The midwife says have a homebirth, I want to but why the feeling of dread and mental images of giving birth in the hospital?

[MamiBabi]

I had a really bad time of things last time round - they thought my waters had gone, they hadn't but I was induced anyway at 39+1 after mw broke my waters, no contractions happened, drip put in and 10 hours later with epidural that had come out of my back (they were topping up my pillow) landed up with failed ventouse followed by forceps and made to feel like I was a right wimp and not very good at the old giving birth business.

I have since moved to the other side of the country where community midwives are all for home births and doing it naturally. Having described my experiences to my midwife she suggested a home birth might be the way forward and as the pregnancy has been largely uneventful we're now all set to go at 37+2.

So my question is, why am I feeling so nervous about the homebirth thing and why in my head whenever I imagine the whole thing, I'm in hospital? Should I tell my midwife that I want to birth in hospital - I keep thinking that I wo1n't be able to do this on entinox alone - what if I need something stronger? Although there is no way on earth that I would have an epidural again after last time, loss of control, and ultimately it didn't even bloody work.

Sorry for the rant, just needed to write down how I feel and am really conscious that lots of women really have to fight to get their homebirths.

You don't have to make any concrete decisions right up until labour begins. I think home birth might be the healing process you need, but you can change your mind at any time. Keep the plans for a home birth, but if you feel at all out of control there is no problems in transferring to hospital when you want.

Bear in mind 2nd births are often quicker and easier, so when it comes home will probably be the exact place you want to be.

Best of luck, try not to worry!

I'm thinking the anxiety may be down to the fact that I was in such absolute agony at the end with the midwife topping up my pillow and consultant shouting 'Mrs Mamibabi, either you push or we do a CS' and I kept thinking 'just do it' but was in too much pain to mouth the words. Even if I had had an urge to push I wasn't able to due to impact of the sudden pain - I went from feeling nothing all day to full on contractions just beofre delivery.

I had a dreadful first birth that ended in an instrumental delivery too. I was very scared during my second pregnancy. What helped me was going through the notes from my first delivery with the midwife. DH was there too, as he was my birth partner. We discussed what had gone wrong, and worked out how it would never happen to me again (unless the baby was in distress, of course).

How do you get on with your midwife? Would you trust her to go through everything carefully so that you can talk about your concerns? Then you can make a proper informed decision about this next delivery. For what it's worth, I didn't have an easy second delivery, but I did have the birth that I wanted, and the midwives followed my birth plan to the letter. So things don't have to be that bad again.

I don't think that you are silly to have a gut reaction against homebirth, by the way. I also had a strong feeling that I didn't want a homebirth, and went to a birthing centre in a hospital, which was a great solution for me. Horses for courses.

Thanks for your positive stories - I was admitted to hospital last night, having had a really bad headache and disturbed vision all of yesterday afternoon. This is the second time in as many weeks as this has happened. The doctor reluctantly discharged me late last night as my bloods came back as normal but he did say that he would be concerned over me having a homebirth due to risk of pre-eclampsia developing at the moment.

Have spoken to my midwife this morning and she agreed but we have talked through the fact that this is not the end of the world, specifically, that as I know what went badly for me last time, I'm going to set out a birth plan that accurately relfects what I do want this time. She said that she is also going to come to my home on Tuesday for ante-natal when DH is home to talk through my birth plan and help me explain to DH what his role will be in speaking for me if I can't get my wishes accross myself - i.e. I do not want an epidural even if I'm screaming for one!!

Thanks for your messages though - this thread has really helped me see things clearly rather than through anxiety tinted specs!

Sounds like you are getting things sorted and with the birth plan and everything you'll have a good chance of getting a better labour this time.

I would absolutely not risk a home birth if you are at risk of pre-eclampsia: I knew someone who had eclamptic fits during delivery and would certainly not have survived had she not already been in hospital.

I had pre-eclampsia and ds's heartbeat went down during labour, so he had to be whisked out by caesarian. (It was actually a fairly relaxed procedure and didn't feel traumatic at all, but I couldn't coped with a rush to hospital at that stage).

Also, my blood pressure did weird things in the hours after delivery (to the point where the midwife wouldn't even leave me alone for a few minutes in the night) and I was very glad to be looked after.

You can have a different kind of hospital birth though? Is there an MLU or birthing centre available?

I had a long drawn out, epidural and ventouse with my first, and dreaded the second. I attended the MLU second time, and had nothing but entonox for the 3 hour labour. Unfortunately due to fetal distress I ended up with another ventouse delivery but it wasn't anything like the first time around.
This time I'm going back to the MLU (no home births where I am, unless you can pay privately, which is a lot) and hoping for a completely interention free birth, but the difference this time is I'm not scared or apprehensive, as even though it didn't go quite to plan last time, I was much more in control and it was quicker and mainly drug free.
Good luck.