Le Sabot Post-Moderne

Please tell me those aren't the real names of your kids...
-jdm

Um, yeah?

Our third, Reagan Bush, seems predestined to be a Republican. . . :) His first birthday landed on President's Day, so we had a red, white and blue birthday party for him, and decorated with some YAF Ronald Reagan posters I had left from my college activism days. . .

I think the names are terrific. Strong and masculine, and just plain nice. We are having a hard time coming up with another first name & middle name, if the baby is a boy. I dreamed we still hadn't decided on one, and the baby was born, but it was a girl, so I didn't have to worry about it. There are lots of local people we know with our last name, so that also makes it hard.

My first two were born in a teaching hospital in Rochester, NY (aka The Civilized World) whose in-house birthing center was the talk of the city. I was able to labor in a whirlpool bath until it was time to push, be in and out of bed as pleased until near the end, etc.

Then we moved to Erie, PA (aka Outer Podunk) and the nurses came in dressed in skins and wearing ritual masks as they chanted over me. Well, okay, that's an exaggeration, but with #3, hubby had to fight to keep me from being sent home by a nurse who wouldn't get her head out of the monitor print-out long enough to LISTEN to me tell her that I really was in labor. (When the doc, who'd been delayed by severe weather conditions showed up and broke my water, Maria arrived in under two hours.) In varying degrees all of the three deliveries here were much more technological, intrusive, and by the book. At least for the last one I was able to have a midwife, and at a less primitive hospital, but unfortunately the on-call rotation stuck me with the least-regarded (by everyone I know) midwife of the group.

I'm still leery of the whole homebirth thing.

Reading these posts, all I can hear is Monty Python's The Meaning of Life - "Ah, I see you have the machine that goes 'bing'!"

Give me bright lights, machines with bells and whistles, sterile hands and equipment at every turn, a neo-natal doctor down the hall, “crash-teams” up the hall, bad cheap food four floors away, a Starbucks across the street! Man, I’m in America and I want my baby to have every advantage this great nation ever conceived to make the delivery safe and peaceful. I’ll wax nostalgic about pioneer days at another time; I’ve heard too many horror stories to play the odds.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you. :-)

Dogman,
If it's a safe and peaceful delivery you want, then the aforementioned bright lights, etc are definitely NOT what you want. If you and your wife are expecting, may I recommend Henci Goer's "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth"? She has VERY well-documented why homebirth is actually safer for low-risk pregnancies. Of course, no one argues that high-risk births belong in the hospital. But when comparing low-risk women, the neo-natal and maternal death rates are actually lower in homebirths than in the hospital. Education is crucial as well. I recommend Bradley natural childbirth classes to help you understand what is normal in labor and delivery, more than just, "trust us, the dcotors, we have letters after our names." They really do pay more attention to the machine that goes bing than the woman herself. It's sad really, that I wasted 3 of my 4 birthing experiences at the mercy of doctors and hospitals. Nothing was more beautiful, natural, easy and peaceful as birthing #4 in my own bed.

Oh, let me clarify that Goer's book isn't exclusively pro-homebirthing, but focused on helping women make their OWN decisions about their birth experience, rather than abdicating the authority to others.

Aut Mom, thanks for your kind input. Actually we aren’t expecting at the moment…at least I don’t think we are…(hmmmm, you’ve got me thinking now…).

Anywho, I’m sure the “homebirth” is an awesome experience. However, things can and do go wrong. When they go wrong, the results can be very bad. I’m being somewhat facetious about the bright lights etc., but it is nice to know that some very skilled people are right there if needed. You are absolutely correct that a homebirth is probably very pleasant and peaceful; but sometime quirky things happen that are out of the realm of “normal.” I’ve heard too many ‘horror stories’ from people that see the results of home deliveries that go bad. Hey, its only my opinion, I just personally don’t think the risk/reward is worth it.

Dogman, that's my concern, too. There are plenty of situations in which no particular risk factors exist, but something goes wacky. If you're ten minutes from the hospital, mom or baby could be cooked.

But I don't use that oppose those who favor homebirth -- they're just my reasons for never being able to buy into it myself.

I have to agree with with JD. What kind of a goofy name is Johnny, anyway?

;-)

Hi y'all. . .

Rob-

It's worse than you think. . . He's John WESLEY. Like all my boys, though, he's named after a great man -- my father.

Our next will be Hudson Taylor Bush, if the Lord so blesses us.

pentamom and dogman-

I'm not sure what horror stories you've heard, but both of our homebirth midwives were extremely cautious about whom they allow to homebirth, and had strict guidelines restricting who could do so.

Personally, though, I'm with you. If /I/ was the one having babies, my attitude would be, "Don't even bother introducing me to the OB/GYN. The only person I'll be seeing is the anesthesiologist. . . ;)"

Carol-

Thanks! :) I don't think JD was being critical, though. I think he was only asking for clarification. It IS hard to know what I'm being tongue-in-cheek about sometimes.

"but both of our homebirth midwives were extremely cautious about whom they allow to homebirth, and had strict guidelines restricting who could do so."

I've just heard too many stories about people who were perfectly normal by anything that could be measured ahead of times, and then had bad things happen. I've never heard any horror stories about homebirthing -- I'm just thinking of cases of births in general where bad stuff happened that I don't think could have been anticipated, and it's a darn good thing they were 30 seconds, instead of ten minutes and an ambulance ride, away from emergency measures.

Again, it's not a criticism of homebirthing, it's about my own comfort level. That, and never really seeing anything negative about being in the hospital -- by the last few kids, it was a vacation!

Well, I would like the privacy of a home birth, but honey, I want to do my post-partum time in the hospital where I get to sleep all day, be alone with my baby, and have meals and snacks brought to me without my having to ask.
:-)

You got it, Kelly!

Not only did I have all that (sleep, alone time, room service) at my homebirth, I didn't have nurses waking me up to take my temperature or poke the baby at ridiculous hours, nor did I have a pediatrician walk in on my shower to badger me about vaccinating my baby, my bedroom was bigger than the 6 feet by 6 feet hospital recovery cubicle, my bed is bigger than the hospital bed, it didn't smell like a hospital, and my husband didn't have to leave me in order to get some sleep. OK, I missed the free diaper bag, but not the free artifical baby milk the formula companies use to thwart successful nursing. And my older children could come and go as I pleased. If I wanted them to visit, they could, if I wanted privacy, I had that too. And the food was better.
But maybe we should ask the Duchess to weigh in on her experiences.

Well, in my family, rest and quiet just would not happen in my 1500 sq. ft. house full of seven, and nursing's not my excellent hubby's gift. And I didn't have many of the negative experiences you mention, like the poking and intrusive pediatricians and what not, when in the hospital -- and I could have my bed changed regularly without having to worry about whether I had enough stuff around and enough people to wash it. I don't LIKE sharing a bed when I'm recently postpartum, so being without hubby is just fine with me (I tend to sleep on the couch for the first week or so anyway), and my hospital rooms were considerably bigger than my bedroom at home. And the kids were allowed to drop in during the 36 or so hours post-partum I spent in the hospital, and for the rest of the time they probably had more fun with grandma than they would have had being hushed so I could get my rest.

So I guess it's just a matter of "to each her own." :-)