Birth Trust

I had no idea it had been so many days since my last post. This past week has been a fuzz. We attended 3 births in 6 days, all with their own unique excitment. I won't go into details here, as the birth stories aren't mine to tell.

But, let me just say this:

I don't trust birth naively. I know that things can 'go wrong' in all birth settings, with all birth attendants, and with no birth attendant, and that there are two very precious lives involved in birth, both equally important. I have seen things during births that would cause some midwives and student midwives to quit for good. But, I have not waivered in my belief that BIRTH WORKS. And, I am always critically looking at another key question: how can I guarantee that "X" complication would have occurred no matter what? (I can't). What role do I have, as a midwife, to causing the situation at hand? (And, I don't mean any obvious cause....but what about the simple presence of us midwives?). I wish I could explain in more detail these births I have attended in this last month. It was a blessing that I had just attended The Trust Birth Conference 2 weeks earlier.

2008

Now that the Trust Birth Conference is over and I have gotten back into the swing of day to day life, I need to get things back on track. Only about 3.5 months left of my time as an apprentice; plans to graduate midwifery school by the end of this year; taking my NARM exam August 20; figuring out where I fit in my community as a newly-winged midwife. As a testament that I am interested in more than just midwifery, I am planning on enrolling in my local community college in the fall to begin a Russian language class. I am almost as excited about this as I am about the prospect of passing the NARM. In preparation, I bought a bunch of these flash cards today. I had a set of them when I lived in Russia as a high school exchange student, and they were fabulous. I did at one time speak quite a bit of Russian, almost to the point of fluency. I am hoping these classes and flash cards help to dig out of my memory the language that must be in the depths of my brain somewhere, and offer me a chance to learn proper Russian grammar.

I hope to use this blog to expand upon my thoughts on various midwifery subjects that I am studying for school assignments. Knowing that I want to keep this blog alive and well will help to motivate me to keep working on my assignments to meet my final goal: GRADUATION. Sounds simple enough, but I have been working at this (off and on) since 2001.

2008.

one more time

The Trust Birth Conference.....it was incredible! The entire event was like a dream for me!

The highlights for me:

• The awards dinner was so great. I especially loved Dr. Odent's presentation on breaking the dis-empowering vocabulary of birth. I strained my ears the best I could to catch every precious word he said.
• Meeting so many wonderful people, especially those I have "known" online for many years.
• Meeting the wonderful Gloria Lemay. In more ways than I can count, she is my hero and role model!
• Meeting and speaking with so many other amazing speakers: Jody McLaughlin of Compleat Mother magazine, Dr. Sarah Buckley, Laura Shanley, Karen Strange, Rixa Freeze, Gail Hart, and many others too numerous to mention.
• Rachel Correa's beautiful presentation about her first born daughter during the opening session.

and honestly, that list is a very abbreviated about a seriously life-changing trip!

The conference has inspired me to keep this blog going. I know I haven't been consistently writing. But, I plan on changing that. You will have to bear with me, as eloquent prose isn't my strong point. But, I will do my best to breath new life into this here blog.

Starting today.