My dad wrote me an email today, asking if I've hooked up with a gynecologist/pediatrician yet. I realized that maybe I hadn't been clear about my intentions with the birth. Here's what I wrote back:

I have a meeting with a midwife this week, kind of like an interview. I'll be meeting with a few others, as well, and then choosing who I like best. She'll be my main source of biological support, and then I'll get blood tests at a doctor's office (to check my iron and hemoglobin levels, among other things). I have a lot of herbal support from friends and my own knowledge -- I'm drinking my raspberry/nettle/alfalpha/oatstraw/red clover tea every day!

It's important to me that you know I'm following a non-medical model of pregnancy and childbirth. There are many reasons why, and I look forward to talking with you about it all! Something that isn't well-publicized is that homebirths with midwives result in fewer complications/infections/deaths than deliveries in hospitals with drugs, forceps, vaccums, and doctors.

Beyond that, I have a deep belief that giving birth is as natural of a process as breathing. My body knows how to do it -- I just need to take care of myself during these 9 months and have the support and wisdom of a midwife, who will know how to tell if something is out of the ordinary.

There are many resources available that talk about the problems associated with hospital births and the medicalization of preganancy. I haven't read this one, but Free reccomends it; it's a book by a French doctor called "Entering the World: The Demedicalization of Childbirth" by Michel Odent. Another book that a friend of mine from Twin Oaks suggested to me (she's reading it now) is called "Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born", by Tina Cassidy. That book just came out last year.

I hope I don't sound too defensive or preachy. I just know so many women who weren't supported by their families in their choice to have a natural homebirth with a midwife, and I want us to be on the same page about it.

love,
tickledspirit

This weekend I ran into a friend who I haven't seen in a while, and she mentioned that she had stumbled across my blog and was surprised at how miserable I seemed.  I realized it might be time for an update...

Great summer, lots of traveling.  Got married, exhausting and amazing.  Maybe I'll write reflections on the day (and married life) later on.  My perspective on life certainly changed once I wasn't in school anymore.  I liked my life more.

And now I'm back in school, and finding myself struggling with the same questions of identity, passion, and compromise.  I don't feel like I'm learning much of substance, and then it seems like I'm just in it to get the degree, the title of "Master" that may or may not be helpful to me in getting some kind of employment in a field that I may or may not be passionate about.  When that becomes my goal, I feel despondent, like I've sold out to believing that I have to "make it" in the capitalist mainstream economy.  I feel like I've given up on my faith that another world is possible.

Just this morning, writing in my journal, I remembered that my faith in our ability to create a healthier, more creative culture STEMMED from sociology, and that my original intention in going to school was to open students to believing in it, too!  I'm here to teach; my classes are secondary.  I realized that though teaching sociology is not my life path, I'm doing it right now in the discussion sections I lead as a TA, as a way of "giving back" in thanks for the gift I received as an undergrad.  The details of the class I teach aren't as important as offering a perspective of possibility.  That had gotten lost for me along the way... and now that I remember, I feel more at peace with being here for now.  I'm here in service, not to serve myself.

This is my last semester of classes.  I'll start my Master's Thesis this semester, and then work on it for awhile next semester without being officially registered as a student... because I'll be focused on other things towards the spring.  My body will be changing, growing, as new life grows inside me.  Around the end of April, I'll be having a new baby in my world... I'll be a mama. 

How's that for big news?