Home Birth to Hospital

With our beautiful 5 year old daughter we were able to work with a midwife and doula in order to have a quick, comfortable home birth with almost no complications. I say almost because the birth went amazing. She came in about 6 hours and it was a miraculous experience. After she came though is when it all went south. My placenta was not coming as easy as our baby girl did and I ended up hemorrhaging and the situation went very quickly from comfortable to dangerous. The midwife shouted to my husband to call 911 as his wife was bleeding to death. My husband, brand new to being a father, now is on the phone with EMS not sure what to say and his wife laying in bed loosing consciousness and him not sure how to help her. I do not remember a lot of this experience but I do remember demanding that our daughter stay with me in the ambulance because I knew if I could hold her and begin to nurse that it would physically help me clot and emotionally help me hang on to life and fight through this. 

We arrived at the hospital and the doctors immediately rushed around me and they took our baby to get checked. My husband looked frantically between his wife and his newborn not knowing which one to stay with. I do remember telling him to not let her out of his sight. Good news is that I lived.

Now almost 8 months pregnant with our second child we are considered extreme high risk due to my heart condition and our past birth experience. Needless to say, a home birth is not an option. I am quite frankly terrified of hospitals because of my frequent flyer status in the cardiac unit. We have chosen St. Mary’s Hospital in the Bon Secours System to have our next baby in. We also were told we will be the first labor team with a service dog to give birth in a hospital that they know of for their hospital system. This leaves me feeling like while I am in labor and going through a really difficult and painful part of my life that I might have to be educating medical staff about service dogs. So our birth plan includes a team, as well as the normals, and some not so normals. It includes contacting the board of the hospital to make sure they know we are coming and their staff is semi educated and expecting all 6 legs that I have (8 with the baby right now), a large enough room to accommodate my husband and I laboring, and a Great Dane, non medical interventions to the highest degree, a doula, a midwife, my doctor, my cardiologist, a prenatal cardiology specialist, a nurse practitioner, and several nurses. The key here I think is my doula who will be coordinating the team and advocating for us so that my husband and I can enjoy the experience and focus on each other and my pup can support me

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All of this being said when you are choosing your birth experience and looking at home versus hospital birth, choose someone you can trust to advocate for your needs so that in the moment you can focus on your baby and your family. There is a lot of research to do ahead of time but when the time comes, just do your best to relax and allow that person you trust (ideally not your spouse as he or she should be focused on you) to advocate behind the scenes to ensure that your wishes and desires are respected. It is truly the best investment we ever made. So from this granola momma going from home birth to hospital birth I wish you luck and would love to see your questions or comments below! We will keep you updated on how it goes!