062 -Comparing and Contrasting Birth Environments (with Louisa Brown)

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SHOW NOTES:

Hospital birth, birth center birth and home birth are three very different environments one can birth in, but which should you choose and why? What kind of birth are you planning? How much should insurance play a part in your decision? How much should your husband play a part in your decision? Where do you feel most comfortable, safe, and at peace? All of this and more today as Louisa and I discuss the differences in birthing in a hospital, birth center, and at home, since both of us have given birth in each of these three environments.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Maybe we're just birth junkies, and we kind of like glamorize it or whatever, but I just wouldn't qualify it as pain.

When I think pain, I think like breaking my leg, or like something that I just-

Burning yourself on a hot stove.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Where birth is like something that you're embracing.

And so it's like this, yes, intense is the better word, I would say.

It's like, you just have, you have to get through it.

You have to do it, you have to endure.

It's an endurance thing.

More than I would be like teeth clenching, bone exposing.

Hi, I'm Kayla Heater, follower of Jesus, wife and mother of five children, Christian childbirth educator in Doula, and your host of the Surrendered Birth Stories podcast, where we share God-centered birth stories, evidence-based birth education, and our pursuit of surrendering our birth plans to God.

Let's get started.

Wow.

It has been just the craziest weekend ever.

My sister got married this weekend, and it was a four-day extravaganza that started on Thursday and went through Sunday.

So if I sound really tired, that's because I've gotten less than a full night's sleep over the course of three or four days.

Oh, it's like I'm more tired than when I had a newborn.

But I mean, it was great and wonderful.

I just don't think I've had a weekend like that.

The intensity of the events and the schedule and the agenda and all of these things since I got married 13 and a half years ago.

Oh, it was wild, but it was actually kind of cool.

My sister and her husband actually got married nine months ago in January.

It was really cool.

It was like a little secret elopement that only a few of us had the privilege of attending.

We climbed to the top of Hanging Rock here in North Carolina.

And it was in January, January 26th.

And randomly on January 26th of 2024, it was like 70 degrees outside, which was wild.

I also was recovering from the flu that week and had to climb Hanging Rock like three days into having the flu.

But you know, anything for my sister, I did all the crunchy, holistic things to like get better as soon as humanly possible.

And my husband was also there to help me.

But yeah, just like seven of us total climbed to the top of Hanging Rock.

And my husband got to officiate their wedding, and they got married up there with just this like small little crowd.

We went hiking, and then we had dinner that night.

And that was it.

That was their wedding.

And it was simple and beautiful and wonderful.

But then they planned a wedding that they had just this past weekend for nine months later that, you know, with all the traditional invitations and bridal showers and bachelorettes and, you know, ceremony and reception and cake cutting and like all the things, you know, like the traditional wedding things.

So that was all this weekend.

And so we're all just coming down from that.

The funny thing was is that only some of us knew that they actually got married in January.

So it was kind of like this big, fun little reveal at the wedding.

It was like, surprise, actually, we've already been married for nine months, but welcome to our second wedding.

And it was just, it was cool.

It was fun.

So congrats to the bride and groom, Megan and Justin, who are on their way.

By the time you hear this, they will be on their way to Canada for their honeymoon.

So I hope they enjoy.

We love you, Megan and Justin.

Okay, let's get in to this week's episode.

This week's a little bit different.

Every once in a while, you know, we steer away from a birth story and do a birth topic.

And this week, we're actually talking about something I wanted to talk about forever.

In season one, we did the differences between care providers.

So, like, we talked extensively about the differences between an OB-GYN and a midwife, and then, like, a hospital midwife versus an outside of the hospital midwife.

Talked in detail about that.

And ever since then, I wanted to do this episode, which is the differences in birth environments.

So, birthing in a hospital versus birthing in a birth center versus birthing at home.

And so, I wanted to do this one for a while.

I was trying to figure out who did I want to do this one with.

And then, it dawned on me that one of my very best friends, Louisa, who's super knowledgeable about birth, she has given birth in a hospital and a birth center and at home.

And so have I.

So, she felt like the perfect person to do this with.

I've also attended births at hospitals, birth centers, and homes.

So, we felt like between the two of us, we definitely had a lot to discuss in this area.

All right, let's get into it.

Hospital birth, birth center birth, and home birth are three very different environments one can birth in.

But which should you choose and why?

What kind of birth are you planning?

How much should insurance play a part in your decision?

How much should your husband play a part in your decision?

Where do you feel most comfortable, safe, and at peace?

All of this and more today as Louisa and I discuss the differences in birthing in a hospital, birth center, and at home, since both of us have given birth in each of these three environments.

Welcome to another episode of Surrendered Birth Stories.

I am your host, Kayla Heater, and I am so glad to welcome back my dear friend, Louisa Brown, with us today to talk about different birth environments.

I'm really excited to talk about this, because Louisa and I both have given birth in, well, the three different environments we're going to talk about today, which is hospital, birth center, and home.

So I'm excited to have this conversation and to learn.

But before we do, Louisa, you were on here telling your birth stories in episode 15.

So if you haven't heard that, go back and listen to episode 15.

But tell us a little bit about yourself.

Your life, your family, your day-to-day.

Let's get to know you before we dive into this topic.

Yeah.

So I'm so happy to be here again.

I love Kayla and I love birth, and I love all the things that she's doing with the podcast and just in the birth world in general.

But I'm Louisa Brown, like she said, and I am a mom, I'm a counselor, I am a makeup artist and a hair artist.

I also am a homeschool, homeschool mom.

I'm a worship leader.

I do a little bit of a lot of things.

And my husband works in our family business.

My family has owned a funeral home for over 100 years, and my husband works with my family in that business.

So we're really involved with that as well.

I've known Kayla and her husband for a long time since college, and now we're like old middle-aged.

We're not middle-aged.

We are-

We're encroaching.

We are mid to late 30s.

Mid to late.

We're encroaching middle-aged.

We're still young and spry, Louisa.

I mean, I'm doing everything I can to stay that way.

Me too.

Me too.

I have three kids, Eli, who is seven, Josie Mae, who is four, and Erin, who is 19 months.

Oh, Erin.

That little boy.

We are going to talk about birthing in these different birth environments.

We're going to talk about the environments themselves, what they're like, why you might choose one over another, and just hopefully give people who maybe either have only ever birthed in one space or didn't realize there were different places to birth in or were kind of up in the air about which direction they were going to go.

Hopefully, we can bring some more clarity to them today.

So let's start with hospital birth.

It is the number one default place to birth in America.

To me, when I was first having a baby, I didn't know there was any other place that you could birth besides a hospital.

I didn't realize that there were other options.

And so hospital was what I did for my first, but that was not your experience.

That's right.

Yeah.

So interestingly enough, I actually grew up with a, I would call her like a 50% crunchy mom.

And one of the things that she was really passionate about was natural birth.

And in North Carolina at the time, there just were not very many midwives who were doing home birth.

And so she went to the birth center.

So I also have an aunt who was living in Tennessee and had home birth.

So I just grew up with women who had natural birth.

Like that was just what they did and didn't have hospital births.

So for me, I knew I wanted natural birth, so I never even considered the hospital.

because to me, it was like, if you want to have natural births, you probably, I mean, why would you need to go to the hospital if you're going to have a natural birth?

because typically, I think in a hospital setting, if the resources are available to not have natural birth, I think statistically, you end up having a medicated birth.

So I just didn't want the option.

And I knew, I mean, all the women in close proximity to me had had natural birth.

So it just wasn't even, for me, I just was doing, immediately when I got pregnant, was like, where can I deliver?

That's not the hospital in North Carolina.

So for me, yeah, it was different from you in that I had been exposed to kind of this like natural birth world, alternative ways of delivery from the time I was little.

So interestingly enough, too, my mom, with my third sibling, my youngest sister, had a butt breech baby and ended up having a C-section, which was very interesting because she had two births at birth center and then had to go to hospital with my youngest sister to have that C-section.

Hindsight, I think, you know, she really would have loved to have tried to have the breech baby delivered.

And her midwife would have, but my dad was really, really, just, I don't know, very anxious about it.

So, yeah, it is.

She's fine.

She's here.

But I remember as a small child, now that I'm saying this, with both of my sisters, you know, going in the room with my mom, with delivering at the birth center, like, it's like house, you know, and it's like a bedroom.

I just, I stayed up all night with my mom trying to wait for Amelia to be born.

That's my middle sister.

And I fell asleep, like, the last 40 minutes.

And so I missed the actual birth.

Oh, no.

When I went, I remember going in afterwards.

I was almost four.

And I remember going in, we did, mom, I don't think mom knew what she was having.

No, I don't think she knew.

And I went in and I said, mommy, you worked so hard on this baby.

And I wanted a sister so bad.

I just remember.

So funny.

And then with Bess, with mom being in the hospital, and having to have surgery, I remember being so anxious, like going in to see mom, so she had had a C-section.

She was laid out on the hospital bed.

She had that little monitor on her finger.

I have vivid memory of this as a child.

And it just feeling like very tense, and Bess wasn't in the room, because she had been taken out for something at the time when we came to visit.

And it just was a very different experience, even as a small child.

So, yeah, it's funny that we're talking about this, because that kind of came to my mind, even the impression of the environment, even as a child.

Like, so I'm sure that had some influence on my decision, too, so.

And ironically enough for me, I was always afraid of hospitals.

Always very anxious around any kind of like medical facility, doctors, nurses, needles.

It was just like not my place.

Let's talk about why you might choose a hospital birth and what a hospital birth is gonna be like.

So first of all, I would say, I know on this podcast, we do have a lot of natural birth stories.

And I think that's because we have a lot of very educated women, women who learn the benefits of natural birth, learn the risks of medicated birth, and so then they choose to go the natural route.

But we do have some hospital stories on here and some, especially like first time stories on here like that.

But I will just say, I've had this question a lot, actually, which is funny to me now, but it makes sense if you don't know.

If you are wanting any type of pain medication, like any type at all, so like narcotics, like IV narcotics or an epidural, even nitrous oxide, which I know sometimes they'll have at some birth centers now, but some don't.

But if you're looking for any type of pain medication relief, the only place you're gonna find that is in the hospital.

So they do not offer that at birth centers.

That is not something you will find at home.

It is strictly the hospital.

So if you've done all your research and you have talked about it, thought about it, read about it, prayed about it, all the things, and you are set on having a medicated birth, then the hospital is the only option for you.

That's it.

because I've had a lot of people say, well, can I go to the birth center and get an epidural?

No, you cannot.

Those two things don't go together.

So let's just first say that if you're planning any kind of medication for your birth, then you do need to be at the hospital.

But next, I hear this a lot too, is that if your baby is going to need NICU assistance after birth, that would be another reason to be birthing in the hospital.

Usually that's something that you would know via an anatomy scan where they would pick up something on the ultrasound that says, hey, baby is going to need special care right after delivery.

And in that situation, then being in the hospital would be the wisest decision because you would be closest to that NICU and closest to the care that they would have available for them.

Also, this is another big one that people get, or the reason why they end up choosing a hospital is insurance.

I know, especially in our state here in North Carolina, a lot of health insurance covers hospital birth, and especially if you're on a state plan or a Medicaid, it usually covers it completely in the hospital.

But some of them don't even cover a birth center, but almost none of them cover a home birth.

And so while I do like to say that the finances behind it should not be the number one factor when it comes to choosing where you're going to have your baby, I do realize in reality it plays a factor in it.

I actually have an interesting two cents on this because, so with Eli, I was on like Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance, and they actually, my birth center did take Blue Cross Blue Shield, but out of pocket, I still was responsible, I want to say for half of the global fee, so typically at a birth center, like if you're paying out of pocket, you're not filing with insurance, it's somewhere around, well, when I did this seven years ago, somewhere like around $7,000, $7,000 to $9,000, is kind of what I've heard.

So I was responsible for around half out of pocket, even with insurance.

And then with Josie, with my second, is the one that I ended up in the hospital, I was actually on like a share plan insurance at the time.

So it was like a Christian Health Share type insurance.

And they actually paid way more towards Birth Center because it's a lot cheaper for them, you know, if you have a home birth or a Birth Center birth.

And so I was going to end up paying even less than what I had paid for Eli to have the birth there.

But then I ended up at the hospital.

So it was a total rigmarole because I had paid up front and then ended up at the hospital, which I got bills in the mail for six months after this.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

We didn't have all of our paperwork and stuff filed and completed until she was 14 months old.

Yeah.

It was a nightmare.

And that's another reason why I feel like a lot of people will default to a hospital birth too, because usually with home birth or with birth center birth, you do have to pay up front.

You do have to get it paid for ahead of time, because they really are in high demand.

And so they only are wanting to take people who they know are going to follow through and end up there and pay for it.

Whereas the hospital, it all comes after the fact.

You get that bill.

I don't know what you're going to get.

You don't even know how much it's going to be.

Well, because they don't know how much you're going to end up being charged.

Yeah, because you don't know what you're going to do and what interventions you're going to have.

So it all comes afterwards.

But some people will say, oh, well, I prefer that, because then I can put it on a payment plan and pay it off.

And then you're paying it off for the next two years.

And I get that.

But it is something to consider.

Yes, definitely.

Okay, so birthing in a hospital.

Now, let's just say, well, and then, okay, one other reason you would have to birth in a hospital is if you did obviously have to have a C-section.

I know that's not like pain medication as much as that is just surgery, but obviously the hospital is the only place you can have a C-section.

And for whatever the reason, you would have to have a C-section, which that's a different episode to talk about that, reasons to and not to have a C-section.

But if you have to have one, then, right, the hospital is going to be your only option there.

Let's say that none of those things are true for you, that insurance isn't a factor, that everything is fine with your baby, you don't have to go to the NICU, that you're not planning to have pain medication, you're planning a natural birth.

So let's say that's what you're going for.

Let's just kind of walk through a setup of what to expect for your hospital birth.

So I will say, for me, it was a little unique in that I ended up in the hospital in a pivot.

It wasn't my plan, and it definitely wasn't my preferred setting.

The night I went into labor, the person was out of power.

And so I ended up at the hospital because we needed lights and running water, in its most basic form.

Right.

Let's listen to episode 15 for every detail of that story.

Yes.

Check it out if you want all the details.

But the problem was Chapel Hill is an hour and 15 minutes, so it wasn't like I could just wait it out or even consider doing it at home because my care was over an hour away.

It just, you know, we had to go.

So typically when you go to hospital, you know, you make a decision to go when you're in active labor at some point.

I would say the average person ends up going a little kind of premature to the hospital.

And what I mean by that is like, it's not like your baby, you're getting ready to push.

Typically people go when they're, you know, their contractions are somewhere between three and five minutes apart.

And they go to triage.

They kind of check you in.

They fill out some paperwork.

They check your vitals.

And then you are sent to a room, a labor and delivery room or a company.

If you pass the test.

That's if you pass the test.

That says you are in labor and you can be admitted, yes.

Actually, when I arrived, my midwife assisted me.

She met me at the door and I didn't even do triage.

It's a little fuzzy.

I do remember that when we got there, I sat in a wheelchair at triage because she was filling out the paperwork for me, so that we could just go straight to our room.

And I remember thinking to myself when I was sitting there, like, this is just like one of those things, just one of those protocol things that just interrupts this process you're trying to go through.

And the other thing I will say that's a little skewed for me is I had had birth center birth and what that looked like as my lens for this experience also.

For one, I didn't necessarily want to be at the hospital.

And two, I had had just a very different experience before.

So for me, the main frustrations are just like this constant interruption from the minute you get there till you leave, till you are escorted to your vehicle.

And for one, I didn't really anticipate that as much because I didn't have that experience before.

I mean, I had heard things obviously, and I'd been with some friends in the hospital, you know, post-delivery, that kind of thing.

But just from a personal experience, that was different for me.

So, you know, you check in the triage.

If you're admitted, they take you to a room, and then someone else comes in, normally, typically a nurse, and then they kind of do more paperwork and more evaluations of you.

They'll typically hook you up to a fetal monitor.

They'll start putting in your IV if you're going to get that.

I usually get that in triage, too.

Oh, do they?

My midwife, you know, I didn't get anything like any of those things, and so she pretty much communicated all that for me because she was there with me.

So I actually don't remember her even having a conversation about that.

I'm sure she did.

But typically, they prepare you for all that stuff, and then when you get in the room, they kind of come in and continue up with some of that prep.

While you're in labor, I mean, you can't be admitted until you're in active labor.

And I think that's what people don't think about that.

First of all, I will say just leaving your house in active labor is just like a doozy in and of itself, but getting into the hospital...

I think it's maybe because it's where you want to go.

It's just, that's a stressor.

It's an interruption, you know, like having to change locations, make a choice about when it's appropriate or time to do that.

And then also just the pressure of, am I far enough along?

Is this, are they going to let me in?

Is they going to have to go home?

Yeah, all of those things.

What always blows my mind is that hospitals, they're open 24 seven, most women birth in them, people are always coming through there.

Now, granted, I understand a lot of them are having scheduled inductions or scheduled C-sections, so they're not like in labor when they're coming.

But some people are definitely in labor when they're coming, enough that like that should be a regular thing.

And yet, when you get there, they're still like talking to you as if you're not experiencing hard labor.

Like they're still treating you as if like you should just be able to answer every single question at a moment's notice.

And it like it blows my mind.

It's like you're sitting and I see this as a doula.

It's like we're sitting there in triage and they're asking you all these questions that they already have on file usually.

It's like so monotonous.

And then it's just like they look frustrated that you're not answering them right away.

But you're, you know, the mom's having this big contraction.

And it's like there just feels like very little respect for the actual birth process.

And it feels much more like focused on policies and routines and procedures for like the ease and sake of the hospital instead of respect of the birthing mother.

And in reality, I would say very few of all of the babies delivered there happen in from a natural birth woman.

I mean, I don't know what the statistic is, but if I had to guess, I would say very few hospital births.

Say less than 10.

Less than 10.

You know, so no, that is not the norm, and they are prepared for it to not be the norm.

So even in the way that they welcome you to the experience, it's kind of set up like, well, we'll get all this information, we'll do all this stuff, and in a minute, we'll get you some help.

You know, they're not, it's, so they're not really trying to facilitate necessarily a natural birth process.

That's just, that's not normal for them.

That's not routine.

They're not in the business of facilitating that.

I mean, now they'll say, you can, and we're happy if that's what you want to try, but, you know, in reality, they're more than 100% prepared for that to not happen.

So, and you can feel that in every interaction you have in the hospital, which for me, having done all three environments, is just, if you really want to have natural birth, it can totally get you out of groove and make you start questioning, like, can I even do this?

Or, you know, I just don't know if I can make it, or I don't know if it's going to get more painful if I can stand it.

And without us ever considering, like, maybe this process is really not helping you be able to have this experience that you say you want.

because just I had had natural births in a kind of more uninterrupted setting before.

So I knew I could do it.

There's no, you know, and that there, I was not going to ask for anything, even though I was at the hospital.

But I just, I thought to myself, you know, if I didn't have this previous experience and wasn't a seasoned person, you know, delivering, you know, naturally, I can totally see how just like the anxiety, the rhythm, the expectations that are there, really guided you in a direction that, honestly, just feels like it's convenient for them.

It's interesting because people will ask me, well, they'll say things like, well, you know, we're just a little concerned.

We just would feel safer at the hospital.

You know, that's kind of what people will say.

And my thing is, well, if you really want to have natural birth, you're not safer at the hospital.

You're like, at least safe, you could possibly be at the hospital.

I can pretty much guarantee that's not going to happen unless you've done birth education, you're a very hard-headed person, and you have somebody advocating for you, who's willing to step in when that kind of stuff starts happening.

because even for me, when I actually got to the hospital, like we finally got there and, you know, we're getting into labor and delivery, I was like eight and a half centimeters.

So, I mean, I was, I think I labored for maybe like an hour and 15 minutes before I started pushing.

It was like, you know, basically in transition at that point.

And the number of people who came into the room in that hour and 15 minutes, it was literally like a revolving door.

It was the craziest thing I have ever experienced.

So I'm like, I'm supposed to be the most focused, the most in this thing right now.

Like my body needs to like take over.

And I'm having to like tell these nurses and these people, no, you can't have my placenta.

No, I'm not going to be a part of a COVID study.

No, I'm not going to.

While you're in transition.

Or blood banking.

I mean, it was literally like, I am eight and a half centimeters dilated and you want me to sign a waiver.

It was, it was nuts, nuts.

Finally, the midwife was like, do not.

She told the nurse at the door, she said, don't let another person come in here if they're not doing something in this birth.

Like that's it.

It was bananas.

But that is the hospital experience.

And people, it's like.

Everybody kind of has an agenda at the hospital.

They do.

You have these people who are there to get signatures, to get, you know, they work for cord blood banking or listen to retrieval or whatever.

And they're there to get what they need for their job.

They don't care if you're in labor.

Well, and they're used to women sitting in a bed with an epidural.

Sure.

And that's true.

You know, and they can have a conversation and just get you to sign the document or whatever.

But again, it just goes back to what I said earlier.

It's like it's just perpetual interruption, perpetual, perpetual, perpetual.

You're trying to like breathe and focus and pray and have your music.

It just is like, what's what else in here?

What's happening?

Yeah.

If you've heard my stories, I did.

You know, I planned for a hospital birth.

I planned for an epidural.

I got it and did all those things.

I cannot imagine trying to do my natural births that I had in the hospital.

Like I don't think I would have, I don't think I would have been able to do it, especially not the first time, maybe after I'd already done it naturally once, somewhere else, but definitely not the first time.

It would not have gone well.

My sister-in-law actually had, she has two children, and she had two natural births at the hospital.

And I joke with her all the time and say, you're like the only person I know who can go into birth without birth class and successfully have a natural birth because she is literally just that hard-headed.

It is as hard-headed as it comes.

But no one else can do that.

It's not like the average person cannot do that.

Well, and because you're so vulnerable.

And those hormones make you so submissive and vulnerable.

So when people start coming up to you and pressuring you.

Yes.

Or says, you know, the anesthesiologist is going off in an hour and it's going to get worse.

So, you know, if you're considering the epidural, now's the time, you know.

Those are like very routine things that they say.

And my sister, my middle sister, has had two hospital births, and she was very educated.

Her husband was her birth coach.

Like, she actually had good experience, relatively good experiences.

But she, even her, I mean, they were fending off all kinds of mayhem with her last one, she had it in three minutes.

So there was less there than there was the first time.

But she had fine experience.

She would have said that it was okay both times, but still, if her husband hadn't really been on his A game, prepared to be like, no, no, no, get out of here.

No, no, no, no, it could have gone very different.

Yeah, you really do.

If you're wanting a natural birth at hospital, you have to know exactly what you're getting into.

And you have to know and be extremely prepared.

Something else, I've been thinking out this recently, because this is something that's often asked in an OB in preparation for birth.

You get into that third trimester, and they'll come in and they'll say, what's your plan for pain management?

So what's your plan to manage pain?

And I've had three babies, and I've had three natural births.

And I wish that we wouldn't use the term pain.

I know, yes, it is painful.

There are things about it that do cause pain.

But I think even the language that they use around how they position it is like, you're really not going to be able to tolerate this.

Unless you have some sort of magic strategy, I'm just not convinced you'll be able to handle it.

It's positioned in a way that makes you question your decision and if you're going to be able to do it.

And it really bothers me because I'm like, why do you say it that way where it's like, so what's your plan for pain management?

You're going to have natural birth.

What are you doing?

How are you going to handle this?

And I'm like, well, women have been doing it for thousands of years, so I'll do the same thing they did.

Right.

Like every woman on the planet did up until like 100 years ago or less than 100 years ago.

Yeah, whenever they started doing air and gas.

Right, in the 50s.

Right.

So, yes, the language, the interruptions, the pressuring.

Now, there are some very sweet nurses and there are some very sweet providers, but you don't know who's going to be on call and you don't know who you're going to get.

And you could get the snarky, condescending, passive aggressive nurse that I got yesterday at a birth.

So, like, you just don't know.

And I will say, like, my midwife is who delivered Josie at the birth center.

So I didn't even see another bee or, you know, someone from the hospital.

And I had nice nurses pretty much our whole time.

My labor and delivery nurse, my baby nurse, whoever that person is, and then once you get transferred to the other place.

You mean mother and baby?

Yeah, mother and baby.

That nurse was also really nice.

My discharge nurse was nice.

They were all nice.

I mean, so I didn't even have, like, a negative experience with people, necessarily.

Like, you know, like, who was treating me.

My treatment team, they were all kind, and I would have called them, like, neutral.

Yeah, so, but you don't know who you're gonna get in.

You don't know.

I had a terrible lactation person in the, like, wee hours of the morning.

You know, seven hours after delivery.

And this, you know, it was a nightmare.

I shall have to tell you the story sometime.

And again, that was just a person who was, like, who would come in for night shift, you know?

Wasn't there when she went into labor originally, so.

And like you said with, you just said mentioning leaving six hours after.

Well, most people have to be there 48 hours after.

Especially for a first baby.

Especially for a first baby.

And if you're definitely, like, if you're planning a hospital birth, for sure, expect to stay a minimum of 24, but typically 48 hours afterwards.

And I've had many a client say to me who did a natural birth in the hospital for whatever reason, they'll say, well, it was fine in the hospital.

They're like, I don't think anyone raves about it, but they're like, you know, we can handle, we handled the labor in the hospital.

And they're like, but it's the postpartum.

It's the stay afterwards that really killed the experience because you have that baby and it comes out, and you think, oh, this is great.

I'm just gonna like snuggle up with this baby in this bed, and we're gonna nurse, and we're gonna rest, and it's gonna be so peaceful.

But those interruptions that you talked about, they don't stop.

They continue your entire stay, day and night, throughout the night, because now you're a mother and baby, and not only do you have a nurse for mom, but you have a nurse for baby.

And so it's double the visits.

Pediatrician comes in, too.

If you're having a boy, they're gonna whisk them off for circumcision.

I mean, it's literally, it's like one thing after another, after another, after another, not to mention they're like pushing on your stomach every 30 minutes.

Oh yeah.

We had some time with that.

I was at a birth yesterday, and that was like a whole debacle, is because you actually, people don't realize, you can decline anything, like literally anything you can decline, but they're phrasing and what they'll say.

But you actually, you can decline them pushing on your stomach.

They don't have to push on your stomach.

Like you could push on your stomach yourself, or you don't actually, if you had a completely natural birth, you don't really need to push on it at all.

But the nurses postpartum, like in labor and delivery, they go to town on your stomachs, and it's so incredibly painful.

And I had a client yesterday who grabbed the nurse's hand and pulled it up.

And she was like, stop, stop, like, stop, like get off of me.

And the nurse was just basically like, I have to do this.

And she, and then my client looked at me and said, is that true?

And I said, no, like she does not have to, you can decline that.

And she was like, okay, I don't want this, get off of me.

Like she had a completely natural labor.

There was no reason for that type of intervention.

There was no reason, you know, baby was nursing, latched on, like everything was fine.

But yes, getting woken up every couple hours at night, not being able to hold your baby while you're sleeping, that's a big thing in the hospital.

They scare you to death.

They're like, now, if you're going to sleep, you put that baby down.

You're planning to sleep.

There's that, there's the bassinet.

But it's like, but then they don't let you sleep.

They just keep coming in the room.

Also, I mean, well, maybe my babies are all just different in this way, but the second I've ever laid a newborn more than 10 inches away from me, it's screaming bloody murder.

Oh yeah.

That was never going to work.

Right, the only place my first would sleep was on my chest, and she wouldn't sleep anywhere else.

And so, if I wasn't allowed to sleep.

I have you hearing your heartbeat for the last nine months, and then you're gonna put her in some sort of box.

Yeah.

It's gonna go great.

Yeah.

Anyways, anyways, anyways.

I just wanna give people an accurate picture of...

Now, we said in the beginning, if you're planning a c-section, you're planning an epidural, you're planning whatever, you know exactly what you're getting into, go for it.

That's what you wanna do?

Do it.

Yes, for me, it's like, if you are educated about birth and make a decision to go that direction, that is fine.

You know, I mean, women do it all the time.

It's the going there thinking you're gonna do something and your experience being taken from you.

That's for me, just the most unfortunate thing about the potential for hospital birth.

That I do think people need to be aware of going in.

You have to satchel up for a fight.

And as long as you're prepared for that, and you know what is going to be required, again, it's not that you can't have an okay or good experience.

It's just know that that is what you're signing up for.

And again, like with C-section and going the epidural route, yeah, you're gonna have to be in that setting.

And again, there are still ways to advocate for the most natural experience, even within those realms of things.

But again, it comes out like being informed, knowing what your rights are, being able to advocate for yourself and your experience, even within those decisions that you make.

It's not just like forfeiting all together.

Right.

Let's talk about home birth.

I know it would feel natural to like go hospital to birth center to home, but we're jumping straight to home birth, and I'll tell you why later.

Okay.

So it's funny because in my experience, and let's just say in my opinion, if you want to have a natural birth, pain medication free, no interventions, we're not trying to do anything.

We're just gonna let the body do what God designed the body to do, and when he designed the body to do it.

If that's what you want, in my humble opinion, there's no better place than home.

None.

Like no better place than home.

And it's funny because I understand.

We talked about insurance, talked about money, and we talked about, and I get all that.

I get all that.

But this experience is what I try to have.

People understand.

The experience of giving birth to your baby will greatly impact your immediate postpartum, your extended postpartum, your start to motherhood, your start to parenthood, which then can affect your parenting for years.

Like, it is a ripple effect.

And so people are like, oh, it's no big deal.

She's my baby in the hospital, and she's going to live with me at home forever.

Yes.

But the trauma that I've seen people suffer at the hands of hospital birth has impacted them for years.

Yeah.

Even just their ability to think about having more children.

I mean, all of those things, which, you know, it could have been so different.

And, you know, you have the story of, well, this and this didn't happen, and it was an emergency, and I'm so glad the hospital was there to save me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I would have to say probably a good 80 or 90% of the time, it was the hospital interventions that caused them to have to save you in the first place.

Right, correct.

And that's what people don't understand.

We were like, oh, my wife had a-

You don't like to say that either.

My wife had a postpartum hemorrhage after her induction.

And I'm like, I'm so glad the hospital was there because if we were at home and she hemorrhaged, and a no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, back it up, back it up, back it up.

She wouldn't have hemorrhaged at home because she wouldn't have been induced at home, and she wouldn't have had all her body pumped full of pitocin for 48 hours at home.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's just...

Not that that can't happen.

It does happen.

But the likelihood of it happening is just much less than what our culture has communicated to women, in that you need to be afraid of birth.

You need to treat it like it's an illness, and you require the hospital.

That's just the culture that we experience talk of birth.

And so, I think if people actually understood what statistically it actually looks like, what actually requires intervention, just the whole perspective would be so incredibly different on how often those interventions are actually required, what would cause those things to happen because of intervention, like you said.

And I just don't think, I just think a lot of people just don't, they just don't have that perspective or insight or wisdom, you know.

They don't, which is part of why we're doing this podcast, to try and help educate people on those things and help them to hear other people's experiences in all these different environments.

So, I've heard a lot of people say, when you want to do a natural birth and have no interventions, I've heard this so many times in the birth road, they'll say, well, the first intervention is leaving your home.

And it really is true, because you're disrupting the process of birth by getting in a car and driving somewhere else.

Like, you're not supposed to do that.

Like, you know what I mean?

Mammals, it's like, in the natural, they hunker down.

They'll retreat to their home, to their cave, to their wherever, in the dark, in the quiet, in get alone, and to do their thing.

And it's like, we do the opposite.

We're like, let's get in a car and drive to a place with a bunch of bright lights and loud strangers that we've never met before.

Like, it's, it's just so.

Better wear gloves and wear weird hats.

Right.

So counterintuitive.

Okay.

That makes me feel safe.

Right.

Okay.

So home birth.

Ah, the home birth.

Oh, the home birth.

So I will say something that people, I think, overlook with home birth, is that being able to birth naturally requires, like, the ultimate relaxation and feeling of peace and comfort and safety and security and all of those things, which I would argue for most people would be at their homes.

Now, you'll get some people who are extremely medicalized, who literally feel safer in a hospital, but that's because of the mentality that they were raised with, not because I think they genuinely feel at home in a hospital.

But for the vast majority of people, you really do.

It's like when you're sick, where do you want to be?

Like, obviously, if you're, like, you know, not needing, like, super, super medical attention.

But when you have a cold or flu or something, it's like you want to be curled up in your bed and, you know, comforted in that way.

And you want to be around people that you know and love, which is so different about home birth, because even at a birth center, you may not know the nurse on call that's going to be there.

You don't know which midwife you're going to get that's on call.

Like, you just don't know.

But when you are having your home birth, it's like you're literally in control of everyone who's going to be there.

You have to say it's just your people.

And the midwife that you hired is the midwife who's coming to your birth.

It's not just whoever's on call.

It's like, I've been working with this woman for nine months, and she is the person who's going to be there.

We've established this relationship.

And typically, you'll meet their nurse ahead of time, too.

Yeah, like whoever their assistants are going to be.

Like, I feel like that makes such a difference when you're birthing to have that safety and that piece of knowing all the people who are there and knowing them well.

It's not like your first interaction with them, which is the case.

because it's like, even if you're at the hospital and you get really nice nurses and really nice providers, it's your first time meeting them.

So they're strangers.

And we just, our bodies behave differently in front of strangers than in front of the people that we know and love.

Yeah, it's so true.

My home birth experience is my most accessible also, because it's just been the most recent.

But for me, it was just like this, the not having to ever make a decision.

The only decision I had to make was when to let the midwife go.

I even punted that for a really long time.

But just the not having to be interrupted, not having to make any decisions, just knowing I never was going to have to get in the car at any point, it was really freeing.

It was just like so I could just trust the process.

Even though, you know, you never go into it, you never know how long it's going to be, right?

I mean, you're in for the ride.

But I don't know, I just could like allow myself a freedom that did not exist with the other two because it was going to happen.

And when it was going to happen, I was never going to change environments.

So I do think that for home birth, that really is like one of the most freeing parts because especially, even especially if you're like a first-time parent, first-time person having a baby, there's so much unknown, like, when do we do this?

When do we do that?

Am I far enough along?

Or this is, I feel like this is it, you know?

Even that is just that kind of anxiety inducing, you know?

Yeah.

So it's funny because you don't have to make any decisions, but you get to make all the decisions, essentially, meaning, like, you're like...

Really all the stress breaking happens ahead of time.

Really.

Right.

I mean, because you kind of, in the moment, you just kind of do what feels right.

But all the prep work up to that point has kind of decided what's going to happen.

So you've selected your care provider.

You've told people, you know, if they are, can or can't come or whatever, you know, like you've kind of decided who's going to be on call, you know, that kind of thing.

Like, it's not random.

Like, everything's kind of been, like, predetermined.

Yeah, I just didn't feel like I made a lot of decisions in the moment.

Other than the other thing, too, is I just would tell my husband what I was feeling like, you know, like when I was in early labor that morning, I just said, like, I just really need you to stay home and be with the kids.

And I'm going to go upstairs and get on the ball and try to just like see if this will just keep going.

You know, and then I came down and made lunch for my family.

We went on a family walk, you know, and I was probably coming in to active labor at that time.

And I mean, by walk, I mean, we went down to the greenway, which is like a half quarter of a mile from our house.

You know, it wasn't like we did anything grand.

And then I came back and laid down.

And then that was kind of like it, you know, it was game on from there, but I could do whatever I wanted.

I wasn't hooked up to a fetal monitor.

I wasn't being Doppler every 10 minutes.

I wasn't being told I couldn't eat anything or being harassed to sign documents.

Like I was literally just with my family, letting my body do what it was supposed to do and responding the way I saw fit in the process.

And I'll say, like, you know, talking about these different environments today, I feel like the environment itself is probably short of where you are mentally, definitely where you are mentally, I feel like, plays the biggest factor.

But then the environment, I feel like, next to your mental state plays the biggest factor in your experience and in your ability to relax, your ability to enjoy your ability.

Like, as we talked about pain earlier, which I like to tell my clients, intensity.

It was very intense, not very painful.

It's very intense.

I just don't like the word.

I think the word has such a negative connotation to it.

And the pain is a necessary part of the process.

Maybe we're just birth junkies, and we kind of like glamorize it or whatever.

But I just wouldn't qualify it as pain.

When I think pain, I think like breaking my leg or like something that I just...

Burning yourself on a hot stove.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Where birth is like something that you're embracing.

And so it's like this...

Yes, intense is the better word, I would say.

It's like you just have to get through it.

You have to do it.

You have to endure.

It's an endurance thing.

More than I would be like teeth clenching, bone exposing pain, you know?

Right.

Right.

I did hospital for my first, and then birth center for my next two.

And my home birth was my fourth birth.

But it, well, and fifth.

But for that first home birth, to me, it was, in my mind, to use that word, the least painful or the least intense.

But it's funny, because my body had to go through the exact same thing.

And I birthed a 10 pound, 11 ounce baby.

It wasn't like, you know, like, you know what I mean?

It wasn't like it was like the smallest baby or something.

Right.

Or the fastest birth, because it wasn't my fastest.

But it's like, to me, I purely think it was the setup.

I think it was the fact that we were at home.

I think it was the fact that I didn't have to go anywhere.

I didn't have to worry about strangers.

I didn't have to worry about questions.

I didn't have to, like, I could just literally focus on my body and my baby and the Lord.

And like, I didn't have to think about any of the other things, which helped me relax so much better, which helped it be that much less intense.

Like, it just all plays into it.

There's so much mental part of birth, you know, like, I mean, yes, there's obviously a physical and a spiritual and all that stuff.

But like you said earlier, like, where you are mentally is just such a game changer.

And so when you are in this, like, safe, accepting, warm, mental space, the outcome is typically, I would say, different.

So, and plus I was at that birth with you, so.

You were.

You were at that birth with me.

But it's funny because, like, even when you got there, even when you got to that birth, you came in and it's like, I don't know, I think I was having a contraction when you got there, but then it was like, I was able to look up at you and smile and talk to you and like have this conversation.

And I know, had I been in that same exact place, like when I was at the hospital or when I was at the birth center with my other two, I would not have been smiling at you.

I would not have been talking to you.

I would have been like panting in like, you know, kind of more of the panicky feeling.

So, but I was just so at peace that it like didn't matter.

I was like, oh, you're here.

It's great.

But it just makes such a difference.

Such a difference.

I feel like if you had picked my body up with the quote unquote pain level I was having and where I was in labor and simply placed me in a different environment, I would have interpreted my sensation as painful and as way more intense than it actually was simply because of where I was.

Yeah, I agree with that.

The only thing I would add is for me, for Josie's birth, I actually thought that Eli's birth was more painful, but my water broke with him before I went into labor.

That makes a world of a difference.

And with Joe, I had my sack until time to push.

So it was interesting because I remember, like, in that last little bit of transition at the hospital, thinking to myself, like, give this like a 7 out of 10 pain-wise.

Like, and I was fully in transition.

And, you know, there's so much chaos.

And I also think some of that was just like the Lord's mercy because of the way that everything went down.

because I was just like, I mean, I can tell I'm getting close, but the pain was just, it was definitely not as intense as I remember it being in transition with Eli.

You know, just feeling like, I gotta get out of here.

Like, I'm coming out of my skin, you know, the whole experience.

I just didn't have that with her the same way I did with him.

The water sack cushion definitely affected.

And also, you know, because I'd had natural birth before, like I knew how to get myself to that, like, mental place.

And, you know, in that transition game of like, this is it, we're almost there.

Yeah.

Really like in it or whatever.

But...

Okay, the last thing I wanted to say about home birth before we moved to birth center, which, you know, could talk about home birth for hours, but we talked about the traveling aspect of traveling during labor, which who wants to do that, but also traveling during postpartum.

And that's what people forget about is like, well, yeah, we talked about like the hospital stay.

Yes, you'd be there 48 hours after, so you're not technically traveling.

You're just constantly being, you know, intruded upon.

You get hungry, you're going to the pediatrician.

Right, right.

They make you go to the pediatrician.

Yeah.

And all that.

And then you don't get any postpartum care until your six week appointment.

And when you're at a birth center, that's the other thing.

It's like, well, if you're trying to, you know, you want to do the natural route, you go to the birth center.

You have to return to the birth center within 24 to 48 hours after your birth.

It's like you get to go home.

You don't have to stay like you do at a hospital, but then you have to get back in a car and go back to the birth center.

And usually it's not close to your house.

Most of them are, you know, an hour or more away from your house.

It's like, who wants to do that when you had just given birth?

It's like you want to lay back in your bed and rest and heal and snuggle your baby, not hop in a car and go drive an hour and a half to get, you know, checked out.

So I will say that that's another just amazing perk of home birth is that your midwife will come to you.

She will do your postpartum checks at your house.

And she does more than one.

It's like she does that immediate, like, I think 24, 48-hour one, where she comes within the first couple of days.

But then she'll come back, like, within the first couple of weeks.

And then sometimes she'll make, like, an additional visit again a couple of weeks later.

But then she'll come back at your six week, at least three, if not four, postpartum visits from your midwife.

The other thing is, is that she's on call for you.

Right.

Well, and the other thing that I will always tell people is, you know, with Aaron, my baby, he didn't go to the pediatrician until he was, you know, for the first time until he was, we went for that two month visits to just establish care or whatever.

because, you know, she was coming over and she weighed him every time.

Right, right, right.

So I didn't even take him into the doctor for the first time until he was two months old.

Which, taking in a two month old is not even comparable to taking in a two day old.

Right.

When you're bleeding and you're sore and you maybe you had stitches, but if, you know, hopefully you didn't.

And yeah, it's just a different experience.

So yeah, factoring in the postpartum part is, I feel like, just as important as factoring in the labor.

I will say to just so people are aware, care in your home that's not rushed, where you're not sitting with a clipboard and a person behind a glass wall, you know, going into a room that's sterile, and they say, do you have any questions for 15 minutes or 10 minutes, whatever the amount of a lot of time is, feels so different.

And honestly, just like it almost doesn't even feel right, which is so sad to me.

because that was one of the things that I say about my home birth experience is I've never felt more cared for, more connected to the person caring for me, and more cherished as a patient in any medical setting in my whole life.

And to me, because birth is just such a vulnerable thing anyways, that's what it should feel like.

You should feel like you are of the most importance, your experience and your safety and your process is the most highest priority.

And they're going to walk you through this from start to finish.

And I told my midwife, you know, at the six-week mark, I was like, I feel like we're breaking up.

I got you just so sad.

You know, so sad.

You've been in my house all these months, and now you're not coming anymore.

And it really didn't feel like that.

And that's really what it should feel like, it's like almost like you're aging out of something, you know?

Yeah, like a season is over.

Or you could, you know, be like me and just keep having more babies.

But your season is never over.

Well, God will end it one day, that's for sure.

OK, let's talk about Birth Center, because here's here's my big thing.

This is I'm just going to go ahead and say this, I was going to say this till the end of Birth Center, but I'm just going to start with this.

I hear this all the time, and this was my argument too.

OK, this was my argument too.

Well, actually, no, it wasn't, because I planned, I did plan a home birth for my second, and ended up having to switch to the Birth Center.

But anyways, I hear it all the time when people say, well, I want a natural birth, and I'd love a home birth, but we're just going to go to the Birth Center as a compromise, because their husband maybe doesn't feel comfortable with a home birth, or their parents, or their family, or whoever.

It's like, for some reason, people feel safer at a birth center because it's some sort of facility situation rather than your home.

And what people don't understand, and what drives me crazy, is that they do not understand that it is no safer, because that's their concern.

That's the concern in this situation, is the safety.

It is no safer to have a baby at a birth center than at home because they do not have any more special equipment at a birth center that your home birth midwife doesn't have with her at the birth.

They have the same equipment.

Your home birth midwife has oxygen, should you need oxygen.

Your home birth midwife has IV fluids, should you need that.

Your home birth midwife has pitocin, should you need that.

Like she has all of those things.

Rarely does she have to use them because the birth goes so smoothly and beautifully, but she has them just in case.

And she is watching you and she will transfer you just like a birth center would if some sort of red flag came up.

So there's, it is not any safer to have your baby at a birth center than at home.

And so if that is your reason, typically because it's the husband, it's something about the facility.

It's like, oh, I'd feel more comfortable at a birth center, because it's a little bit safer.

And I'm like, it's not, it is not safer.

Gosh, and so that kills me.

That's the one where I have to be like, okay, guys, all right, I just have to put it out there.

And statistically speaking as well, a birth center transfer rate is higher usually than a home birth transfer rate.

So, just saying, if that's your reason, you need to have a home birth.

Just saying.

Let's do it.

If that is your only reason.

Okay, but let's talk about why maybe you would choose a birth center.

So we've said a birth center, if you're unaware, it's not a hospital, obviously not your home.

It is a place where you go simply to have your baby, naturally, no pain medication, and then you'll leave shortly after your baby is born.

So like a few hours after your baby is born, you'll go home.

Well, old days, they would have called it like a maternity ward.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A place where you would have gone to have birth, you might would have been given gas and air, but likely you would have had no intervention other than, I mean, you might have been transferred to hospital, but it would have been a place where you would deliver with a midwife.

Yes.

So they often have it set up.

The rooms to birth in look like a bedroom.

There's a nice big queen or king size bed.

There's usually a nice blown up birth tub in there.

They usually have really nice showers, that type of stuff.

Yeah.

And I would say that it is more maternity baby friendly.

They do tend to take a more, obviously, I mean, they're midwives, so it is a more holistic, natural approach to birth.

So the process, definitely different from the hospital, is more, is set up to feel, you know, a little more peaceful and not as chaotic with less interruption.

But it's not home.

I mean, it's definitely not your home.

And you do, and they are on call.

So your midwife, if you're in labor for a long time, you will get a rotation.

You'll get whoever you started with, you won't finish with necessarily.

Yeah.

So that's just another thing also to consider, you know, is does it matter to you who your end game provider is?

It's going to be there.

Yeah.

because it will just be whoever's on call.

Yeah.

And with Eli, I went in at like, I think we got there at like two in the morning, and he wasn't born till like lunch the next day.

And the midwife switched at like nine in the morning.

With him, I actually think in some ways, it was a good thing because my midwife was like really tired and I pushed for so long.

It's interesting, in the moment, I don't think I really like keyed in on like how kind of exhausted and like kind of over it, like kind of burnout she was at the end.

She was really kind and like said, she said to me, if you really want me to stay here, I will stay with you.

She said, however, I'm feeling like a fresh person really might be better for you.

Like I think I think you might do better.

I think she could just tell if she was maybe knows not her best self, you know?

Yeah.

And she really, she worked hard with me for several hours, you know, in the wee morning hours.

So the and the next midwife, of course, she was fresh as a daisy.

She had a whole night's sleep.

She came in, she's like, you're doing great.

Your body's just opening up.

Baby's heart rate's strong.

You know, she's like quiet and real chill, and just she did perineal massage for like an hour and a half.

So, but, you know, I also didn't, you just don't know what you don't know.

You know, so for me, it was, I, so if I were to like rate my births on like a scale, I would have given Eli's birth even with having to drive to the birth center, even with four and a half hours of pushing, all those things considered, I really would have rated his birth like a 9.5 or a 10 out of 10.

Like I, I had a beautiful experience.

Like my experience overall was fantastic.

I had the natural birth that I wanted.

If my body did what it was supposed to do, I felt cared for and I would have given Josie's birth.

Now, the labor and delivery, like her getting into the world safely, me sticking to my plan of natural birth was that, was I did that.

But just my experience, I would have given like five out of 10, maybe, especially comparing it to Eli's.

And then my home birth, I would have said, there's no number to compare.

You know, I mean, 15 out of 10.

12 out of 10.

I don't know.

Whatever would seem reasonable, you know, considering.

But again, a lot of came down to like, just not knowing what you don't know, you know?

And like, and so I would, I would advocate that like, if you're on the fence, if you do just go for home birth, it's not likely that you're going to be disappointed if you want to go with a natural experience.

So, and again, you can have an okay hospital experience.

Obviously, with birth center, you're not going to be like poked and prodded and interrupted like you will be at the hospital, for sure.

Right.

But it is just, it's not, it's not home birth and it's not hospital birth.

It's just somewhere in the middle.

Right.

It is, it's in between.

It is, it's an in between experience.

It is way better than the hospital in terms of natural birth.

Hands down.

Much better, because you're not, I mean, you don't have to go through triage.

You don't get all the blood work.

You don't have a thousand questions.

They're waiting for you at the door when you get there.

Right.

Like you go straight to your beautiful room, like all the things.

It's great.

So, they ask you for your music.

You know, they're definitely like, you know.

They are there for physiological natural birth.

Like that is, that's their thing.

But like we pointed out, it is shift work for them.

You don't know who you're going to get.

You do have to travel.

All those types of things, for sure.

But, you know, I've had people say, well, I can't have a home birth because X, Y, or Z, but I still want a natural birth.

And so I've had people who, like their house was under construction, or they weren't actually living in their own house.

They're living with their parents, or they're living with their grandparents, or they're living in an RV, or all the different types of things.

Which actually, you know, our midwife has delivered babies in RVs and trailers and all sorts of different places.

So that's not necessarily a stopper.

But if you're not living in your own home, well, you may not be as comfortable.

And if you don't have the right, so if you're staying with your parents and your parents say, you cannot have a home birth here, I get that.

I get that.

And that's when a birth center would be a great option.

So if you literally can't have a home birth because you don't have a home, you know what I mean?

Or you don't have a place to call yours or something.

Full authority.

Yeah, full authority over that.

Then I get that, and you can do the birth center.

And like we've mentioned in the other two scenarios, insurance, I understand.

Again, to me, it should not be high on the priority list because the experience is so important.

I don't feel like finances should be the number one reason and the number one factor into your decision.

Yeah, but I understand it is a factor.

But I've seen people who, through their insurance, they would have had a completely free hospital birth, wouldn't have had to pay anything out of pocket, but they wanted a home birth so badly that they nickel and dimed everything they could for that experience, and not one of them has regretted it.

I get it.

Totally.

And I tell people, honestly, it's like thinking about your wedding day.

It's like when you were planning your wedding day and all the effort and all the work and all the things that you put into that and all the money that you poured into that, like, this is so much more, I don't want to say so much more important, but like literally the stakes are high in terms of how it's going to affect the next several years of your life.

And so to me, it is most definitely worth, you know, the financial investment for sure.

Birth centers are few and far between.

Now, if you live in different state than North Carolina, which a lot of people do, maybe there's more in your area, and that's great.

There are some states that don't have any, so there's that.

But ours has like two on different sides of the state, and there's currently one that's about to open in the middle again.

But still, that's very few for the number of women that live in our state.

As far as accessibility goes.

And also, you know, they fill up pretty quickly for the month.

So if you don't call, like the minute you find out you're pregnant, your month can fill up over your due date.

So, you know, it's not a decision you can make later on down the road.

Right.

Especially for us in North Carolina, because there are so few centers available to us.

Right.

So that is a factor.

They do fill up quickly.

They're in high demand.

And so you do have to call and get in as soon as you find out that you're pregnant.

Otherwise, there's a really low chance of you getting in, just because they're waiting lists are so long.

But I was going to say, because there's not very many of them, most people do have to travel a significant amount of time to get to them.

So it's not like your 10 minute drive, 15, 20 minute drive to the hospital.

It's going to be more like hour, hour and a half to the birth center.

And in that time, yes, we've talked about it being painful during labor, and that could be really hard in the car, which it is, by the way.

I've done it.

We've also talked about how it's not fun postpartum, like to have to get in the car postpartum and drive that hour and a half back or whatever, or right after you have your baby and drive an hour and a half home, like all those things.

But also, many a car baby has been born on the way to a birth center.

Very true.

I didn't have one, but I've know a lot of people who did.

The other thing is, I will say, too, I think that COVID's changed some of the birth center stuff.

Oh, for sure.

because I had my birth center birth pre-COVID, and when that was going on, regardless of your distance, I think that as long as you are within an hour and a half or maybe 90 miles or 60 miles, I can't remember what it is.

There's like a distance threshold with proximity to the birth center.

But as long as you're within a certain radius to the birth center, they came to your house and provided your postnatal care.

So I only did that in Joppa Hill.

They did not do that in states.

So so that for me, I did get postpartum care at home from the birth center.

I didn't have to go to the birth center physically till two weeks postpartum.

So you do go for your newborn two week visit, and then you go back for six week in person.

But again, two weeks is very different from two days.

It's just, you're a different person two weeks postpartum than you are two days postpartum.

Yes, you are.

So that I will say, I did receive postpartum care at home from my birth center, and I don't think they do that.

Since COVID in North Carolina, the birth centers I don't think are doing in home postnatal care.

Yeah, they've also changed some other policies too, because I had two babies at a birth center pre-COVID, and there are definitely a lot more.

There's just a lot more restrictions and red tape kind of than there used to be pre-COVID.

Just another reason for home birth, if you can.

because you don't have to deal with any of that, which is great.

But yeah, just the car baby thing.

People are like, that like never happens.

Actually, it does.

It happens quite often.

You've been at a few of them.

I've been at a couple.

And it just, people, I mean, it's really hard to gauge to know when to leave your house to go to the birth center, because you don't want to get there too early, and they send you away.

You don't want to get there too late and have a baby in the car.

And so it's like, every time I'm like, well, we might as well have just stayed home and did that.

Like, you know, instead of-

You paid full price.

You paid full price at the birth center.

You didn't get to use it.

Right.

Right.

I know.

Get in your bathtub.

Right.

Anyway, so I just always like to throw that out there too.

Not that we're hating on car babies.

We love the sweet car babies.

And, you know, God knew that you were going to have your baby in the car, and you had that baby in there for a reason.

Overall, just in review, three different places.

If you want a medical birth, if you want a pain-medicated birth, the hospital is your place.

If you want a natural birth, home is your place.

If for some reason you can't do the home thing because of it's not your actual house or insurance or whatever the case may be, that birth center is sort of your happy medium.

It's sort of like your compromise or your in-between, but not for safety.

Not for safety.

Birth center is no safer than home.

It's just, you know, situationally speaking.

Actually, statistically speaking, home is like the safest place to be.

Just because even the stuff that does get reported, which they'll say, statistically speaking, hospital birth and home birth are no different in their safety.

Well, actually, home birth is actually safer because a lot of home births don't get reported into those statistics and go all under the radar.

So there's that.

Louisa, would you say anything to anybody who, let's say, is wanting to have a natural birth, but is struggling with their decision as to which environment to birth in?

So I would say two things.

One, if you're scared, I would really pray and not make a decision based on fear.

because fear, God didn't give us a spirit of fear.

He gave us a spirit of power and of, you know, a sound mind.

And he made you, and he will be with you when you have this baby.

So making any decision out of fear is not the right path to go down.

The other thing I would say is, I do think there is some value in honoring your partner.

I would have loved to have had home birth from the jump.

I mean, that was my dream, was to have home birth.

If we could find a midwife and have the accessibility to it.

And my husband just was like, he was a nervous wreck.

He's kind of anxious anyways, but just he, and he'll say this to anybody, but like he'll say, for men, there's like just this weird, innate fear that their wife is going to die when they give birth.

And he says, I don't know why that is a thing.

And I don't know if that was came from just his home experience growing up, or I don't know, but like he will tell you, like every time, even though he's watched me have three natural births, like he has just this irrational fear that like somehow this is going to kill me or something.

And I did honor him, and we had a birth center birth first, because for some reason for him, like you were saying earlier, I do think that he just felt more comfortable with knowing like we'd be around the corner from the hospital versus like 30 minutes from the hospital at home.

Again, no safer, right?

I mean, it's no different than having home birth necessarily.

That was like something I really had to give to the Lord, like, okay, I'll do this with him to put him at ease or whatever.

And I really do believe that the Lord like blessed that and honored the decision for me not to like dig my heels in and really, you know, become resistant or difficult.

And I would just also bring those concerns to Jesus because he hears them and he has your birth experience in mind.

He knows how it's going to go.

He wants you to have a good experience too, you know, because he cares about what you care about.

So, you know, luckily for me, I did end up getting to have home birth experience and it was wonderful.

And if you have a partner who doesn't care, eat one way or the other, I would say advocate for yourself in having home birth.

because it's, there is literally no other experience in your whole life hands down like it.

And the other thing that I say about natural birth, but also home birth is, this is like so philosophical, but like if you think about life and the fact that people have been having babies this way, since the dawn of time, there are like very few experiences you get to have in your whole life that connect you to like an ancient experience.

Everything about our life is comfort oriented.

We don't go get our water.

We flip the spigot.

We don't light a candle.

We turn on a switch.

Literally nothing about our life is primitive.

We don't connect with ancient anything ever.

And birth is like one of those like really sacred things that you have the ability to connect with this ancient experience that has been going on this way since people have been having children.

And there is something just like so empowering.

It's revolutionary.

I mean, it just will change you.

It completely changes you to get to like have that experience that like your great great grandmother got to have, you know.

It just, there's like something about it.

That's just, you don't go into it necessarily thinking about that.

But after you do it, you're like, yeah, there's like just not anything else in the world much that you'll ever get to experience like it.

So I would just I would advocate for it.

And with just like all of who I am, just because of not just because I've done it, but I just know the power that it holds for you as a woman, as a mother, as a wife, and for your future too.

So that's what I would say to anybody who's like on the fence about it or questioning natural birth, where to do it, or how to make the decision.

That's true.

I often say that to clients in labor when they're starting to get maybe panicky or, you know, things are starting to get really intense.

I remind them, I'm like, billions and billions of women have done this since the beginning of time.

You can do this, like your body is doing it.

And God designed your body to do this.

It's like, this is how God designed this.

He designed birth in your body to go this way.

And you've got this.

Like just kind of reminding them that they're not alone.

And I also like to tell them, I'm like, and also thousands of other women are doing this around the world right now.

Right now.

Like right now, in this moment, are also having babies right now, and they're also in labor.

So Surrendered, you're not alone.

You can do this.

It makes you more connected.

I don't know, like more grounded.

It does.

It can just be so, it can feel so kind of isolating.

But I don't know, I do remember like even with in all three of my births, like having a moment where just in kind of like what you're saying, just like thinking about who before me has was doing this, you know, like my mom did this, my grandmother did this, you know, my great grandmother did this, like part of a, like a heritage of women who have endured, you know, they have a Spanish word for that.

That is not really like it doesn't translate in English.

We don't like, it's not like a word that we use.

And it literally means like to endure, to go through, like to experience it fully, you know, even when it's hard.

Yeah.

I'll also say to women, like, if Mary did this by herself in a barn at night, like it was probably cold.

Like you, and I'm like, you can do this, especially if you're in the comfort of your own home with running water and electricity and lights and all the things.

I'm like, you can do this with your pillow.

And someone pressing a heating pad of counter pressure into your back, like.

We're not out grabbing a tree.

Right.

Like you got this.

You got this.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for coming on here and talking to me.

I really, really appreciate that.

I do actually not many, I've never actually advertised this, which is kind of funny to me, but I actually do have like a freebie on my website about this called like, Which Birth Environment Should You Birth In?

And it's just something that will take you through and help you kind of walk through navigating that decision and gives you a lot of pointers and stuff.

So, wow, I've never actually talked about that before.

I don't know why, but I'll do that.

I'll link that little thing here in the show notes.

So that's fun.

But yeah, thanks for talking today.

Fun.

I love it.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode.

You can reach me at Surrendered Birth Services on Instagram or email me at contact at surrenderedbirthservices.com.

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We hope you have a great week, and remember, learn all that you can, make the best plans, and then leave it in God's hands.

But yeah, thanks for talking today.

It's been fun.

I love it.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll be on again sometime.

For a baby?

No, no problem.

Okay.

Maybe something else later on.

Maybe something else down the road.

Okay.