Staying at home as long as you can - any tips?

[MrsMcJnr]

Ladies I'm a first timer, 32 weeks and am just "thinking" about the birth. Having done my hospital tour, I am keen to stay at home when in labour as long as I can and preferably until I am 7 or 8cms - any one have any tips? any way of knowing that you are getting further ahead aside from the length of contractions and the time in between?

MrsMcJnr - a few things:

(1) If you do go to the hospital too soon - ask to be allowed to walk around OUTSIDE (with your birth partner obviously), a nice walk in the breeze really calms you down after you've been told by a stroppy midwife that it's 'not that bad' and 'if you are like this as 2cm, think what you'll be like at 10' (this happened to a friend of mine and she called me in to have a strop because she wasn't up to it). We walked for an hour round and round the maternity block - they wouldn't let us go out of sight (as if they had enough staff to watch ha!)

(2) Labour doesn't necessarily work in a linear fashion - ie you may not have contractions every hour, then every 20 minutes, then every six minutes etc. With DD1, I started off having contractions every 60 seconds for 45 seconds. Had I been at home I would have thought 'bugger' and pegged it to the hospital (as it was I was already there being monitored). They then went to every 15 minutes, then back to every 60 seconds. Ho hum!

(3) Good distractions for me included doing sudoku, online shopping and attempting to paint my toenails between contractions (btw don't do this, you end up painting the bump).

My final bit of advice:

You can plan and plan but at the end of the day, your baby will decide when he or she is ready to come out and you have very little say in what happens on that day. If you relax and try and focus on this being one big job to get through for one long day, it may help, but even if things go completely differently than you'd expected (as they did in my case) as long as you come home with a healthy baby, you don't care a jot!

thanks, keep them coming

I went to ante-natal yoga before having my ds (second child). What we were told was that it's worth having almost a circuit of things to do while labouring. So, bounce on the ball for 10mins. Then hands and knees on the floor and rock for 10mins. Then walk upstairs. Then lean against the wall and rock. Then back to the ball. And so on.
Basically, none of these things are physically taxing, and you are keeping mobile, changing positions, and have a target to work towards. All very good in terms of keeping distracted for as long as possible at home.
With dd (my first) I went in at first twinge and while was a quickish labour (7 hours) for a first timer, ended up having an epidural and just feeling rather out of control. Not enough to take my mind off the contractions and I hadn't done any ante-natal yoga/hypnobirthing so didn't have a good breathing technique and felt completely out of depth.
With ds, had intended a home birth. Rang at 7pm to say things seemed to be kicking off but had to go in as no free midwives. Got there after 8, 10cm dilated and he was born within about 40mins. Completely different experience. Had been at home with the TENS machine, making dd supper, pottering about with her and occasionally breathing through a contraction up until I rang the hospital. So distraction really was the key for me.