Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

BF, a friend of ours was determined to home birth. After something like 24 hours of labour, the midwife decided that it ws off to the hospital, and the baby was born safely and without drugs.

My advice, go for the home birth if tyou want, I would have loved to have had a go with one of ours, but we weren't in a position to do so because of complications, but be ready to accept the advice of the midwife if required.
Get a midwife you can trust.
Obstetricians don't do anything IMHO, it is the mum and the widwife whio do all the work. I have friends who have paid thousands to have babies in the private system, only to have their obst away on holidays when the baby is born, or scheduling caesars around their days off (ridiculous, ) my Bro just had a baby (not him personally , and it was a scheduled induction which turned into a emergency caesar because the baby wasn't ready and the obst. wanted to go on holidays. Nothing but hassles since, poor bub goes in for surgery tomorrow to fix a stomach problem...

Final piece of advice (I do love giving it out ) If your wife wants to breast feed, and she has troubles, talk to someone who is pro breastfeeding about it. Too many women are told "ytou don't have enough milk, you might as well give up" and bubs is on the bottle within days ;. In fact of the 3 babies born at the same hospital where my bro had theirs, all 3 are on the bottle within days/week. Due in no small part to the doct' lack of support and encouragement.

Oh yeah,

get heaps of sleep now, eat out lots, go to the movies and have a bit of a break if you can. Life is about to get very busy, but you will love every minute of it

Love from us to you guys

S&H

sounds like sounds advice to me...........

thanks a lot for taking the time to write that post monya. its very much appreciated.

i am fortunate enough to be very good friends with a midwife who has been doing so for over 10 years. she was the person who first opened my mind to the possibility of having a midwife as opposed to a doctor. i'm not sure we would be going down the home birth route if it wasn't for her. it's good to have someone there you can truly trust. we would have likely gone to a hospital like so many others if we didn't know her. we feel extremely fortunate to have her there. after all no one knows more about giving birth then women. if there are complications she will know what to do better then most imo.

thanks again guys.

Congrats

Our Obstetrician did a fair bit, but then my wife needed C-sections

I recommend a book called What To Expect When You're Expecting and later What To Expect The First Year. Both proved useful for us.

If you want to, I've got some scandanavian home birth books, I'll get the titles later for you

Hell of long way to go if you're in labour....

Alot of hospitals now have birthing units (seperate to labour and delivery wards) that are staffed by midwives and not doctors. They have spa baths, bean bags, lounge chairs, mini bar etc. You can also do most of your pre-natal care with a midwife, and some places you can even have the same midwife right through your pregnancy and hopefully even the birth. You can write a birth plan and decide if you want to use drugs, play soothing music, water birth, invite family to be there or whatever. I'm not against home birth, in fact I think its a good idea as long as you research it and have a very good midwife. I also have a strong belief that only sick people should go to hospital. But if you cant have the baby at home there are still some very good options available in most hospitals.

I've got 3 kids, all born in 3 different hospitals, and all 3 were very different experiences. The best experience by far was the third. For the first 2 we didn't know what we were doing. There were some minor complications but we could have still had a natural delivery. But we were forced into a corner to do it their way mostly because we didn't know what we were doing and we were very poorly informed of our options. 2 health kids but not nice experiences. For our third we decided to wise up. We did lots of research, spoke to midwives, various organisations, mothers with experience etc. then chose the right hospital and did it all the way we had wanted. Everything went perfect, I delivered the baby myself, and my wife and I had the greatest experience of our lives.

Dont say anything that even resembles a fat joke or comment, dont even look at other women, look out for the mood swings, check for vomit whenever you go to the loo, but above all love your wife and enjoy the experience.

David
Father of 3 and nurse in my spare time.

P.S.



Thats a very good point C1, especially give Bio-farmers signature!

It's just gone up to 5 grand too! Make that an extra growbed and a gutsier pump

If you have twins you might be able to get one of Joels off the shelf kits.

Hell, I need a whole system.... stud duties.... any takers?

you guys are too funny. believe me i would if i could.

unfortunately my wife also has plans for the money and wants to spend it on a home theater system. hehe only kidding.

For a grand, you could get one of those tanks with a window.... just put on a good CD....

thanks a lot for the info eric.

i have heard stories about women who are coerced and tricked into using med's which are not at all necessary. i guess the key is to be as informed as possible and have a plan set out as you say. this way if our thinking becomes clouded we can refer back to the plan.

thanks for the advice.

btw you guys shouldn't really encourage my ap addiction. quite frankly its irresponsible. it would be like telling a gambling addict to go on a gambling spree or an alco to go on a drinking binge. shame on you guys. i am an apoholic.