Simply Give Birth is an e-book now…

You can get a copy of it here:

Simply Give Birth: A Collection of Stories by [Cushman-Dowdee, Heather]

https://www.amazon.com/Simply-Give-Birth-Collection-Stories-ebook/dp/B071H7CRH3/

there’s also a paperback if you’re old school:

https://www.amazon.com/Simply-Give-Birth-Heather-Cushman-Dowdee/dp/0557138108/

5 Stars! – “It’s a very good book with very encouraging and inspiring stories. it doesn’t focus on any of the surrounding circumstances, such as midwives or locations, or decisions, just the miraculous act of giving birth. highly recommend, it’s great reading.” – Jazimojo

 

I hope you enjoy!

AMA and ACOG against home births!

There’s a local midwife, one that I considered having attend my last birth (my husband wanted a midwife, I wanted to go it alone) who is right now being prosecuted  persecuted for practicing midwifery.

You can read about it in this local news story: woman accused of practicing medicine without a license

Note, there was nothing amiss at any of her births, and though the news article tries to make her seem ‘untrained’ she has been helping mothers deliver babies since 1990. In these parts she’s considered the only person left who can turn a breech and home-deliver twins, precisely because she’s un-licensed.

There is a silent auction to help pay for her legal costs: silent auction for Brenda Capps

 

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The Author of Pushed

…Here’s a pact, please read: the following post is going to link to some terrible anti-homebirth articles and some positive responses. Please don’t read the comments on either, and please don’t feel the need to chime in. If you want to say something thankful to Jennifer Block, visit her on her Facebook page and send her a word or two of encouragement. If you want to complain to Michelle Goldberg, find her email and please remain polite and respectful and factual. If you want to respond to the Dr. OB, please don’t. She’s a fame-hound and I don’t think we should give her the time of day. Pretty please, okay? deal? It’s for your sanity dearest reader, please.

Now onward! Some of you may already be privy to the back and forth debate between Jennifer Block (if you haven’t read Pushed, you should!) and Michelle Goldberg, but if not, here’s a little back story. It all started with Ms. Goldberg’s piece in the Daily Beast, Homebirth: Increasingly Popular, But Dangerous ( I didn’t link to it at the time, because it relied so heavily on the opinion of a certain Dr.OB that I made a pact never to link to, so I’m making an exception, this time (reread the above pact, please.) Suffice it to say, the article was not pretty. A few days later however, the response that Jennifer Block wrote for Slate.com,How to Scare Women, was much prettier, beautiful in fact, and inspired this comic.

Since that response, Ms. Goldberg and that Dr.OB have both penned responses and more writers have joined the fray, all anti-homebirthing left and right, it’s ugly and I don’t know how it will possibly end, or how Jennifer Block will maintain her sense of calm. (She did just pen this: Separating Ideology from Evidence in the Homebirth Debate) and I do know that there are more comics on their way.

 

Into My Hands

We just celebrated the 3rd anniversary of this event. Ean’s birth. It was a fabulous party, in a hotel at Yosemite National Park. Splendid.

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Dad: For nine long months we waited for you to be born and I caught you in my hands.

daughter 3: I took a bath with mama and then I was listening to stories and then I heard you were born and I held you first!

daughter 2: I got to cut your cord and then I held you. close.

daughter 1: I heard you, and then they passed you into my arms.

Mama: And i knew you were coming and I pushed you out into my hands.

baby thinks: it was dark and squeeze-y and then it was bright and cold but I was warm in the hands of my family.