Your Choices When It Comes to Birth

I am waiting on a certain local hospital to detract some outright lies that were stated the other night about home birth in North Carolina. I'm giving them time to do so, because if they choose NOT to, then I'll be a big ol' thorn in their side. For now, I just want to make sure that everyone that I know and come in contact with knows that they have CHOICES when it comes to birth.

This is one of the best things about the BIRTHFIT Prenatal Series: it's not a childbirth education class with any sort of outcome in mind. I used to teach HypnoBirthing, which was great; the tools learned in that class could carry over into any birth, but it was definitely in favor of a "natural birth". I am personally in favor of having as little interventions as possible. But my personal preferences don't/can't/shouldn't/will never impact your birth. If you want to go to the hospital, get immediately hooked up to every drug available, get put under general anesthesia, and have an elected Cesarean, then all I want is for you to know the risks, benefits, and choices available to you.

I'm starting to go on a tangent: I can feel it building. But I don't actually have time for that, so I'm going to try to keep this concise. *Steps off soap box, clears throat, continues*

Regardless of how you give birth, you have my support and the support of all of BIRTHFIT. We want you to know your choices. Those choices include who's in the room; what happens to you, your vagina, your baby, your partner, your extended family; who receives the baby; where you birth; how long you stay in the birthing place; etc. There are SO many options (you know, like 12 hours of an entire educational series worth of options to go over).

But one of the options is WHERE to birth. I was at an event the other night where they said that home birth midwives can't deliver babies in North Carolina. Bullshit. Absolute rubbish. (I did a little tangent on instagram the next morning because I was a little fired up.)

Certified Nurse Midwives CAN serve families at home births; they need to have a backing physician, but they sure as hell can be there on their own, without the physician present, and do a hell of a job of supporting families. (Certified Professional Midwives cannot do this at this point.)

Anyway, that's it. I need you to know that. Home births are an option the same way that choosing to wear your own clothes (or your birthday suit) when you birth rather than a hospital gown is an option.

YOU HAVE OPTIONS.

I feel like you get it by this point, but just once more: YOU GET TO DECIDE.

That's really it.

Side note: It's been almost a year since I've been writing these plain old emails rather than just my prettied-up newsletters, and I've gotta say that I really appreciate the responses you've sent and the continued conversations that spill over into classes and in-person dialogue. So thanks for that!

These emails have helped a lot with my perfectionism: I want things to be *just right* before they go out, but in reality, I just want to connect to people and share some info. So thanks for being here.

Much love,
Lindsay