Staying home for as long as you can

I can't speak from exp. since my water broke both times with my first 2 (once you walk into a hosp. w/ your water broke you don't walk out w/o a baby) and this time I'm not going to a hosp. but I do know friends that have gone to the hosp. only to be sent home since they were not far along enought - I'm not sure if that's dialation or painful contrax - you might want to ask your OB. Good luck!

we live a 3 minute drive from the hospital, so i want to stay home with the doula until she thinks we should move on... everyone says the hospital is a great place to give birth, though, even the doulas i've talked to, so i'm not aiming for a 12 minute stay

Our birthing center is 15 minutes away... I just want to make sure that I give my Dr. enough time to make it there, otherwise I will have to fight with whoever attends the delivery about HepB and eye ointment and all the little things that my Dr. and I have already discussed. I don't want to get there too early, though, b/c they do continuous fetal monitoring Last time I had to lay flat on my back for over 12 hours; it really slowed my labor!

I live 45 minutes from the hospital too and if we use the hospital, we'll probably try to get to the hospital area before transition. Last birth I had to transfer to the hospital from the birth center while pushing (a 10-15 minute drive), and I can't tell you how awful it was to be seatbelted into a station wagon.

Do you have friends who live near the hospital whose house you could labor at? Or maybe a park near the hospital (if your labor is during the day)?

Did you have your other baby at this hospital? I was so upset at having to transfer to the hospital, but it turned out to be a much better place than I had imagined. I did arrive with a group of midwives, doulas, and family, who all shielded me from the hospital interventions I didn't need. But the nurses were great and encouraged cosleeping in the hospital beds and praised the benefits of breastfeeding. Plus, you can ring a little bell and have a frozen disposable diaper delivered to your bed, a nice plus after a lot of tearing!

Truvie

I wouldn't set foot in a hospital until birth was emminant. However, last time I gave birth I was told to tell the nurse when I started to "feel different" so they could call my doc and my DH (home sleeping, don't ask ) but I dragged my feet fearing somebody would try to do an internal on me. Once everything started sinking in and I realized I was way into transition I let somebody know. my doc did not make it but fortunately DH did. This makes me think that I might not end up at the hospital when this baby is ready, way too uncomfortable to move, and way too inviting to lay here and feel those endorphins doing their thing Kind of nerve wracking to think about....

I also plan to stay home until transition if possible. I want a HB, but its looking like its not possible here.

I do not want the hospital interventions that are routine here. I don't want to have to put up a fight about it when I'm in labor. I prefer to labor at home as long as possible, go to the hospital, push the baby out, and then hopefully get an early release if everything looks good.

Our hospital "requires" you to be on an IV, you to be in bed, cervical checks every hour, fetal monitoring every hour, etc.....what a miserable way to labor naturally!!! I don't want drugs, so I don't want to be laying on my back strapped to a machine, KWIM?

The clock for interventions starts ticking once you are there too. How many hours of labor before they section you? Its scary!

Besides, most hospitals just send you home if you aren't to at least 4 cm if your water hasn't broken. No reason to run back and forth to the hospital.

I live less than a minute from the hospital, so I see no reason to hurry to get there unless the baby is crowning....

We always seem to live at least 45+ minutes (with "good" traffic of which there is no such thing in Houston. :LOL) from the hospital that my OB has priviledges at. So I can't "wait" to long or DH might be delivering in the car. Doesn't sound fun.

My first labor was very slow, I wish I hadn't gone is AS early as we did. My water broke and then I didn't continue to dilate on pic for 8+ hours. : I was able to avoid a C-section because my OB isn't a strong supporter of them just because of the "hour" limitation. It was actually never brought up to me at all. I wasn't as knowledgable about laboring as I was with my second. I would have liked to have walked around more, didn't realize that I could. Loved sitting on the birthing ball though.

My second labor was much faster. We were actually on our way home (had an appointment earlier that day (was at 1cm and 60% effaced... just like the week before and I'd been having heavy contractions for 3+ days) and some quick last minute shopping. So we were closer to the house than the hospital in rush hour traffic when... my water broke. BIG TIME! And my contractions were suddenly every 6 minutes and quickly getting stronger as opposed to ever 15 minutes before. We decided to go home to drop off DD (her Mawmaw was waiting there for us already). Got to the house (30+ minutes later) dropped off DD, I changed pants :LOL and headed back to the hospital (again in rush hour traffic). By the time we got to the hospital my contractions were about 2 minutes apart and I was more than 8 cm and 100% effaced. I delivered my DS about an hour later.

Because of how far away the hospital is and traffic, I don't think I'll wait a looong time before we head that way.

With DD my homeopath gave me the excellent advice that if I lay down and the contracts slowed I was still having pre-labour, that once i was in true labour nothing would stop the contractions. So I stayed home until an hour after my waters broke (took half an hour to decide it was now definitely for real, 20 mins waiting for my mum to turn up and 10 more getting out of the house). I was in transition in the car/upon arrival but my contractions did mercifully slow back down to ever 5 mins in the car so I only had 3 along the way and I managed to not vommit in the car, I saved that up for the stairs into the hospital. Even 15 mins in the car during intense labour was HARD but I would absolutely do the same again if going to hospital again (not planning to next time round). The longer you are in hospital the more time they have to intervene, also I didn't want to go in until I knew that nothing was going to stop my labour. If I lived too far from the hospital to cope with transferring in transition I would go hang out near by, in the carpark even, but I would not actually want to go in any earlier than I did last time. I would not be going shopping though as I was making way too much noise and taking up too much space during contractions to want to be in a shop, that would be worse than hospital for me. I would want to be somewhere fairly deserted really.