I’ve been reading about various governmental reviews of homebirth midwifery in Australia for some time now, and feeling fear in my heart for all the women and midwives in Australia that want to keep it going.  But several recent blog entries, here and here, are making my blood boil.  I want to cry for the women and midwives of Australia that are under seige.  I’m really hoping that the midwives and supportive families can pull together and change things before it’s too late.
I’d like to see a world in which …

This post over at The Human Pacifier reminded me that we currently have a placenta issue.
We’ve got J’s placenta in our freezer.  It’s been there for almost 4 years now.  For awhile, I considered burying it in the backyard, but that never seemed quite right.  I always knew we’d be leaving this house, and I never wanted to leave something so personal behind for strangers to live with.
Last summer, when we decided to go on a family camping trip in Upstate NY, I finally realized that the lake we were …

When I first made the decision to have a homebirth, when I became pregnant with J, my second child, I thought choosing a midwife would be easy. I had this idea that homebirth midwives would all be amazing and wonderful, and that it would be like night and day compared to the OB/GYN experiences that I’ve had before. I’ve come to realize that my assumptions were partially right, and partially wrong. Yes, most of the homebirth midwives that I know do practice in a way that is …

Both of my children have so far been born with nuchal hands, a type of compound presentation (head + other part, such as arm, hand, or elbow). When it occurred the first time, at the birth of my son, I really didn’t think much about it. I luckily avoided tearing, which seems to be more common during a compound presentation.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, we ended up having several ultrasounds after the screening scan due to a possible heart problem. During several of the scans, …

I just read this nice article summarizing the birth options in Costa Rica: Natural Childbirth Choices in Costa Rica.
Since we plan on hopefully having a homebirth in Costa Rica, this is great information. When we were originally researching the idea of moving to Costa Rica, I actually had a lot of trouble finding information about options for natural childbirth in the country. I suppose that’s because homebirth is a bit of an underground option there still. The article above gives a good summary of the issues going …