I'm Glad We Had A Home Birth Even Though Something "Went Wrong"

When we told people we planned to have a home birth we got a few positive reactions, but we had many more people tell us flat out how they thought we were crazy. Others probably felt this way, but had enough courtesy not to say it. These people responded with a long awkward silence as they tried to find the right words. My family voiced a lot of concern. What if something goes wrong? Wouldn't you rather be in a hospital? Well, something did “go wrong” and we are still very glad that our daughter was born at home instead of in a hospital. There are a lot of reasons for that, I will get to them in a bit. But first I would like to tell you how our midwives handled a rather scary situation as well as I had hoped they would.

Monica started having contractions after midnight on January the 5^th. We called our midwives and we also called Monica's parents so they could come and pick up my 2 year old son to watch him for a few days. Both parties arrived early in the morning while Monica's contractions were rather far apart. She labored that morning, able to eat and move around as needed. When it came time to push we moved to our bedroom. Monica was happy that unlike even the most accommodating hospitals she was able to work with gravity and give birth on her hands and knees. The labor went as smoothly as something that painful can go and she gave birth to Sophia shortly after noon on the 5^th. She is beautiful. Monica held her skin-to-skin and nursed her very shortly after she was born while munching on one of my homemade granola bars.

Monica had lost a lot of blood during the birth, as she did when our son Theo was born in a hospital. But it seemed to have stopped and this had happened last time around so everything seemed ok. Then about an hour and a half after Sophia was born Monica began to feel faint. She got very pale. She had hemorrhaged more than I had realized. The midwives helped her expel the remaining blood clots. They quickly got an IV in to start giving her fluids and I heated up some broth to feed her. Then her vein went flat and they could not get another needle in. One midwife gave her oxygen and kept asking her questions to keep her mind engaged while the other tried to find a vein. She was doing a lot better with the oxygen and was now much more awake and no longer seeing spots, but at this point the midwives decided it was safest to call an ambulance.

I held Sophia in my arms and rocked her as I worried about my wife. I knew she would be ok because she looked a lot better than she did a few minutes ago, but I was now worried that they might need to take her to a hospital. Even though this would mess up our plan of having a homebirth and require me to bring Sophia to the hospital so Monica could feed her (I had not set up the car seat yet) I was of course ok with this if it was necessary. I just worried they would make us take her to the hospital even if it wasn't necessary. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later and luckily they were able to get a vein. I felt doubly relieved because not only did they get an IV in her quickly, but they ultimately decided they would not make us transfer her to a hospital. The paramedics were great and commented on how calm my daughter seemed with me. They left and I went to pick up some grass-fed burgers to help Monica replenish her supply of red blood cells.

Now some people might hear this story and see it as a reason to have a baby in a hospital. They would argue that this would not have happened if we were in a hospital. But her hemorrhage was not caused by anything having to do with the home birth. As I stated earlier, she experienced excessive bleeding when she delivered in a hospital. And while there were things about giving birth in a hospital that would have made the situation go a bit smoother, the opposite is also true. Each healthcare modality has advantages, disadvantages and risks to weigh. If Monica had given birth in a hospital she would have already had a an IV catheter in her arm and it would have taken less time to get her hooked up to IV fluids. But after giving birth in the hospital they tried to move her from the delivery room to the recovery room after not eating anything solid for 24 hours. She almost fainted getting up to go to the bathroom. Whereas after giving birth at home our midwives made a point of getting her something to eat promptly and were in no rush to get her out of bed even though she had eaten only a few hours earlier. Sure they had a hard time getting an IV in when her vein went flat, but that is one of those skills comes from a ton of practice. They informed me that they have only had one other case in the last decade where a woman bled as much, so they were not as practiced as the paramedics who hook IV catheters to people all the time. They also had good enough judgement to err on the side of caution and call for help, something they also rarely have to do.

Now that I have dealt with the specific challenges we faced during our homebirth, I would like to address why we wanted to go this route in the first place. All the women in our family, from our mothers to our sisters and sisters-in-law, had given birth via caesarian section. The more we read the more we realized that some of these were unnecessary. There are a variety of reasons for this, but it basically boils down to the fact that we have an overly litigious society and the one thing that OB/GYNs can do to show they have done everything in their power and therefore prevent getting sued is perform a c-section. The mindset of many hospitals also contributes to this. If things are not moving quickly enough they start with interventions which cause complications, or perceived complications. The next thing you know the doctor is telling parents their baby is in danger and they need to do a c-section. If someone is not fully informed this will scare the bejesus out of them and they will quickly give the doctor the go ahead. Other times doctors tell mothers that they must have a caesarian because their baby is too big. We wanted to avoid this.

For our first child we decided to give birth in a hospital, but to hire a doula to advocate for us and help Monica labor. The combination of this, a great hospital, and great OBs allowed Monica to have less interventions and to have a vaginal birth like she wanted. However, we still felt that things could have went better. Her water broke before she started having contractions and where a midwife would have felt more comfortable letting things progress on their own, in the hospital they wanted to get things moving. Monica also did not like the fact that she could not eat to keep up her strength during a very long labor and that the machines and IV restricted her movements.

So for our daughter we opted for a homebirth. It allowed Monica to labor at home where she felt most comfortable. Laboring without pain meds is tough, but in some ways being able to feel the process makes it easier (from what Monica tells me anyway). The midwives let the birth follow its natural course which made the experience more relaxed than at a hospital and allowed us to avoid any interventions. For instance, Monica needed no stitches even though Sophia weighed 9 lbs. If she had been born in a hospital there is a good chance they would have given her an episiotomy for reasons I won't get into.

Instead of waiting to go home from the hospital when it was over, we were already home. She got to eat good food during her recovery instead of hospital food. I did have to play the role of nurse for a few days, but considering all the work Monica did I think I got off easy. We are so happy we had a home birth and want to commend River and Mountain Midwives for the amazing job they did.