Homebirthers! - Page 3 « Back to Group Discussions

[pregnova]

I guess I should check into Hypnobabies a little more. When I checked it out last time, it just didn't seem like it would work for me, and we went with Bradley. I also attended two births as the birth doula where the moms were using Hypnobabies, and both labors were crazy long and involved a lot of interventions...so...idk. I think it's given me a bad association with it, but there's seems to be a lot of support here for it!

[Natalya]

HI, I'm here too!  This is the third baby, second homebirth.  First was a planned homebirth, but my water broke (I had a slow leak) and didn't start contracting for days.  SO the midwife had me go to the hospital.  It was a decent birth, but we had to really strong arm our way through the system.  Thank god I had strong, confident people around me then.  The doctor wasn't even in the room to catch ds, the midwife did it all... we talked one of the nurses (who was studying to be midwife) to wait to get the doctor until I had been pushing for a little while.   My last birth was a homebirth,and was pretty crazy, but it ended up good.  Ds had shoulder dystocia and I was pushing for an absurd amount of time, I don't even remember how long.  We are moving in December so I am going to wait to get prenantal care, but I have been talking with a midwife who is in the area we are moving to.  I'm nervous, there is only one homebirth midwife in the whole area, so hopefully I can get her!

Pregnova, your birth in Puerto Rico seems crazy!! Good for you though, you must have had to be so strong.  

I'm also going to have to check out hypnobabies, but from what Astraia said about it awhile back in another thread it really doesn't seem like my type of thing.  

[sosurreal09]

I thought hypnobabies was weird at first, the concept and the cd's LOL Once you just focus on it it was great for me though. I will say when people interrupted me during labor it threw me off and I was flipping out, so I had to use my headphones during the whole thing to stay focused.

[lindsayjean]

Originally Posted by pregnova 

I guess I should check into Hypnobabies a little more. When I checked it out last time, it just didn't seem like it would work for me, and we went with Bradley. I also attended two births as the birth doula where the moms were using Hypnobabies, and both labors were crazy long and involved a lot of interventions...so...idk. I think it's given me a bad association with it, but there's seems to be a lot of support here for it!

pregnova- sometimes women don't choose to use it... and of course sometimes baby is still in a weird position or something (which of course as a doula you can help baby rotate with spinning babies techniques, right?).  I just taught a hypno-doula training an some of the doulas were saying how guilty they felt (I said, no, it's always a learning process) for how they had really hindered their client's ability to use their hypnobabies to it's fullest because they didn't know what to say/not say etc.  They thought it was just about the CDs, which it SO isn't (I didn't listen to one cd during my birth).  I actually hope to eventually only take on Hypnobabies clients because the births (save for one every once in a while with something unpredictable happening that has nothign to do with their training) are generally quicker and calmer and easier for all.  I say "relax" or "peace" to a non-hypnobabies mom and it maybe helps a little bit, but I say it to a Hypnobabies mom and  you SEE her melt into relaxation and surrender and go loose and limp.  It's amazing!  Sorry you didn't get to witness that :-)  

But I agree that you have to do what works best for you, for sure :-)  
 

[Mama2Rio]

i probably will try hypnobabies, but like pregnova, it might not work for me and the concept seems a little weird, anything "hypno" kind of freaks me out but i think it is worth a try :) not sure if i'm going to be all about listening to the CDs, so thanks lindsayjay, good to know i could do without.

i've interviewed 2 MW this past week. One is super close to us and we really like her, her price is more than fare and she's very laid back, we clicked and really felt comfortable with her. she seems super passionate about her job. only thing that's making me iffy is she's very preggers right now and due next month, she's taking a 2 month leave and then will be back, i'm sure everything will be okay but it kind of makes me think about how i'm not going to see her for a while. after only talking to 2 mw's i just wanna go with her.

the other mw is a 45 min drive and kind of struck both dh and i the wrong way; had no sense of privacy, giving us the address of some one who is using her for an upcoming birth in our area and had a client stop in for some herbs, after the woman left she started telling us about that client's problems and why she needed the herbs. i'm just thinking that has to go against ethical practices of any provider.

i was going to interview 2 more, one i canceled just because i didn't feel like taking a 45min drive first thing in the morning plus she's going to be out of town right around my due-date. the other MW i still haven't been able to schedule a consultation and i'm just feeling kind of lazy about it at this point; not sure how wise that is. I feel like i'm all set and just going with the MW that's super close.

that was a long rant! sorry!

[belltree]

I had a wonderful natural hospital birth with my first. But I am considering (again) a homebirth. I hated the (long and horrible) drive to the hospital last time around, but we do life quite far away from the nearest hospital, plus insurance most likely would not cover any of it, whereas the hospital would be covered. My midwife would do either hospital or homebirth...

[Kamiro]

EEk. Stay away from the loose tongues midwife. whoa.

Anyways, my midwife we hired won't be back in until mid-novemeber. We hired her mid-september. Really, it hasn't been too huge of an issue except I would love to hear a heart beat and still have another month before we can. Kind of like you though, my husband and I really clicked with her. We found her competent, caring, and very understanding. Her fee also is reasonable.

Anyways, 2 months goes pretty quick. You could also rent a doppler if you needed to, if that is one of your issues? or if you have regular insurance just use that in the mean time.

Originally Posted by Mama2Rio 

i probably will try hypnobabies, but like pregnova, it might not work for me and the concept seems a little weird, anything "hypno" kind of freaks me out but i think it is worth a try :) not sure if i'm going to be all about listening to the CDs, so thanks lindsayjay, good to know i could do without.

i've interviewed 2 MW this past week. One is super close to us and we really like her, her price is more than fare and she's very laid back, we clicked and really felt comfortable with her. she seems super passionate about her job. only thing that's making me iffy is she's very preggers right now and due next month, she's taking a 2 month leave and then will be back, i'm sure everything will be okay but it kind of makes me think about how i'm not going to see her for a while. after only talking to 2 mw's i just wanna go with her.

the other mw is a 45 min drive and kind of struck both dh and i the wrong way; had no sense of privacy, giving us the address of some one who is using her for an upcoming birth in our area and had a client stop in for some herbs, after the woman left she started telling us about that client's problems and why she needed the herbs. i'm just thinking that has to go against ethical practices of any provider.

i was going to interview 2 more, one i canceled just because i didn't feel like taking a 45min drive first thing in the morning plus she's going to be out of town right around my due-date. the other MW i still haven't been able to schedule a consultation and i'm just feeling kind of lazy about it at this point; not sure how wise that is. I feel like i'm all set and just going with the MW that's super close.

that was a long rant! sorry!

[maryamrose]

This is my first pregnancy, and we've chosen to do a homebirth. We interviewed midwives a week after my BFP (unnecessary in retrospect!) and really clicked with one (and her two apprentices). We went with our gut and chose her, and we've been really happy with the decision so far. 

I don't really have many anxieties about birth yet. For some reason I've been having breastfeeding anxiety, even though I know my mw can help out if there are any issues with latching.

[Ruby2]

I am so excited for our first home birth!

We originally planned one with my first pregnancy and loved our midwife, but I had a pretty horrible miscarriage experience that made me second guess my decision. Basically, the midwife practiced by herself and had no backup for me when I really needed her. She was just getting into to doing hospital births almost full time and only does 4 home births per month. I went to the ER twice because I felt like I had no place else to go (totally dumb and unnecessary!!!).

Long story short, when I got pregnant again we ended up being her very first "can you please not treat me like I'm sick and/or dying?" hospital birth, and it was pretty great. They let me do anything I wanted, I think as sort of a trial run for the midwife, and it was the best experience that I could have hoped for at a hospital. BUT. It wasn't home!

DD will be 2 1/2 when the baby is born. I am really looking forward to snuggling up with her and dh at home, in our bed, with our new family member. Same midwife, who now has a partner (yay), different venue!

[Rikki Jean]

Fourth baby, third homebirth. My first was a wb in a freestanding bc, and really, I.consider that one a homebirth too, just not in my own home.

Looking forward to another wb. I never made it to the tub w/#2, and I never want to experience a dry land birth again!

Originally Posted by BubbleMa 

It's so weird to think that he's never seen a baby being born.

My 84 y/o grandmother- who grew up in a small village in Greece where every baby was born at home- was at DD's birth, and aside from DS1's birth video that we had shown her a few weeks before, it was the first birth she had ever seen. EVER! When she saw that video, she said, "Wow, 84 years, and I finally know how it happens." Until then, I had no idea that she had never, ever seen a birth! It explained sooooo much about her fears about my births.

Originally Posted by sosurreal09 

I am nursing my 2 y/o over here and I am STARVING all day long! UGH

I'm tandem nursing my 19 m/o and almost 4 y/o. This is deja vu, because it was just like this with my last pg, just that it was #1 and #2 nursing, and now it's #2 and #3.

I've been pg and/or nursing for the last seven years, so I have been in a constant state of hunger for that long too, LOL!

[Plummeting]

This will be my 2nd home birth, 3rd baby. DD1 was a hospital birth with a CNM. The birth was great, but then they took her away for 5 hours while I was in the shower. The nurse told DH he wasn't allowed to stay in the nursery, and then they locked us out. When we went down and saw her screaming, alone in an isolette, we called and they said, "We WANT them to cry." Then they closed the blinds so we couldn't look in anymore. It was horrible. I had wanted a home birth to begin with, but dh was adamant that we not do it. After seeing how easy dd1's birth was (just under 6 hours of labor, even though she was posterior) he wasn't afraid anymore, so we had a home birth with dd2. That time my water broke at about 11:45 or so. I had assumed it would be a few hours before labor started, since it was with dd1, so I told the midwife not to come yet. However, I suddenly realized at 1:00 that I couldn't even talk through contractions, so dh called her back and she barely made it in time for the birth 52 minutes later - dd was already crowning. Her partner, the other midwife, arrived a few minutes after the birth.

I am hoping to have a longer labor this time. I am terrified that I'm going to be out at the beach or something with my girls while my husband is at work when I go into labor, and find myself unable to make it back home. For one thing, in the last precipitous labor I could barely even move, so if it's anything like that, driving is out of the question. For another, even if I was able to drive, I live in Honolulu and traffic is terrible going pretty much any direction from 3:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., so I'd be risking giving birth on the side of the road alone - well, except for my kids, of course - if it happened at the wrong time of day. I'm actually considering just shutting myself up around my neighborhood from 37 weeks on, to avoid that sort of scenario. I don't want to birth alone, but I'd much rather birth alone in my house because the midwife didn't make it in time than birth on the side of the highway with cops and EMTs. lol

[Just1More]

I have been worried about that, too, plummeting. 

With my second, I had been having BH-like contractions all day, but from the first real contraction to his birth was 30 minutes.  All the others felt like ones I felt everyday.  So how was I going to know?!?!  I was pretty concerned with my third!

She was 6 hours from the first "this might be a contraction...or maybe I need to drink more water..."   Hers NEVER got intense, not even in transition, but at least I could tell it was labor for the last two hours.  Dd3 took about 2 hours as well (first contraction to last).  So, I guess I get that long.

BUT, I was so worried about it, and my midwife said, "It won't happen that way."  She said rarely, yes, women have their babies alone, but not very many women who don't want to.  She said that we prevent ourselves subconsciously, and it just wouldn't happen.  She is big on mind over matter, too.  I had some pretty serious contractions at 36 weeks and she told me to drink a bunch of water and just tell myself "no".  It worked.  :)

So, try not to stress about it.  Be prepared, but not scared, and you'll see that it's okay.

[pregnova]

Originally Posted by lindsayjean 

pregnova- sometimes women don't choose to use it... and of course sometimes baby is still in a weird position or something (which of course as a doula you can help baby rotate with spinning babies techniques, right?).  I just taught a hypno-doula training an some of the doulas were saying how guilty they felt (I said, no, it's always a learning process) for how they had really hindered their client's ability to use their hypnobabies to it's fullest because they didn't know what to say/not say etc.  They thought it was just about the CDs, which it SO isn't (I didn't listen to one cd during my birth).  I actually hope to eventually only take on Hypnobabies clients because the births (save for one every once in a while with something unpredictable happening that has nothign to do with their training) are generally quicker and calmer and easier for all.  I say "relax" or "peace" to a non-hypnobabies mom and it maybe helps a little bit, but I say it to a Hypnobabies mom and  you SEE her melt into relaxation and surrender and go loose and limp.  It's amazing!  Sorry you didn't get to witness that :-)  

But I agree that you have to do what works best for you, for sure :-)   

I think it's possible that Hypnobabies requires a lot from the mother herself to GET to the point where using the proper language, ect...works effectively. Is this true? I know that Bradley Method is a long process of learning relaxation techniques where the mother is expected to practice those techniques over and over again before the birth. With the two women I assisted, I think they were relying on the idea of Hypnobabies more than their own work at training their bodies to accept the hypnosis part? You could use the proper language all day long with them and there was no way they were going to relax. One ended up going on for 4!!!!!! days and a rather awful transfer to the hospital from home. And, one ended up with a C-section after 36 hours of saying yes to every single intervention offered at the hospital she chose to birth at. Quite depressing from a doula standpoint. 

[pregnova]

Wow, Plummeting and Just1more! Those sound like intense, very fast births! I can only imagine!

I'm on the other end of the spectrum. lol, My last birth was nearly 3 days and well over 12 hours since my water spontaneously broke. If I'm being honest here, I'll go ahead and admit that I'm a little freaked that I'll have another drawn out labor. I'm hoping that being at home and doing this on our own will help me to relax into the birth and ease things along!

[Plummeting]

Let's hope for some normal, average births around here then - not too fast and not too slow. lol

Just1More, I'm kind of hoping that the whole 'fear slows labor to allow a woman to get to a safe place to birth' thing will help me out, in the event that I do happen to be in a bad spot when it starts. It's not that I fear labor or anything, but I don't WANT to birth like that - I desperately, desperately do not. So if it's true that the reason fear slows labor is because it's supposed to allow the woman to get to where she feels safe birthing, then it ought to work (she says, questioningly, desperately...lol). 

[lindsayjean]

Originally Posted by pregnova 

I think it's possible that Hypnobabies requires a lot from the mother herself to GET to the point where using the proper language, ect...works effectively. Is this true? I know that Bradley Method is a long process of learning relaxation techniques where the mother is expected to practice those techniques over and over again before the birth. With the two women I assisted, I think they were relying on the idea of Hypnobabies more than their own work at training their bodies to accept the hypnosis part? You could use the proper language all day long with them and there was no way they were going to relax. One ended up going on for 4!!!!!! days and a rather awful transfer to the hospital from home. And, one ended up with a C-section after 36 hours of saying yes to every single intervention offered at the hospital she chose to birth at. Quite depressing from a doula standpoint. 

EXACTLY.  With the homestudy I think women aren't held accountable as much for actually DOING the work to allow the techniques to work.  Hypnosis works better each time you practice it.  Which is why the course is 6 weeks long and then there is a maintenance period where the mom listens to a 30 min script every day until baby is born.  It is POWERFUL stuff, IF it is actually practices and the subconscious is allowed to accept the messages on a daily basis (it's lazy... it'd rather go back to thinking birth is freakishly painful and scary).   So yeah... it is true that some women like the IDEA of it and don't actually use it.  Heck... I didn't use it as well as I should have.  I listened every day, but didn't use it to it's full extent, in my opinion.  My birth was comfortable except for a brief burning sensation during crowning.... this time I am going to practice more, just to be prepared :-)
 

[lindsayjean]

I am visualizing another 3 hour birth, but maybe sometime during the day this time so my will be 5 yr old can take part.  Maybe right before dinner LOL.  I visualized it happening during the night last time (SO worried about my childcare situation... didn't want my mom who was against my homebirth to come bring her negative energy to my birthing space).  And guess what?  Things started around 11 and he was born at 1:54 :-)  She slept through and woke up to a baby brother!  The mind is SO poweful.  

Just1more- LOVE your midwife's mind over matter.  SO TRUE!!!!  

[Just1More]

I just can't have a baby when stuff is going on.  I totally need my space.  My last labor started first thing in the morning, and was moving super, super fast (I had 4 contractions in 30 minutes, and went from zero zilch nada...very little effaced even...to a 4 and completely effaced).  The kids came in, some other stuff started happening, and it turned off like a light.  That night, just before the kids were going to bed, it turned back on.  And she was born 2 hours later.  I actually didn't like that she was born at 9:45p, though.  It meant that we felt like we needed to go to bed, when what I really wanted to do was sit and admire my baby. 

My second was at 1:25a, and my third was at 8:02a.  It was nice to be done and feel so good first thing in the morning when the others woke up.  It was the best I'd felt in months!  I'd like this labor to start in the wee hours of the morning like my third.  Everything was quiet and peaceful, and no one had to know until I was ready to wake dh up.  I actually sat in our walk-in closet (which was attached to the bathroom, and is a big area) and googled baby carries for several hours.  I wasn't sure if my stomach was just upset or if it was labor for the first 3 hours of it.  That quiet alone time was really nice.  My last baby...I was a watched pot all day and I hated it.  I'd really, really like to avoid that this time.  Really.

[Kamiro]

wow. I don't know if I should be in awe or fear of a 3 hour labor. lol

[sosurreal09]

ITA about the hypnobabies you have to practice it and believe in it pretty much. You need to do the work to get the results

Had my first appointment with the MW wed! Nothing too special as I am only 9 weeks LOL She is great though.