thoughts on birth part one: midwives.

lots of people have asked me about why/how/what our birth plans are, so i thought i'd write down my own thoughts/philosophies about this.   i honestly think the choices that a woman/couple make about the birth of their child are very individual, so i don't have an agenda at all in my preferences and choices.  i just feel the way i do, and this is a reflection on why and how i came to feel this way.

first, the midwives thing.  when i first started thinking about giving birth (well before this pregnancy, just in the grand scheme of maybe someday i will have a human baby), i realized i don't have a great deal of trust in the medical profession.  it's the whole hammer/nail thing - when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  when you're a surgeon, everything looks like an opportunity to perform some kind of surgery or other intervention.  i think doctors are great, and i'm not one of those people who will avoid going to the doctor in favor of hoping whatever ailment will randomly go away, but i do think that i live in a culture that is increasingly (and i would argue detrimentally) reliant on the medical profession.  people get on medication for all kinds of things that could really be solved (a lot of the times - this is not a blanket statement) by diet and exercise and stress management.  by that same token, it seems to me like everyone goes to a doctor for pregnancy and childbirth, when it's really only a very very small percentage of women who need medical intervention in their pregnancies.  obviously, for those that do, medical intervention is a god-send, but for myself, i didn't really think a doctor was who i needed to see if i happened to be blessed with a normal pregnancy.  and, thankfully, doctors are rampant so i feel confident i'm in the clear if something abnormal pops up.

enter midwifery, the solution to my doctor skepticism.  i think i was drawn to the idea because of its history.  women have been using midwives for birth for a long, long time, with a great deal of success.  there's also a much lower incidence of surgical intervention (read: c-section) with midwife-assisted birth.  combine that with the option my practice offers of delivering in a hospital (a request my family made, despite my assurances that home and birth center births were statistically just as safe if not safer), and i was sold.

in my experiences so far, the midwives are intuitive and responsive and direct.  my doctors are great too, of course, but i think doctors are sometimes reliant on checklists and limiting liability in a way that my midwives are not....in a situation like the birth of a child, where every woman and every pregnancy is different, i really appreciate working with caretakers who are attuned to me and my pregnancy specifically.  they feel around on my belly, ask questions about me and the baby, and generally engage with the whole experience much more like an art than a science.  and i, personally, like that.  so will a doctor deliver nibs when s/he decides to make an appearance?  it's unlikely.  will a doctor even be present in the room?  i hope not, because that will mean i'm having the normal, uncomplicated birth i'm hoping for.