We were so blessed to welcome James David into our home 1 week ago.  No he wasn't born in the van but we decided that we would just have him at home with a midwife and then we wouldn't have to worry about making it to the hospital.  Turns out the joke was on us and James was in no hurry to get here.  There were lots of perks with our homebirth.  Dave didn't have to make multiple trips back and forth to the hospital and the kids got to see their brother right after he was born. All those of you who have given birth will wonder, I am sure, how everything works out with home birth-the mess, the other kids, etc.  Without going into details, it all worked out fine and luckily I had the baby when all the kids were asleep so no one was traumatized by the noise.  We had some neat experiences-Dave was very involved with the birth, I felt totally in control through labor until it came to pushing, and I love being at home (though that first night I would have loved a hospital nurser