Tag: home birth

  • I’m not ready. Here’s why. (Hint: it’s not the toilet paper)

    Finishing the kids’ Purim costumes. Keeping the car clean. Prepping mishloach manot in advance. Writing a letter to my kids. (Trying) to keep the sink empty. Refilling toilet paper. Just a few falsely empowering things I’ve been doing over the last week in case I have to leave everything behind to dash to the hospital.…

  • New Israeli home birth restrictions delayed.

    An update on the Israeli home birth restrictions situation: Health Ministry delaying delivery of new restrictions on at-home births The health ministry has yet to complete its labor on a new policy restricting home births. Responding to public criticism which followed Haaretz’s recent disclosure of the new restrictive guidelines, the ministry’s medical authority has decided to…

  • Home birth and the PKU test.

    Because it doesn’t seem that many people know about this, and it’s unnecessary for more home birthers than just us to have that millisecond of freak-out when receiving the phone call, I’m sharing this information with the Israeli home birthing masses: If you’ve birthed in a hospital, you know that before you are discharged, your baby receives that torturous PKU…

  • My home birth story: Israel, Tzur Hadassah, apartment, bedroom.

    My home birth story: Israel, Tzur Hadassah, apartment, bedroom.

    In the months leading up to labor and childbirth, I think we all spend significant time organizing our expectations, fears and hopes. For this birth, my expectation was it would be at least slightly easier than last time, my fear was that it could become complicated due to complications from last time, and my hope…

  • Registering your newborn after home birth.

    In Israel, when you give birth in the hospital, the hospital takes care of the bureaucratic paperwork fun-time, otherwise known as getting a teudat zehut number for your newborn. They submit the papers which go to Misrad Hapnim to get processed for a birth certificate and ID number. But when you do a leidat bayit – home…

  • Rude awakening.

    Ventured outside today for the first time since Bebe was born. I hated having to get in the car with my five-day-old daughter to drive into the center of Jerusalem and visit, of all places, Misrad Hapnim (ahem) (and here’s why). The idea of city-center air up her nostrils alone makes me sad. But really,…

  • On the sixth day…

    And on the sixth day, man… And on the seventh, they rested (sort of). Our baby girl was born in our home this past Friday, just in time for Shabbat. The labor took less than a third the time it took with Koala, and she beats her brother by 150 grams at 2.85 kilos – and…

  • Homebirth in Israel.

    UPDATE (April 2011): After this post was written, down the road, for my second child, we did a home birth in our apartment in Tzur Hadassah. I’ve got more info on the subject now from firsthand experience and am happy to share: My home birth story: Israel, Tzur Hadassah, apartment, bedroom. Registering your newborn after…