Really confused now where to have baby

[Toni_Win]

As some of you know hubby and I are doing HypnoBirthing classes to help us have a nice calm, relaxed pain free birth. Before I started this I didn't really think about where to have the baby, other than knowing I wanted to be in hospital in case anything happened. Now we've nearly finished the course and watched lots of videos of really calm relaxed home births, mostly water births, I've really confused myself over what to do.

I think the thing I want the most is a water birth. The warm water can really help everything relax and that's what we're aiming for. Now I know I can possibly have a water birth at hospital, but there's no guarantee. The only way to guarantee a water birth is to hire a pool and do it at home. But I don't know if they'll let me do that. I was originally under consultant led care, so there's no way they would let me give birth anywhere other than the consultant led unit because I have epilepsy. But when I visited the consultant she was very happy with me as I haven't had a seizure in 9 years and have been off medication completely for 3 and half. So she discharged me back to midwife care.

So I think I want to try and have a home birth and hire a pool, but I've heard a lot of people have difficulty with this because there is a shortage of midwives to support home births. I know the answer is to just talk to my midwife about it, but I'm not seeing her till next week and this is really on my mind. So I thought I'd let off a bit of steam and talk about this on here.

Is anyone else planning a home birth? How did your midwives react to this, are they able to provide community midwives to support you?

Thanks.

 

[cosmicgirl]

Could you hire a pool and take it to the hospital so that you're guaranteed the use of a pool? x

 

[lesleyann23]

I think the shortage of midwife depends on ur area to be honest. I was considering a home birth but I'm going to talk to mw tomorrow I'm still really undecided.

 

[wannabmummy]

I'm going to have a home birth and my midwife was really pleased about it! You have to ring up when you're in labour and get someone sent out to you, so if they were busy and didn't have enough staff then you would have to go in, but most of the time they manage it as

 

[wannabmummy]

- every area wants to get their home birth rate up! (sorry sent message before I finished!) xx

 

[littlemuffin]

my midwife really wanted me to have a home birth, but seeing as I live with my in-laws, the last thing I want is my FIL walking around while I am giving birth. But if we have any more I would love a home birth.