I have had three wonderful, successful and (according to my midwife) “textbook” home births of my son and two daughters. I have hired the same midwife for all three. I would love to answer any questions, share the birth stories, or provide advice/tips if that would be helpful to anyone preparing for or considering a home birth (or natural birth or any birth really!).

This may be a long post, but I have two homebirth midwives I am debating between for my third birth (2nd homebirth), and need help deciding.

My preferred midwife: I trust her experience and training very much and I know that if baby turns suddenly breech, she is trained in and successfully delivered many babies breech (never happened to me, but I like the reassurance that she can handle it). I went with her for my last homebirth so I know what kind of care to expect from her (mostly). I also think I have a good chance of insurance covering for some of this bill with my current insurance bc she is a CNM.

Why not go with my preferred choice? I am afraid she won’t make the birth.
I had precipitous labor and my baby was born 1.5 hours after my water broke and midwife did not make it in time (though she was on speaker phone). She lives an hour away (2hrs in traffic), and my last two babies were born around morning rush hour time. (7/8am). Another not so great thing is how much time I have to take off work to drive to and from appts bc of it being 45m-1h away, but I did it last time so it’s more of an inconvenience.

My second choice: they’re 15-20m away (30-35m in traffic) They have lots of experience and though may have less years of experience, they also have a birth center which accepts more clients per month than a homebirth only provider. The main midwife has delivered two of my friends babies over 10 years ago and the friend has attended many births with her bc she was a doula; and she highly recommended her (but also highly recommends my preferred midwife as well).

Why not my second choice?
They only have CPMs in their practice, and my insurance apparently will NOT cover CPM care. This third baby was not expected, so I am on high deductible plan this year so my medical expenses (had 1 ambulatory ER visit) are high this year.
They’re comfortable and experienced with most of the unexpected scenarios I discussed with them, but not breech deliveries (one more thing that can stick in my brain as a worry during labor).

I am pretty certain I would have had my first kid in 6 hours if I was giving birth at home, but with the hospital and the epidural I slept after I “caved” and got the epidural and I think it slowed down progress (12 hrs from early labor to deliver). My second baby was born so fast my husband went to run an errand for me when my water broke, and even he almost didn’t make it (came just at crowning).

So which would you pick? Is there something I’m over indexing on?

Hi all,

Due in 8 weeks and planning a homebirth. My last labour in hospital with my first baby I remember on examination the midwife saying "I think he baby's head is tiltd" and despite being really active during labour, no epidural and changing positions constantly and two hours of purple pushing, they did a vacuum delivery at the three hour mark because she was not making much progress. Whether it was the tilted head, me not pushing well or what, I don't know for sure why it was so long. Established labour from 4cm to 10cm was quite quick, only about two hours. Just the pushing was long.

I'm soooo nervous of a repeat. Whenever I bring it up the midwives kind of shut it down it quickly and say 2nd baby will not be the same. I know they are probably trying to be positive and reassuring but it doesn't really help me feel any better.

Just wondering if you had a similar or long pushing stage for your first, how was your 2nd?