u/ClaireEmma612

This will be my last baby. I went to an AMAZING birth center for my second and third births. They couldn't have been more smooth. I had my first at a hospital and absolutely hated it. Well, now the birth center has closed unexpectedly due to drama in the parent company 😭 I found a hospital that has a midwife group and SEEMS to be on the same page with me on low interventions, and although the hospital I had my son at promised the same thing, I believe this hospital group a lot more.

I'm now choosing between that hospital and a home birth (no other birth centers near me). I have an acquaintance who is a doula and she highly recommends I try a home birth. She thinks I'll get frustrated at the hospital. My sister has had 4/5 home births too and really thinks I should go for it.

I'm a little torn. Both the doula and my sister are telling me that the home births midwives have all the emergency equipment that the birth centers have. And in my state, all home birth midwives have to be CNMs. This all makes me feel a little better but I'm still not sure.

I hate that I have to make this decision but I have to decide soon. If you had a home birth, what was your experience like? Do you recommend it? Any advice you have for me or others considering a home birth? What did you look for when deciding on a midwife/midwife group?

I was in high school at the time so I only have the general idea of the entire country. We've bought and sold twice since 2022 so I'm very familiar with the local market, particularly NW suburbs. The general consensus is that the Chicago suburbs have always been competitive and mostly stable. It didn't experience price increases quite as extreme as newly popular areas of the country in the last few years. But we also aren't experiencing the slow down that other areas are experiencing right now too. I'm curious what happened with the Chicago suburb market back in 2008. Was it less intense of a crash because it's a more stable market? Or was everyone underwater on their mortgages like all the media portrays? IF there is some type of nationwide crash or bubble happening in the next few years, will we experience it similarly to the 2008 crash in comparison to the rest of the country?