Reactions to home birth

The reactions I've gotten as my husband proudly announces (to everyone) that we are doing a home birth. Even my own mother, who bravely had her two children at the end of the sixties when drugs and hospitals were at the height of the birthing fashion, said to me, "so you are really going to have your baby at home? - hope everything goes ok..." With an ever so slight implication of "are you sure you know what your doing?" but who would she be if she weren't the concerned, even fearful mother, even at the risk of being negative? My mother in-law also had an averse reaction... In fact it was the one person Israel didn't feel comfortable telling that we are doing a home birth. He generously handed me the phone to explain that no we were not going to the hospital, that yes we are going to have a midwife and then I proceeded to reassure her that if a problem arose we indeed did have a plan B (to deliver ourselves to the hospital). I was glad to take the call (as it was not my mother). Some good friends of ours said, why would you go back to primitive days of giving birth at home when now we have so much information?

They are mostly worried and concerned responses however, on occasion we do get the excited and supportive ones. The other day I was in the park swinging Zoe and got into a conversation with a women - she was pregnant and Im pregnant, (noticeably) She eventually asked me where Im giving birth and I told her a little reluctantly. She said, wow so am I! Soon to be mother of three she delivered the first one in the hospital (in Australia) her second at home with Cara and now the third again at home. Her husband is a doctor and at first was a little reluctant but of course did his own risk assessment and come to realize for low-risk pregnancies having a baby at home is actually a lower risk!.

Funny though lately when someone says to me they are delivering in the hospital I have a different kind of unease- Mine comes from the thought of not bonding during those first precious moments of life. About women turing over their power and authority to someone they don't necessarily share similar values with. - I think a safe and loving experience of birthing (one where the baby is honored and welcomed into the world) could serve the mother in feeling confident and trusting in her own instincts about what that child needs which goes on for the rest of his or her life. This isn't to say that if you have delivered in a hospital you wont be bonded with your baby - there are tons of factors and opportunities to build this relationship.

I don't believe anyone wants to put their unborn child at risk - I think there is a distinction between being careless and being clearly intentioned, a context that is, is there an emergency? If not, then can we brave just to be in a state of trust and at the same time mindful? Can we be open to the possibility that there is nothing wrong until there is something wrong? What if mothers really were encouraged to embrace & develop their intuitions - (what if that were automatic rather than, life equals a medical emergency) what kind of world would it be?