Don't meddle with midwives

KVNU has talked about midwives in the past and I have always found it interesting. Because of a certain bill, it has come up again and a couple people have written on their blog (see here, and here and here (the last is Craig's) about it. I haven't said much because it is actually something I am semi-passionate about and I haven't wanted to get too carried away.

When I feel strongly about something and argue about it, I can get all worked up but Craig is gone this weekend so I don't have to worry about forcing him to listen to my vents throughout the day. That happened a few weeks ago when I got into a discussion about free will, salvation, and infant baptism with some church people - it was fun :-)

Anyway, I will only say that I am semi-passionate about it because it seems weird to be passionate about baby things when I haven't had a baby yet. But I kinda am. We have pretty firm ideas about how we want to raise our kids and luckily for me, we pretty much agree. While we seem like quite the conservative, suburban-loving, someday mini-van driving couple, I do believe we are going to morph into hippies when we have kids. A couple of things we are "interested" in doing ("interested" = thinking about and will probably do but nothing is set in stone because we don't actually have kids and in the end we have to do what works for us, not what I think should work for us)

• home birth
• breastfeeding
• co-sleeping
• baby wearing
• cloth diapers
  
• homeschooling (not really just an "interested" - we will almost assuredly be doing this)

See what I mean, we want to be hippies! It makes me laugh so hard when I think about it.

Okay, back to midwives. I am interested in doing a home birth but I'm not sure what we will end up doing. (Side note: every time I say I, I probably really mean we since Craig does have some say in this, but I am still going to say I because if I don't it makes it seem like I am putting words in his mouth). But I do know that I want to be the one making the decision. I want to do the research, I want to weight the pros and cons, and I want to be the one to decide what is in the best interest of me and my baby - not some people in government who will never even meet my child.

Some people are trying to make the argument that it is too dangerous to take the risks. "You need trained professionals" they say, "We have to protect the children." First off, there is no evidence to back that up. The UMA saying it is dangerous is not evidence, it is an opinion. The facts don't back the UMA up. And since the burden of proof is on them, we could end the argument there but just for fun, I'll keep going.

Protect from whom? What they are really saying is, "I think the parents are too stupid to make their own informed decision and we have to save the baby from them". Do you really think parents are just going to do this on a whim? I would say that a woman that chooses home birth is probably more informed that the average birther. Where are those pro-choice people now. I can choose to abort my baby but I shouldn't be able to choose where and with whom I deliver him/her? That makes no sense. I feel like I have to fight against this because when the time comes, I want Craig and I to be able to decide what we want to do, ourselves. If we can't, I am going to be one mad hormonal woman. And that would just be sad for Craig.