So, I was having a really great morning. I was in a good mood. And then I read Lifetime TV Shows Us There’s One (Unnecessary Intervention) Born Every Minute. Its a great blog by The Feminist Breeder, I read when I can.
But I was just as angry at the show as she was and I didn't even watch it!!! Then reading the comments made me realise how little women know today. I kept thinking "we had a feminist movement to get what we want! We can vote, we can work, we can stay home with our kids.. but we can't give birth?!"
Just writing about it now, is making me tear up again.
I feel sad that women don't have faith in their bodies to birth without someone telling them they need drugs. We look down on people that get their drugs off the street but its perfectly fine to take drugs while having a baby. We look down on athletes that take drugs to enhance their game but laboring women are told they can't give birth without them.
Let me clarify that I am all for women making up their own mind on how they give birth as long as they know what their options are.
Many women don't know they have options. So they can't make a choice. They do what they are told.
When I became pregnant in 2008, I was going to a hospital that I got to visit with nurses for every visit. No doctor until 30 weeks, and even then the doctor I met might not be the one that was their for delivery. I was disappointed that I couldn't meet my doctor more then once and that this doctor may not be at the hospital. What is that? So... After I talked to my husband we switched to an OB/GYN practice closer to home and I could talk to the OB more often then just at my 30 week appointment.
I was just going to appointments, not thinking about much and expecting the OB I was seeing to be there for the birth of my baby. Didn't think about a birth plan, didn't think about turning down drugs, didn't know I had options. They certainly never came up when I was at my OB visits.
And then a co-worker had a book with a baby on the cover, Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born and I thought, "hey I'm pregnant, I should read that!" So after she finished it, I borrowed it. And OH MY GOODNESS!!! How could women that fought so hard to vote and work just give in like this?! I also read Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care.
So I made my birth plan, and my husband supported me. I still didn't consider a homebirth. I didn't know about it, and had no idea there were midwives in AZ! I ended up with a natural, vaginal birth in a hospital.
So, I'm a doula, and childbirth educator. And i want women to know they have choices and its THEIR birth! Not the doctor's or the nurses or the doula's or the midwifes! YOUR BIRTH!
God created your body to birth your baby, and he also gave us the ability to save you and your baby in an emergency....
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