Security

Go check out another excellent post by the amazing Gloria Lemay, if you haven't seen it already!!

Living Exposed

I live under no false assumption that by being certified and licensed, I am 'protected'. Codswallop. Midwives need to let go of the assumption that if they always follow their protocols to the 'T' and keep up their license, they will never be liable to prosecution. As Gloria says:

"There is no safety to be had in birth work. No amount of butt covering will avoid the fact that you’re not perfect. If you do something, you will be attacked and, if you don’t do anything, you will be attacked. If you have a certificate, someone will want to take it away from you and if you aren’t certified people will make that wrong."

Can't we just have Gloria cloned and distributed throughout the world, so that we can all have some of her sanity and wisdom in our community? :p

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.

Birth Talk

So, I had this thought the other day. So many people, including myself, seem to assume that homebirth midwives are "protecting" birth and women. But, I am coming to realize more and more that birth survives and happens many times IN SPITE of some midwives. I never thought I would say this, but that is where I am at right now. I keep hearing of more and more stories where the midwife (in a homebirth, btw), is yelling "PUSH! PUSH! PUSH!", telling the woman where, when and how to push, and generally NOT respecting women's intution. It is almost as if there are some midwives who just give lip service to trusting birth, and deep down, they still feel the need to control birth.

I am not midwife bashing. I love midwifery. I am a student midwife myself. I am just seeing more and more exactly what kind of midwife I want to be, and realizing more and more that there are many more differences between midwifes other than CPM, CNM, DEM, etc, etc..... Thank goddess that I had P. at my birth. She is the kind of midwife that I aspire to be. She truly understands what birth is and can be if left alone. I pray for guidance as I walk down my path to midwifery to keep my heart open and to be honest with myself and confront my fears head on.

Re-evaluating

I have been spending the last few days really considering what I want this blog to become.

I have such a hard-to-beat inclination to talk about what other midwives do/don't do in a critical way, mainly due to my own struggle to come to grips with the reality of maternity care, midwives included.

But, I don't want this blog to be about my judgement (that is what it is, essentially) of others. I want this blog to be about my own journey as a midwife and my own ideas. More "I" statements than "they" statements. LOL!

Often I feel compelled to post here about various topics because of an encounter with someone or something that I am in disagreement with. So, I will have to carefully check my tendencies to rant on and on about such things because I have been feeling like there is enough out there on the net and in books that bashes what others are doing. I want my blog to approach birth and midwifery from a positive light, spoken more from my heart and mind.