Why I'm planning a homebirth (but you don't have to)

I can't sleep because I'm pissed off at Dr. Amy Teuter. Gods! I know I bring it on myself and I should just avoid the woman and her minions like the plague, but sometimes I just can't help myself.

For those of you who don't know about the infamous Dr. Amy, she's a rabidly anti-natural-birth blogger who's made a bit of a name for herself trolling natural childbirth (NCB) boards and spewing her venomous tirades. Her articles make my blood pressure spike and my eyes roll, they are so dripping with misinformation, condescension, laughably broad generalizations, and outright lies. The worst thing about her is that she doesn't even pretend to be interested in women's needs or desires, or even necessarily women's safety. She pretty much just advocates for one very strict, cookie-cutter type birth experience for ALL women; which is to say, a hospital birth, supine, sedated, most likely cut and most certainly "managed." She is an anti-choice monster. Needless to say, I am not a fan.

But the comments sections of these boards are where things get (very) slightly more nuanced and a little more interesting for me. They tend to boil down pretty rapidly to both sides of the issue shouting at one another: the NCB advocates yell that (s)OBs are money-grubbing, misogynistic men with God complexes the size of Texas who want to steal your birth power, make a quick buck and get to the golf course. The Teuterites counter that midwives are selfish, untrained, uneducated witches who spout off about trusting your body and being a birthing Goddess while mom lies bleeding in pain and baby lies dying. The two sides just shout and shout and no one listens and no one hears.

The reason this is interesting to me is because I honestly believe that both sides (but not Dr. Amy, of course) have their hearts in the right places, but that it all comes back to my 5-10% asshole theory. Both sides are so obsessed with the assholes on the other side, they are completely blind to reason, logic, or even the possibility of an open debate. I will concede right now that there are most certainly assholes on both sides. I've heard plenty of stories about OBs who bully and harass and shame and scare laboring women into unwanted interventions, then collect a tidy fee while patting themselves on the back for "saving the mother's life" after cutting her open and pulling the baby out in time to go home for dinner. I've also heard a horror story about a fatally incompetent midwife who encouraged a mother with broken waters and a high fever to continue laboring at home, only to dump her at a hospital four days later with a dead baby in her womb. (That story comes courtesy of Dr. Amy's website, but I believe that it probably happened.)

But can we please be sane and agree that any pregnant woman should run screaming from both these monsters? And can we please agree that neither of these characters are representative of either OBs or midwives as a whole? Can we please ignore the assholes and start talking about safe, quality options that cover a broader spectrum of birthing choices?

Here's the thing: I'm planning a homebirth with this pregnancy, and I'll tell you why. My body was designed to grow and birth a baby. It's pretty neat. I trust my body's ability to do this wondrous, freakishly bizarre and amazing thing. I also acknowledge that it's going to be a pretty intimate experience, and it's going to be a hell of a lot of hard work. Which is why I don't want to be doing it in front of a parade of strangers, or on any one else's clock, or by any one else's rules. When we talk about hospital birth, there are a lot of let yous: Will they let you labor without the monitor? Will they let you eat? How long will they let you push? Will they let you hold your baby right away and keep her with you? I am not interested in anyone letting me or not letting me do anything while I am doing the hardest work of my life. I know myself, I know my body and I know I will do the work better, easier, with less pain and less fear, if I do it on my own terms.

Some people think this mentality is selfish; that women who choose homebirth or NCB are doing it purely for the "experience" and have no concern about safety risks for their babies. I'm here to tell you: this is hogwash. Most of the women I know who have or are choosing NCB and/or a homebirth have spent a huge amount of time researching their options. For many of us, it has become a real passion. Yes, as in any group, there are some assholes who put more stock in the experience than the safety or the outcome. But most of us have done our homework, run the risk/benefit analysis for ourselves (and everyone has a different level of tolerance when it comes to risks vs. benefits), and made our decisions in the most educated way we know how.

One of the problems, of course, is lack of data. Despite what you might hear from both sides of the homebirth debate, there are no quality studies that show definitely whether or not homebirth in the United States is less, more or just as safe for mom or baby as hospital birth. Seriously. Not one study. Please, please somebody tell me there is a really good study out there. But, no, I'm pretty sure there isn't; I've looked and looked. That's because homebirth is such a comparatively rare thing in the US, it's very difficult to get enough numbers to prospectively or even retrospectively compare apples to apples. So, we just don't know. All the existing studies have some sort of flaw to their methodology which makes the conclusions difficult to apply to planned, low-risk homebirth in the US. But some studies show that homebirth is slightly safer, and some show that it is slightly less safe, and some show that it is safer for moms but riskier for their babies, and so on. So those of us who are passionate about it have had to sift through the conflicting and flawed data and reach our own conclusions.

I've reached mine. I feel like as long as my pregnancy and labor are low-risk, it is safe enough for me to have this baby at home where I can do my work with less stress and fewer interruptions. It'll be an easier birth for me, and by extension, an easier birth for my baby.

Does that mean that I shun modern medicine and believe that nothing can go wrong? Hell no! I was planning a homebirth last time, too, but I got sick with a potentially life-threatening condition at the end of my pregnancy. What did I do? I went to the hospital like a sane person, that's what I did. If you get sick, you need a doctor! My midwife caught the condition pretty early last time, and I got medical help before it got too serious. This time, I am once again trusting my midwife to catch anything that could become a problem. That's one of her jobs, and that's what she's trained to do. And I am so thankful that if something comes up, I have all the wonders of modern medicine at my disposal, less than 10 minutes away. I'm no Luddite, and I have no delusions about the potential risks of childbirth. I just feel confident that my plans ameliorate those risks as much as possible.

I feel more comfortable birthing at home. So what about a woman who feels more comfortable birthing in a hospital with a monitor and an epidural? I say: go for it! Who the hell am I to judge? I am not interested in forcing anyone to agree with my personal choices. I am interested in providing as many families as possible with a spectrum of quality choices and access to all the information they need to make their own best decisions. We are each of us individuals with our own strengths and weaknesses and fears and needs and resources. How on earth could anyone say there is only one valid choice?

But, dear gods, we are so eager to judge. We are so eager to tear each other down. I sometimes think parents are the worst offenders. Whether it's home vs. hospital, breast vs. bottle, circumcised vs. intact, cloth vs. disposable, stroller vs. carrier, crib vs. co-sleep, spanking vs. gentle discipline, the list goes on and on and on... As parents we judge and snipe and peck at each other like a bunch of chickens, like the commenters on the NCB and Dr. Amy boards. We compare and play the one-upsmanship game and turn ourselves into martyrs. It just makes me so sad. We should be supporting each other. Parenting is hard. We make it harder by being so fucking hard on each other.

Parents, next time you're about to make a snarky comment or think a judgmental thought about someone else's parenting, can you please just stop for a minute and remind yourself: we are each of us individuals with our own strengths and weaknesses and fears and needs and resources. We are each of us trying our hardest and doing our best, every single day. Let's cut each other some slack and give each other a little support for a change.