I've been waiting for it to happen, but fortunately, everyone around us has been relatively supportive about the homebirth! We haven't come RIGHT out and said it to the ILs, but there have been small mentions here and there on my blog so I think they probably have some idea. I've been more concerned about my mom encountering negativity, because I think she's the most worried about it. She lives upstairs from us and will be entertaining dd during the birth, so I'd rather not have her freaked out!
Anyway, my mom's friend S is a nurse--she is not and has never been a L&D nurse and has been employed in the more administrative side of things for quite some time anyway. Her DIL, L, just gave birth to her second baby. S is supposedly "progressive" according to my mom and was really upset when L's OB told her he'd induce her at 38 weeks because she kept complaining about how uncomfortable she was. I don't know what else happened to change that, but L's due date is this coming Monday and she gave birth to the baby last night or this morning.
Well, S calls my mom and leaves a voicemail about how terrible the birth was, the baby was something like 9 lbs 12 oz (my dd was 9 lbs 13 oz, med-free vaginal delivery) and "they should never have let her go so long," the baby's heartrate dropped to the 60s, shoulders got stuck, face was all purple, may have a broken collar bone, and she's "just so worried about ishy having that baby at home." So I said to my mom, "I hope that didn't scare you because it certainly didn't change anything for me," reiterated that we WILL go to the hospital in case of emergency and told her to find out more details about the delivery. Yup--epidural, on her back, labor "stalled" and then baby's "heartrate dropped," pitocin started, blah blah. Unfortunately, as I told my mom, not a single part of that story surprises me. I reminded her of how emotional she was with dd's birth (hospital birth, which did involve a slight shoulder dystocia and some bleeding on my part), but how the midwife explained afterward that it was not the scary emergency we all imagined it was at the time. I also pointed out how in the ONE stint of 20 minutes that I was on the monitor, the L&D nurse kept telling my midwife that the baby's heartrate was too low, then the midwife listened on the doppler and reassured us it was perfectly fine (my mom didn't remember that part at all).
I'm actually pretty happy that my mom agreed none of it surprised her once she heard the whole story and that she'd be worried about me whether I'm at home or the hospital because I'm her baby, lol. I survived my first bout of negativity and more importantly, so did my mom.
Now, if we can get through the remaining 5 months without any further fear-mongering, that'd be perfect!
Anyway, my mom's friend S is a nurse--she is not and has never been a L&D nurse and has been employed in the more administrative side of things for quite some time anyway. Her DIL, L, just gave birth to her second baby. S is supposedly "progressive" according to my mom and was really upset when L's OB told her he'd induce her at 38 weeks because she kept complaining about how uncomfortable she was. I don't know what else happened to change that, but L's due date is this coming Monday and she gave birth to the baby last night or this morning.
Well, S calls my mom and leaves a voicemail about how terrible the birth was, the baby was something like 9 lbs 12 oz (my dd was 9 lbs 13 oz, med-free vaginal delivery) and "they should never have let her go so long," the baby's heartrate dropped to the 60s, shoulders got stuck, face was all purple, may have a broken collar bone, and she's "just so worried about ishy having that baby at home." So I said to my mom, "I hope that didn't scare you because it certainly didn't change anything for me," reiterated that we WILL go to the hospital in case of emergency and told her to find out more details about the delivery. Yup--epidural, on her back, labor "stalled" and then baby's "heartrate dropped," pitocin started, blah blah. Unfortunately, as I told my mom, not a single part of that story surprises me. I reminded her of how emotional she was with dd's birth (hospital birth, which did involve a slight shoulder dystocia and some bleeding on my part), but how the midwife explained afterward that it was not the scary emergency we all imagined it was at the time. I also pointed out how in the ONE stint of 20 minutes that I was on the monitor, the L&D nurse kept telling my midwife that the baby's heartrate was too low, then the midwife listened on the doppler and reassured us it was perfectly fine (my mom didn't remember that part at all).
I'm actually pretty happy that my mom agreed none of it surprised her once she heard the whole story and that she'd be worried about me whether I'm at home or the hospital because I'm her baby, lol. I survived my first bout of negativity and more importantly, so did my mom.
Now, if we can get through the remaining 5 months without any further fear-mongering, that'd be perfect!
