Continuing with the Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, here is my "aha" of the year.
On April 24, at 10:53 am, Ju was born at our home in Pennsylvania, in a tub of water.
With the late morning sun pouring in the window, and the coaching and support of an amazing experienced midwife, he was born into his father's hands.
I've had a hospital birth, a birth center birth, and a home birth (all natural and drug-free), and I can tell you there is no comparison.
It is not just the lack of narcotics and epidurals and beeping monitors.
Nor is it some masochistic fringe practice, as certain medical personnel would have you believe.
Especially here in Brazil, when I hear other women's birth stories--many of whom wanted natural childbirths, all of whom ended up with unnecessary cesareans or other traumatic experiences--it's easy to get really angry.
I could get into the statistics and evidence, and get all fired up about the anti-homebirth propaganda.
For the moment, though, I'll leave that to Ricki Lake.
Instead, I'll just tell you how thankful I am that my family and I got to experience this--birth as at once awe-inspiring and ordinary, a powerful rite and a seamless part of the rest of our lives.
1 comments:
woo! If I ever did it again, which would be never, I would do a home birth. I am with you about natural all the way, that's how mine were born, but at a birth center, and go Ricki Lake and I just nod vigorously at everything you wrote.
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