First Meeting with the Midwife, cont...

Justin really wanted to come to see the midwife with me, so we rescheduled for Monday afternoon (yesterday). It was nice to have all three of us there, asking questions. I love her. Maddy LOVES her. Justin loves her too. She is the kind of women that that puts you at ease just by being in the room, which I suppose is a good trait for a midwife to have. Maddy even gave her a big hug when we left (after talking for an hour and a half).

So the decision between homebirth and hospital birth has now been made. There are pro's and con's to each, but homebirth is the safer, more comfortable and relaxing way to do this, it seems. During the last week, I have really been examining my motavations for doing this. The first one was the desire to do this naturally, of course. I'm not a spiritual person, but connecting to the so many women who have birthed their babies without the help of a docter and forceps is really appealing to me. This seems like another stage in my own life, like my own birth itself.

The next big thing that was making me think of homebirth was Maddy's birth experience. This whole last week I have been almost feeling like this baby will be my first real birth, like I wasn't even really there for Maddy's, only a tool in the docters bag for bringing this life into the world. The midwife really picked up on this one, and told me a story of a women (who actually had her baby that morning) who felt very much the same way about her first child's birth. When I had the epidural, I could feel very little about what was going on. I was being told to push, stop pushing, the head's out, etc. Of course, I also didn't feel any pain, which was the whole point, but I think I missed something really important. I missed out.

I'm really looking forward to actually being listened to, to being in control of this, instead of being told, "there's no medal for not having the epidural, you know" and being laughed at (literally) by the nurses at the hospital. Nothing against nurses, they just couldn't understand why I might want to feel this. Maddy and I spent five days in the hospital. It was terrible. Now I won't have to worry about it (hopefully).

So there it is, my reasons for a homebirth. I have only told a few people that I was even thinking about this, and I have gotten a lot of suprised reactions. Many people are wondering if its safe, so for anyone who is interested, this (http://www.homebirth.org.uk/) has a pretty good run down of research done on the safety of homebirth.