Babies

I gave birth to two babies courtesy of the NHS. The first was almost 20 years ago. I had regular prenatal care from the start with a team of "community midwives" at my GP office. There were 6 midwives on the team and the point was that you got to know most of them as they would be the ones at the birth. The beauty of community midwives is that whoever you go into the hospital with or stay at home with, they stay with you for the duration of the birth - they are not traditional shift workers. Plus they've got to know you over the duration of your pregnancy.

There are also hospital midwives, and they operate on a shift system so may change over during the birth.

The midwife visited me several times at home to determine whether it was time for me to go into the hospital or not - so people were not encouraged to just drag themselves up to the maternity ward and home again when it wasn't time.

Even 20 years ago I was encouraged to go into the hospital with a birth plan - this obviously was flexible and would change in an emergency situation -but it meant that the midwife who went in with me knew exactly what I did and didn't want and would consult with my husband or myself as we went along in order to obtain our permission if any deviation was recommended.

While the first birth was highly medicalized in the end (after 26 hours of non-progressing labour), I was never giving any medical induction drugs at any point - it wasn't even suggested - nor did I end up with a c-section.

I spent 5 days in the hospital to recover from this labour and was visited by my GP, midwife both in the hospital and at home on my return (several times in fact), and over the weeks and months by a community health visitor.

The second birth was 16 years ago. I had a water birth at home, with a community midwife. The midwife had visited my home a few times in the week leading up to the birth as I'd had some false labour. I was 2 1/2 weeks early when my daughter was born, but this was still well within the realm of normal so there was no question that I would need to be admitted.

When I having my home birth I was still written up on the board at the John Radcliffe Hospital as I was still considered in the system - so where those on the ward would have their room number by their name up on the big white board at the nurses station, my name said "at home" next to it. This way the midwife and the patient are still both accounted for.

I did have some complaints about the hospital when I gave birth - mostly around the no-frills aspect of the whole event - i.e. I had to bring all my own diapers, nighties, and necessities for myself and the baby. It was noisy in that I shared a large room with 4 other women and their babies (but again there's no question that a baby would be taken from its mother unless there was an actual need). I didn't dig the whole experience of my baby being exposed to hospital germs - so for all those reasons, I had my second daughter at home, in our own environment. I'm so glad I did as that was one of the greatest experiences of my entire life.