"Elfanie" wrote in message
...
This post is halfway between a vent....and 'food for thought'...

I have been reading here on MKP for 10 years now (yikes...has it
really been that long?) and I regularly hear people say things like,
"My hospitals policy is..." or "my doctor won't let me..." or "I have
to..."

Warning: m/c ment.


Elfanie, have I ever told you I *love* you? Or at least, I love the way you
think.

A quote from something I wrote in my livejournal a few weeks ago...

"A... bad thing about pregnancy is when you really want to do things one
way, but think that you "can't" because "it's not allowed".

There is a blissful freedom in simply stepping out of the whole lie that
medical people are "in charge" and can tell you what you "can" or "can't"
do. I hear women say this all the time, that "My doctor says I can't go past
39 weeks because the baby will be too big."

Honey, if a doctor said that to me, I'd say, "Watch me." The big lie is that
there are "absolutes" in birth at all.

It's like watching the world run around with blindfolds on, thinking that
they actually can't see. People grope around for people to lead them because
they're blindfolded, when if they could just reach up and untie the damn
thing, they could actually make their own way without needing help."
.........
I just talked to a midwife today, we're meeting with her on Saturday. I told
her all my risk factors and what I'm doing about them. I explained that I
wanted low key, low intervention care with a strong emphasis on me taking
care of myself. That mostly I want someone to come give me back rubs now and
then and give me emotional support as I need it in the process of a
pregnancy after a miscarriage. I asked her if my risk factors would be a
problem for her since she's working on re-establishing her license after a
sabbatical. She said, "I believe in the right of a woman to make informed
choices about her care. I don't care what the protocols say if you make an
educated choice to do something different."

It was like the clouds parted and sunlight beamed down and a choir sang in 8
part harmony. I was beginning to think they didn't *make* people like that
anymore! This after a perinatologist refused to answer my questions because
he considered me crazy based on my decision to have a homebirth whether or
not he approved. Jackass. He thinks I'm making a stupid choice based on
emotions and doesn't stop to consider that maybe I've been working around
birth issues for a damn long time and have a darned good reason for making
the decisions I've made about the kind of care I think will give me the
healthiest pregnancy and birth.

I can work with a care provider who considers me a rational, intelligent
human being capable of making informed choices. I don't think some doctors
believe that their patients are able to read above an 8th grade level, even
when it is demonstrated otherwise.

With this midwife, I could well have exactly the pregnancy and birth I want
and need.

The weird thing about my miscarriage was the bittersweet realization that I
truly had managed to reduce my clotting risk naturally without their damn
lovenox. I had next to no clotting in the miscarriage, and no clotting on
the placenta to speak of, just liquid blood. I've passed tissue, but no
clots bigger than a lentil. With my clotting condition, I'd expect clots the
size of a grape or golf ball if I wasn't anticoagulated enough. And I did
not bleed excessively at all, which I damn well would have on that doc's
Lovenox.
Jenrose