Home Birth vs Hospital Birth my perspective

If you are reading this, you are already looking into your options, and you are probably pregnant - if so, congratulations! I've made all kinds of choices that go against the main stream; it just fits with my personality to do so. If I decide that something is a good idea; others disagreeing with me, usually just makes me more determined that I'm right and they are wrong. It's just who I am.
I use cloth diapers, I homeschool my children, I nurse my babies longer than my mother thinks I should, I leave the determination of my family size up to God, I think having a baby at home is WAAAAAAY better than having one in a hospital...
These are just some of the most obvious crazy decisions that I have made over the years. When I say crazy decisions, I mean decisions that make my family (and my in-laws) crazy.
So, with all that disclaimer said, this is my perspective from my personal experience.
I had four children in hospitals; four different hospitals with four different doctors (a hospital birth is expensive and if you have insurance, you go with whoever and wherever they tell you to, or you pay for it). Even though the physicians, the cities and the settings were different, my experiences were basically the same.
I go into labor, husband takes me to hospital, we arrive and say "I'm in labor" The nurse at the desk says, "Are you sure?" Yes, this is exactly what they said, every time, at every hospital, even on the fourth baby, when my water broke at home and I was dribbling water through the lobby, then I said, "my water broke" and she said, "Are you sure?" If there is anything that makes a young woman feel insecure, it's that. My ability to relax pretty much left the building at that point, and amazingly enough, my labor pretty much plateaued as well. Then, I got strapped down and hooked up, monitors, IV's, all the important stuff that they need to get me a baby. Sometime later, I would hear something like, "Well, you are in labor, but you are not really progressing, so we're going to manually break your water to get things moving along." With #4, my water had already broken so they skipped this step, and went straight to the next. "Well, you're not really progressing, and your water is broken, so we need to get things moving, we're going to put Pitocin in your IV." Pitocin is a chemically made substitute for Oxytocin that a womans body naturally produces, except that it doesn't if she is stressed out! The Pitocin caused my contractions to come on harder and stronger for a little while and then they plateaued again. More Pit! Same effect. More pit! Same effect. More Pit!
"Aaaaaaagh, okay, okay, I give, I can't take it anymore, give me drugs! Good ones!"
Then, I got a spinal epidural, which I now know, but did not know then, actually slows the labor down, requiring more pitocin, which causes more intense contractions, so I wanted more epidural, which slowed the labor down more, and made them give me more pitocin. See the vicious cycle here? With my first child, after 36 hours at the hospital, I was so tired and chemically imbalanced that I said okay to whatever was asked, even when a class of medical students all wanted a turn at "checking" to see how dilated I was, I was numb from the waist down and my mother and husband had to each hold one leg in the air. I couldn't even sit up on my own. I had a baby, but it was like I wasn't even there.
So, enough of my sob stories, now for the good part...
Jacob, baby #5, my first home birth. I was at home, painting my oldest sons bedroom (he wanted a fire engine mural on his wall - it turned out very cool by the way). I was due in August and his birthday was in December, but I knew that I wouldn't feel up to it once I had the new baby. I was just finishing the details, when I began to feel some minor contractions, a few hours later we began to time them. By 3pm, I called my midwife (Backing up a bit, appointments with the midwife were like having a friend over for tea. We sat and visited for hours, talking not just about this pregnancy, but all the ones before, talking about babies and children and discussing everything under the sun that had to do with mamas and babies. So, different from the in&out of the OB office). I told her to get ready, we might need her. This is the time that I would have been leaving for the hospital, but instead, I just hung out at home. I ate dinner with my family, tucked my children in bed, all the while watching the clock as the contractions became gradually more and more intense, longer and stronger. Once the children were in bed, about 8pm, we had spoken to Deb (the midwife) on the phone a few times and she was packing up her car to come over. When she arrived, I was calm, my contractions were increasing rapidly, and it was like a dear friend had just arrived. She wasn't someone I'd only seen for a few minutes here and there, she was someone I'd spent hours getting to know, and who had devoted hours getting to know me. Every step of the way, she knew just what I needed, and was able to communicate to my husband how he could best help me. Shortly after 2am, we welcomed a beautiful baby boy into this world. He was my biggest baby by 1/2 a pound; he was my fastest labor by far, and he was the easiest delivery, slid out with just two pushes. I will not lie and say it was easy, birthing a baby is NOT an easy task, but from my hospital experience (which I thought was normal), to my home experience, I hope that I never have to go back to a hospital again.
I am glad that OBs are available (they are trained surgeons and sometimes that is what a woman needs), but I pray that my labors will be natural, just the way God designed them, that my babies will present head down, and that all will be well.
We are 8 weeks away from our due date for our 6th child and I am looking forward to another wonderful home birth.
The biggest benefit of being at home? I had a baby, and I actually got to participate in the process, for the first time!
Corinne Johnson is a Christian homeschooling mother of five and a Help Meet to her husband, as well as the author of the unit study series Vacation Education Books.