Preparing My Family for Home Birth: A Doula's Perspective
In preparation for her virtual baby-shower this weekend, Doula Chelsea has an entire blog series to share this week on how she’s prepping for her own upcoming home birth. Each day this week, we’ll share a new article so stay tuned!
I live in a large, multi-generational home. All in all it’s…
….My husband, my daughter (Emma 13), my son (Collin 11), my other son (Lex 9), my mother in law, my father in law, 2 brother in laws (both over 18) and myself. As well as 4 dogs and 2 cats. I guess you could say it’s a bit of a wild house. Preparing my family is multifaceted and there’s no way to do it all in one day. But I’ve tried my best to breakdown how I’ve spoken to not only the people inside my home, but other friends and family for what to expect, and what my needs are during this experience.
Partner – My husband and I have been together for almost 15 years, and he’s seen me give birth five times already. He’s basically a doula himself. But alas, we’ve had a lot of conversations about how this homebirth wouldn’t be exactly the same as the others (3 in hospital & 2 in birth center). We’ve talked about his role and how it differs from my doula and my midwives’ roles. Basically, I need him to kiss me, hold me, and tell me how amazing I am. We talked about what he’s comfortable with as far as where he’ll be when the baby is actually born (he’s not comfortable being in the tub with me, which is completely fine) and we’re still deciding on who will cut the umbilical cord when that time comes. He understands that I want my playlist on repeat, and that if I need someone that we haven’t already specified will be there, it’s his job to get them (I.E. one of the children, my mother-in-law or calling my mom). We have decided that unless that happens, it’ll just be him, our Doula, our Midwife and her assistant.
Kids – Each child is different and requires a little bit of extra love in their own way. In general the four of us have watched birth videos together, sat and talked about their birth stories (the good parts and the bad), and talked about how they feel. My 13 year old daughter is very uninterested in the entire event, which is perfectly fine. She’s squeamish and can’t really stand the sight of bodily fluids generally. She has asked to not be present during labor or delivery, but is excited to meet the baby after we’re all cleaned up and in bed snuggling.
My 11 year old son is the opposite. He’s fascinated by all things pregnancy/delivery/body related. He likes to watch videos with me, always has a question about placentas or breastmilk. He wants to be in the tub and catch the baby himself and cut the umbilical cord. We’re talking about how that makes mom feel (I don’t want to feel like I have to hold back my ‘roars’ to comfort my kids while birthing) and have yet to decide together if he’ll be present during the big day.
My current baby, my 9 year old son is right in the middle. He says he might like to be there, but he’s not sure. He’s a pretty sensitive babe, so I don’t imagine he will be present. By “present” I really just mean they won’t be sitting in the corner of my bedroom watching me labor. They’ll all be home but in their own “area” of the house. We’ve talked about they being able to come “check on mom” anytime they feel worried or anxious, and when pushing time comes, we’ll see how I feel in that moment. I’ve been spending lots of 1 on 1 time with each of them talking about their feelings. They have a really large gap in between them and the baby, and no matter their age, a new baby can stir up feelings. This is the most important part of preparing for a baby when they have any older siblings.
Mother-In-Law – My Mother-In-Law (MIL) and her household moved in with my husband and I a few months ago. It was important to me that anyone who would be in the house during labor and delivery have their own job. Something that can both keep their minds off of being nervous about what I’m doing, and keep them from busy and not coming in and out of my space. My MILs job is to help and take care of the older kids. She’ll text hubby if the kids are asking to come check on me. Make sure they’re not scared, feed them, help them with school. Basically whatever her older grandkids need.
Younger Brother-In-law – One of my brother-in-laws (BIL) doesn’t work right now, so he’ll definitely be home on B-day. Because we do have a lot of animals in the house and barking is the last thing I could ever imagine being soothing in labor, I needed someone to be in charge of them. Just 100% concentrate on keeping the animals happy and quiet. He fully embraces this job.
Older Brother-in-law & Father in-law – Both my older BIL and FIL work full time jobs, mostly I’m hoping they’re at work the whole time, but we’ve agreed that if they aren’t, they’ll make themselves as scarce as possible. They don’t want to see me doing my business and I don’t want to see them while I’m doing my business. We have a complete and utter understanding.
Outside of that, my close friends and family are slowly but surely being told that we won’t be texting anyone when I go into labor so we can be present in the moment. And as we haven’t shared the baby’s name yet, we are asking all of our friends and family to not share our birth announcement before us.
Here are my birth videos from my 4th and 5th births (at Fort Worth Birthing & Wellness Center) that I used to start preparing my kids:
https://vimeo.com/366144542/5bc618ed5a?fbclid=IwAR0P96h5flmhwgdLxrSpasdyB4adZGVw32F3d1wjgQL564NsXCbsN2h773I
https://vimeo.com/168590465?fbclid=IwAR3j_QPVdoSSvKqGTrx10oLatUGy2UdGXxp_LlLVhmgAaiI9gIrFM83yKuk
A few other resources:
BabyCenter has some great, straightforward birth videos and one of them is an animation of the stages of labor.
These are My Hours is a short documentary-style video of home birth that is a great resource, not only for helping soon-to-be siblings hear and see birth, but it helps the laboring person get into a powerful headspace for birth.