Fighting the urge to start packing

You must know by now that I attended the Midwives Alliance of North America annual conference a couple weeks ago.
I wanted to come home refreshed and invigorated but I can't say I did. Part of that was due to working a bit at the conference. Part of it was staying up late talking shop and waking really early for the next day's sessions. The women were delightful, smart, funny and inspiring in many ways. So a part of me was refreshed, to be sure.

Carol Leonard is a wonderful New Hampshire midwife who has been practicing homebirth midwifery since the mid 1970s. She's recently written and published a book, Lady's Hands, Lion's Heart- A Midwife's Saga. I am still reading it, but it's a great book. Check it out, even if you're not a birth worker. If you've ever had a homebirth midwife, this is an excellent opportunity to see what's in her head, heart and life as she serves women. It's hard work that can kick your ass, make you laugh, having you sobbing or wondering just why the hell you don't work at Starbucks, all in the same 24 hours. (See, we newer midwives think Starbucks, Carol Leonard constantly wondered about working at McDonald's as an alternative. Some things never change.).

What has gotten me down since the conference and from reading this book is that midwives in the United States are STILL fighting the same fucking battle that midwives 30 years ago, hell, 60 years ago were fighting. Midwife attended births remain at 10% in this country. Homebirths being only 1%. Those percentages haven't changed in DECADES. Not because homebirths attended by midwives trained in out-of-hospital, unmedicated births are not safe, affordable, viable options, but because our health and birth culture is driven by huge egos, money, greed, fear and insurance lawyers. We have ACOG and the AMA putting out their pithy little resolutions deeming to hunt us down and burn us at the stake again (and again).Their resolutions that threaten the right of every pregnant woman to decide WHERE and WITH WHOM she chooses to birth. CEASE and DESIST, you dirty, untrained midwife! CEASE and DESIST treating women with respect! CEASE and DESIST your belief that birth is normal!

Maybe it's the rising tension of the presidential elections next week, but I'm (as Joe Strummer would say), so bored with the USA.

How can it be that we're still fighting the same fight with birth and midwives in this country when we're waaaaay down low on the list for neonatal mortality and maternal morbidity rates, despite having the most money and technology at our fingertips? Sssh! Don't talk about that! They don't want you to even ponder that all that tweaking and prodding and cutting and rupturing and using the machines that go BLING! and women hooked up to 16 different cables during labor resembling a factory-farmed milk cow has anything to do with their higher percentages of not-so-great outcomes. Feh.

I feel so done. So done worrying. So done with fighting, knowing the fight hasn't even begun yet. See, ACOG and the AMA have a lot of money. Midwives are humble souls without shareholders backing them up. Moving to a country where midwives are respected as care providers, with autonomy... that's sounding mighty good to me.

As much as I love reading Ina May Gaskin, Raven Lang, and now the awesome Carol Leonard, I no longer feel that strong faith that midwifery is catching on in this country. long pause Okay, well we now have 22 states legal and licensed and that is more than ever before. Progress, I admit.

I just feel angry, and I don't know what to do with that.