The amazing experience of the birth of our little girl Amayah

Much has happened or at least many things have kept us busy since I had my last opportunity to write a post. As usual I have so many things I'd like to share and so little time to actually do it.

 Baby Amayah

A wonderful blessing made her appearance several weeks ago. Our beautiful daughter Amayah was born to us in our new home, creating memories that I shall never forget. She is doing amazingly well and I'm immensely cherishing the time to simply look down at her beautiful face and see her intense little eyes look back at me. Having a third child has been far easier  than I would have expected (greatly due to the homebirth and having a very healthy child). Our family has had a very smooth transition, with only our 2 year old struggling a bit in the beginning as she had to get used to sharing mom with a baby. Otherwise Amayah is covered in kisses daily by both her older brother and sister and of course mom and dad can't help but also do the same.

I can't write enough about the amazing experience of having a homebirth and so glad we went this route. While it certainly is not for everyone, having our little girl in the comfort of our home was perfect for us and an experience I hope to repeat if we are blessed with more children in the future.

The day of Amayah's birth unraveled fairly perfectly. The night before, I was pretty convinced I would be meeting our child very soon. Around 2 AM I was having fairly intense contractions, but they weren't regular, however trying to sleep or even rest during them wasn't working for me. Deciding that sitting still and waiting for things to happen wasn't going to work for the moment, I got up and started cleaning. Can we say nesting was in full affect? My kitchen was thoroughly cleaned and the other rooms picked up before I decided that I actually must lay down and try to get some sleep, especially since the contractions were still not staying consistent.

A Look at Home Births

Giving birth at home is once again gaining in popularity. Until the first part of the 20th century this is how women brought their newborns into the world, but as hospitals gained in popularity, especially in the 40's, home births went out the door for the more clinical style hospital birth.

I feel very blessed that we have an opportunity to have a home birth for our third child. I wish I could have done it with all three. Although, in all fairness, my daughter's birth was overall a good experience and one I would hope for again if I went the route of going to a hospital.

While home births are gaining in popularity, I think there is still a lot of confusion about them. I know I didn't fully understand how it worked when I first started looking into them several years ago. One benefit we have today is that now that home births are more popular there is more information easily available about them and finding an experienced midwife has also gotten easier.

Certainly there are many that would question why in the world you'd choose to have a child in your home. It doesn't take much searching to find passionate advocates for both hospital births and home births and both sides have a variety of statistics that they use to support their beliefs (see here and here for against home births and here and here for pro home births). For several generations now we have been trained to believe that hospitals are the only place to have a baby safely. There is a system that has been set up that we are to follow, starting with the beginning of pregnancy and one that continues forward through the life of a child. While I am not here to tell you that no one should have a hospital birth, that certainly isn't true in my opinion, I do think that home births should be considered as an option. Every woman should consider all of her options and educated herself to make the best decision for her baby and her. We were designed to have babies and have been doing so since humans first came into existence. Some people embrace the idea that our bodies can give birth without a lot of assistance and others feel lead to have as much help surrounding the birth as possible. Are either wrong? No. For me, the issue comes more about the freedom to decide what is best for my baby's and my body. Either route someone chooses to go, there are going to be not so perfect outcomes and even deaths. What would truly be fantastic is if the two styles of giving birth could more greatly overlap giving women a far greater advantage to delivering a healthy baby without the use of drugs or other unnecessary procedures.

When I first started looking into home births it was overwhelming to figure out how the whole process worked. If you follow the standard protocol, things are fairly simple and there doesn't need to be a lot of decision making. You find a doctor that is in your insurance plan and then follow what they tell you to do. Home births fall into a category of their own and depending on what state you live in, the laws that govern midwives and the freedom to have a birth at home varies.