Once I began thinking "outside of the box," when, at 6 months post-partum my episiotomy scar STILL hurt like crazy, and the standard estrogen-laced birth control pills I was taking while nursing made me feel yucky, I began my journey to birthing at home.
I was first introduced to the concept of doulas (via a weekly meeting of doulas in the Twin Cities area: Childbirth Collective . I met a few, and listened to them talk about birth, and after a few months I began to notice that all of THEM chose homebirths...
...started to make me wonder, why all these smart women, who support laboring women by trade, all choose homebirth.
By this time, I had decided that it was a good idea to labor at home as long as possible with a doula. And then I asked myself:
WHY do I want to go to the hospital for the last little bit? How is that 'safer?' And actually, isn't it SAFER to have a midwife (vs. 'just' a doula) attending the labor at home? And then that midwife could be there when the baby is born?
(I think it's so hypocritical of The Man (the medical establishment) to think that laboring at home is okay, and jeepers, just get to the hospital in time to deliver the baby, but HOMEBIRTH with a midwife with a fetoscope on the belly every 10 minutes is NOT as safe as the previously mentioned scenario.)
I answered all my 'what if' questions COMPLETELY and specifically. No "what if something goes wrong"-type questions, only "what if there's meconium?"
I concider myself to be a huge know-it-all nerd when it comes to birthing in the United States. The problem with my education was that I believed what I read in every OB & maternity nursing textbook I checked out of the biomed library at the University of Minnesota, what I saw on TV (y'know, Maternity Ward & the like,) and I never gave much value to ANYTHING non-medical...because WHY would 97% of American women birth in US hospitals if it were uncool and unsafe?
After I learned about the midwifery model of birth, and learned that to be true, too, I could see that all the stuff I knew from the OB texts and the like was true, too....but innapropriate for a normal, laboring woman.
It's funny; it's the WOMAN who is so left out of the medical model. I couldn't see that until I lived through it and learned how I should have been treated.
I was first introduced to the concept of doulas (via a weekly meeting of doulas in the Twin Cities area: Childbirth Collective . I met a few, and listened to them talk about birth, and after a few months I began to notice that all of THEM chose homebirths...
...started to make me wonder, why all these smart women, who support laboring women by trade, all choose homebirth.
By this time, I had decided that it was a good idea to labor at home as long as possible with a doula. And then I asked myself:
WHY do I want to go to the hospital for the last little bit? How is that 'safer?' And actually, isn't it SAFER to have a midwife (vs. 'just' a doula) attending the labor at home? And then that midwife could be there when the baby is born?
(I think it's so hypocritical of The Man (the medical establishment) to think that laboring at home is okay, and jeepers, just get to the hospital in time to deliver the baby, but HOMEBIRTH with a midwife with a fetoscope on the belly every 10 minutes is NOT as safe as the previously mentioned scenario.)
I answered all my 'what if' questions COMPLETELY and specifically. No "what if something goes wrong"-type questions, only "what if there's meconium?"
I concider myself to be a huge know-it-all nerd when it comes to birthing in the United States. The problem with my education was that I believed what I read in every OB & maternity nursing textbook I checked out of the biomed library at the University of Minnesota, what I saw on TV (y'know, Maternity Ward & the like,) and I never gave much value to ANYTHING non-medical...because WHY would 97% of American women birth in US hospitals if it were uncool and unsafe?
After I learned about the midwifery model of birth, and learned that to be true, too, I could see that all the stuff I knew from the OB texts and the like was true, too....but innapropriate for a normal, laboring woman.
It's funny; it's the WOMAN who is so left out of the medical model. I couldn't see that until I lived through it and learned how I should have been treated.
her instilling so much confidence and trust into me from day 1. I never knew anything BUT the HB philosophy, and I never even considered giving birth in a hospital. I am so thankful that dh agrees with me and has been 100% supportive through this pregnancy. It was wonderful with this pregnancy because he knew nothing of the pros/cons to HB vs other, so we researched together and it made it very much *our* decision and not just something I blindly believed. I only go on and on about my mom because I notice that she spent my whole life preparing me to be a mother and I am so grateful.
