Midwifery is catching

High risk lovemaking - A mini-play excerpted from the chapter, "You’re not fooled by the term ‘high risk,’" in Jock Doubleday’s book, Spontaneous Creation: 101 Reasons Not to Have Your Baby in a Hospital, Vol. 1: A Book about Natural Childbirth and the Birth of Wisdom and Power in Childbearing Women (visit Spontaneous Creation for more!)

I’m ignoring my ticker because I’m going to go batty if I keep a track of the days left. Ok so it’s something around 85 - I did peek. Slightly less than 3 months. 3 moon cycles. Christmas and New Year to go. Summer solstice will pass I think - yep, 22 December. Ok step away from the timeline there Emma.

I’ve been reading news feeds recently while doing my kind of day job at the moment (test knitting for a magazine and yeah, for $$ as well!!!) and it got me thinking that I should definitely be involved in girly bits. I’ve had phases of being obsessed about IUDs, the pill, abortions, adoption, parenting (which yesterday’s fun and games at aunty-ing showed I have no freaking clue about!!), and the general workings of the womanly body. What is it with our society that freaks out about these conversations?

Anyway - some news articles:

Workplaces punish pregnancy

Pregnant women suffer widespread discrimination at work, figures show, with almost one in 14 mums-to-be denied opportunities for promotion and one in 50 demoted.

A study also reveals only one third of working women take paid maternity leave.

Labor says the Australian Bureau of Statistics study, which surveyed 1515 birth mothers across Australia living with at least one child aged under two, in November last year, showed women still were being held back at work.

And

Pregnancy bleeding misunderstood

More than half of women who bleed during pregnancy go on to miscarry their baby - and too many wrongly blame themselves for the loss, a fertility expert says.

Dr Devora Lieberman, director of the miscarriage management program at Sydney IVF, says one in five prospective mothers will suffer from bleeding after normal conception.

The ABC pet show tonight had a question - "what’s the greatest risk when your pet is giving birth?" The rather direct answer was "…that people try and interfere too much".  

Wood for the trees moment?

In other happy baby news, I’m yet again a quasi-uncle with the safe arrival of Cameron this afternoon. He’s teeny and perfect and sweet and ooh my aching ovaries . 

Granted, I get paid for it as well but it helps me deal with anxiety. I don’t have huge things to stress about at the moment but oddly enough, chickens rank top of the list of things I’m stressing about at the moment. We have a chicken run here at home and the dramas around badly timed arrivals of "free" chickens have me feeling anxious.

Add to that list the situation of my quasi-SIL who is booked in for a c-section shortly for her second bub which I am alternately VERY EXCITED about and also kind of pensive. Dumb me has been reading about the risks of c-sections as part of my insatiable cruise for knowledge and it’s not happy reading. I also know that she’s in good hands, and there are other things on my mind, but knitting is helping anyway!

I’ve also been thinking about The Meaning of Life a la Monty Python. In the scene about birth, where the birthing woman is flat on her back in a room full of people and machines and such, and the doctor demands the machine that goes ‘ping!’, the woman asks "What do I do??" and the doctor says "Nothing my dear - you’re not qualified!". This is how some people approach birth, and I know that lots of women probably have no idea that there are other ways to do it. From reading lots and lots of birth stories, from both midwiffle’s points of view and mother’s, that naturally the woman finds positions that ease the process on. I find it fascinating that so many women seek water, and find relief in it. It is extraordinary that a woman should instead be forced to lie on her back during labour, in a position that defies the laws of nature and gravity to bring a babe out, and surprising that many books still talk about clamping and cutting the cord quickly rather than letting it stop pulsing (physiological third stage I think it’s called).

I am also wondering how my being sans children will be taken by women when I become involved in childbirth. Do you have to have been there, done that to have an idea? I am ambivalent about male OB/GYNs because I figure that a particular doctor has about as much of a clue about *my* bits as the next, regardless of gender, but will women not give me credit for having a clue because I’ve not birthed myself? How would that feel for someone who *couldn’t* have children and had felt that getting into midwiffle would help her be involved in the process for other people?

And - what do you think of the new template? I like it . 

For your edification, I have created a ticker page for the count down to when I find out about this next step. I’ve put this post in the side bar, and the ticker as a link, just, you know, in case I forget about it over the next few months, or if you want to keep me in your thoughts.