What Really Surprised Me About Home Birth

Photo by Sasha Brown-Worsham

A few years ago, I traveled to Ethiopia to report on how hospital births improve fetal and maternal mortality. The numbers were staggering: Giving birth in a hospital saved lives by the thousands.

“Can you believe crazy people are in the US are fighting for the right to give birth at home?” I asked one of my travel companions.

I had no idea I would soon become pregnant for the third time with a daughter. Or that I would become one of those “crazies” and choose a home birth myself.

This wasn’t a decision I came to lightly. After all, “home birth” is the domain of nutty hippies — right? Only women with long flowing hair, questionable grooming habits, and candles have home births. Not me with my pro-vaccination stance and weekly manicures.

However, I found myself in a strange position midway through my pregnancy. We had moved 400 miles away from my midwife practice and I wasn’t feeling connected to any of the local practitioners. I also had a friend (who was neither crazy nor crunchy) who had recently given birth at home and driven by a desire to include my two other children (then ages seven and five) in the experience, I opened my mind to another possibility: Home birth.

My husband was harder to convince. He’s a scientist and needed facts, so after doing some research, I told him about the Netherlands where 60 percent of women give birth at home. Countless studies have shown that the outcomes for babies are really no different for pre-screened women who deliver at home versus in the hospital. According to the CDC, between 2004 and 2009, home birth increased in the United States by 29 percent. And even some midwives who deliver in hospitals attest that home birth is unfairly stigmatized.

“Home birth can be a wonderful option for women who are appropriately screened and not considered high risk,” Patricia Dodge, a midwife in Columbus, Ohio, tells Yahoo Parenting. Her practice delivers only in hospitals, a fact that makes Dodge sad, however, she can’t start a home birth practice. “I’d never be allowed to deliver in a hospital again,” she says. “There is simply too much of a stigma.”

Stigma, indeed. Comedian Jim Gaffigan’s wife delivered their children at home and he addressed their experience in a hilarious monologue a few years ago. “People always tell me: ‘Oh, we considered a home birth, too. But we wanted our baby to live,’” he said.

It was no different for me.  When I announced my decision to birth at home, everyone had an opinion. “Ew. I would never want my house to be that messy,” “I would have died trying to birth at home,” or “You are insane.”

But I was sure of my decision.

For a woman like me with a low-risk pregnancy, who had two previous healthy births, the statistics were very much in my favor. The fact is, giving birth in a developing country far from a hospital is not the same thing as giving birth at home five minutes away from a world-class one. My new midwife (who had tons of experience both in and out of hospitals) had a medical bag full of the good stuff, including Pitocin in case she needed to stop a hemorrhage.

And so, there we were, alone in our bed, on the evening of January 19, 2014, long after our children had gone to sleep. I was writhing in pain and my husband was falling in and out of sleep. My home birth had begun.

Photo by Sasha Brown-Worsham

From the beginning, I was surprised by how different it was than my other births. We weren’t wondering when it was time to go to the hospital. We weren’t hoping the sitter arrived in time to take our older kids. 

My contractions started in earnest while we were sitting on the couch eating homemade pretzels and I sat in awed silence for a while. Then, I was moaning, sitting on my exercise ball, and panting. We were watching the movie “Identity Thief” with Melissa McCarthy and laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. I’ll probably never be able to watch it again without uterine pain.

I texted my midwife dramatic updates.

8:57 PM: Yes, these are the REAL deal. I get that now. 

9:03 PM: BLOODY SHOW! 

10:30 PM: I might need an epidural

By midnight, I wasn’t texting any more. I was in the shower, letting the hot water drain over my belly, which was the only position that brought any comfort. By 1:00 a.m., it was “time.” In home birth parlance, that only means more waiting.

This is where my birth experience really started to diverge. Not having to go anywhere was a good thing but at the same time, it felt wrong. I like to be in motion. I like to propel myself forward and solve problems. Being at home felt too passive.

“When is she going to be here?” I moaned to my husband as the hot water meant to fill the birthing tub (the one I wasn’t allowed to enter before she arrived) drained over my swollen belly.

By the time the midwives pulled into the driveway, I was deep in transition. They knew I was close and hurried, hooking up the hose to the bathtub, running it to the birthing tub, and filling it quickly. I was in the bedroom. Alone.

“No, no, no, no,” I shouted.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” my midwife shouted from the other room. I heard my husband complaining about the cold water filling the tub. He was cursing. Stressed.

“What now?”

“Let’s boil some water,” my midwife suggested. And so he did. Later, he said he felt like it was 1931. There he was, in our 1920’s built Colonial, in the middle of winter, boiling water for a birth. They couldn’t boil it fast enough.

I had sworn my birth wouldn’t happen on our brand new King-size bed, but the urge to push was overwhelming. Goodbye birthing tub. Hello Tempur-Pedic bed. Let’s hope the waterproof sheets hold. My midwives stripped the bed and the next thing I knew, my husband was holding my legs and the baby was coming out.

It hurt. The “ring of fire” burns, even in the comfort of your own home. But my baby was born in a different way.

She emerged into a room full of love and warmth. She was wrapped in a towel, brought to my chest, and allowed to sit there while the cord stopped pulsing. Once she was out, my older kids came in immediately. We all cuddled close, just as the light of morning streamed in through the shades. There were no beeping machines, no time limits. There was no shift change or cadre of new nurses stampeding in to check on me.

This is why people choose home births.

My birth was fine, hemorrhage-and-danger-free. There was no fetal distress. She was perfect. A year later, she still is. I am so grateful to have had so many great options for a healthy birth and also so happy we chose the one we did.

“In the end, the only ‘ideal birth’ is one in which the mother herself feels like she had had one,” says Dodge. Exactly.