midwife's muse

Booked one of my women for her homebirth, and she has been attending hypnobirth sessions. Her previous birth was in London, and it was twins so her experience was ultra 'controlled' and obstetric, she has difficulty understanding why, I, and I suspect countless others have tried to explain why, but she still has issues with the experience. So, this time she is going as low-tech as possible. During our homebirth preparation chat she gave me the 'crib sheet' we are to use during her labour and the birth. It all seems straightforward, quite Ina May Gaskin and Spiritual Midwifery, but I suspect that at the time it is going to be quite difficult to remember what phrases and words we are supposed to avoid, and which ones we should use as substitutes. That's the whole thing with midwifery, essentially it is considered a 'clinical' expertise, and as such there are words and phrases that are accepted and used constantly. An easy example is 'delivered the baby', everyone uses it. From the time you are a student and have to record all your 'deliveries', to all the notekeeping and computer entries you have to make as a midwife, birth is referred to as 'delivery'. When you think about it the whole concept is wrong, a delivery is something that is bought to you, done for you, birth is about a woman bringing a new life into the world, ideally by her own efforts. It's going to take a huge effort for those attending this lady to rephrase their comments, but it may, hopefully also make us rethink our attitudes. The thing that troubles me is that during our chat I was not permitted to talk about anything negative. From the hypnobirth aspect I can appreciate the rationale, but as a midwife preparing a couple for a homebirth I found it rather worrying. I felt that I was not able to cover aspects that I would like to, e.g transfer into hospital for any reason not just an emergency. Eventually her Husband came into the hall to discuss contingency plans but I  still felt that this was leaving his wife unprepared. Oh well. It's their choice, and I'm sure it will all be fine. They are a lovely couple and it will be a joy to accompany them through the birth of their baby, I just hope I don't let them down by saying something wrong.

Huge co-incidence today. I 'won' a double buggy on E-Bay. Phoned up the lady to arrange collection, and discovered that it was one of my patients, at least I didn't get lost going to collect it!

1.11.05 23:06