TL/DR
Don't romanticize labor. You will shake your head at yourself once you are done with the delivery. Just go to a hospital and get it over with, 1 hr away is too risky.

Anonymous wrote:I’m with your Dh. Sorry. It’s his kid, too.

Agree.

At age 37 and your first child, you should be in a hospital!

6 pages of unanimous no’s ON DCUM is pretty loud and clear, OP. It’s not worth it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fwiw, a good birthing center will have all kinds of procedures to deal with neonatal resuscitation and maternal hemorrhage. But a good birth center will know when to transfer a mother to a nearby hospital!

Query whether a good birthing center would choose a location one hour from a hospital.

Query whether this whole thread is a troll job. There is no location in the DMV 1 hour from a hospital, I’m wondering just how rural you have to get to be an hour from a hospital and whether places that rural have birthing centers. But congrats to OP- you got DCUM to all agree on something

I have given birth twice. Both in "baby friendly" hospitals. What I have decided is that for my third I'm finding a baby-unfriendly hospital and sending the baby to the nursery. Something you can't do at a birth center!

Also, it's great that you want to do an intervention free birth. I've done both and the time I needed an epidural I REALLY needed it. You just don't know your pain tolerance until you're there.

My severe postpartum hemorrhage (5+ liters blood loss) was, if anything, more traumatic for my husband than me. I was sedated for a lot of it! Just something to keep in mind.

Anonymous wrote:Fwiw, a good birthing center will have all kinds of procedures to deal with neonatal resuscitation and maternal hemorrhage. But a good birth center will know when to transfer a mother to a nearby hospital!

Query whether a good birthing center would choose a location one hour from a hospital.

Anonymous wrote:First I will say my birthing suite was not chaotic at all—if anything I wouldn’t have minded more frequent check-ins (not that I felt I was receiving poor care, just that they are not there a lot). Second I wonder if you could compromise by having a birth doula— you would get someone to help you stay in the zone you want to be in but still be at a hospital?

+1

My wife gave birth at Washington Hospital Center. She was induced around 2 p.m. and we sort of hung out waiting for stuff to happen. After she got her epidural around 11 p.m or so, they left us to try and rest. Around 1:30 a.m. she was complaining that she couldn't sleep because she felt pressure. We called the nurse, the doctor came in, and they were like "okay, time to push!" This birth and the one before at WHC three years ago were with all women doctors and nurses, and happened late in the night. It was super peaceful, baby went right on her chest and didn't move for at least an hour as they delivered the placenta did a little stitching. IMO, the biggest con of the hospital birth is having to stay two nights if you give birth after midnight of the first day. Otherwise, I would absolutely recommend WHC and their team of doctors and nurses (they also have a midwife group).

Fwiw, a good birthing center will have all kinds of procedures to deal with neonatal resuscitation and maternal hemorrhage. But a good birth center will know when to transfer a mother to a nearby hospital!

I needed an energy c-section because of my child was in distress. I think you are crazy naive.

My Birth experience was two contractions followed by an emergency c-sect. My DD was born within a 20 minute window with an apgar score of 2. She lived. She’s fine. You just don’t know the possibilities. If you are prepared for that, it’s great, but good luck dealing if anything goes wrong.

So for what it’s worth I think all of the posters saying it’s only about the baby and you have no right to preferences once you become a mother are way off track/ have a lot of internalized misogyny to deal with.

But.

They call it a “golden hour” in trauma medicine for a reason. What about staying in a hotel in order to be able to use a birth center attached to a hospital or within a very reasonable transfer time (personally I don’t think I’d stretch that time more than 10-15 minutes)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google Kara Bosworth and check out her birthing center story. She didn’t want to be at a hospital because of Covid and it cost her baby his life. It’s so sad.

That is a sad story but that baby probably would not have been in good shape in the hospital either. Maybe alive but probably brained damaged.

I'm surprised nobody detected he was 11lbs before hand.

I had a surprise limp blue baby despite continuous fetal monitoring.

No guarantees at all in child birth.

Those pre-birth measurements are notoriously wrong. I had two relatives that had 11 pound babies -- both were vaginal, unmedicated births in hospitals with no injury to baby. One mom had a third degree tear, and I think the other had an episiotomy, though. In the news article I read, it didn't mention whether the midwife did an episiotomy to try to get the baby out or what other specific steps she took. I think once the head is out, you can't do a C-section anyway, so it seems like a midwife would have been able to do whatever a hospital doctor could do -- although I wonder whether he would have received quicker resuscitation in a hospital.

Yup. My sister was told her baby was measuring off the charts big - he was 8 lbs at birth... not tiny but hardly huge.

Nope. This is the equivalent of riding down a mountain without a helmet. Can you get to the finish line unscathed? Maybe.
Probably. But why would you when a perfectly good helmet
is right within your reach?

Like a previous poster, I do believe that you have the ultimate right to make this choice as it is your body involved in delivering the baby. I equally believe that it would be the wrong choice to move forward with this birthing center. And I believe that your husband could and should hold you accountable for your choice. Regardless of whether or not something actually goes wrong. Birth is simply not about you. It is about the baby. That you would risk your child’s well-being and life in this way is something that, as a spouse, would make me furious. I am being more direct than some other posters, but I believe that a decision to do this in her situation is selfish, regardless of what your husband thinks. If the two of you agreed together to do this I would think that you were together being selfish as it is the baby who pays the price , even if this price is losing its mother while being born. having a child is not about your experience and your comfort and your desires. And the sooner you become comfortable with us the better. And if you don’t, be well prepared for judgment and decision making by your spouse, family and child.