Not that I have any problems with your personal choices...
So, we're giving birth at home again, which in Massachusetts is kind of a radical thing because it means going through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum with NO contact with the medical establishment.
I hesitated to write "the medical industrial complex" in that last sentence, but I thought it. That should give you some insight into my opinions on the matter.
Personally, I am more than happy to give birth far far away from doctors and nurses. At med school and nursing school the primary model of thinking is "How can I fix this?" Which, um, is probably appropriate for many medical emergencies, of which birth is not one. Unfortunately, doctors and nurses look at birthing women as problems to diagnose and fix, which ushers in a whole host of actions that aren't necessarily good or right or just. I can go on but I won't. Here are some books on the subject.
Anyway, since I'm giving birth at home in Massachusetts, no OB or nurse midwife can assist me without losing their hospital accreditation. So I get care from a certified professional midwife, who is someone who went to school just for midwifery. She's very skilled and trustworthy and accommodating. She costs me $3500 out of pocket.
Which is a lot of money to avoid Pitocin, a 34% cesarian rate, or STD vaccines in my baby's eyes. But I think it's worth it.
Anyway, that's a long preamble to what I really wanted to blog about today, but hopefully those who violently disagree with me have already stopped reading. What's stressing me out this week is that I have several friends who are concurrently going through pregnancy and the process of choosing a "provider", and I can't really offer my honest opinion in conversations with these women. Because my honest opinion is if you go into the hospital, you're likely to get fucked.
I have some radical opinions on the issue, and it's hard to function in casual conversation because someone will be all, "I chose Beth Israel because you can get a private room with a couch!" and I'm all, "Yeah, I chose my living room because I'm 75% less likely to get sliced the fuck open."
Abdominally, I mean. The stats for episiotomies are worse.
Ugh, there I go again. Why don't I just open the door on one big long anarchist rant and get it over with already. You see, we've got a life-extracting medical industrial complex in this country that exploits peoples illnesses and fears and turns them into economic inputs to generate profits. At the same time this sick-loving machine bashes people as best it can into identical cogs so they fit neater into little boxes on the insurance forms. And fittinger means more tests, and more tests mean more surgeries and more surgeries mean more money. Which should be hard on the hunks of meat on the stretchers, but we don't mind, not us well-healed ladies waiting for a strong man to serve up our perfect baby, because having strangers play a game of slots with our physical integrity is much easier to take when the windows have curtains and we get to choose on our own soft ocean waves CD. Which is why I say TAKE AWAY THE SOOTHING WALLPAPER AND TREE-LINED ENTRANCE IF YOU REFUSE TO TAKE AWAY THE MANDATORY IV AND THE TIME LIMIT ON LABOR AND THE FETAL MONITORING STRIP. Don't reform the prisons, let the prisoners revolt!
Which is why I have a blog, because here's hoping I don't open my big fat mouth on some pregnant lady who won't be my friend later.
comments
love it and love you. your rants help the less brave / ambitious of us find the hospitals and providers with lower cesarean rates, lots of time to give birth naturally and choice around vaccinations for our baby. but don't be so hard on the soothing wallpaper - it's great stuff... for the wall in the nursery at home. :)
How well-spoken and judicious you are, k... just what you need to put up with crazy folks like us! For reals, I know our choices aren't for everyone, but in order to work up the courage to make them we had to get pretty, well, worked up about the state of hospital births. But of course you know we support you guys and your choices a million percent!