When I tell people I might have my kids at my homebirth, they react one of three ways: 1) whatever. \u00a02) it’s too traumatic and scary. \u00a03) it’s too distracting for mom. 4) it’s inappropriate. \u00a0Just curious, what do you think?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Both of my girls were present at Doodle’s birth. \u00a0While they slept through the majority of my labor (which really picked up around 9 pm), when they woke up in the morning, they ran in to find me laboring in the tub and pulled up their chairs right beside me. \u00a0They asked me questions, joked around and were really excited for the birth of their new sibling. \u00a0They left at one point to have breakfast then returned, until I started pushing and it got too intense for them so my mommy took them into another room and they watched some TV until Doodle was crowning and I called for them to come back in.<\/p>\n
I realize having siblings present at a birth is not right for everyone and it is a choice every family has to make for themselves but my girls are so excited to be at the birth of the next baby and are already talking about it. \u00a0I might make alternative arrangements for Doodle, though, since he will be just over 2 and is a full-on mommy’s boy but I do want him there as soon after baby is born as possible.\u00a0Even when Sugarplum was born in the hospital at 11:37 at night, I had my cousin who was watching Honeybun bring her over that night to meet her baby sister.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n We have never had a problem with sibling rivalry in our house. \u00a0My children have never asked for me to “take the baby back” nor have they ever tried to hurt the baby or done hateful things (and I’ve heard stories!)<\/p>\n When I decided to do a homebirth with Doodle, I wanted my girls there not only for the bonding but because it was also\u00a0really important to me that they\u00a0witness a normal, natural birth. With the way birth is portrayed on TV and the rate medical interventions and surgeries are growin<\/span><\/span>g, I wanted their first real exposure to childbirth to be an empowering and positive one so that they (hopefully) have the confidence to birth their own children however they want in the future.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n People worry about the experience being too scary or traumatic but I see birth as a beautiful wonderful thing, not the horrific, greusome act we see in mainstream media. \u00a0How we frame life experiences for our children, how we talk about them and what we say will make a huge difference in how they feel and experience them. \u00a0I’ve always been very honest and open with my children about life including death <\/a>and we talk extensively about babies, pregnancy and birth (more on how I approach that with young ones here<\/a>).<\/p>\n A lot of our “prep” work for Doodle was about how he was growing and what life would be like with a new baby but I was also\u00a0very honest with the girls\u00a0about what to expect during my labor and birth: “Mommy might be uncomfortable and I might scream when the baby is coming but that’s only because I’ll be doing such hard, hard work to get the baby out. Daddy will have to help me, too, but Grandm<\/span><\/span>a and Grandpa will be here to take care of you and get you anything you need and if you feel like you don’t want to stay, that’s okay, it’s your choice.”\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n We of course read the “I’m going to be a big sister!” books but I also shared with them a video of\u00a0how<\/em> the baby was going to come out so they knew what to expect. \u00a0I love this video because it’s not your traditional birth video of mom pushing, and baby emerging from her nether regions seemingly out of nowhere. \u00a0The video shows the baby’s journey out of the womb, into the world which I think really helped them understand what was going on inside where they couldn’t see (it’s always the unknown that is the scariest, I can’t embed the video but you can see it here<\/a>).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The Facebook conversation went back in forth, those that were in favor, those that were against, some on the fence citing parental choice.<\/p>\n But then one person presented a question:<\/p>\n What’s the point?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And the conversation changed instantly for me. \u00a0Here we were, rambling on about birth and labor and this and that. \u00a0But the point really is soooooo much bigger than those moments!<\/p>\n Having my children at the births of their siblings is about building our family. Some of the first sounds my son heard were his sister’s voices. Honeybun\u00a0helped hubby cut the\u00a0umbilical cord. My daughters held Doodle<\/span><\/span>\u00a0on our couch while my midwife looked me over. And after it was all done, all 5 of us snuggled down in bed together at the beginning of a our new family journey. My daughters adore their brother and they feel connected to him and responsible for him. I didn’t go away for a few days and come back with a baby, I got in my bathtub and they watched him enter our world, breathe his first breaths and see the world for the first time. He truly joined OUR family at that moment, with everyone literally surrounding him with love.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n THAT is the point.<\/p>\n I got into hot topic conversation on Facebook this week. \u00a0It started as me truthfully answering a friends curiosity question. \u00a0And while I would usually leave it at that, or offer clarity\/details if neccessary, I got sucked in to the conversation because it was something I am so passionate about. The question, from a friend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,8,9,15,388],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-mommys-life","category-baby-business","category-family-life","category-family-ties","category-the-pregnant-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7420"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7434,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7420\/revisions\/7434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"SONY](\"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/girls-birth.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>You can view more pictures of Doodle’s homebirth here<\/a>\u00a0and here<\/a>.<\/address>\nI’m curious of your opinions, would you ever welcome your older children to witness the birth of a sibling?<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"