where do you feel safe?

I know I would feel UNsafe going to a hospital. for me, the safest place to give birth is in my own home, with a trusted doula.

If you look around, quite often midwives can be found that will work on a sliding scale, or accept some kind of barter, and there are loads of doulas who work on a donation basis. If funds are really the issue, look at it as an investment into the wellbeing of you and your child.

It is really worthwhile to find labour support that you feel comfortable with in advance. dealing wtih strangers in labour rarely helps.

Actually, I did give birth while backpacking around the world, in a tipi, in a forest on a mountain in brazil with a handful of close friends around and no midwife so it didnt cost us anything!

I'm not sure.

My instincts and what everyone says tell me that entering the hospital system from the start is not the best way to start down the road towards VBAC.

But the experience I actually had was of being completely unprepared to cope with the medical system when I transferred after two days of hard, unproductive labor at home. I learned that if you ignore the system altogether, you will be stuck trying to figure out what you are up against at the last minute, under difficult circumstances.

I am not pregnant yet but I am tentatively planning to arrange completely parallel care for homebirth and hospital, and decide which to use at the very last possible moment. That way I can have the "know your enemy" advantages of a history of hospital care, and if I do go in it won't be with the mental burden of 'oh no I'm TRANSFERRING because my homebirth FAILED' (which I think contributed to my getting the first c/s) - but I also won't be totally committing to the medical point of view. I am blessed that I can afford to do this.

I feel safest at home this time, but I will tell you that last time I felt safest at the hospital because I was able to get an entire support team on the same page. We've moved since the last birth and I do not have that support here. Unfortunately, dh is not supportive of a homebirth and I'm scared to death of the hospitals/doctors down here.

I think it would be neat to have a homebirth with my two midwives. However, they don't do homebirths, so I will still see them and have a natural birth in the hospital alternative birthing room with the jacuzzi tub. It worked very nicely for my VBAC, so I plan for the same next time.
It's most important to me to have the right people around me.
I had a wonderful experience in the hospital, though, and it was nice to have people wait on me and DH the whole time- we enjoyed ordering from the menu and just being able to lounge around and enjoy our new baby
Many of the nurses were certified doulas and some were even LCs, which came in very handy!

I just recently attempted a VBAC with my second son at a hospital in London, UK. For me, my DH's feelings and a "worse case scenario" mind set, led me to make this choice. Towards the end I was really lamenting not trying at home, but I just couldn't get over a 6th sense that the hospital was the place to go. (I didn't make this decision lightly. My first son was birthed in NYC through a horrible hospital experience that ended in what I believe to be a medically induced, unnecessary c-section.)

This second time around I tried for a VBAC with both a doula and a VBAC supportive OB. Without going into too much of the specifics, the baby was posterior, we stalled out at 9 CM's, and after much changing of positions, etc., opted for the c-section because my OB was feeling like labor was going on too long on a stitched uterus. The baby's heart rate was still okay. When we went into the operating theater, the baby's heart rate started dropping. Turns out when he went in to do his cut for the c-section, the OB discovered that my prior scar was in the process of rupturing and my baby's shoulder was coming out through the break. 10 more minutes I might have lost the uterus AND the baby. For me, the hospital was the right decision. I should say that I was single stitched the first time around, and that may have contributed to my scar rupturing. I will never know.

I think maybe WHERE isn't so important as with WHOM. If you can set up a great team at home, with proper protocol for a quick transfer, and you have the mind set to do it, that would be great. Transferring to a hospital in labor is always a drag, and despite having set up a supportive team at the hospital, I did encounter some bullshit. Having said that, I am relieved we were at the hospital.