I feel like there are going to be too many people at my homebirth. My previous two births have been just DH & the midwife (plus DD at my 2nd birth). This one is going to be DH, primary midwife, assistant midwife, friend, plus DD & DS. I've contemplated not having my friend come, but I want someone besides DH available for my high-needs 21 month old DS, and I want someone to take pictures and she can do that. I haven't really needed DH to do anything in my previous births, but it'd be nice if he weren't tied up with DS if I did need him for this one.
I've been debating about whether or not to ask if the assistant midwife can act as the primary, and maybe the primary midwife could just be in a different room (or at least hanging way back) for the birth. I like both midwives but I know the assistant a lot better...we actually would have hired her but she's still an apprentice and we didn't want either of her preceptors for various reasons, so we ended up hiring a different midwife with the apprentice as her assistant (because the primary midwife lives 5 hours away).
Actually I'm not even sure the primary midwife will make it for the birth since she lives so far away. Both my previous labors have been 7.5 hours and I'm not one to call the midwife at the first sign of labor, so there's probably a good chance she won't make it in time unless she comes and stays closer to me as my EDD approaches (which she might do).
So anyway, I feel the need to somehow reduce the number of people at the birth, but I'm not really sure how to do it, unless I see if the primary midwife would be willing to take a back seat so to speak.
I've been debating about whether or not to ask if the assistant midwife can act as the primary, and maybe the primary midwife could just be in a different room (or at least hanging way back) for the birth. I like both midwives but I know the assistant a lot better...we actually would have hired her but she's still an apprentice and we didn't want either of her preceptors for various reasons, so we ended up hiring a different midwife with the apprentice as her assistant (because the primary midwife lives 5 hours away).
Actually I'm not even sure the primary midwife will make it for the birth since she lives so far away. Both my previous labors have been 7.5 hours and I'm not one to call the midwife at the first sign of labor, so there's probably a good chance she won't make it in time unless she comes and stays closer to me as my EDD approaches (which she might do).
So anyway, I feel the need to somehow reduce the number of people at the birth, but I'm not really sure how to do it, unless I see if the primary midwife would be willing to take a back seat so to speak.
