No, in fact, that really doesn't sound good to me.

I've noticed something. Whenever it comes up in conversation that I'm not the hospital birthing type (and when you're extremely pregnant, this comes up in conversation A LOT) people have a knee jerk reaction to tell me how great their hospital births were. Why the hell do they do that? It's so weird. It's not like I travel the community telling people to homebirth. That's something that's either in you or not in you, and if it's not, I cannot put it there, nor can anyone else. If someone is hating everything about the hospital experience, and seems to have similar priorities to mine, I often give them the number to one of our local birth centers, and tell them to call Alyson, who will discuss home and birth center options with them (since she practices in both settings, she is a really great resource for people), but that's only if THEY seem the type of person who would genuinely want that. If they think they're getting what they want at the local hospital, I may not understand, but I go with it. It's them, not me.

Unfortunately, I don't find the same courtesy when I say anything about planning my homebirth for this summer. I no sooner get the words out of my mouth than whoever I'm talking to tells me how AWESOME their hospital births were, and how they just loved it, and then they tell me their entire god-awful birth story from start to finish, as if that'll prove how great it was! In reality, it makes me cringe, and further solidifies my stance that hospital birth is an absolute last resort, and that if I set foot in a hospital while in labor, it is because I will literally DIE if I don't. Even what people consider good hospital births are not anything I would ever want to set myself up for. There are IV's, and monitors, and policies stating what you can eat (usually nothing), where you can go, and you'll have nurses you've never met in your life sticking their hands where the sun don't shine. That's really not my idea of a good time. In fact, if there is such a thing as hell, and if Satan is as rotten as people think he is, and I should somehow end up there, I'm guessing my punishment will be to endure the American obstetrical system, complete with hospital birth, for all eternity. That's how far opposite it is of anything I would ever consider good. The fact that some people consider these awful births good, floors me, but I don't tell them they shouldn't. I mean, if you never had a good birth, how would you know how screwed you got with the one(s) you had?

So no, I don't care how nice you think your hospital birth was. I don't think it's nice, which is why I'm not doing that. I didn't realize that homebirthing would qualify me as the sounding board for everyone's horrible birth stories, and that people would constantly try to convince me of how nice hospital birth can be. Hospital birth is NOT nice. Have you ever read the policies they have? Why would I ever subject myself to that voluntarily? Hospital birth is the pits. If you want to think it's nice, that's great, but really, trying to get me on board with that is rather pointless, and honestly, a little rude. After Orren's awesome birth, the prospect of laboring anywhere other than home, or having someone tell me what to do, or stick an IV in me, or make me sit with a monitor for x amount of time, or try to give me internal exams, or any of this other stuff that's considered very standard, cannot be considered nice by any stretch of the imagination. It's hell, and I want no part. As a friend, and fellow homebirth mom said, "I think, therefore I homebirth."