Thanks.
Even if you don't agree, I think my perspective is at least coherent.
Yes!
There are a few reasons, and I really, really hope that everyone won't jump down my throat and ask for citations:
1) Yes, she can get an epidural, but we won't be doing one. Epidurals actually seep into the infant and affect it, believe it or not. Infants born unto women that received an epidural had significantly lower attach rates (attach rate is the % chance that a baby will breastfeed straight out of the womb). Epidurals also make labor MUCH harder.
2) Hospitals will try to induce labor or perform a cesarian section because they are in it for the money, but women that receive c-sections have lower imprinting rates on their infant (imprinting is the phenomenon where your infant becomes attached to you as an emotionally significant individual, and it actually works both ways - movement through the vaginal canal stimulates the release of hormones that increase lovingness toward the infant), and lower attach rates.
3) Home births are easier on the woman. Hospitals expect dilation to go at a 411 or 511 rate, which is 4-5 contractions that last for 1 minute over the course of 1 hour. Home births usually have 211 or 311 rates. Basically, animals strongly prefer familiar and safe environments when giving birth. Hospitals are a foreign environment that increase stress and reduce feelings of safety for a woman. Home births are significantly faster on average.
4) Water birth. Not an option at the hospital, unfortunately.
5) A more intimate setting and experience. I have yet to meet a woman that has done a hospital birth and a home birth and preferred the former. Even registered nurses I know have said that while they deliver babies in the hospital, they had their own children at home.
If you are curious about the process, let me know. And yes, I plan to eat some of my wife's encapsulated placenta just to say I did it.
She will be eating the whole thing (encapsulated form, though, so not as cool).
