HOMEBIRTH - be honest, just how much mess and goo and cack should we expect?

[MadreInglese]

DD was born in hospital many moons ago and as I was mostly away with the fairies on gas & air and laid flat on a bed immobile as attached to monitors and with all the cack being cleared up for me I have no idea how much fluid, blood, etc was lost.

With DC2 we'd ideally like a homebirth and tbh I just assumed with plastic sheeting and all that malarky that all the mess could be fairly well contained, even if I wanted to move about the house - until a friend recently blessed me with her attempted homebirth "OMG the MESS" story and she's got me wondering. Tbh I didn't really give any thought to the mess that might be made.

DP works on a farm so won't be grossed out with the whole thing but it has got me thinking about what we'll have to clear up later.

Any stories good or bad please?

I bought one of those plastic backed mattress cover things when I had DD2 at home. Midwives cleared up (placenta and stuff was bagged and taken away) and DH stuck the sheet in the washer. (I'd of binned it, but when it came out it was good as new).

All fairly un-messy really!

Um, I certainly wouldnt let it put me off a home birth, but I had my living room (where I planned to give birth) covered in plastic sheeting and pads, and instead unexpectedly gave birth in the bathroom when no one realised I was anywhere near pushing... our bathroom was white, I tore badly and the heamorraged in the bathroom, and the bathroom was covered in blood and needed redecorating. I had to clean it up the next day too, because DH wouldnt/couldnt. That wasnt great...

I also lay on my bed whilst waiting for the ambulance to take me to hospital for stitching, didnt realise how much I was bleeding, no one thought to put any pads underneath me and I soaked through the duvet cover and our brand new mattress.

The living room, and its plastic sheeting, however, were spotless :)

I was shocked when I came home to the blood but if I was to do it again at home I would just drag pads and sheeting around with me. What happened in my house wasnt anyones fault. Birth is unpredictable and no one, not even me, expected me to suddenly produce DS in the bathroom!

baby number 2 is going to be delivered in hospital but thats due to medical reasons, not because I am unwilling to face the mess again.

No mess for mine. Had towels on top of a groundsheet. And midwife had those big absorbent mats. Who knows? Could have been messy at the time, but nothing that wasn't cleared away before I noticed.
The cream carpet was unaffected. And all poking done in the usual location unless of course I was unaware of that too!

Pooing! Not poking!

Staceroo, we had a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs so our dog couldn't get upstairs, but someone left it open and he was in the bedroom mooching around while I was pushing! One of the paramedics took him for a walk too :)

I was trying to work out what on earth poking was just then!!! I thought it was a stage of labour I had forgotten about.

I seemed to have missed these midwives who cleaned up for both of my homebirths - I really must request these for the next one

My husband has always cleaned up the whole mess (and won't let me back into the room until he's done) and he says it can look like a lot since it's liquid, but it's easy to contain and easy to clean -- however he also always puts shower cutain like stuff all the way around floor and a mattress protector on the bed with sheets he's happy to pitch.

During my first homebirth, however, I foiled his neat plans and gave birth kneeling on an upholstered chair he didn't think to cover and the midwives told him to throw it out, but he got it good as new and it's still one of my favourite chairs. I joke that I shall pass it on the daughter who was born in it

KangasKhan my sister was really upset when my parents got rid of the mattress she was born on. She was about 25 so it really did need replacing! So your daughter might just take that chair!