Why We Chose A Hospital Birth

I am an old-fashioned person.  I often wear skirts, I bake and can, I want to stay home with my child, I am a homemaker, I prefer natural remedies to treat illnesses and, though Hubby and I are in the field of education, we are praying about possibly homeschooling our children.

I don't think any of my friends or family would have been surprised had I told them Hubby and I were planning a home birth for the birth of our first child.  Some of them may have tried to persuade us to change our minds, but I don't think any of them would have been shocked had that been our decision.  A home birth was NOT our decision.  From the very beginning of our pregnancy, Hubby and I both felt led to plan for, prepare for, and carry out, a hospital birth.

I have known many women who have given birth at home, and all of them highly recommend it, but neither Hubby or I felt inclined to follow their recommendations.  The most common endorsements for it I have heard involve how comfortable the women felt, and what a beautiful experience it was.  I don't doubt their word at all; however, we chose a hospital birth, and we were incredibly pleased with our decision.

Hubby and I prepared for labor and delivery through The Bradley Method of childbirth and we attended twelve weekly classes with three other couples.  We were the ONLY couple in our class who was planning a hospital birth.  I think being in the minority helped Hubby and me to discuss a little more extensively the reasons we did feel strongly about having a hospital birth, but we never felt pressured to change our plan just because the other couples were planning home births.

Here are some of the factors that contributed to our decision to plan for a hospital birth:

•  Hubby and I both have incredible respect for the field of Western medicine.  Both my father and Chris' sister are physicians, and we were raised to trust doctors.
• We not only trust doctors to handle medical emergencies, we also trust doctors to first "do no harm" -- we trusted them to let us have an un-medicated birth as our first choice
• We live 25 miles from the nearest maternity hospital... and that hospital is not equipped to handle high-risk situations.  If we planned a home birth, and, God forbid, something necessitated our getting to a hospital, we would have to rush 25 miles to the nearest hospital... and then possibly be sent 100+ miles on to a hospital that could better handle our emergency.  We didn't want all of that time to elapse in the case of an emergency.
• Many people told us that having a home birth does not make a mess, that the midwives have a great system... but we have a hard time picturing that, and it really seems like it would make a huge mess.

Despite Hubby and I being like-minded on wanting a hospital birth, we did our part to educate ourselves and prepare ourselves to be very active participants in the hospital birth scenario, and I think it was our plan, preparation, and research that led to our wonderful, comfortable, and incredibly fulfilling hospital experience.

In the future, I will post how we prepared for our hospital birth, and what made the experience so comfortable and rewarding.