Saturday, May 5, 2012

Three Years Later, Day of the Midwife.

The day before the anniversary of my cesarean section also happens to be "Day of the Midwife" in "Midwifery Month" -so much as I would like to just let my thoughts be with my little boy on his last day of being two, I am being bombarded with requests to attend birth workshops, picnics, and even flash mobs all celebrating the greatness of midwives.

And don't get me wrong I think that the rebirth of midwifery in Canada is in general a very positive thing.  Too bad my experience with midwifery care kind of sucked.

Sure I am all up for taking the blame for not having the birth I wanted, for not doing enough of my own research, for not being more demanding, for assuming that midwife meant what I had read about in all of my hippie birthing books.  The truth is that I feel that the care I got put me in a dangerous position of relying on people who were trained to do one thing, uncomplicated birth, when I was encouraged to leave that realm by way of induction.

I wish that the eve of little boy's birth was some other day and that I had not been asked to give three cheers for midwives 40 times this week.  It makes me a little pissed off actually.  Guess it's the universe's way of reminding me that, like it or not, birth culture has gotten up under my skin and I must keep using that fire for good.

So, happy Day of the Midwife, and a part of my heart really means it.