Room Service? or a Busy Resturaunt?

Tuesday night we had an appointment with our midwife and instead of having to travel to go see her (usually about a 45 min trip) she came up to see us! She had another client who had just had her baby and so she was coming to do a postpartum visit. It was REALLY wonderful to have her meet with us in our house, to lay on my couch while she measured my belly and listened to the baby, to have Asher running around in his PJs and trying to bring the midwife his story books, to talk about Baby Bird and how she was doing, to have the midwife get a feel for our house and who we are, and mostly to feel a sweet assurance that this pregnancy is a normal, healthy, and extremely joyful event in my life. After the midwife and her midwifery student left I realized that this was one-- of the many-- reasons why I am choosing to have a home birth again-- because everyone comes to me instead of me going to them!

I was trying to explain to someone the other day why I choose to have my babies at home and the best way that I could explain it was that that home birth is like having 24 hour room service with your own personal chef who knows how to cook your very favorite foods-- so you get EXACTLY what you want, when you want it, with complete personal attention, and in the comfort and privacy of your own room (or in this case-- house). In contrast, a hospital birth is more like going to a busy restaurant where there are lots of people demanding attention, there are limited choices on the menu, your movement in confined to your table ( room-- or sometimes even just your bed), and while you can tell the chef (the doctor or nurse) what you want they may or may not remember to bring it to you, plus if you stay too long the staff will try to "speed you up" or "get things moving" to make room for other customers or so that they can go home.

While there are sometimes in my life when I really love and enjoy busy restaurants, birth is not one of those times for me. I've attended enough hospital births to know that while it is possible to have a nice, peaceful, and natural birth at a hospital it doesn't even come close to the kind of experience that a woman and her family get from birthing at home. As hard a you try it is impossible to make a busy restaurant feel like room service, and while you can come fairly close it still isn't quite the same. I really believe that birth is one of the most sacred and intimate events in the life of a woman, her partner and the baby and it just makes sense to me to have it happen in what should be one the most sacred places on earth-- the home.

My cousin Liz has this phrase posted at the end of each email she sends and I think it is SO true, "Peace on Earth Begins With Birth". I truly believe that the birth experience is INCREDIBLY important to both a woman and her new child. It really does matter how we are born and how we come into this world, just like it matters how we leave it. I don't think it is any coincidence that in the United States we have a hard time treating elderly and dying people with respect. We tend to think it doesn't matter and that they are "just going to die" so we stick them in nursing homes and make it hard for them to die with dignity. If given a choice most people would never choose to die at a hospital, they would almost always rather be at home, surrounded by people who love and care for them and with things that are familiar. Fortunately in recent years hospice services have become more common and people are being given the opportunity to die at home with great peace and great dignity. Now I know that birth is not death, in fact it is just the opposite (ha! okay, lame joke) but just like how someone dies affects the whole family and all of society, how a baby is born has the same kind of impact on society and on families-- whether we are aware of it or not.

This is why even though we have to travel a bit for our prenatal appointments and have to pay for our midwifery care out of pocket (we have Medicaid and if we were at a hospital everything would be paid for-ugg. But hopefully after the new Medicaid bill passes home births will be covered! Keep your fingers and toes crossed!) it is SO worth it to Jon and I in order to be able to have the intimate, peaceful, spiritual, normal and natural birth experience that we believe that is best for us and for our baby. This is also why I am so passionate about improving maternity care in the United States, because not only is it a matter of making sure mothers and babies receive the best care (which they are NOT getting right now-- c-section rates are at 31%-- that is almost one out of three women-- not healthy!) but how a society treats birth influences how they view the importance of life and how they treat life.