Why I attend births in the hospital but had mine at home




Midwifery is confusing to many people and in order to somewhat set the stage for this post, I’ll briefly summarize by saying that there are different types of midwives. Midwives who are trained at a graduate nursing level and typically attend births in a hospital are Certified Nurse Midwives (CNMs). There are also midwives who attend home births and earn their education through a midwifery program accredited by the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council. These are known as Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs). There are also Certified Midwives (CMs), as well as birth center deliveries, but for the sake of brevity, I won’t go into either of those now.

When deciding to go back to school, I chose the Certified Nurse Midwifery route which required me to attend nursing school at the graduate level, going on to specialize in midwifery. Although I swore I’d never go to nursing school (or graduate school for that matter), I felt like this route made the best use of my undergraduate degree, and the work schedule of a Nurse Midwife seemed more conducive to having a young family.

From the start, I knew that America’s birth system was very broken. In my application letters to graduate school, I spoke about wanting to be a part of fixing it. But I had no idea just how broken the birth system was until I entered it from a provider’s perspective.

The memory I have of stepping foot onto the labor and delivery unit as a student for the first time is burned into my brain. My very first thought was that it felt like a factory. The way birth was managed was completely contrary to my philosophy of it. I felt like hospital policies made it so that childbirth was approached in a cookie cutter fashion. My perception was that each woman was to progress through labor in a certain amount of time, undergoing a systematic set of interventions to keep things “on track.” I did not see women being offered comfort care in the form of emotional or physical support. It was very disheartening and I  knew that instant that I would spend my career as a midwife like a fish swimming upstream trying to give women an empowering and sacred childbirth experience.

I’m sure I had heard about homebirth before 2014, but the first time I really remember learning about birth outside of the hospital was during my pregnancy with Dawson. Josh and I watched The Business of Being Born — a documentary about traditional childbirth in America. The film explores the maternity care system in the United States. It follows several couples who decide to give birth “on their own terms,” revealing the distrust that goes on inside of labor and delivery units. Watching The Business of Being Born struck a nerve in me. For several reasons, having a homebirth didn’t feel like the best option for me at the time, but I knew I wanted to take charge of my birth experience — to really own it. And I did. I sought prenatal care from nurse-midwives as their approach to pregnancy and birth aligned with my own. I had a fantastic hospital birth that quite literally changed my life. You can read about it here. It’s the reason I went back to school to become a midwife. 

But because of the clinical experiences I had while pursuing this career, I knew before I was even pregnant that my next baby would be born at home. While I love supporting moms in the hospital and doing my best to give them an experience that goes against the grain of birth in America — the kind of experience I had with Dawson — I realize that I can only control how I manage birth as a provider. I can’t control how I’m treated as a patient in the hospital and this time around I didn’t want to risk being a victim to the broken system. 

On one hand, I don’t want to turn this blog post into a research paper. Over the last two years I’ve done my fair share of research and writing in school and this space is an outlet for me to escape that pressure. On the other hand, I blog to share bits of my experience, and there would be a huge gap in the story if I passionately shared about my decision making process but left out the details and the whys. For that reason, I’ve decided to share a bit of the specifics, hopefully without coming across as though I know it all or am here to provoke debate. 

All that to say, here are some reasons that ultimately convinced me it was safer for me to give birth at home than in a hospital. The teal words are hyperlinks to sources.
  • According to the American College of Nurse Midwives, "For the essentially well woman experiencing a healthy pregnancy, intrapartum, postpartum, and newborn course, childbirth with qualified providers can be accomplished safely in all birth settings, including home, birth center, and hospital."  
  • Peer reviewed studies contribute to evidence supporting home birth as a safe option for low-risk women attended by skilled midwives.

 That said, it wasn’t an easy decision and I certainly didn’t  take it lightly.  A quote in Ina May’s book Spiritual Midwifery summed up my experience deciding to have a homebirth, “...Hasty interventions have their own statistics too. I had never before felt the weight of bearing so much responsibility for one decision. I would have to fully assume the consequences of my ultimate choice. I prayed a lot and cried a lot...” 

I researched like my baby and I’s lives depended on it, because they did. Time and time again during my clinical rotations on labor and delivery, I’ve seen the worst case scenario unfold and so when I interviewed homebirth midwives, I asked all the hard questions — every last one — and at the end of the day, Josh and I felt confident in our decision for me to give birth out of the hospital with our wonderful CPM, Amy. I wholeheartedly believe that hospital births have an important place, and at the same time, I think it’s a mistake to say that giving birth in a hospital doesn’t come with its own set of risks or significant consequences. 

Choosing where to give birth is such a personal decision and I’ll be the first to admit that homebirth isn’t for everyone. It wasn’t for me four years ago.  It’s not a safe or comfortable option for many women and that is perfectly okay. What’s not okay is that so many women are unaware of their options and end up getting run through the “factory” without ever knowing that they missed out on what could be a sacred and empowering experience. Empowerment can be experienced regardless of how or where they give birth — it’s all in the way their pregnancy and birth are managed and for me that meant being cared for by Amy. 

I hope that whatever your story is, you feel empowered and strong and capable. Cheers to taking ownership of our birth experiences, regardless of what we choose.
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Dawson lately // 4 years







A year ago, on Dawson’s third birthday, I had a half-written blog post that was never finished. I recalled how the clouds roared with thunder and poured down rain as that sweet boy came into the world with a bang, making me a mama. I talked about the crappy sleep, over-abundance of noise and a deep amount of love that Dawson brought into our lives. I spoke about his is high energy, sense of humor and infatuation with cars.
Now another year (and three months) have passed and I am truly having trouble comprehending the swiftness of time. Dawson’s birthday is such a sweet milestone and memory for me. A piece of me was born that day too as I realized the power and calling that lived within me. That power has, in part, carried me through the long nights and dark days that have accompanied life since then.



Each year, the couple of weeks surrounding his birthday are filled with horrendous behavior that otherwise isn’t typical of him. He turns into a defiant monster who is unable to do anything on his own, nor is he willing to accept help or comfort from anyone. Everything is a battle that nobody wins and I can only attribute it to some developmental shift that occurs cyclically with each passing year. Needless to say, the first half of May was filled with a lot of frustration, tears and raised voices from all parties involved.
Aside from that, Dawson is an incredibly sweet boy. He is emotionally sensitive and can articulate his needs and feelings very well. He’s also in-tune to the emotional needs of those around him; he’s concerned when others are upset or hurt and is always quick to lend a hand. His school places a heavy emphasis on kindness and navigating relationships which I know has helped foster this behavior. 
Speaking of, he just wrapped up his first year of preschool. He loves his school and it has been an absolute Godsend for our family. It’s been a fantastic experience for him to engage with other kids, learning compassion and conflict-management under non-parental authority. We are continually impressed with the variety of content that he’s exposed to. Josh and I truly feel like his teachers have come alongside us in parenting. Having their ideas and input has helped us feel less alone and clueless  — it’s truly invaluable. 




The downside to school has been so much illness. Kids are seriously gross and I didn’t know it was possible for us to catch so many viruses. Josh and I have been sick more frequently in the last year than the last five years combined; it’s awful. A couple of weeks after his birthday, Dawson was diagnosed with asthma which resulted from the pneumonia he had last spring. Having asthma has exacerbated any upper respiratory infection he catches, making it more severe and harder to overcome. It’s been really discouraging and exhausting as I feel like our family can’t catch a break. Hopefully our immune systems will be indestructible in time.
Developmentally, Dawson’s gross motor skills are strong and his fine motor skills are still a work in progress, which speaks directly to his interests in things like running, jumping and climbing, and his disfavor for things like coloring and painting. However, in the last few months he’s taken an interest in learning how to write letters, so we’ve been practicing on a whiteboard. He also recently started drawing faces with arms and legs. It’s fun to watch him take an interest in something new and master skills that used to frustrate him. 
He thoroughly enjoys being read to which I love because that’s not something I remember having an interest in as a child, but am now an avid reader. Other interests include: Legos and Mega Blocks. The symmetry and creativity displayed in the structures he builds is quite impressive. He also loves riding his balance bike. For his birthday he received the next size up, which he’s really excited about — we’ll add the pedals soon. The Rescue Bots he was gifted on his third birthday continue to be a favorite toy as well. He has two baby dolls; his love and desire to care for them ebbs and flows. That said, he couldn’t be more excited to become a big brother. 



I am simultaneously thrilled for him to have a little sister and also mourning these last few weeks with him as my only baby. It’s a lot for us to navigate on top of our already tumultuous life. We’re accustomed to chaos so cheers to more of it (and please send help).
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