Unplanned Czech-German Home Birth

We left Prague, Czech Republic, just to have our first child in Dresden, Germany.  In the Czech Rep. you only have the choice of an anonymous clinical birth in a hospital or a home birth.  Even though we wished to have a natural birth, as promoted by Debra Pascali-Bonaro, we were not really prepared to go for a home birth – at least not for the first child.

So, three weeks before our due date we relocated to Dresden, where we had rented an apartment close to a ‘Geburtshaus’ (birth house).   My sister in law gave birth to my nephew 2 years ago at this Geburtshaus.  The Geburtshaus provides natural births accompanied by doulas/midwives in extraordinarily beautiful surrounding.  The lovely interior is decorated with a nice big bed for the whole family after birth, and a bathtub in the center of the room for water births.  The exact wish of my wife Vendula was to give birth in water. 

It happened differently.  One morning we called the doula to come see Vendula, because contractions had started. The doula said Vendula was only early in early labor and that it was be a bit early to leave for the Geburtshaus.  We decided to stay in our apartment.  After a short while I noticed that the contractions had strongly accelerated and they were becoming quite intensive.  Just one hour later the doula discovered, that the birth channels were already completely open (10cm!), quite unusually quick for a first-time mother.Unfortunately (or as it turned out luckily) Vendula did not feel prepared to go by car to the Geburtshaus.  So, together with the doula we spontaneously decided to stay in our apartment.  We decided to give birth in our bedroom!! At 14.15 hour, our daughter was borne after an intense and quite fast delivery without any difficulties or problems.This unplanned home birth was the best thing that could happen to us. The intimate atmosphere, the help of three midwifes, the trust and confidence in natural birth and the special circumstances of a spontaneous home birth made this experience magnificent and unforgettable for us.  We were awarded with our healthy daughter Viktoria Lucie…!!!Dear Debra,Thank you very much for your film ‘orgasmic birth’, which provided us with trust and confidence, so that we were prepared to take the decision to have a spontaneous home birth!!! We will never forget this.By the way, we even met personally in Prague in October 2008, when you presented your film in Czech Rep. and held a presentation about ‘natural birth’. I shortly talked to you after the film and you encouraged me to post our personal birth story on your site after it had happened. Dirk & Vendula with daughter Viktoria Lucie Dresden (GER) / Prague (CZ), December, 2008