For weeks now I've had a birthing plan filled out which I'd downloaded. This has been filled in and stored with my pregnancy notes.

Reading that 1 in 12 women in Brighton and Hove choose to have their baby at home seems a quite promising figure and having discussed with my midwife I felt quite relaxed about the choice.

However I have fallen into the trap of reading scary stories of both hospital and home births now and am being more indecisive. This is not good, when you consider that by week 36 I need to have made a definite choice.

My concerns are mainly being left alone. At RSCH your partner is not able to stay overnight with you unless there are extreme circumstances - this I find out after having a virtual hospital tour. Over everything I think it is highly important that Gav is a complete part of the journey and am quite surprised that there is a separation of parents at a very emotional time. A family relative has previously said to me that although she was glad to be in hosptal (a C section was needed) for the birth it was very hard being separated from her partner and being left on her own over four days. Another relative was also happy to be in hospital after complications but has suggested if I'm to have a second child, then maybe decide on a home birth then. They have both said how much more at ease they were being in hospital and knowing all the help was there when needed.

I am still left wondering how many people would like to have their babies at home and why, as 1 in 12 still seems a very low figure to me, although the 1 in 50 around the rest of the UK is astonishing.

Are we too frightened by the prospect of something going wrong or just reassured by the clinical nature of a hospital?

I am still yet to decide what to go for.....