Home Birth Option

I don’t know where my next child will be born, assuming I have another child, that is.  I had a wonderful experience at the birth center where I gave birth to Connor, but it was so damn far away! As you can tell from the beautiful floral wallpaper, I was not in a hospital, and that is definitely not my house.  I felt like my experience, minus, the hour car ride and the home, was very similar to a home birth.  I arrived late at night, my doula met me there.  I was the only mother laboring there that night.  They have 4 rooms, so I got to choose my favorite.  I had a nurse and a midwife and my husband all to myself, no one had any other distractions.  I had a nice jacuzzi tub that I was able to use and a queen bed.

I switched to the birth center when I was around 34 weeks pregnant, so I had to start driving to my appointments, an hour away.  I didn’t mind this for a few weeks, but I don’t think I would have wanted to do that for the entire 40 week pregnancy.

I chose the birth center after much debate between a local hospital with some birthing tubs and the hour drive.  I’m glad I made the choice to go to a birth center, and I now know, that unless it is medically necessary, I don’t ever want to be in a hospital.

So, what do I do for the next baby?  I decided to fore go the home birth option with Connor because my insurance didn’t cover the expense.  I know that a home birth can be as little as $2000, but if I could have it covered by my insurance that would be much more doable.

For our next child, I decided that I should have my husband switch our insurance ahead of time so that we wouldn’t have to worry about it.  I don’t know if we will definitely have a home birth, but I don’t want the option to be completely ruled out because of expense.  My husband went to his benefits fair at work during the open enrollment period and began asking insurance companies about coverage of home births.  Our current provider is Aetna, and they do not cover it, but he asked them anyway.  He went to the lady at the Aetna booth and said, “Does your insurance cover home births?”  The lady looked at him puzzled and said, “Why would anyone want to do THAT?”  He came home and told me what the lady said to him and I said, “oh my god, if only I was there, I might have blown up at her, if she only knew!”

Don’t these insurance providers realize that the home birth will save them money??  A hospital birth can run up to $15,000, we are talking thousands less here!  Well, luckily, we did discover that blue cross blue shield will cover the home birth expense, but my husband missed the date to switch.  I supposed we could always switch to my insurance if I am pregnant again.

My next best option is a local birth center that is in the beginning phases of opening near by.  I was told that it might be open by last summer, and still no word, I think the economy hasn’t helped their situation.  Ideally, the home birth option sounds so appealing to me.  I would love the midwife to come to me and to have everyone else around to love and support me with no worry of racing out of the house.  I only wonder where in the world I would set up a big tub in my house….

What is your ideal birth location?  Have you had experiences at multiple locations?  Have you had a home birth?

8 comments