Even before she fell pregnant, Dora Kovaks said she always knew she wanted to give birth at home.
The 27-year-old said that all her nieces and nephews - four children in total, born to her two sisters - were all home births.
"I've had a very smooth pregnancy, and I think of this as something the female body is meant to do," she said.
"I'm not against intervention when it's necessary, but for myself I've done so much research, and read so many books, and spoken to so many doulas.
"There are four kids in my family - my two sisters' children - and all four were born at home.
"I have these examples around me."
Originally from Slovakia, Ms Kovaks has been living off and on in Edinburgh for the past 11 years - but permanently for the past four.
Her partner is Ukrainian.
In both their native countries, home births are "not supported" by the medical system.
It made the idea of giving birth to her first child in Edinburgh - where a dedicated home births team was on-hand via the NHS - particularly appealing.
In recent days, however, the tech worker - who is around 38 weeks pregnant - says the situation has become "chaotic".
The equipment for her home birth, supposed to be delivered last week, failed to turn up.
"I had to chase down the kit. It got me a bit stressed out, because if the kit is not here there is no way for me to even attempt to have a home birth.
"It's hard to say what I would have done."
Her midwife then arrived two hours late for their scheduled antenatal appointment in Ms Kovaks' home.
It transpired that she had been moved to a clinic at the opposite end of town, far from her home birth clients.
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Ms Kovaks said: "At this point, I could give birth at any time. Up until last week, I had no issues with the maternity service at all.
"I knew my own midwife was very passionate about supporting home births, because she had two of her children at home as well.
"That instantly made me feel much better, knowing that she had had that experience and had chosen to be in that [home births] team.
"It's such an intimate event in your life that you don't want someone to be in your house who is perhaps not comfortable with it, or doesn't have enough training and experience.
"But now that is the situation.
"Any community midwife can turn up at my door.
"I'm lucky - I have a doula, I have my partner, I have people to advocate for me if I need it, so I'm not to worried about what will happen on the day of the birth.
"But I can imagine a situation where a woman has chosen a home birth, then someone rocks up at your house who really doesn't want to be there and is pushing you in a direction that makes you really uncomfortable.
"It would be very difficult in such a vulnerable time to say 'this is not what I want'.
"It feels like such a massive step backwards."
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