I wish I had found a support group before I let myself be convinced that a homebirth was unthinkable because I was 37. My insurance didn’t cover the birth center here, so hospital it was. I didn’t end up in surgery and my hospital birth was, relatively speaking, pretty close to my birthplan with the hospital staff very respectful of my wishes, and only suggesting medical interventions after trying my own. But I think the average woman simply (who doesn’t do any research and reads mainstream ‘how tos’) does what she is told, and if I had NOT written a birthplan, I feel that surgery would have been pushed as the only option to end 3 days of slow progress.

I also loved your Farmer’s Market post! My daughter is only 1 year, but I know we’re on the path to ‘unschooling’.

I’m off to read more!

But Ryan and I are living proof that ICAN is changing lives for women and babies. Progress is slower than we want it to be, but it will change.

I believe that in my bones. My daughter will not have a cesarean simply because she is a woman. Not gonna happen on my watch. Take this for the promise that it is– I’m not giving up. I refuse. Thanks for reminding me!

Christie

Why is it, that the prospect of going into a germ-ridden, authoritarian place filled with people who care more about their personal wellbeing than yours, where you *know* they are going to try to physically attack you (episiotomy, uterine check, cesarean, unwanted pharmaceuticals) if you drop your guard and you’re going to have to spend your labor fighting with everything you’ve got in you and then once the baby’s out by whatever means you have zero
guarantees that they’ll be treated the way you want them treated….. is somehow more appealing than staying home, where you’re safe, and protected, and surrounded by your own stuff, your own germs, and your
own support network?

How, in just two generations, have medpros done such an excellent job of brainwashing, to make that seem like a good choice???

I was a breech baby, and my first was a horrible induction that only was allowed to be vaginal because I hit the magical ‘12 hour’ point at 2 am and without the obligatory needle o’ narc in my spine.

The insurance companies could, for once, help us in this. Especially since having good insurance is a much better predictor of the likelihood of having a section than almost anything else. From now on, every birth earns the same amount. If you are a doc and a hospital you get X, no matter what. Vaginal birth or section. Drugs or no drugs. And if you are a homebirth midwife you get what the doc gets, and the parents get what the hospital would have gotten. UC folks should get all of it.

So what do you think?

-A

Angry, hysterical and bitter. I think there are some women I’m happy to share that label with, and who says its such a bad thing anyway? Like I’m supposed to get any change done at all while being happy, passive and brainless?

love ya babe!