Oh yeah, we had a homebirth...

A couple of people commented that they thought I was planning a birth center birth, not a homebirth. It's true, at the beginning of this pregnancy I did talk about a birth center as my ideal. At the time it was. However, when we finally found out which city we were moving to, I discovered that the nearest birth center was 80 miles away (remember midwife K who arrived 10 minutes after the birth? She was from the birth center...) I actually considered going there but was hesitant about the distance particularly because my due date was in the wintertime and, well, this is Alaska! So I opted out of the birth center, which left me with either home or the hospital.
I didn't think that Hubby would be comfortable with home (since he wasn't last time), but I had heard such good things about the midwife here that I decided to meet her anyway. I also visited the L&D area of the local hospital, and actually it was quite nice: more birth center-like than I would have expected of a hospital, even in a pretty naturally-minded area. However I still just felt really good about midwife A. So I prayed about it--I told God that I liked the midwife and was feeling drawn to homebirth, but that I needed His go-ahead that this was an appropriate and safe choice for this birth. After all, the vast majority of births are safe at home, but occasionally one isn't, so I figured it made sense to get an ok from Someone who would know.
I continued to feel very peaceful about birthing at home, and as I started trying to visualize labor and birthing I always pictured myself at home (in the dark...see, I did know something!)
When I felt like I knew what I wanted, I talked with Hubby...I told him that I really liked the midwife, and that I wanted her to attend me at home, but that I needed him to be part of the choice, and to be comfortable with what we chose to do. He said that he "would be more comfortable at the hospital," but that he was "ok with home." So I started planning for a homebirth.
We basically adopted a "don't ask don't tell" policy about the homebirth plan though--we answered honestly if someone asked us (only a few people did), but otherwise we didn't volunteer the information. The reason for this was that we knew that some of our family members would worry a great deal over our choice, and we didn't want them to worry (nor to have to listen to their worries). So we simply waited until after Eagle was born and then called them and said "he's here, by the way, he was born at home...yes on purpose..." In the meantime, since we weren't telling our family our plans, it didn't seem appropriate to be telling the rest of the world either. So we didn't.
I used the term "midwife" here on my blog, but I guessed (and rightly) that many people would assume I was seeing a CNM who would attend me in a hospital or birth center. My mother and sister (both homebirthers themselves) saw the term "midwife" and assumed I was planning a homebirth, but I don't think anyone else did. ☺

At my 3-day postpartum home visit, Midwife A asked Hubby if he'd liked homebirth better than the hospital.
He said "yes."
☺