go for a home birth with a birthing pool for pain relief. Luckily we are only 5 minutes down the road from the hospital so if there are any (God Forbid) complications we can transfer with a minimum of fuss.

Does anybody have any recommendations for Birth Pool Hire? We have looked at a couple of companies but they all seem pretty much the same.

It rather depends entirely on where you are dejags. We are in north London and I really recommend the Active Birth Centre (www.activebirthcentre.com/). They have an "emergency" delivery service if things start early - though we booked the pool for 2 weeks before ddate with dd1 and three weeks with dd2 (because dd1 was -11d).

Hi Dejags, I had a pool booked for my last birth from Splashdown \link[http://www.waterbirth.co.uk/this]

My dd arrived 5 weeks early so ended up not using it as had to go to hospital. BUT, they were great about cancelling and gave a full refund. I also have a friend who used their pools twice and thought the pool/service v good.

Big fan of homebirths! Took until number three for us to gather the courage to stay at home and we lied outright to in-laws and my parents. Told them that we didn't have time to make it to the hospital. Sad now that I think about it! Wish that the differences of opinion ended with the location of the birth... Had trouble coming up with someone to care for ds1 and dd as all family and most friends in Canada so we opted to ask dh's sil's little sister (from Canada). Worked brilliantly as ds2 was born at 6:17 am and his big brother and sister woke to sound of his first cry.