The state that I live in doesn't have a lot of options when it comes to birthing location so both
of my daughters' births were in a large hospital. However, I do not
consider pregnancy, labor or birth to be a medical procedure if there
are no medical complications. For this reason, I wanted as few medical
interventions as possible, despite being in a hospital. I chose to
receive my care from a certified nurse midwife (CNM) who has a medical model
but also do not follow the strictest guidelines of mainstream births. My
first child's birth story has many more medical interventions than I was hoping
to have but all things happen in life for a reason and this was just
part of what needed to happen in order to bring my first daughter, my
sweetness, into the world. I am hopeful that an open discussion about birthing and birth choices will empower women to ask more questions, decrease the number of interventions that occur during births and ultimately improve outcomes for mom and baby. I also hope to help women accept that some things are outside of our control. No matter how a baby is brought into the world, it is incredibly special and unique to that mother and baby and there is something that can be learned from each birthing experience.
