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We are also having a midwife and a doula but are giving birth at a hospital for the 'just in case'. However both my dad and FIL are doctors and they are still freaking out about not having an OB, or even knowing if an OB will be at the hospital when we are there. We keep telling them our midwives partner with OBs and they will be on call if something goes wrong, but holy moly this has been a tougher battle with them than I anticipated. And we'll be in a stinkin' hospital! We're just trying to stick to our plan but be open-minded in case things go differently, since they might, and that's okay.

@SouthPaw: Yeah. And things were different I think when our parents gave birth.. my mom thinks I'm nuts for trying to go without an epi cause they were never taught there were any benefits to it (she thinks it's "for the experience" and "to prove something to myself", neither of which are true).

I got quite a bit of flack for our choice of hbac. I started by doing TONS of research on homebirth and found it to be my statistically safest option, even as a vbac. DH was MORE than supportive though and through our pregnancy journey became a natural birth AND homebirth advocate. The more he learned the more he felt that while hospitals and pain medication intervention does have it's place it's not in the normal low-risk birth and their perspective tends to attribute to causing those "just in case" situations. My mom was also very supportive & never told me that maybe I should choose another option. For everyone else, I became as knowledgeable as I could on the stats and when someone tried to come against me I kindly educated them. They learned pretty quick to keep their doubts to themselves & others became more confident in their own bodies abilities! I stayed away from medicated birth stories & gained as much confidence in my body as I could. I was the only one in my group of other pregnant real life friends to actually have a successful unmedicated birth & attribute it alot to being the only one that really didn't accept any other options. Figured if I was going to train & prepare to run a marathon I would never line up at the starting line and go "here's to hoping" or "I'll try"... why would birth be any different? Lol.

Here are couple great blog posts on choosing homebirth. They may help. =)

http://birthwithoutfearblog.com/2012/09/17/a-fathers-perspective-the-journey-from-hospital-to-home/

http://vbacfacts.com/hbac/

@SouthPaw: Meh luckily we don't care what they say DH is more committed to a natural birth than I am so overall we are on the same page. We just inform our families what our plan is and don't really care what they think.

Having had a homebirth that ended in a transfer to a hospital over 30 minutes away from home, my advice would be...ignore the naysayers and go for the homebirth!!

My transfer scenario was pretty typical, in that I was a FTM who was exhausted from an unusually long, slow labor and needed rest/help to finish. Now that I've had a taste of both experiences, I'm even more convinced that homebirth is an excellent, safe choice. You'll have birth experts there to support you, keep a close eye out for anything unusual, and help guide you to good decisions. So long as you stay healthy and pay attention, you and your baby will be just fine at home.

For doubters I would give a blanket statement like "for low-risk women, home birth with midwives is actually as safe as hospital birth and has some great benefits," etc. I also made a point of not talking about it unless asked, and framing it in a positive, non-judgey way.

As for the pain? Yeah, it hurts, but pain can't actually hurt you. I found it much, MUCH easier to cope at home where I could move around and get comfy. It was much harder to do that in the hospital where I was confined to a wheelchair and bed. I also noticed that people weren't interested in supporting me so much as looking at the machinery readouts...even my husband got distracted. It was a much lonelier, scarier experience.

Birth tubs and hot showers are FABULOUS during labor! I labored with back labor for days (plural! days!) without any drugs. The other coping strategies worked so great that I never felt a need for an epi until I hit the third night without getting any rest (and only then because I was reaching total exhaustion, not because the pain was so bad). Seriously, if you want it, YOU CAN DO IT.

I just went into it open minded. I preferred having a natural birth, but if that couldn't happen, I sure wasnt opposed to being medicated. I was adamant about no c-section unless emergency. When people would be like "oh you'll never have a natural birth, you'll want the epidural, etc, etc" I would just say okay, we'll see and shrug it off.

Yep. The only people who have really said anything are one friend in particular and DH. DH only really says something when I get really nervous about the possibility of needing a c-section, lots of interventions, etc. It's not that he disagrees with me, but he more doesn't understand the big deal about needing those things, as long as we end up with a healthy baby. It totally blows his mind that, while I'm not saying I don't want an epidural, that I want to wait as long as possible for one. I tell him that he just doesn't get why a "regular" birth is so important to so many women, and yes, as long as LO is healthy and happy then mission accomplished, but I still reserve my right to fret, but he just doesn't understand at all. It makes me kind of nervous that he won't really get my back in the delivery room if they start wanting to stick this and that in me -- that he'll just be like, "Baby, they know best, what's the big deal?"

Then my friend -- ugh, it drives me nuts. She's had two c-sections and doesn't understand why everybody doesn't get them. When I told her I didn't know if I wanted an epidural, she told me I wasn't a martyr and to not be ridiculous, and that when she told her doctor the same thing (the first time around) he was like, "Who are you that you think you can do this without meds" and that she now knows what he means (even though she really can't know what he means since she's never had a vaginal birth, but whatever). A mutual friend of ours had to have a c-section with her first child and was really traumatized by it (she had pre-e and was induced and they finally sectioned her after a while for "failure to progress") and she had posted on Facebook that the next time she has a baby she really wants to try for a VBAC, and my friend was like, "Ugh, can you believe so-and-so said that? She's so ridiculous. Do you know how incredible dangerous VBACs are and how many people DIE from that? Unbelievable. Just get the c-section." It was so judgmental and misinformed.

So I just don't talk to her about my choices