It’s easy to get a bit carried away when you’re dreaming about what you want your birth to be like. For better or worse, birth plans don’t always turn out the way you want them to, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put your desires out there (even if they are a little strange). These moms (and a dad!) share the weirdest things they decided to add into their birth plans and how it panned out on their big day.
Big surprise, or no big deal?
Katherine D. and her partner didn’t know or care if they were having a boy or girl, so they told hospital staff to hold off on the big announcement. “We didn’t know the (apparent) sex of our baby and just really felt like it shouldn’t be the most important detail about our child, so we didn’t want anyone shouting ‘it’s a boy!’ or ‘it’s a girl!’ when he was born.
“It didn’t seem weird at all to our home birth team, but when we transferred to the hospital and slowly every other request on the plan went out the window, they definitely thought it was weird. I guess the only reason they could fathom for not finding out the sex via ultrasound was wanting ‘the surprise.’ Our whole C-section team complied, though! The really hilarious part was that as they were checking him out and cleaning him up, my wife came up and whispered his name — the ‘boy’ name we had picked out — in my ear. So the whole time they were sewing me up, I knew, but all the nurses were still carefully avoiding saying ‘he’ in front of me.”
Gettin’ crafty
Sometimes a little pizzazz is necessary to make light of an uncomfortable situation. Jin L. crafted up her birth plan with markers, glitter glue and construction paper. “In bold, rainbow letters I had written ‘literally everyone welcome to enter the room except my mother.’ I don’t think my body would have willingly released an offspring into the world with my biological mother in the room. Too dangerous.”
Birthing to booty jams?
Screw the soothing sounds of Enya — let’s get some R&B up in L&D. It may not be for everyone, but Sarah W. was all about getting down during labor with some unconventional beats. “I delivered our daughter to the likes of Destiny’s Child, Salt-N-Pepa, Kanye West, Queen and the Ramones. My midwife joked that if Sir Mix-A-Lot’s ‘Baby Got Back’ came on at any point, she might keel over laughing (it did, and she did). My daughter made her grand entrance to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ — fitting, since my husband and I are both Canadian, and our daughter is American!”
Someone’s got a strange appetite
This dad wanted to put in a special order on his partner’s birth plan. “I wanted to eat the placenta,” said Joe L., who had big plans for home-cooking the postnatal delicacy. Unfortunately his wish never came true, which is probably for the best. “I didn’t think about it until it was too late, so it didn’t make it on the birth plan. Maybe next time. My wife probably wouldn’t have let me anyway. And I probably would have burnt it.”
Give a mama some space
Gretchen B. didn’t want anyone up in her business unless they were strictly invited. “I asked that no one get too ‘in my bubble.’ I didn’t want people in my space, breathing on me or trying to coach me through labor without a clear invitation.”
Mum’s the word
The words “contractions” and “labor” would seem to be pretty standard in the delivery room, but Jana M. put the kibosh on them in her plan. “My birth method refers to them as pressure waves and birthing time,” she said. Apparently the nurses complied.
Supersweet delivery
Jaimie S. had gestational diabetes and couldn’t eat sugar during her pregnancy, so she knew just what she wanted on hand when the last push was over. “This wasn’t in my official birth plan, but I packed Milanos for the hospital and told my husband I wanted them next to me the minute the baby was born.” That’s one well-deserved treat for a job well done.
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