Part 1: Planning a home birth

My first pregnancy was a very straight-forward one and labour was equally textbook, only around 6 hours and I managed with just gas and air in the hospital. While the hospital environment didn't bother me during labour, I didn't enjoy the stay in hospital after the birth. Hours after giving birth to our little girl, my husband had to go home, leaving me pretty clueless and sore, The midwives leave you to it these days, I can understand they don't want to interfere, are very busy and want to encourage mums to get stuck in, but picking up a baby from those weird fishtank-style cots is difficult when all your bits and bobs are so sore!

Midwives seem to be getting younger and younger these days...

As bean1 decided to come on a very busy baby day, we had a bed squeezed onto a C-section ward and had to wait on the delivery suite for 5-6 hours before getting the bed. Plus the lift wasn't working so I had to carry her up a large flight of stairs, the water was off for the whole morning (so no flushing loos or running water for drinking or washing hands!) and there was only one paediatrician on, meaning the wait to be discharged was veeeeery long. All in all, there was a lot of uncomfortable waiting around when I just wanted to be at home with my new family. Plus, why do they make maternity wards soooo hot?!?!

How the long wait on the maternity ward made me feel!

So when I found out I was pregnant again, I decided to go down the home birth route. I signed up with the One to One midwives as I wanted to get to know the midwife who would be present and sadly this isn't possible with community midwives as you just get whoever is on call. I clicked with my lovely midwife straight away and she assured us that home birth doesn't mean that your house looks like a murder scene afterwards - this was our biggest worry!

A month before D-day, I was sent a list of things to buy. Some of the items were pretty scary, ranging from old towels and a hose to fill the birthing pool, to bendy straws (hopefully for drinking, I don't want to think what other purpose they could serve!), a sieve and a bucket.

Check back soon for Part 2: The home birth experience, to find out about how it went and what all the equipment was for, plus the state of our house afterwards and a run-down of my personal pros and cons of home births.