The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS,
a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA
The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS,
a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA
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I just had my mind expanded this morning by Laureen Hudson's hour long online session on how to use the internet to get a message out. Laureen's session “Creating an Online Presence," gave me a wealth of information in a short time and impressed me with how many people are out there who completely rely on the internet for their information. I needed that, and maybe you do, too. - Ina May Gaskin I just hung up the phone from doing the hour long session with
Laureen Hudson on “Creating an Online Presence”. Laureen’s know-how
and expertise were enough to wake up even the birth oldtimers like me and
Ina May to the many unused opportunities of the internet. Laureen’s
engaging and easygoing teaching style made even those scary (to me) terms
like “hypertext, streaming, wordpress, technorati, feedreader and trackback”
start to make sense. Her passion is to reach the generation of young
women who have not yet given birth BEFORE they fall into the black hole
of aggressive obstetrics. I came away from the class today with lots
of ways to improve my website and make it more modern, usable and interesting
for readers. This class will run again this coming Friday (August
22) and I heartily recommend it.
Cost: $35 per session Each session will be 60 minutes in length Creating An Online Presence
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I am so committed to having a home birth, I wish so much that my husband
wanted it also. He is willing, but he believes that I "should" have it
in the hospital. I am low risk for home birth. He says nothing will change
his mind. He doesn't care about statistics or books, anything. I'm maybe
just hormonal, but I am really feeling frustrated. I guess I should feel
happy that he will go along with my choice. Any words of wisdom out there?
As both a homebirth mom and a midwife, I sure can appreciate your frustration. I had four babies in a hospital setting before I had the strength and courage to tell my husband (and my family) that I wanted to have my next baby at home. My husband claimed he supported my choice for a natural, unmedicated birth but when the Doc made a suggestion, that was a totally different story. Hospitals and Drs represented knowledge and authority - his trust was in them, not in me. So, when I got pregnant again (after an induction with No. 4 because I had babies just too fast and too easy for the docs), I said enough is enough. I found a midwife and had my baby at home. In retrospect, I think more time and effort was put on catering to my husband's needs and fears than to the birth of my baby. I was thankful this was not my first and that I had complete trust in my body.
So, as a midwife, I try to address the husband's fears prior to the birth. I have them write down on a piece of paper the worst case scenario he can think of. I also ask him to address all the negative things he has heard about birth from his friends and his family. I encourage him to come to visits. We play out his fears at the end of the visit. I tell him he is not alone in feeling the way he does and put him in touch with other birthing dads who had those very same fears prior to their wives’ home births. We also discuss what role they would like to play at the birth -- and then I educate him on playing that role.
I do this because I don't like surprises at births, especially in dealing
with negativity and fears of "birth support people". I want to be focused
on my birthing mom and her situation. She and her baby are my only concerns.
So, the extra time I spend prenatally answering questions, providing information,
will usually pay off in the end.
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