Born in 1976, so my mother was in a room full of other laboring women, while my father and Nana stayed home and waited for THE CALL.
My mother's story is pretty funny though....she was in labor for over 30hrs and watched one woman after another get wheeled out of the big labor room, into another room where they delivered, and then get wheeled to recovery. She kept yelling at her doctor that she was sick of watching everyone else give birth and why wasn't he doing something to help her??
With DD1, I had no real plan. Whatever happened, happened. But, my mother was REALLY pushy and this drove me nuts. I was supposed to be induced at 41wks. The night before, I went into labor. It was around 3am when I decided to leave for the hospital, so I didn't call my parents. I got the epidural and called them because, at that time, all was right with the world. They live 1.5hrs away. By the time they got there, my epidural had worn off and nobody could figure out why. My mother and father walked in and I screamed at them to get out of my room. My father stood in the hallway and cried. My mother was yelling at a nurse, asking why I was in so much pain (duh).
They ended up in the family waiting room. H was there and he'd run down and give them updates, which consisted of "She's begging for a c-section." and "Anesthesia gave her a bolus and it numbed her upward and they don't know what to do now." and "She's pushing." I pushed for 2.5hrs. My mother called H's cell phone every hour.
H was there, my OB was there, 2 nurses were there, and a baby nurse was there.
With DD2, DD1 stayed with my parents. It was an induction due to PIH. Short and sweet 4.5hrs with no pitocin and no epidural. H was there. My OB was there for all but the part where DD was actually born because it happened so fast (she thought she had 5mns to make a phone call to another hospital about another patient...she was wrong). My nurse freaked out and held my knees together - for the record, that doesn't work.
H pretty much delivered her and there was just 1 nurse who was standing at the door yelling for help.
With DD3, I hired a doula. I never thought I'd be the "doula-type", but I had horrible visions of being home alone with 2 kids under 1 and going into labor. H was working over an hour away and, given my last labor being so short, I couldn't take any chances. I had it worked out with my OBs and the nurses that, in the event of an emergency c-section, my doula would stay in my room with the girls. Thankfully, that didn't happen. I was induced at 38wks due to PIH and Pre-E.
Around 30wks or so, I decided I didn't want H there. He had been a jerk through the entire pregnancy and, finally, at 30wks, when I had a particularly awful NST, my OB told me we had to set a goal of 37wks and expect NICU time. I called him and told him this and his response was, "So, they're going to deliver a baby prematurely and deliberately cause problems?"
Ya, because my OBs just LOOOOVE delivering preemies. I decided he stresses me out and brings me no comfort and who needs that during labor??
The morning of my induction, my doula was going to pick me up and head to the hospital and H would stay home with the older girls and, at some point, my parents would come up. But, they called me and said to hold off because everyone and their sister decided to go into labor that day! H, in his typical Evil Twin new behavior, yelled at me that he had already taken the time off of work and this was messing things up for HIM - forget ME...you know, the one whose liver and kidneys were shutting down.
A few hours later, they called me and said come right in. I called my doula, got in my car, and drove myself to the hospital. I was in labor for 21hrs with Cytotec and Pitocin and no epidural (one bad epidural ruins you for life....I REALLY wanted that thing, too). I wouldn't take any phone calls - my doula talked to H and my mother who called. Finally, the hospital routed my calls to the nurse's station so I didn't have to be bothered at all.
I actually had a good time during this delivery. My OB was there, my nurse was there, my doula was there - we all hung out and watched So You Think You Can Dance. We laughed a lot. One woman who had delivered that morning owned a Dunkin Donuts and had a bunch of food delivered, so I'd grab a Munchkin when I passed the staff lounge on my trips back and forth.
Another of my doctors came on for her shift, but my OB stayed anyway. I had my doula, my 2 OBs, the baby nurse, and 2 nurses.
A few hours later, my doula called my H to tell him to bring the girls to visit me and their new sister. She didn't need NICU time, thankfully, but she had a huge knot in her cord and the doctors were shocked she was OK.
For some reason, my mother wanted to be there for my 3rd. I think she was angry that my doula was going to be there (a "stranger"). Then she told me she'd never seen a baby born. I told her to try YouTube.
DS - stillborn at 8 months, induced labor, only me and a nurse were in the room for the delivery.
