I, a hospital birther, have two good friends who gave birth at home. With their permission, I asked some rude questions about it to see if it was as mythical and medieval as it sounds.
Turns out that if you watch Call the Midwife, you pretty much get what it’s like, only fewer dads sit in the hallway nervously smoking these days. But I still got a few good details about that home-birth lyfe:
What’s different about preparing for a home birth vs. hospital?
Maggie in Chicagoland: Something you have to buy for your birth kit is a fish net in case anything comes out in the pool while you’re giving birth. I remember going to the pet store to ask for one. They were like, “What size tank do you have?”
Are there any unsung upsides to birthing at home?
M: It’s kind of a nice excuse to buy yourself new towels and sheets. When you birth at home, you make the bed with your actual sheet, then a shower curtain, and then sheets you don’t care about on top of that. When you think about it, your sheets are going to get ruined anyway after you have a kid because you're bleeding afterward, sometimes for a month.
Tracy in California: Not having to drive home from the hospital with a swollen coochie .
Downsides?
T: A couple hours after you give birth and the midwife has left, you're like, “Holy shit, we’re home alone with a newborn baby.”
Does the experience make you super close with your spouse?
T: The two things I couldn’t have done without were my music and my doula. My husband came in third.
M: My husband was excited when it was time for him to inflate the birthing tub. He was like, “Finally, a job for me!”
After I gave birth, midwife and doula told me not to climb any stairs for a few days, but all my clothes, including my special nursing bralette, were packed away in my drawers upstairs. My husband was determined to not let me go upstairs. I couldn't pick out any of my own clothes. In the first pictures taken after I gave birth, I have no bra on and I’m wearing his giant oversized bright blue T-shirt that he chose for me.
What advice would you give a woman preparing for a home birth?
T: Be careful what jokes you make. When I was pregnant and I told people I was going to give birth at home, for some reason they’d ask me where in my home I was going to do it. I’d give them a snarky answer to throw them off: “Maybe I’ll give birth on the toilet!” Well, lo and be-fucking-hold, my midwife had me try to pee and I had a huge contraction on the toilet. I reached down and felt his head. I started crowning while I was on the toilet and gave birth in the bathroom.
What would you bring a woman who recently had a home birth?
M: Those cold packs for your underwear, the ones you crack like a glow stick. You have to buy them from a medical supply company. The midwives will make you pads and they’ll put them in the freezer, but it doesn’t have that same magic.
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Maggie is on the board of Chicago Volunteer Doulas, which provides birthing assistance to at-risk women. If you care to support them, go here.
