Worrying

[slowpoke22]

I had a hospital birth with my first, 8.5 hours and gas and air only, home later the same day. I'd love a home birth but we are 70 miles from nearest family and I worry about the effect on my two year old. I worry that if second labours are faster than first, would it be smart to do it at home regardless? I want to do it at home, but im scared about sophie....

any advice?

 

[lynnikins]

you will probably find that you labour and birth in the night, I have with my last 2 both born at home

 

[BunnyN]

There is a thread about having children at a HB that you might find helpful. Many find it is a great experience. But obviously it's something that depends on many factors like the personality of your LO and how calm/ freaked out you get in labour and how noisy you are. We are considering having our 18month old there but my last labour was very long so we may well end up calling someone to take her. We have family close which helps. Do you have someone like a child minder or neighbour who your LO is comfortable with that you can call if you need help? If you go to hospital where will she stay?

 

[MindUtopia]

My first thought would be what would you do with her if you were going to hospital? If I understand your question right, I think that you're concerned with her being there and you don't know if anyone could get there in time to be with her. What would you do if you opted to go to hospital?

We had a home birth with our first and I plan to have any future babies at home as well. Our closest family is about 1.5 hours away, so probably a similar distance as yours. One of the reasons why I wouldn't want to go into hospital is because we wouldn't have childcare (children can't be on the labour ward). If anything happened, my husband would have to stay with our daughter and I'd have to go in and give birth alone unless someone could stay with our daughter. Our family aren't horrible, but they aren't the kind to hop in the car in the middle of the night to help us with anything and my MIL has only ever even been to our house twice since we moved in 3 years ago! We would probably have a friend on call just in case we needed some help, but otherwise, it's just easier for us all to stay home together.

If your family is far away, you could always call when you are in early labour and someone could come help with your daughter if you needed it, that way you'd have options if you needed some privacy or you ended up needing a transfer.