Home Birthers & Hopefuls!

[EternalRose]

BH - Can't wait to hear your good news!!!

Nat - those vids and pictures are brilliant!! Really touched me. He's a little star!

Big welcome MrsRaggle.. We here to support you all the way.

Congratulations on the news of your little boy Gina!

Wow, so much has happened!!

My news is that my lo laughed for the first time last night - it had me and the oh crying with laughter with her!!!! It's all so worth it, they're amazing! And it goes so quickly
xxx

Aww thats so nice, I cant wait till I hear my little one laugh for the first time..

Congratulations on your blue bump Gina...

Mini update on me..I am STILL waiting for the consultant to give me a date for this appointment and I have even spoken to his secretary twice, aparently he hasnt been able to get in touch with the senior midwife. So I am still waiting..apart from the fact its all starting to wear me out I am still feeling positive about a homebirth for now x x

 

[purple_socks]

ER: good to hear ur still feeling positive!

BH: hope things r moving along well 4 u atm...it sounds like ur doing great so far. i'll b thinking abt u. best of luck

Nat: lovely pics and vid...such a cute LO! they made me feel super broody!

 

[nikki-lou25]

BH - I hope everything goes well for you. You sound very intune with your body and you CAN do this! Massive hugs to you hun

ER - Hopefully he'll hurry up and get the appointment sorted, Senior MW must be very busy if he STILL hasnt got her. Hopefully it'll be soon and its great your still positive about HB

 

[LolaAnn]

BH - all the best you can do this!! So exciting to know you will be meeting your little one soon

Well I had my 25w meeting with my midwife yesterday at 27w lol, such an epic waste of time. Its really putting me right off the system all together, wish you could "opt out" of the appointments etc lol. She just took my bp and then listened to the baby with the doppler which I really don't like them doing, I know its a bit kooky but I just don't see the point I can feel baby is kicking and very active so don't need to expose it to more ultrasound IMO.

She still refuses to talk about Home Birth which I find very annoying... I'm perfectly healthy and it would just be nice for her to even acknowledge my wishes in that respect. Oh well. Makes me think I will not be calling the midwifes until the baby is practically being born lol.

Someone said they had a meeting with their home birth midwives, who I am guessing are the community midwifes? Is that always what happens, do you get to meet the ones who could potentially show up at your place before the birth or not?

 

[Celesse]

BH - all the best you can do this!! So exciting to know you will be meeting your little one soon

Well I had my 25w meeting with my midwife yesterday at 27w lol, such an epic waste of time. Its really putting me right off the system all together, wish you could "opt out" of the appointments etc lol. She just took my bp and then listened to the baby with the doppler which I really don't like them doing, I know its a bit kooky but I just don't see the point I can feel baby is kicking and very active so don't need to expose it to more ultrasound IMO.

She still refuses to talk about Home Birth which I find very annoying... I'm perfectly healthy and it would just be nice for her to even acknowledge my wishes in that respect. Oh well. Makes me think I will not be calling the midwifes until the baby is practically being born lol.

Someone said they had a meeting with their home birth midwives, who I am guessing are the community midwifes? Is that always what happens, do you get to meet the ones who could potentially show up at your place before the birth or not?

Sorry your midwife isn't very supportive. I have discussed home birth plans with my midwife the whole way through the pregnancy. I have only met one other midwife on my community team, chances are if I go into labour out of hours then I won't know the midwives who deliver me. But I would rather that and have the continuity of care for my antenatal appointments.

 

[nikki-lou25]

LolaAnn - My antenatal apps were with the community team at my local GPs. I met 4 of the team throughtout pregnancy, but only saw 1 in early labour at home...the others that came I'd never met before. Are you antenatal appointments at the hospital?

 

[urbanbumpkin]

Congratulations, Nattie!

And good luck BabyHaines! I'm sure it will go well.

Someone said they had a meeting with their home birth midwives, who I am guessing are the community midwifes? Is that always what happens, do you get to meet the ones who could potentially show up at your place before the birth or not?

I have met one of the two home birth midwives who I might end up with. But I think the area I am in is unusual in that they have set up a specific home birth team. They had a pretty crap home birth rate, and used to be very negative about it. I think this is one of the area's tactics to try and remedy that which seems to be working. They are hoping to add more midwives to the team soon. The team only started up in the middle of last year.

Once I mentioned I was interested in home birth I just got transferred to their care and see the same midwife each time. I am going to ask to see the other one too, so that I will have met her in case she is the one on call when I go into labour.

I think it is more usual to get an appointment with the community midwives, who are usually a larger team so you could get one of several.

 

[MandaAnda]

BH - thinking of you, hun.

Someone said they had a meeting with their home birth midwives, who I am guessing are the community midwifes? Is that always what happens, do you get to meet the ones who could potentially show up at your place before the birth or not?

When I had my home birth assessment, it was my own (community) midwife that I always see that came to my home to do it (and I had my normal checks then as well). She's going to see me at home for the remainder of my pregnancy as well. I've not met anyone else in the team, as I've always seen her. But if she's not working that day or isn't on call that day/night when I go into labour, it'll be whichever community midwife is on-call that will come out to me. If she's working that day, she'll come see me after her clinics (or send the on-call if I need to be seen straight away) and then stay with me if she needs to, and if she's the on-call, she'll of course be with me.

 

[mrsmo7]

Well I had my 25w meeting with my midwife yesterday at 27w lol, such an epic waste of time. Its really putting me right off the system all together, wish you could "opt out" of the appointments etc lol. She just took my bp and then listened to the baby with the doppler which I really don't like them doing, I know its a bit kooky but I just don't see the point I can feel baby is kicking and very active so don't need to expose it to more ultrasound IMO.

She still refuses to talk about Home Birth which I find very annoying... I'm perfectly healthy and it would just be nice for her to even acknowledge my wishes in that respect. Oh well. Makes me think I will not be calling the midwifes until the baby is practically being born lol.

Someone said they had a meeting with their home birth midwives, who I am guessing are the community midwifes? Is that always what happens, do you get to meet the ones who could potentially show up at your place before the birth or not?

Hi you don't have to see the midwife more than you want to and you can definatly ask her to use a pinard to listen in on the baby if she really wants to.

I wouldn't worry about talking about homebirths til 36 weeks so they can bring you h/b pack round (if they do that in your area?) before then i would just get on and plan your h/b your self then at 36 weeks you can just TELL them what you are doing!

As for meeting your midwives i think it is unlikely to happen in my area you get whoever is on call and you are unlikely to have meet them all but you could get on you have met

 

[Shifter]

Lola - you can opt out. The maternity service is there for anyone who wants it but it isn't compulsory. If you don't want to attend appointments just don't make any more You can go it alone or opt to hire an independent MW who will visit you in your own home and spend time getting to know you so that when you go into labour you will trust her implicitly. You then have the continuity of care that you cannot have on the NHS.

I saw the same cmw every antenatal appointment at my GP surgery and in my area it is the case that when women go into labour they try to send out the woman's own cmw if they are on shift but if they aren't it is whoever is on call. My labour began on a Friday morning, my mw worked normal office hours, so she came out during the day to assess me and kept popping back until 5pm when her shift ended. After which it was the on call mws who attended. Unfortunately for me the on call mws had very limited experience of normal birth. I wish my mw had been able to see it through

Assuming you decide to stick with the NHS I think it is worth putting something in writing about your intentions. That way if they pull the "staff shortages" one on you at the end of pregnancy you can state that they have your intentions on record from x date so have had plenty of notice to sort out their staffing issues so it is not your problem!

 

[gina8177]

BH - you are not a failure! Just because things don't go as planned doesn't mean we've failed. You are doing wonderfully!!! Keep your spirits up and we're sending lots and lots of juju your way!

 

[Mervs Mum]

Well I had a little bit of a knock back at my MW appointment - nothing too big but still....My MW told me that she's having an operation on 11th March so she definitely wont be around to deliver me I havent told OH because I dont want to unnerve him - he was really hoping by some miracle she'd be on call when I went into labour.

 

[gina8177]

MM - sorry to hear about your MW, that is unfortunate timing. Is she able to recommend any other MW that you may like? Or are there any private ones that you could use?

 

[RosieandAlan]

Mervs Mum i was so hoping to have the midwife who'd looked after me all through my pregnancy to be there to deliver Poppy as she was so lovely- but she ended up being on holiday when she was due too! In the end i had a midwife i had never met before from a completely different team- she really didn't do a lot until i got to the pushing stage- just listened to Poppy's heart beat every so often and take my blood pressure- i barely noticed that she was there! I think that's the lovely thing about a homebirth- you can just get on with it yourself with the help of your OH. I seriously doubt you'll care at the time which midwife you have so long as she gets your baby out safely

 

[Mervs Mum]

Thanks Gina and Rosie There was only ever a small chance it would be her but as she's looked after me twice now and is a good friend of my parents, it would have been the icing on the cake. Oh well....I'm not too bothered. Because she finishes before I'm due, I'll get a new MW so I'll have a few appointments to get to know her and I've met some of the other community MWs.

 

[NattieLou]

she really didn't do a lot until i got to the pushing stage- just listened to Poppy's heart beat every so often and take my blood pressure- i barely noticed that she was there! I think that's the lovely thing about a homebirth- you can just get on with it yourself with the help of your OH. I seriously doubt you'll care at the time which midwife you have so long as she gets your baby out safely

This was almost exactly how it was for us. It was totally Peter that supported and encouraged me through the whole thing. Heck, the midwife was writing in her notes when Isaac made his entrance!

 

[carries]

Well I had a little bit of a knock back at my MW appointment - nothing too big but still....My MW told me that she's having an operation on 11th March so she definitely wont be around to deliver me I havent told OH because I dont want to unnerve him - he was really hoping by some miracle she'd be on call when I went into labour.

I had the same with Oscar, my fav midwife was on holiday until the 5th Dec and I had him on the 4th!

I think I had a total of 6 midwives over 16hrs and I hadn't met any of them before. They were all nice enough from what I remember so it didnt really make a difference.

I have the same midwife this time and really hope she is on call when I go into labour but who knows! We have 4 local (within 2 miles) teams each with 4 midwives so could be one of 16!

 

[Mervs Mum]

with me Hypnobirthing it won't really matter to me who the mw is but I know OH would have liked Anne because he knows how experienced she is and despite being really up for the HB now, he's still a tiny bit nervous.

 

[LolaAnn]

Thanks for all your answers ladies. My midwife is part of the community midwifes in my area, I've only seen her, but flipping heck I wouldn't be overly impressed if she came to help deliver the baby haha. Oh well will just wait it out and see how things progress. I'm pretty much planning an unassisted birth anyway, with the midwife just there to check baby is OK etc. So I'm not overly worried about staff shortages, if no one turns up no one turns up

 

[Shifter]

Sorry about that Lisa. It might be worth finding out a bit about the different members of the team, just so you know who is experienced and who is less so. That way you know where you stand with whoever does attend.