Quick answer
Todd Parker and his wife Chelsea had their daughter Poppy at home in Ubud, Bali, in July 2024, with midwives from the Bumi Sehat clinic and a doula named Mahika. Todd had never considered home birth. He says his job in the room turned out to be physical: bracing Chelsea through every contraction and keeping the birth tub full. His advice for a hesitant husband is to trust his wife and not shut the idea down before doing the research.
Key takeaways
- Todd and Chelsea only started looking at home birth because the good hospitals were an hour or more from their home in Ubud.
- Meeting Robin Lim, the American-born midwife who founded Bumi Sehat, put Todd at ease in a way that doctor visits hadn't.
- Their doula met with them four or five times during the pregnancy, and Todd says much of that preparation was for him.
- During labor Todd became Chelsea's physical support, pushing up against her hands through every contraction for hours.
- His advice is to trust your wife, compare the hospital and home options honestly, and have a real emergency plan with a hospital close enough to reach.
Todd Parker is a photographer, and he and his wife Chelsea have spent most of the last six years living outside the United States. When he told me their daughter was born at home in Bali, with two midwives chanting a Hindu prayer by candlelight, I asked if he'd sit down and walk me through the whole thing.
Todd wasn't a home birth guy, and Chelsea wasn't either. They came to it sideways, because the plan they had didn't fit. Here's our full conversation, and below it, the parts I think a husband needs to hear.
How did an American couple end up having a baby in Bali?
By accident, mostly. Todd and Chelsea set out in 2020 to travel the world for a year. They were in Vietnam when the pandemic started closing borders, booked a one-way ticket to Bali, and two days after they landed, Bali closed its borders too.
They fell in love with the place. After a couple of years in Bangkok and a long road trip around the US, Chelsea found out she was pregnant in November 2023, at Todd's parents' house in Mississippi, just before Thanksgiving. They already had flights back to Bali booked for December. "Guess we're having a baby in Bali," Todd said.
Why did they choose a home birth instead of the hospital?
Distance first. They lived in Ubud, in central Bali, and the hospitals they trusted were in the south, an hour to an hour and a half away depending on traffic. They toured one. The doctor and facilities were great. The drive wasn't.
Home birth wasn't on the table at all. Then Chelsea started reading, and she found Bumi Sehat, a clinic in Ubud founded by Robin Lim, an American midwife who has lived in Bali for more than thirty years. Todd told me Robin started the clinic because she saw how many local Indonesian mothers and babies weren't getting good care. Births at the clinic are donation-based, and Bumi Sehat attends home births too. CNN named Robin Lim its 2011 Hero of the Year for that work.
If you're where Todd was before Chelsea brought it up, I wrote about what to do when your wife wants a home birth and you're not sure.
What changed his mind when they met the midwife?
He felt comfortable, right away. "When you meet with a doctor, you always feel like there's this layer of separation between you and the doctor," Todd said. Sitting down with Robin and the second midwife, he didn't feel that. "I felt immediately at ease."
They talked about gentle birth as something that starts long before labor: how Chelsea took care of her body and her mind every day of the pregnancy. Todd connected most with what they said about the first minutes after birth: leaving the umbilical cord attached, and both parents holding the baby right away instead of the baby being taken off to be checked.
For what it's worth, delayed cord clamping isn't a fringe idea. The World Health Organization recommends not clamping the cord earlier than one minute after birth, and says the extra blood flow from the placenta may improve the baby's iron levels for up to six months. I cover the rest of that first stretch in What Is the Golden Hour After Birth?
"I just wanted to be in a comfortable setting with Chelsea and Poppy," Todd said, "and feel like this was our space."
What did the doula do for him?
She taught him his job. Their doula, Mahika, met with them four or five times during the pregnancy. Todd said her work was mostly education, helping them know what to expect at a home birth and what each of them would be doing. "Obviously Chelsea," he said, "but a lot of it was for me."
The doula is your guide on the day, and she isn't there for the medical side. The midwives' job was making sure the baby was doing well and Chelsea's vitals stayed steady. "While they seem like a similar role, they're very different once you're in the room," he said. There's more on that in What's the Difference Between a Midwife and a Doula?
What does a husband actually do during labor at home?
For Todd, it was a full day of hard physical work. Chelsea's contractions started around 3:00 in the morning. She didn't wake him. He was, in his words, "dead asleep, snoring next to her." Around 8:00 she told him she was feeling something, and his first instinct was to text the doula immediately. He had to stop and recenter himself. This is the day. Focus.
Mahika came around 1:00 in the afternoon, and the midwives a couple of hours after that. By then Todd had found his place. "I didn't realize how physical it would be, even for me," he said. Every time a contraction came, Chelsea bore down on him. "She's pushing down on my hands, I'm pushing up on hers, trying to keep her stable." Then she'd let go, and then it would start again. That went on for hours.
They'd planned a water birth in a huge tub in their bathroom, and the other half of Todd's job was keeping it filled. When he told me that, I laughed, because it's the title of my book. "That literally was my life," he said, "keeping the water going the whole time." If you're planning a water birth, I wrote about what the partner does at a water birth.
He also forgot to eat, which the doula had told them on day one not to do. Eat, guys.
What was the moment he'll never forget?
It wasn't the birth itself, or not only that. At one point he was in the tub behind Chelsea, holding her and helping her breathe. The lights were down and music was playing. "I don't even know the song that was playing, but I still remember the feeling that I had in that moment," he said. He called it the closest thing he's ever had to an out-of-body experience, and he got misty telling me about it.
That's when he understood his role. "I'm her rock through this day, no matter what."
Poppy didn't end up being born in the water. Chelsea was most comfortable at the end of the bed, sitting between Todd's legs. Around 8:00 or 8:30 that night, with the lights off and candles lit, their two midwives sat in front of them chanting a Hindu prayer over and over as Poppy came into the world. Todd and Chelsea were both crying. "It was the three of us, finally," he said. He thinks it will be the clearest memory he has for the rest of his life.
I asked him for a few words to describe the whole thing. "It was life-changing. It was intense. And it was, I would say, euphoric."
What would Todd tell a husband who has never considered home birth?
Trust your wife, and don't say no on reflex.
"I say trust your wife. And I say don't shut it down immediately."
Todd Parker, whose daughter Poppy was born at home in Bali
He still said to look into it and compare what a hospital birth would look like for you against what you could have at home. For him, trust was what carried it. "The more Chelsea was comfortable with it, the more I became comfortable with it." There was never a point where he said, we're not doing this, I'm terrified.
He was just as clear about safety. "You have to make a smart decision," he said. Is there a real emergency plan if something goes wrong? Where is the closest hospital? "You can't do an hour if there's an emergency." For them, an hour-plus drive was the reason to look at home birth, and a hospital close enough to reach was part of the plan to do it. Your midwife will help you build that plan, and I walk through what a transfer looks like in What Happens If We Need to Transfer to the Hospital? The research on safety has real nuance, and I lay it out in Is Home Birth Safe?
I'll be honest about my side of this. Katie grew up in a mountain town in the Sierra Nevadas, around midwives and home births. I didn't. When she first brought it up years ago, I shut it down. There were other reasons we had our first two kids in the hospital, but part of it was that I was scared, and I didn't know what I didn't know. Todd got there faster than I did.
If you want to hear from another husband who started out skeptical, my conversation with Rowan, who caught his own daughter in a birth pool, is a good next listen. And Chapter 2 of the book, "Your Wife Says She Wants a Homebirth," is written for the moment Chelsea brought it up and Todd decided to listen.
You can see Todd's photography at Bergen and Bedford.
This post is general information, not medical advice. Talk with your midwife or doctor about your own situation.
Goes deeper in
Chapter 2, Your Wife Says She Wants a Homebirth of Go Boil the Water: A Partner's Guide to Supporting Homebirth.
