Monday, September 5, 2011

Follow me on this journey!


So I am an AWFUL blogger, we all know that.... especially since I haven't blogged since...LAST
YEAR! I am so sorry. I just don't have a bunch of time and I don't know, it's hard to commit to. So I decided that I am going to try and blog about my journey on becoming a midwife. That means that this will hopefully be a blog that is update more than once a year, since to get my bachelors in midwifery, it will take me six years! So on with the story.

I am enrolled and starting tomorrow in the Midwifery College of Utah. Yaho
o! Now your question may be "WHY?" I have gotten that reaction a lot. I think I know why I get that reaction... When you hear the word midwife you think


Am I right? Well that's certainly what I use to think. I just thought, old woman, crooked nose, a bunch of towels, maybe a little bowl of water. Scary huh? So when I was pregnant with Penelope, it took me by surprise when Rob suggested I talk to a woman in our ward who has had 2 children naturally with a midwife, just to consider that option. I was REALLY skeptical, extremely so. I agreed to see her, just to be polite to my crazy husband, and what happened next through me for a curve ball!

I went and saw Sis Tribe (woman in ward) and she was so aw
esome! She is this hip young mom, crafty, and so nice. We clicked right away. She was very sensitive to my concerns about midwifery but also honest. She suggested I read a book, "Your Best Birth" by Ricky Lake & Abby Epstein. She explained that it was really informative about have a baby by midwife and by doctor/hospital. She explained that having a natural birth was not for everyone, but for those who do go natural experience something life changing in a way others can't. Intrigued I decided to get the book from the library and read.

I think I finished that book in a couple of days (I was still working full-time and exhausted all the time) but I could not believe what I was reading. It was informative and made me change my outlook of not just midwifery, but birth forever. It talked about how high our c-section rate was (and how there was NO reason for it to be that high), how our mortality rate in our country was one of the highest IN THE WORLD! Some 3rd world countries are doing
better than us! How could this be possible, we have some of the best medical advances in the world, and we can't keep a mother and a baby alive? Come to find out after a year and a half of study, just because we have medical advances, it does not mean that we can possibly do better at birth than the woman body can. Which then puts you into awe of how wonderful Heavenly Father is in his design. He made the woman's body a complete perfection in conceiving, carrying, and then delivering a baby. There are always special circumstances of course that may call for need of medical attention, and that does need to be acknowledged. But the majority of women can have a baby naturally without any medical intervention and survive... not only that, but heal so much faster then others who decided to have a epidural, then pitocin, and a c-section.

In "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" she said, "if men had a uterus, that would be the organ they would brag about." HAHAHAHA this made me laugh because even a
s women we don't brag about our uterus! But it is truly an amazing organ. It starts as the size of a pear, it then holds EVERYTHING that you need to grow a child until it is the size of a watermelon. It then contracts and helps your child to enter the world, then it sheds all the extras and shrinks back into the size of a pear, like nothing ever happened! Wow!

So if you can't already tell, I am a tad interested in this sort of thing...

But why would this then lead me to midwifery? Well I think that every woman has the ability to have their baby any way they want, and I want to help with that. I want to be that calming voice, the one of reassurance that a woman can rely on to
help bring their precious baby into the world. I think that pregnancy and birth are two of the most amazing and beautiful things that can happen in this life and I want to be a part of that. I want to help women meet their full potential and be comfortable and know that it can happen and it doesn't have to be painful (like you would think in the movies).

So I am going to be starting a awesome journey tomorrow, and I will try to keep this updated when I have cool updates, or I learn something new. Who knows, maybe I'll convert you to midwifery also ;)

(Just FYI, we are moving to Portland, OR in 2 weeks...AHHH!! but that should only mean a couple of crazy days, hopefully)


2 comments:

Elder and Sister Hale said...

good luck today! Can't wait to hear how it went!

Malena Aragon Everill said...

Wow it's so good to see you back on blogger! I am so excited to hear about your choice to become a midwife! I used a midwife and it was the best thing I've ever done, what an experience and what an accomplishment. I posted about our labor with Arielle if you wanna check it out, we were converted to use a midwife after watching "the business of being born" that was made by Ricky and Abby! Well I'm glad to see your posts updated, can't wait to read more!