Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

As for your friend's status, I can see what you're saying, but I disagree. He is proud of her. She wanted to do something *really* hard and she was doing. And yes, it does take strength to do it. A lot of strength. She *was* strong. I don't think he was judging anyone else by that statement. He was ...

pillowy wrote:I guess I'm pushing back against what I feel is judgement for not laboring/birthing a specific way, and I really hope I'm not coming on too strong.

And yet you told me that you'd convince me to change my mind about home birth if you could?

I admire your faith and fortitude. What you're dealing with is Hard. I can't even pretend I understand. Which makes me admire your persistence even more.

We're having spinach sausage soufflé, thanks to a freezer meal swap, with a salad (with berries!), and homemade crusty bread. And for dessert, parfaits ("which is a fancy word for ice cream sundaes"), thanks to the book Fancy Nancy and my girls' obsession with it.

Yay! We've agreed on a major point of labor discussion! I feel like we should all eat ice cream now.

They teach us in med school that lying on your back is basically the worst position to labor in. That's why labor and delivery beds fold up and come apart so that you can get into more of a sitting or a squatting position, and they have a grab bar that comes up so that the woman can sit forward and...

pillowy, I think my biggest beef, the more I think about it, is the idea that someone else should get to make the decisions about how I labor. It's my body. It's my baby. Now, don't get me wrong. I am grateful for the massive amounts of education that medical professionals have. I am grateful for th...

Dragon Lady, I wonder if we had the same midwife. Thatonekid is nearly 5, but I went to those midwives too and I think she was still practicing with them for maybe a year or so after I had him. She also had me on cytotec (my water broke at 39 weeks and I didn't go into labor on my own. I went to th...

pillowy, DB was born 4.5 years ago. 38 weeks is considered full term, so they didn't have any problem inducing me then. I don't know if that's changed at all in the last 4.5 years, though. I haven't even thought to look into it. The problem with licensed midwives, at least in Utah, is that it greatl...

I hope that I'm able to use multiple positions in my labor and that I have the assertiveness to ask questions if I don't understand things. It's a little anxiety-provoking though, because I know that once I'm in labor I probably won't be my most rational self. ;; That's why you take your husband al...

To clarify: as far as money goes, I have a $7500 deductible for maternity. If I go the hospital route, it's going to be completely out of pocket. Going with my midwife is $2400 for pre and post natal checkups, as well as birth. So monetarily, for me, it's a better option. (Birth center would be even...

And now with that said, I'm not going to debate this. I've been avoiding debate/conflict on the boardboard for awhile now and I've found that even with this topic that I'm so very passionate about, I simply don't have the energy nor desire to argue about it. I just don't. My position stands: every w...

I'd like to think that most women don't birth at home over a movie. Most of the women I've heard from who gave birth at home did so after having a really unsatisfactory hospital birth. I agree with you for the most part that birth at a hospital is safer (although IV fluids have very little impact o...

Interesting! My CostCo milk is still shaped like the one on the left. We haven't gotten any weird square jugs. Yet. [crosses fingers]

Digit wrote:Costco has weird milk jugs, in my opinion.

They're different from normal milk jugs? I mean, they come in a box. But the jugs themselves I haven't noticed any difference in compared to, say, milk jugs from Smiths.

I, thankfully, haven't got a lot of outright criticism. I've had people ask genuinely concerned questions, which is fine. If someone is genuinely concerned for me and is willing to have an honest conversation about it, I'm grateful for their love, and I answer their questions. But I know people who ...

And in the second instance, when discussing the laboring woman portrayed on TV, "overwrought, stressful, or tense" would all be gross understatements. Someone who spends hours screaming, hair flying, yelling at her husband, "YOU DID THIS TO ME, YOU WILL NEVER TOUCH ME AGAIN!" and...

Ah, wait. I did say "crazy psycho woman" later on. I'd forgotten about that. I was referring to my first reference of "crazy."

Except that none of those describe what I was trying to say. I was trying to describe mainstream perception of the woman who chooses to birth at home. The person that people think must not be in her right mind. That are so far from mainstream as to be different and regarded with wide eyes, concern a...

Considering how many of us deal with mental illness, can we not throw around words like "psycho" and "crazy"? Someone who is outside the norm in emotional volatility ("crazy") is not necessarily experiencing psychosis. Someone who is experiencing psychosis ("psych...