Birthing Experience

I have never been in a hospital while waiting for a baby to actually be delivered, I can say that I have had experience with different birthing processes, and different views where and how it should happen. The one experience I do vividly remember, the most I have ever taken part in for any birthing experience, would be the birth of my niece. While my nieces mother, Katie, was pregnant with my niece, she lived with us at our house, with my brother, my parents and I. Katie and my brother lived with us right up until the last month of pregnancy, so I was able to see how much my niece was growing, I was there when she started kicking. Which means I was also there for when she was moving around, and we would see Katie's stomach moving (which was the freakiest thing I have ever seen). Katie went into labor at around 4:00, February 15th 2011, my parents and I went up to the hospital to see her and my brother, we were able to visit for a little while, but left around 10. My niece, Rozilyn, was born at 5 in the morning on February 16th (which also happened to be the date that I had guessed she was going to be born).

The country that I chose to find out how births happen there was France. What I learned was that home births are very uncommon, most of the births take place in a hospital for safety reasons. 

This has been a very common debate in every birthing experience I have been "apart"of, has been between whether or not they wanted a natural birth and getting an epidural or to have a the birth at home or at a hospital. Katie wanted a natural birth, but she ended up needing to be induced, so she figured she might as well just get the epidural then too. Now see my mom wanted a natural birth when she had my brother, the first born, but she changed her mind the second time around when she had me 9 years later. The epidural was the first thing she asked for when they got to the hospital. As far as the debate between home birth and hospital birth, Katie considered it for a second, but in the end figured that hospital birth would be safer, although some people would believe it is not. Although I have never had a child my self (nor do ever really plan on having a child...), hospital birth is one thing that I really believe in. There are two reasons for why I believe that a hospital birth is for the best, and those reasons would be my dad and my cousin. You see when my dad was born the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, luckily he was born in a hospital and he ended up being okay. My cousin on the other hand her birth was not as traumatic but there was a complication because of the fact that she had her legs crossed (pretzel style), and my aunt ended up having to have a c-section. All in all I would most certainly encourage people to have their babies at a hospital, surrounded by medical professionals, and all types of medical equipment designed just for babies.