What I Learned Giving Birth Both at Home and in a Hospital
by Mackenzie Shelton
By the time I was pregnant with my second baby, I had made a decision that raised more than a few eyebrows: I was going to give birth at home. Not in a pool at a birthing center. Not in a fancy labor-and-delivery suite. Just me, my midwife, and a tub in the middle of our living room. This was a sharp pivot from my first birth experience, which took place in a hospital under bright lights, with a rotating cast of nurses and a pain relief plan that began and ended with “Yes, please, epidural, immediately.”
I’m not here to argue that one way is better than the other—birth is far too personal, far too unpredictable, for that. But I can share what it felt like to do both. To labor in a hospital bed with IV lines and heart monitors and then, two years later, to push my second child into the world within arm’s reach of my own coffee table. Each experience shaped me, stretched me (in every possible way), and left me with a better understanding of what women mean when they say birth is both the hardest and most miraculous thing they’ve ever done.
The hospital birth came first. I walked through those sliding glass doors in early labor, nervous and excited and completely unprepared for what was coming. The contractions were manageable—until they weren’t. Eventually, I was hooked up to machines that beeped and flashed and tracked every beat of my baby's heart. The room was a blur of different nurses, each more competent than the last but none of whom I knew. When the anesthesiologist arrived to administer the epidural, I practically cried with relief. Labor slowed down, I rested, and hours later, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. My husband cried. I cried. Then someone brought me a turkey sandwich that tasted like the best thing I’d ever eaten.
What I remember most vividly about that hospital birth isn’t the pain—it’s the structure. There were procedures for everything. Protocols. Rules about walking around, eating, and how often I’d be checked. That structure was comforting at first. It felt like someone else was in charge, and for a while, that was a relief. But as labor progressed, I started to feel like a passenger in my own experience. I wanted to move more. I wanted fewer strangers in the room. I wanted, I realized, more control than the hospital was built to give me.
That realization stayed with me as I entered my second pregnancy. This time, I was less afraid. I had done it once. I knew my body could give birth. I started to wonder what it might feel like to do it on my terms. So I hired a certified midwife, prepped my house like it was hosting a very specific and very messy dinner party, and planned for a home birth.
The contrast could not have been starker. Labor started in the middle of the night and I stayed in my pajamas, pacing my own hallway, stopping to breathe through contractions with no one interrupting me to take my vitals. My midwife arrived calmly, quietly, already knowing my birth plan because we had written it together. The lights were soft. The music was whatever I wanted. When the contractions grew fierce and loud and I thought I couldn’t do it anymore, my midwife locked eyes with me and said, “You’re doing it. You’re almost there.”
When my daughter was born, the first hands to hold her were mine. There were no overhead lights. No alarms. Just the three of us—me, my baby, and my husband—wrapped up in the kind of quiet joy that can only exist when time feels like it stops. We all climbed into bed, and someone brought me toast with jam. It was magic.
But it wasn’t easy. There was no epidural, no instant relief. I felt everything. The intensity of that pain caught me off guard, and there was a moment—maybe more than one—when I wished for the option of medical pain management. There was also the underlying knowledge that if anything went wrong, we'd have to transfer to the hospital. That possibility loomed, even if it never came to pass. And yes, the towels used during the birth had to go in my washing machine.
Each birth taught me something different. In the hospital, I learned how to trust other people—nurses, doctors, machines. At home, I learned how to trust myself. Both times, I met my baby for the first time, and both times, I was changed.
There is no perfect way to give birth. Only the way that makes sense for you—for your body, your baby, your story. Hospital births offer safety, structure, and access to medical expertise that can save lives. Home births offer autonomy, intimacy, and a deep sense of empowerment for those who want and are able to take that path. Both are valid. Both are brave.
What matters is that you feel supported, respected, and safe—wherever you decide to meet your child for the first time. Because when push comes to shove, what you’ll remember isn’t the room or the rules. It’s the moment you held your baby and realized you did something extraordinary.
