During my first homebirth I did elect to have family and friends present. It was very exciting and I thought it would be a great idea. So I invited my mother and my husband’s mother and a couple of close friends. And basically, what they suggest you do is if you invite people to your home birth, give them a duty, a task, such as maybe taking care of other children or food preparation, taking video, something of that sort, keeping the house clean. The problem was that sometimes, because the birth is so overwhelming at times for people, it can sort of botch up your plan. So my mother and mother-in-law became sort of useless during the homebirth. So the second and third homebirths I chose not to have anybody else there.