I believe in informed consent. I believe that choosing a home birth should be done with proper informed consent. To me that is telling the whole truth-there are such things as home birth transfers, injuries or deaths...just as much as in any other setting with any other care provider. I love that my midwives informed me that nothing is guaranteed. There was no golden supplement regime, no proper activity or diet to follow...it was their experiences laid out in front of me, a transfer rate, and no promises except to be with me (with woman) through the entire experience. They refuse to fluff anything. They just neutrally give me facts and statistics and are happy when I make a choice and we can proceed. They wait for orders from me so to speak...
My fourth son was my first home birth. Everything....and I mean every. single. thing. was normal. Until he was born. He was blue. Blueberry blue. Not dusky. blue. apgars of 2 and 3. Obviously we transferred immediately. The cord was triple wrapped around his neck but had slid off easily. My midwife whispered "you will not be the one I lose..." as she began to suction and give oxygen. His heart rate (thank God) never dropped below 140 in spite of having no tone, no cry, nothing....just a beating heart. His blood sugar upon admission was zero. They told me they had never seen anyone survive that as I walked to meet him in his isolette in the ER before transfer to the NICU hospital.
During our 21 day non-parental friendly NICU stay...we watched as his organs shut down and re booted themselves, we struggled with awful staffing....it took three days before we knew he would live. It was a full 24 hours before we even understood it was the cord that had been the issue-it was choking him out and upon birth all the extra blood he was making to survive went straight to his head and caused a minor bleed. He was worse than the strangulation victims they had seen... we fought hard with the hospital on so many things... I camped in the back of my vehicle until he was released so I could BF on demand to get him off tube feedings. The nurses were used to preemies and were pissed I was BFing because they couldn't "chart exact amounts" It was hell. And there was no support group. The NICU was packed full of preemies and March of Dimes was wonderful-for them-not for me. My baby was 8 pounds. He was just blue and injured badly by his cord. NO one understood me, not even the NICU moms or staff. There is NO online support for this and I went home with PTSD. The beeping at the checkout line still gives me goosebumps because it reminds me of his heart monitor and the machines that sound when they "forget to breathe"
I had this in consolation-I knew we did everything right. I knew if I was going to HB that I was going to play out every what if before I started "thinking positive" and just "trusting birth" I researched everything so I could stand up for myself and take responsibility for my own decisions if anything went wrong. (Please DO NOT take that as saying I did better than anyone here-I'm just needing to share my story is all-these words are not aimed at anyone-just my thought process) We did everything right to the very best of our understanding and even if my son had died that alone made me feel right.
My midwives blew my mind. They never left my side. For 72 hours after his birth, they were with me. Pumping with me, driving me to and from, crying, talking, what-ifing, going over my chart, honestly searching for anything we could have done differently. I put them on the list to see my baby even if I was not present at hospital. I would arrive in the morning at 8am to hear that one of my midwives had spent half the night by his bedside so he wouldn't be alone in such a strange place. I cried so hard in amazement that they were still "with me."
I know not everyone has this experience, and my feelings are still double sided. It sucked. It was so lonely and crappy. I still have a hard time. He is a normal healthy two year old today. We are working on getting him to sleep by himself and I still want to treat him special and hold him tight and just be glad he's alive. He fully exploits that fact and pretty much runs the whole house these days.
When I got a surprise positive pregnancy test this time last year, I knew I would be having a home birth. From my perspective, my midwives had saved our lives. They kept him alive until EMT got to us to take us in. They stayed by me and even today I can call them and process the whole thing over again if I need to. sometimes, I do. Yes, the hospital as hard as it was to deal with the staff, saved my sons life. He fought, they supported him, and my midwives got us there safely, they helped us keep our bond with each other, and even had us get right back in the tub where we had left off to welcome us back home. It was very healing to have them not be afraid, not walk away, not abandon us, but suck it up and face the crap by our side as a team.
My daughter came into this world in the same bedroom. In the same tub. Pink, reaching for me, absolutely NO cord wrapped around her (she listened to my daily nagging about it). My labor was painful, but easy in comparison. She had the same people present her big brother did and as the sun was coming up she was born safe and sound at home. Her brother-that on some hospital records still shows as a "stillborn homebirth"
was splashing in the water as I pushed her out into her daddy's hands with our midwives hovering over. He poked her little feet as I held her and sobbed and he said over and over "sissy sissy." It was healing for us all-even him.
I will be the first to say-it is not for everyone. And I don't think physical reasons alone should exclude some from home birth. The whole woman must be considered, and her decisions are her right no matter what she chooses we should respect that. I believe that every woman should have the option of a midwife, even if she chooses hospital birth...midwifery is about being with women...we have to take our eyes off of where and place our faith on who. Women will birth where they feel safest and a midwives role (I believe) is to support that. I know this thread isn't all about midwives-but I came here not only for my reasons but also as a new midwifery student. I savor the details with a very open mind.
I totally think there needs to be more support for birth gone wrong...regardless of where or why....you don't ask a cancer patient where they got cancer and why is pretty irrelevant once it is diagnosed. I mean, it's one thing for the person experiencing it to discuss it all but for the rest of the world to judge and give opinions is just not necessary. I sure as hell didn't want to hear a word-either way- when my baby was in the NICU and we were uncertain if he would even live. It didn't matter to me at that point. I just wanted to be a mommy.
I fully agree with pp about needing to separate my own experience from the usual. Lightening rarely strikes twice and for me, we cautiously rolled the dice. True to the stats-we got our beautiful home birth experience. I think it should be pointed out too that it almost never winds up how we have it in our minds. There's no lighter to light the candles, things happen to fast, the water wasn't as comforting as we thought, or perhaps we didn't get the pool full in time, DH couldn't sit still for a single contraction, the birth CD won't play, we tore, we had a toungue tie, flat nipples, upset siblings, no sleep, prodromal labor...etc etc etc. I think we need to paint ourselves a more realistic picture. Homebirth can happen beautifully but we need to be open to allowing it to happen in it's own right for that day and not some built up cinderella story. My daughters birth, to me, was still Cinderella like-but this time-I made no expectations.
Anyway I'm rambling now. I just really wanted to share my story and validate that yes there NEEDS to be a place to process birth trauma-even home birth trauma and I am grateful that we are all brave enough to say that and share our experiences. Just feeling not alone is a huge huge help...which i guess was my whole point all along.
. Traumatic birth is traumatic birth no matter where it happens. And to Liz: I just had a really hard cry reading your story and especially seeing those last pictures. It takes real courage to share all of that, and to face reliving it all in trying to bring your MW to justice. My heart goes out to you.
And I totally empathize on this point, but I was so convinced of the power of "positive thinking" when I was planning my hbac that I refused to consider that it might not work out. I wouldn't create a birth plan "just in case" of transfer or anything. Hell, I wouldn't even think too much about what visualizations I wanted to use during labor because I thought I might cause preterm labor 
