Ok, here it is. For the fuzzy footage, send your com­plaints to the man.

The text story is here — Who is in that belly

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P.S. Lets see if you can guess why the song was what I would lis­ten blast­ing in my car the last month of the preg­nancy. Loved it! Now every time I hear it, it reminds me of this birth. And I grin.

From the words of a ‘bored’ ob/gyn and Chief of Staff:

…I was sim­ply bored wait­ing for yet another recal­ci­trant fetus to
nego­ti­ate its way down yet another mar­ginal pelvis.

This is our cesarean sec­tion room.
C/Section: AKA „vagi­nal bypass surgery”.…

From his page — found here

Or click here for my screenshot:

Dear Minister,

I am writ­ing to voice my objec­tion to the pro­posed changes and their un/intended con­se­quences insti­tut­ing a med­ical model monop­oly over the birthing options of Australian women.

Background

You may not be aware, but at the moment women can choose to give birth in a hos­pi­tal, in a birth cen­tre or at home. The lat­ter being a less known option and thus used by very few women, as it is never given as one by med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers. It is avail­able never the less for those that actively search it out. In most states the woman has the option to hire, at her own expense, a fully qual­i­fied inde­pen­dent mid­wife to attend her birth and pro­vide the sup­port she may need.

From a woman’s per­spec­tive the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion is not per­fect as it essen­tially reserves the option of an inde­pen­dent mid­wife for a cer­tain class of women who can afford the $4000-$5000 cost of this per­son­al­ized ser­vice. And it is just that, high qual­ity, one on one care – appoint­ments at the expec­tant mother’s house through­out the preg­nancy, mon­i­tor­ing progress and health not only with scales and machines, but through extended con­ver­sa­tions and dis­cus­sions, which reveal more than any quick check up can. The woman is then sup­ported through­out her labour in the com­fort of her own home by the same per­son she has built a trust­ing rela­tion­ship with in the past sev­eral months. The sup­port is con­tin­u­ous and there is no change of shift that can dis­turb this com­fort and famil­iar­ity. After the birth, the mid­wife can assess both the mother’s and the new­born con­di­tion in her posi­tion of a qual­i­fied med­ical pro­fes­sional and ensure their health and well being is not in any dan­ger and if needed can make the call with the woman for any needed trans­fer to a hos­pi­tal. The care doesn’t stop here, as she con­tin­ues with the home vis­its past the birth of the child to ensure the safe tran­si­tion for both mother and child. This is a ser­vice that can­not be given by any other form of med­ical care. That is why when the Maternity Services Review asked for sug­ges­tions from us as to how things can be improved in the area, many responded and more than half of the sub­mis­sions (53%) ask­ing for more sup­port and recog­ni­tion of homebirth.

We were not heard.

Proposed Changes

Not only were we not heard, the result­ing changes to the law will have the effect of mak­ing inde­pen­dent mid­wives and their ser­vices ille­gal.

Clauses from the draft leg­is­la­tion Health Practitioner Regulation Law 2009:

The gov­ern­ment steps in and ensures indem­nity insur­ance for all other med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, but it will not extend the same cur­tesy to inde­pen­dent mid­wives, which will leave them unable to ful­fil the require­ments for reg­is­tra­tion and thus become unable to prac­tice, despite being fully qual­i­fied and trained to do the job.

After the ini­tial shock, women from all over Australia fol­lowed up and made close to 2000 sub­mis­sions to the sen­ate enquiry.

We were not heard.

This issue is not about whether home­birth is safe. There are enough stud­ies to show that whether slightly safer or slightly riskier, the choice to birth at home is not a reck­less one. Certainly no more than get­ting in our cars every day.

The issue is free­dom for women to choose how and with whom to give birth. Who can have access to our bod­ies in this quite vul­ner­a­ble process. We already accept that no woman should be made to birth if she doesn’t want to and sup­port the elec­tive surgery of cesarean sec­tion as a viable option of deliv­ery. The gov­ern­ment funds it, even though it car­ries more risks to the mother and baby and despite being a lot more expen­sive than nor­mal birth.

And yet, if these changes are passed, if a woman doesn’t want to give birth in a insti­tu­tion­alised med­ical envi­ron­ment, but still wants to be sup­ported by a qual­i­fied pro­fes­sional in the face of an inde­pen­dent mid­wife, she will be denied her choice.

I am quite gut­ted by this prospect, even more so that this dra­con­ian, anti-women law is being pushed by a gov­ern­ment I have voted for; a gov­ern­ment that prides itself on defend­ing the rights of the vul­ner­a­ble, the rights of the minori­ties in our com­mu­nity. But then Minister Roxon light-heartedly dis­misses our con­cerns as we are such a “tiny group” and its too hard to fig­ure out how to fit us and our choice in with the pro­posed changes.

I am off to Canberra with women from across Australia and will be out­side Parliament house fight­ing for our rights. I hope some­one inside will actu­ally finally hear us.

And since you, Minister, are my rep­re­sen­ta­tive in there, I am let­ting you know and hope you will do that — rep­re­sent me and give voice to my very real con­cerns and oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed changes.

Regards,

S.B.
Hoping to never give birth in a hos­pi­tal again

______________________________

My very first expe­ri­ences with breast­feed­ing were hor­rid.  I was plagued with attach­ment prob­lems, nip­ples that looked like some­one had dragged them on a paved road and then chewed them up in an attempt to fix them, days long heal­ing pump­ing and wait­ing for scabs to fall of…lumps, temperatures…tears and toe curl­ing that went on what seemed like forever.

This same story repeated with my sub­se­quent kids with some slight improve­ment with each. Baby Blab man­aged to keep one breast rea­son­ably good and I had to pump and heal only one nipple.

This is the sucinct ver­sion of my breast­feed­ing woes. So hav­ing in mind that I have gone through hell and back just to con­tinue feed­ing my babies breast­milk, you would be excused to assume that I think its „best” and that is why I did it. I guess I could take that and go on my way pat­ting myself on the back for doing so excep­tion­ally well, but I wont, because I dont agree with the ‘Breast is Best’ slogan.

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The Birth Story — in translation

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