Home birth?

[jemmaf]

Hi everyone, I am mother of 2 (almost!)an 8 year old boy and one on the way in Jan. Just wondering if anyone has had a home birth if you can offer me any advice or tips, and if you had older children present at the birth? Definitely mixed opinions about home birth out there from both family members and friends!
I am new to this forum, looking forward to meeting you all.

[sarah bean]

Hi jemmaf :)

I had my 2.5 year old present at the birth of our 2nd baby, but quite a bit different from 8yo! It was perfect having him part of the experience though.

I really loved the book Hello Baby by Jenni Overend for preparing him but hrm, again a totally different age bracket so probably not helpful at all :rolleyes

[Harmony]

Hi Jemma :)

I had H present at A and B's births, she was 3.5 and 5.5 respectively. I just posted B's birth story in my rescued Blessingway thread, you can check it out :) Basically, she went really well, it was just a normal event and didn't phase her too much. The midwife from A's birth brought her 3 and 6 year olds and they just played through the labour then lined up to watch the birth.

With an 8 year old you can talk a lot about what to expect, watch birth vids on youtube, and be fairly sure he'll understand what it means...moreso than with a 2 year old anyway :)

There are some great homebirth blogs and forums out there if you go googling, my only other specific advice is to ignore those who don't have an informed opinion about homebirth ;) I didn't talk much about my decision to those who didn't agree, and saved my energy for the business at hand. I got really good at changing the subject if I got sick of all the "ooh, isn't that dangerous?" and "do 'they' let you do that?" comments. I like to ask who 'they' is :rofl

[jemmaf]

Thanks guys, nice to chat to people on the same page. Will look for that book, and have a read of the thread.

[cherish]

there's lots of mummas who have had HB here.. I'm not one of them, though I would have loved to have!!

good luck with your journey!

[~kaoss~]

I had a homebirth for my youngest. There are a few people here who have HB'ed so I'm sure we can answer many questions for you.

As for siblings at the birth, I sent my mum to go and get DS out of bed (it was 4am) but he didn't want to get out of bed. But we had read stories about birth and what it would be like. But in the end he didn't want to be there..... his choice :)

[cherish]

My DD was up for all of my labour.. (I left home at 10cm pushing.. short labour) she wasn't phased at all- we had done a lot of reading about labour and birth- Hello Baby being an all time favourite.. we also watched quite a bit of birth dvd's etc (being a doula I have a lot of stuff around).. so they were familiar with 'birth songs' etc..

It has made an impact on her- she does remember it all.. even though she wasn't phased, she has made the comment several times that she doesn't want to have a baby cause it hurts.. I just tell her women are strong! So, I'm not really sure if it was benifical or not.. though, I think it's a lovely gift for a child

[littlemissnaughty]

All three of mine have been homebirths. My eldest was 2.5 when #2 was born and he was there, they were both there when labour began with #3 then aged 4 and 7. We did a lot of prep, talked about birthing, made birthing noises, watched DVD's, read books, had a support person for them also prepared. She was present until the kids went to bed. They were woken (by my DH) moments before the birth but actually missed the actual event because they didn't get out of bed fast enough.

I would say that having a support person for the children is the most important thing. Prepared to stay or leave, taking the guidance from your child and from you. So if you are not coping with having your child there be able to say so and have your support person work through that with your child and take them away and distract them appropriately or of course recognise that your child might be distressed and need a break or leave completely.