Can we have a hospital birthing support thread? - Page 4

[Bald_Bull's_Mama]

I just attended a friend's homebirth last night (I watched the kids) and I am soooo jealous. If our local HB midwife had an opening for my month, I'd be campaigning like crazy to convince DH. I do have even more idea, though, for things I want to do to make my hospital birth as home birth-ish as possible. Working on my birth plan this week!

[JosieAK]

I am wondering, for those with a long commute or who are worried about labor slowing or stalling when going to the hospital, is there someplace nearby you could go temporarily?  A park or mall or something?  That way if you slow down and want to go home you can or if you have a long drive but aren't ready to check in, you can wait a bit.  Just a thought. 

[jshannyn519]

I did my birth preference list the other day and I'll be bringing it when I see the MW next. I don't anticipate any issues since the hospital is very natural birth friendly and the MWs are awesome (well, some of them anyway). Next week I meet with the medical director OB for the practice to discuss the VBAC stuff, but I don't expect that he'll try to talk me out of anything. He's very pro VBAC and very anti-c/s.

[Beauchamp]

Originally Posted by msmiranda 

I am going to have a super-long commute time (45 minutes minimum, up to an hour or even longer depending on whether I have to go during morning rush hour, which is actually about a 4-hour block of time), for insurance reasons my choice of hospitals is limited.  I am feeling pretty nervous about it because I don't want to go too early and end up with a slowdown, but at the same time would prefer not to have the baby in the car on the side of the interstate.  We are definitely checking out nearby places where we can walk around.  So many wild cards with labor and birth!  I will admit that this is where home birth has its advantages -- you don't have to worry about traffic or car trouble or weather or what hour of the day it is (except with respect to your midwife getting to you of course, but it's much easier not to think about someone else's traffic issues and focus on laboring). 

Me, too. Our drive could be 45 mins, but we'd be driving FAST to make it that quickly. Probably more like an hour to 75 minutes is more of a norm for what I need to plan for, I'd say. I have the added bonus (sigh) of freaking out about what I will do with my 2yo DD. We have no family/friends close by that I feel comfortable enough leaving her overnight with.

Right now the plan is to scope out a hotel within walking distance from the hospital, go there early on, walk around, etc, and make sure DD is set up for the night, so worst case scenario, DH will go stay with her and I will stay with my doula. Not the way I'd prefer, but what can I do? My mother is going to try to fly down in time and she could stay with DD at the hotel while DH stays with me, but I am just so nervous about being away from my daughter.

I've been secretly wondering about whether it would be possible for me to have an accidental "oops" home birth just to avoid this whole mess...