I wish I weren't having a hospital birth, but I think I've ranted enough about that on here before. (The short version is that my pregnancy itself is high risk because I have health issues-thyroid, PCOS and asthma that risk me out of midwife care, and so as a result, my pre-natal care has to be handled by an OB, which means a hospital birth, however, labor and delivery are not risky, so I'm in a large practice with a low intervention, natural birth friendly OB, two other OBs who have very different attitudes and several midwives. I'm in the pool of "deliver with whoever is on call" rather than "deliver with the OB covering the hospital" which means that I may well get to deliver with a midwife in the hospital.)
That said, I'm delivering in a pretty low key hospital setting. It's largely designed for midwife attended, low intervention births.
The current plan is to deliver when the baby wants to come-in fact, I discussed yesterday how far past my EDD I can go with the OB-typically he likes to induce during week 41, but I was pretty firm about going to 42, and he's okay with that because I know what the concern is, and I agreed to go through with NSTs or BPPs if he asks. I'm hoping for some "stay in there please baby" vibes at the moment though because my favorite OB in the practice (the one who is most hands off and natural birth friendly etc etc) is on vacation for a week starting Sunday and returning on my due date.
If induction becomes necessary, we'll reassess things, but the plan is a natural birth. I'm not looking to do more intervention than is necessary/wise, but the first goal is unquestionably healthy mom, healthy baby. My intent is very strongly to avoid a c-section because VBAC is so difficult around here, especially if you're not okay for midwife care.
The plan is a natural birth, no epidural, with a doula. I'll stay home as long as I feel like it-even the OB doesn't give a timeline for going to the hospital-he's not involved in the 3 minutes 1 minute long 1 hour or anything like that, but expects that I'll know when to go. He did say if I was positive for GBS and my water broke to come in, but I'm not positive for GBS, so that's moot. He also said that he doesn't recall seeing someone come in much after 6 cm, but that it's up to me. My doula, too is a fan of staying home-she said that if I ask, we'll go to to the hospital, but that if she sees something that isn't right, or I'm vomiting so much that I'm becoming dehydrated then we'll go whether or not I'm ready. (My goal is to be at the hospital for as little time as possible in labor, so I'm not on anyone's timeline but the baby's.)
Our hospital provides birth balls for you to use during labor, so I'll use the ball if I want to, and each delivery room has its own bathroom with a shower/jacuzzi tub for you to use during labor until your water breaks. (If I were home, I'd be allowed in the tub after that, but in the hospital, it's an infection control issue-no matter what they do, there are still germs in the tub that may be foreign to you and so in order to minimize infection risk they prohibit use of the tub after your water breaks.) I'll take advantage of that as much as I want to.
We'll use a combination of Bradley and Hypnobirthing, but as far as other non-mainstream stuff...my doula is also my massage therapist, so I'll have that available. It's quite likely that my chiropractor (who is also a friend of mine) may be part of my support team-just can't tell the hospital that she's adjusting me during labor cause that gets into licensure and malpractice issues for the hospital. So I suppose that's a bit unusual.
I think though, for many people the idea of a natural hospital birth is unusual enough, at least around here.
