Faith

I was asked to speak about my experiences in Haiti at my church last week. It was an interesting experience to plan my talk around the theme of faith. If the topic had been service it would have been so much easier and I would have been able to tell many stories!

But as usual the easy way isn't always the best. The challenge was an opportunity for me to see my own experiences in a different way.

The apostle Paul tells us: “… faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) As I was studying for my talk I learned that faith is a principal of action. And no greater example of that was my preparation to travel to Haiti.

I had no idea what I was going to see, feel or experience. I had to overcome a lot of fear to get there. It was easy at home, months before my departure, to make the commitment to go. But as my time came near I felt afraid and wondered what I was doing and why. In the presence of fear my faith was not able to grow, so I was learning to let go of that fear and move forward.

As I was traveling I had many moments that pushed me far outside of my comfort zone. Now in looking back I have reflected on this and realized that I was never really afraid, just uncomfortable. I was able to feel the power of my family and friends' prayers and trust that my own internal wisdom would be guided by the spirit and know of my safety and surety of what I was doing.

A proud mama moment when I read my youngest daughters blog and found this post:

With my mom being a midwife, this health unit of “birth” is hard to listen to. Biatches tryin to tell me you can’t have a breech baby vaginally? Or naturally?

Shut yo mouths.

I think it's time for me to consider contacting the school district to teach a unit on birth.

International Midwives Day

Today the midwifery community celebrated International Midwives Day by holding a rally on the steps of the State Capitol. It was very well organized by a committee of midwives.

The speakers were great. We heard from homebirth moms, dads and a sibling (my favorite being an articulate 13 year old girl who was born premature in the hospital, and witnessed her sister and brother born at home. She has got a future in public speaking!) We also heard from a couple of representatives who had homebirths, as well as some midwives and student midwives.

The keynote speaker was Jennifer Block who wrote the book "Pushed". This is my favorite book about the history of birth. She has never had a child herself but told the story of the first birth she attended and how it fueled her passion to research and write about birth practices. She told some sobering statistics. Currently the United States is ranked 50 out of 59 industrialized countries in maternal death. She also talked about the increasing rates of cesareans and how when hospitals are built or remodeled they are built to sustain a 50% cesarean rate. She stated that in relation to birth we are in a health care crisis! I've been trying to scream this fact for quite awhile now! I agree with Jennifer when she says the United States is OVERSPENDING and UNDERSERVING.

Attending the rally in Salem today was a positive experience for me and very inspiring.



We still need to get more consumers out there to support this cause. It was great to have so many people today but the vast majority were midwives. Real change can only happen when YOU the consumer stand up in masses and fight for your right to have a natural birth, breech birth, VBAC, twin birth, unmedicated birth, insurance paid birth, a gentle, non-invasive, midwife attended birth.