So the buzz at the mommy blog water cooler a few weeks ago was about this Canadian woman named Nancy Salgueiro who was going to be streaming her natural home birth live on the Internet. That’s right, a baby was going to be born live in front of an online audience.
My first thought was “ewwww”. Then I thought a little more about it, so I decided to sign up for her list. By doing this, I would be emailed when it was time for the big show. You may be wondering why I wanted to see this? Well here are a few reasons to why I changed my mind about wanting to view it after all.
- I have given birth twice, yet I have never actually seen a baby being born. My view was always from looking down, instead of directly at it.
- I delivered both of my girls in a hospital and had my concerns about home births.
- I was curious to see how natural child birth really played out. With my first I was determined to do it naturally, but by hour 14 I was begging for ANYTHING to take the unbearable pain away. When it was time to deliver my second daughter I walked in the hospital demanding an epidural.
I had received the email on a Saturday night that it was show time. When I tuned in to watch.
Nancy seemed pretty calm. She was walking around doing normal night time things. At one point she was even trying to get her son to sleep and nursed him in a rocking chair. Like most labors things were progressing slowly and so I decided to catch up with Nancy later. The next day I went back to her site and the baby had already been born, but the video was up, so that I could watch and here is what I learned….
- Those home birthing tubs are pretty darn big.
- I still have not seen a baby being born. The huge grey tub that she used hid everything.
- Delivery is not as messy when in water. I imagined a scene from Jaws but it really wasn’t. Oh and the placenta floats (or at least I think that was the placenta).
- I am a weakling. With Nancy there was no screaming or begging for drugs. She was talking all the way through and only made meditating like sounds. She was a super woman rock star who literally delivered her own baby without any mid-wife or Doula. Her husband was there, but he was so wrapped up in getting it all on video for Nancy, him, and the audience, that he too was barely there.
- Home birth is not as chaotic as I thought. I imagined people running around yelling for towels and boiling water. In fact it was all really calm in her house, like delivering a baby in a big tub in the middle of the living room happens everyday.
- If I ever had a home birth I could never allow my kids to be there. Nancy was calm and quiet and her kids were there for the whole thing. It was such an amazing thing for a family to share. However, if my last two deliveries are any indication of my ability to deal with pain I would scar my daughter for life with the screaming and crying and the “MAKE IT STOP!” and the “GET THIS BABY OUT OF ME!”
- The second she pulled her brand new baby boy out of the water she brought him to her shoulder and took a good few minutes to just snuggle with her new baby. I felt my heart melting. In a typical hospital birth you get a few seconds and then the baby is whisked away for all kinds of check-ups.
- Just a few hours later she was sitting on her couch with her husband and her new baby eating cheese and crackers, not crappy hospital food!
So all and all the natural home birth was a lot less gory than I had anticipated and it was a lot more loving and calm too.
Follow Elissa R. Lerma on Twitter at @PunkRockMom
Visit Elissa’s Website Punk Rock Parents
(VIDEO) See News Interview with Nancy Salgueiro HERE!
Mommyhood to Hollywood recommends consulting with a doctor and/or mid-wife before moving forward with a natural home birth.
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