Of my four children, three were born at home and one was born in a hospital.
I never intended to have a hospital birth.
As labor unfolded with my first child, it became clear something was wrong. Unknown to me, I had fractured my coccyx in a car accident when I was 16. After several days of labor at home, my midwife made the decision that it was time to transfer to the hospital.
Even though the home birth we had planned had been interrupted by circumstances beyond anyone’s control, she never stopped advocating for me. My husband spoke only limited English at the time, and after days of labor, I was in no condition to advocate for myself. She stayed by my side, helping me navigate each decision and ensuring my voice wasn’t lost in the whirlwind of interventions that followed.
By the time my son was finally born, the room was filled with specialists: my obstetric team, a surgical team, a NICU team, nurses, and my family. It felt less like the quiet arrival of a child, and more like a sporting event, everyone focused on getting one little boy safely into the world.
That midwife has since become one of my dearest friends. She attended all three of my later home births. Sometimes she arrived just in time. Other times she sat quietly in her car outside my house because she knew I wouldn’t call until the very last minute. I like to labor with just my family for as long as possible. She understood that, respected it, and was always there when I needed her.
Looking back, I remain deeply grateful for her and for every member of the hospital team who helped bring my son safely into the world. I later sent thank-you cards and gift certificates to my restaurant because I wanted them to know how much their work meant to me.
That experience did not make me distrust modern medicine. It taught me to value it for what it does best: responding when something has truly gone wrong.
Years later, a woman attempted an unassisted birth on my mother’s property in Hawaii. My mother, who had both of her own children at home, urged the family to go to the hospital because labor was not progressing normally. They chose not to. The baby did not survive.
Those two experiences shaped how I think about birth.
I do not believe modern medicine should be the first line of defense. I believe it should exist, be excellent, and be available when true emergencies arise.
To me, it is like a fire extinguisher.
As a restaurant owner, I know exactly what happens when an ANSUL fire suppression system goes off. It may save the building, but it also coats everything in chemicals and shuts down your kitchen for days while everything is cleaned and reset.
The system is invaluable. It simply should not be the first tool you reach for if another safe option exists.
That is how I see the medical system.
After my son’s birth, I went on to have three peaceful home births. They remain some of the most meaningful experiences of my life.
Waking up in my own bed, surrounded by my family, wrapped in organic cotton sheets, drinking my own tea, eating nourishing food from my own kitchen, and introducing a new little soul to excited siblings are among my most treasured memories.
That is why I became curious after COVID. As many Americans began questioning our medical system, I wondered whether families were also reconsidering where they gave birth.
The numbers suggest they were.
Before the pandemic, about 1 percent of American births occurred at home. During COVID, home births increased sharply. They rose again the following year and have continued to climb, though more gradually. Today, just over 1.5 percent of American babies are born at home.
That is certainly an increase, but it is important to keep it in perspective. More than 98 percent of American babies are still born in hospitals or birth centers. We are not talking about a mass movement away from hospitals. We are talking about a relatively small but growing number of families asking whether birth always belongs there.
Having experienced both, I struggle to imagine choosing the hospital unless there is a medical reason.
I remember the smell of disinfectants, fluorescent lights, hospital food, shift changes, strangers discussing intimate parts of my body, and feeling like a patient instead of a mother.
None of that made me feel safer.
At home, I felt known. I felt peaceful. I felt surrounded by people who loved me, rather than by those assigned to care for me until the end of their shift.
When I think about bringing a soul into the world, home feels more aligned with what that moment deserves. A newborn knows warmth, familiar voices, and the heartbeat they have heard for months.
There is another question I can’t quite shake.
I wonder whether our approach to birth reflects something larger about our culture.
We have become a people who instinctively reach for comfort. We numb discomfort, outsource inconvenience, and increasingly believe every difficult experience should be made easier if technology can make it so. Birth is one of the most profound moments of our lives, yet many of us experience it medicated, monitored, and managed from beginning to end.
I am grateful epidurals exist. I am grateful C-sections exist. I am grateful for every intervention that saves a mother or baby.
But I also wonder whether emergency tools have quietly become routine expectations.
When roughly one out of every three American births ends in a C-section, I think it is fair to ask whether something in the system deserves a closer look.
And then there is a question that no study may ever fully answer.
My oldest son still pushed his way into the world, but he needed the assistance of a vacuum. I’ve often wondered whether that first assisted struggle has any effect later in life.
And what about the millions of children born by C-section who never push through the birth canal at all? We are now living in a world where those babies have grown into adults. Does that first experience matter? Does it influence how we push through the hardships of being human?
I honestly don’t know.
I can only tell you what I have observed in my own children. There are differences in how they approach challenge, frustration, and perseverance. Is that because of birth? Temperament? Parenting? Birth order? Genetics? I couldn’t possibly say.
But I don’t think the question is foolish.
For thousands of years, birth was our first great act of perseverance. It was our first experience of pushing through discomfort into life itself. I can’t help but wonder whether there is a purpose in that journey beyond simply arriving.
If you have children born through an unassisted vaginal birth, an assisted delivery, or a C-section, have you noticed differences in how they push through adversity? Or have you found no difference at all?
I don’t have the answers.
What I do know is that not every difficult thing is a problem to be solved. Sometimes difficulty is simply part of being human. Perhaps the wisdom of modern medicine is not that it can remove every hardship, but that it stands ready when hardship becomes danger.
I am grateful the hospital was there when I needed it.
I just don’t believe every birth begins as an emergency.
