Home birthing hippies

Congrats! I have enjoyed this thread; brings back many memories. Our five children are all adults (27 through 37 years old now). Four of the five were birthed with midwives.

(I apologize if I told my story before; getting old... forgetful... etc.)

I would have been a midwife myself, as I had started to school to get the nursing degree to allow me to work in Labor and Delivery (L&D) to gain the two years experience required at that time to go on and do the CNM (Certified Nurse-Midwifery) degree.

Delaware does not allow home births, so it had to be that I would obtain the certification and work in a 'birth center', associated with a hospital. Child #5 was two weeks old when Karen was ready to go down for a nap and I put little Amelia in a snuggly chest carrier and bicycled up to the University of Delaware. Many years earlier I had dated a nursing student, so I knew to head into McDowell Hall to the Nursing School office. I entered and there were a receptionist and two other women standing in the main office conversing. They stopped and turned their attention to me. I asked, "How does someone apply to the Nursing Program? One of the three women, whom I learned later was Pam Beeman, the Assistant Dean replied, "You're in, sit down, what's your name?".
( Later I brought Amelia in as a subject for the lab school portion when we were learning hands-on care of infants, and when she was about two years old I had her with me while dropping off a paper I'd written. That morning I was studying flash cards for test prep. Amelia was listening I guess, because in the main office, with the dean and assistant present again she belts out in her little voice "orthostatic hypotension", and the Assistant Pam, said "Okay she's admitted too, when will she turn 18?").

Nearing the end of my nursing school days is back when HMOs came into full force (limiting access to care in the name of profits), and the push was to limit postpartum stays to 48 hours, with an eventual goal of getting new moms home in 24 hours. All of us who know midwifery/birth center and home births know this is possible. Insurance companies also knew the three to ten day postpartum stays were expensive and mostly unnecessary. Insurance companies stopped paying for the extra days and hospitals reduced staff by severely cutting L&D staff around the country. There was no way I could get an L&D job for the required experience.

I now had five little mouths to feed at home, and school loans, so I went and asked my mentors who was hiring. It seems the high burnout area was critical care, so I switched gears and started taking neuroscience, emergency, and critical care nursing courses. I applied for and got accepted into a post-graduation six months Critical Care Nurse Internship program through the Medical Center of Delaware (now Christiana Care Health Systems), and was hired in the local Level 1 Trauma Center's Surgical, Shock-Trauma ICU. After the ICU I went on to do a stint on a live call triage center directing people to appropriate levels of care, and then finished my full-time nursing career doing Hospice Nursing.

These days I have a few older couples for whom I do self-styled, no third-party payer, home health care support. I coordinate their care with their family doctors, home health aides, and specialists.

Through the birthings of our children, and the birthings into that next reality that are hospice-supported deaths I have been a serial, mystical-moment junkie. Such enterings and leavings are always a beautiful experience. Treasure your birth experiences. I have been known to say, that my only regret on my deathbed would likely be that I was born male, and could not experience the absolute miracle of bringing a new life out of my own being.
 
There must have been some home births since 2019?
Between 1995 and 2007 I had five babies at home.
I had a midwife for the first one. She missed the birth though (it was fast.) She was great support before and after. She also set up a birthing tub. Water helps with birthing pains and makes a gentler transition for the newborn. It also makes the whole process less messy. Baby was born around four AM. We had about 35 people at our house later that day for our wedding.
The rest were born in the bathtub. Caught them all myself, which I think was more common before hospitals.
My first turned 28 today.
 
My oldest turns 16 today. She was born natural at the hospital with our doula. I had to protect our birth plan as the medical staff was pushing hard to use the epideral injection. Our birthing room was the loudest of maternity ward.
Our son was born at home with the help of our midwife Elizabeth. The labor progressed so quickly, that I gave up filling the birthing tub at 4 inches of water. He crowned and while "catching" I asked "I shouldn't have to be pulling, right?" Elizabeth pushed him back in to rotate his shoulders through to the correct orientation. Judy gave one last push and he was born.
Congratulations "Super Mom" Treelady on your anniversary and thank you for sharing your birthing stories
 
Tree Lady said:
There must have been some home births since 2019?
Between 1995 and 2007 I had five babies at home.
I had a midwife for the first one. She missed the birth though (it was fast.) She was great support before and after. She also set up a birthing tub. Water helps with birthing pains and makes a gentler transition for the newborn. It also makes the whole process less messy. Baby was born around four AM. We had about 35 people at our house later that day for our wedding.
The rest were born in the bathtub. Caught them all myself, which I think was more common before hospitals.
My first turned 28 today.
Click to expand...

Thanks for reviving this thread with you story!

It made me realize I never posted number 6. In august of ‘20 we had our youngest at home. Soon afterward we discovered mold in the house because it caused my wife’s health to go into a tailspin. Since then we’ve made leap after leap to get everyone healthy again. Through it all, our youngest has been a true joy to all of us, which happens to also be her name. I’ve never seen a baby smile and laugh as much as she has, or start as quickly as she did. She’s strong as an ox and the most determined little lady I’ve ever met. She’d doesn’t know she’s 2. She thinks she’s the average of her siblings’ ages, I think. The biggest surprise to me was that she was daddy’s girl from go. This was a first out of four girls.
 
We had a midwife for the first baby boy but had to transfer last minute do to heart concern that ended up being nothing. My wife stormed out of the hospital when they asked her to sign off that she couldn't leave lol. Eventually got back and had a hospital birth, procedural b.s. was annoying but the staff was as accommodating as they could be to as natural as possible. Our second boy we had a water birth at home and it was a million times better. So relaxing, we were a lil confused when the baby didn't cry for life 5 min after birth. They're 2 &4 now, had to sneak in tree names for both. Elian Jarrah (it's a eucalyptus..), and Austin River Bordson (initials A.R.B. ).
 
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