UC suppport #4, May - Page 10

[Aura_Kitten]

Intimacy is key, and it's just really unlikely to be there with a hired professional attendant.

that's why i decided (easily) against hiring a doula... although the one in our area is nice enough, and her fees were decent enough (i suppose)... really, how much of a relationship can you build with someone who, for one, you just met, and two, you're paying to be nice to you... ?

i honestly can't imagine hiring someone who i've never seen or met ever before in my life to come and have their hands all over me during one of the most private, intimate times in my life. how could i ever relax?

** not putting down the huge amount of women who opt for doula services... but i don't like to be touched normally by anyone, let alone complete strangers, and i don't care how much you're paying someone ~ midwife, doctor, or doula ~ that's a stranger.

.... i think i'll be shutting up now.

[JesseMomme]

No I know what your saying klothos. Sometime after I had "discovered UC" oh way back when, I had toyed with the idea of becoming a doula, to help other woman now that I "knew the deal" about birth. But then I thought, if I would never want a doula (or any stranger paid or not) to be around me for birth, why would I do the same to someone else, even if they thought "they wanted me there"? Would I somehow be a detriment, a distraction...and I also thought I'd often be working in a hospital setting. I imagined myself going home and crying after every birth, I don't think I could handle that kind of stress. Kudos to the strong woman who help other woman who can handle it. I mean, I'm glad there are doulas, because hosp birth is a reality right now we have to deal with.

Ok stopping here before I ramble on and on and on...

[Aura_Kitten]

just wanted to share ~

quote from a weekly pregnancy e-newsletter i get:

from now until you deliver, you will be visiting
your doctor on a weekly basis. Your doctor will be monitoring your
progression toward labor. There are a variety of
circumstances that affect your doctor's decision on whether to wait
or to induce labor. It becomes very important to follow all
of your doctor's instructions from now on. A physician can only be
as effective as their patient is willing to follow
instructions

...... ok, i'll roll over and do exactly what the good doctor tells me. :LOL

[LavenderMae]

What great advice . Your doctor decides what is best for your body, you know because he/she has extreme psychic ability and knows exactly what is going on in your body and also the gift to forsee what is going to go on in your body. No wonder docs think they are god. Also how nice for them to "allow" something to happen in your body, so good of them really. :

[cottonwood]

Well, since we're all griping about birth attendants :LOL, here's what I posted at a board for midwives:

Recently I had a conversation with someone involved with midwifery advocacy, and in response to my belief that midwives must respect the laboring mother's desire for privacy even if it comes in active labor or second stage, she said (and this is paraphrased, as I don't have permission to quote her):

"The mother is not only placing herself and the baby at great risk, but also placing the midwife in a position of professional liability. For those reasons, the midwife has the right to enter the birthing room at any such time as she believes necessary – not only to protect the mother and baby, as she has a professional responsibility to do, but to protect herself from liability."

What do you all think about this? I understand the fear of liability and feeling the need to protect oneself from that, but it does unfortunately pit the midwife's interests against those of the mother. I know that this is one reason that some women choose to give birth unassisted -- because while they might welcome the support of a midwife at some point, they want the flexibility to say 'no', and in the event that they do feel the need for privacy, they do not want that kind of conflict, that kind of negative energy, to be present.

For what it's worth, the four midwives who have responded so far all have said that they personally would respect the mother's wishes, period.

[StacyL]

It's a boy!

Ladies,

Well, I had my ultrasound this morning, and the only dream I've had about my baby proved correct - it is a boy! I am 24 weeks, and this is our first baby, so we had one ultrasound just to put our minds at ease, even though we are going to have a UC. Everything was 100% normal, so I think in future pregnancies I would feel safe having no ultrasound at all.

On Sunday, my husband and I went to the movies to see "Troy" and every time a battle sequence came on, the baby would go crazy inside me and start kicking all over. : I told my husband it must be a boy!

I am just relieved that the appt. went well, since every other time I have seen my OB, we have always had some sort of conflict. I don't know if I will go again in this pregnancy. Of course, they want to schedule me for a glucose test next, but I was able to put them off. I may just go it alone from here on out.

[sprinkle pocket]

hi all,
i just made it back to a computer after my last post in which i asked for suggestions for good uc reading. thanks for all the great ideas! i can't wait to break into them.

you all rock!

[Michelle Leigh]

Thanks for these suggestions!!

Quote:
Hi pinosaltos, I've also been looking for more spiritually-inclined stuff to read. Jeannine Parvati Baker? I've been reading her Prenatal Yoga and Natural Birth. Recently I've enjoyed Sarah Buckley's UC birth story: http://www.womenofspirit.asn.au/docs/sb_maias_story.txt and Ingrid Bauer's article "Birth As Sheer Pleasure": http://natural-wisdom.com/birthpleasure.htm

I, too, most appreciate spiritually-inclined reading! Thanks for the links & the book suggestion.

[Michelle Leigh]

midwife supporting UC

Blueviolet,
There is an issue of Midwifery Today in which a midwife talks about her birth experience where only she & her husband were present. She describes how two of her midwife friends "interrupted/disturbed" (something to that effect) her bonding with her newly-born baby because they came into her house, laughing & talking, being kinda loud during tender moments.
I don't recall the exact details of this article... but it really made an impact on me.
I don't believe she was planning an unassisted birth, but she had one. I'm assuming she may be an advocate for them now. ??
There may or may not be points you can use for your presentation, but it's nonetheless a very influential article about the special time/intimacy that can be interefered with & never the same...
My massage therapist loaned it to me & I gave it back to her. I'll see if I can borrow it again & let you know who the midwife is, her experience, etc.

[cottonwood]

Thanks Michelle, I think that was MT editor Jan Tritten and that she wrote about it in an editorial. If you can find out what issue that was in, I'd definitely appreciate it!

[Aura_Kitten]

"The mother is not only placing herself and the baby at great risk, but also placing the midwife in a position of professional liability. For those reasons, the midwife has the right to enter the birthing room at any such time as she believes necessary – not only to protect the mother and baby, as she has a professional responsibility to do, but to protect herself from liability."

*~*

last night i laid down and read Jeannine Parvati Baker's Prenatal Yoga again... what inspiration. great book. i'd recommend it to anyone here who hasn't yet read it.

[majazama]

I just wanted to say some things about the subject we were talking about previously... midwives, namely Ina May Gaskin. I think MW and people who are confident enough to have an UC agree that birth doesn't always need to take place in a hospital. I don't think these two "sides" should be attacking one another, because we are, in essence on the same side to decrease the amount of traumatic births. MW's might interfere and cause a lot more problems than they'd like to admit, but our job should be to support them, rather than cutting them down, because they are closer to our ideal than what the majority of women giving birth have to suffer through.

I see the birthing situation in the world as a type of evolution right now. We have the "old style" (which isn't really very old) obstetrical model of "birth as sickness and emergency"..... the midwives, which try to exist in the obstetrical model.... the "lay" MW, which will do the mother's wishes..... and the "do-it-ourselvers", the last step in the evolution of birth. Of course there are many shades of grey in this model, but as we can all agree, the obstetrical model is what we are all "against" in a dualistic way.

Of course, hospitals have their function, time, and place. I'm not for banning them. I just wish we could all band together to fight this monster that hospital birthing has become instead of fighting amungst ourselves, which will benefit the docs.

I hope I am understood. It's hard to express myself sometimes with writing.

[ChildoftheMoon]

here is the new thread: uc thread #5

Brandi

[cathicog]

I am a midwife assistant who UC'd and was trained

under Ina May et. al. She was/is not happy with my choice of teaching people how to have thier own babies if they decide to educate themselves, but you know what? In our area of Southside Virginia, the section rate and other interventions is so high, you are better off doing a UC than going to the hospital, if you want a truly normal birth! I know, I did it!!