Homebirth - tiny house

[OnePanickedEveryMinute]

I've name changed because I might out myself here and am not ready to talk to anyone about this in RL.

I had a rubbishy first birth with back-to-back baby, forceps and poor midwifery care. DD is now 1 and I had pretty much put it out of my mind until 'One Born Every Minute' came on TV and I found I had an unstoppable compulsion to watch it. It has really brought it all back to me and made me think about potential future children.

I've been told that there is no medical reason I couldn't try for a homebirth next time, and that helps me feel better. What really made my first labour horrid was the dimissive 'just lie there, on your back, in agony on a monitor, so I can have a cup of tea at the nursing point' attitude of the (shitty locum) midwife.

My question (sorry, took a while to get there!) is how do you have a homebirth with a tiny open-plan house and a toddler. Bathroom is downstairs, so not sure how sensible upstairs would be, and you have to walk through the living/kitchen room to get to the stairs. Can you do this without turfing DD off to relatives for the duration? That would be difficult because they are three hours away.

I know it sounds sooo silly, but I don't think I've mentally got over my first labour, and I'm already panicked! Even if I ended up transferring, I think having a HB planned might help me move on in my mind...

Sounds like you had a rotten experience. Sympathies.
I recently had a homebirth while DD (then 3) slept in the room next door. She didn't wake once and came into our room the next morning to find she had a brother. It was lovely.
In terms of space, the midwives need enough space to fit you lying down and them beside and below you iyswim, in case they have to put you in special position to deliver stuck shoulders I think.
I gave birth in the bedroom at the foot of the bed leaning over beanbags - not a huge space, and it was pretty crowded with me, 2 midwifes, a student midwife in the room. Bedroom was right next to bathroom but that was only useful when I went into the shower afterwards. You might feel a little wobbly if had to go upstairs but they would be there to help you.
Midwifes usually come round to assess the house for suitability for a home birth. You can always ask and talk it through with them.
As for toddler, suppose it depends on age. I had DD briefed with pictures of births in case she happened to witness the event. We had people ready to collect her but my gut reaction was I'd rather have her with us than felt she had to be taken away. The midwife told me that many many younger children witness births with no problem. In fact, when ds was being born they asked me if we wanted to wake her to witness her brother coming into the world. I said no but actually now think it might have been an amazing first memory for her!

Second babies tend to come at night. Your body just seems to wait. (Kinda like horses do.)

Bathroom downstairs is great. Dh helped me downstairs as my labour was fast and furious. We had no one to take dd1 off us as our friends nearby had been on the lash that night and couldn't come. She woke up right near the end due to my loud shouting and I was already in the birth pool. There was no time for other pain relief other than shouting through the contractions.

Once in the pool, it was bliss and in 3 contractions dd2 was born. She was 3.5yo then and recently recounted when 'we had a swimming pool in the living room' and DD2 arrived in the pool. She didn't see me in any agony and was fascinated by it all and recounts it very positively.

A home birth can help you move on from your bad experience the first time. My first was a traumatic experience too and the trailer of OBEM had me hyperventilating watching women trying to give birth in hospitals.

I had a homebirth with DD2 after a rubbish experience in hospital first time around. Our house is a shoebox, I kid you not. Once the birth pool was up, everyone had to sqeeze around it in our one and only downstairs room. But since I was in it, I didn't care!

As for DD1, who was 2.5 at the time, she slept right through the whole thing since I went into labour at 11pm and DD2 was born at 5:30. DD1 woke up in the morning to a shiny new sister!

I'd definitely give it serious though if you like the idea of a homebirth. Mine was a wonderful experience after the trauma of hospital the first time around.

Our house is pretty small with bathroom upstairs. I had all 3 of ours in the front room, on the futon sofa (covered of course!). Was in bath upstairs for first bit, then came downstairs for more intensive bit. (I also had a bucket handy in case I needed it) 1st child slept through 2nd labour, toddled in in the morning to see her sister, for 3rd birth it was in the early morning, so we asked my MIL to take them for a few hours. Just kinda works somehow.

If you fancied a pool, your downstairs sounds perfect. I had a pool in the living room. We have no downstairs loo, and I didn't fancy having to trail upstairs every time I needed the loo, so we managed to get hold of a commode. It was just like a small metal-framed chair, but with a toilet seat and a small bucket fixed underneath. I'm really, really glad we had it, as I was constipated and kept needing to do little bits whenever I had a contraction (sorry, TMI!). Also I'd read the Mongan method hypnobirthing book, and it recommended keeping your bladder+bowels as empty as possible all the time - i.e. go whenever you have the slightest need to. In theory I couldv'e just gone in the pool, but felt a bit squeemish about that until the last 20 mins. So it was great to be able to just hop out of the pool and sit straight down on the commode...
So you could look into that if you thought you might want to be upstairs in a bedroom.

Plenty of homebirthers don't do it in the bedroom though. Having the bed there could encourage you to lie down which isn't necessarily a good thing - better to cling unright to the sofa... and plenty of homebirthers naturally gravitate to the bathroom in labour - it can help to labour sat on the toilet, you can fill the bath up really deep and get in for a bit, or even give birth in the bath. Did you see this one? Lovely!

My midwives wanted easy access to the pool, plus enough space on the floor to deal with resus of slow-to-get-going baby. With no pool to take up space a tiny house is no problem from that point of view.

With dd2, is there any chance of having a friend primed to come round to look after her if you are labouring in the day while she's awake? If she's happy and you don't mind having her around while you birth, then that's great, but it would be safest to have someone around whose main job is to look after her, so everyone else (including you) can concentrate on looking after you. That way, if you find you can't concentrate with her around, she could be taken upstairs (or downstairs?!) and kept occupied away from you. Maybe.

That was a load of waffle, hope it helps .

I dunno, OP, you just sort of get on with it. Like someone said, it will probably be in middle of night and your toddler sleeps thru it all.

All my 3 homebirths were in the downstairs living room -- one of the houses was quite small, too,with only a downstairs loo like you've got.

God yes! Have had 3 HBs and our homes have always been bloody tiny. The kids either slept through it/watched tv/you will find a way! One of my HBs was on a 45ft narrowboat we lived on; bit of a squeeze with us all and 2 fab but huge MWs rocking the boat!! The other happened to come out when I stood in the bath; don't ask..and the last ended up being properly in bed, which made a change..Space not an issue really.
Good luck!

OO and the last HB was a back to back; bloody intense but you are so much more in control when it's your home. For the most part, I like to send midwives off to make a brew and tell them I'll give them a shout when things start cracking on proper..!

Thanks guys, that's all really useful. Thanks for all the positive stories (houseboat? Wow!)

I really hope that my next birth is 'at night'. The first one ran over four days, starting in the evening. Because of the back-to-back it was really painful in my back from the off and I couldn't even sit down by 12 hours in (not even really between contractions). I guess that's partly why I'm worrying so much about the house. Second babies do tend to come much quicker don't they, so maybe if we were talking about 12 hours or whatever it's much easier. Thanks for pointing that out.