Warning- soap boxes here today

Tuesday's Food

eggs and mixed veggies
lemon water
supplements 2x's
oils (flax, fish and olive)
green drink
fish and broccoli and salad
peas and hot dogs by the campfire (with Adri playing the fiddle for us)
1Tbsp Peanut butter (in a pinch when I just HAD to eat)
2 pistachios
cultured veggies

Some Thoughts on Midwifery.  And Education.  And Religion.  And my Eudcation:

First a quote from Sheila Kitzinger's book "Birth Your Way":

"Unfortunately, as we have seen, in most industrialized countries in Europe, North America, and Australia, governments are closing down small hospitals and outlying General Practitioner units - in spite of a great deal of protest from consumers  - on the grounds of safety, "rationalization," and economics.  They are concentrating care instead in large regional centers that have high-tech facilities, great gleaming edifices of steel and glass.  With regionalization of care, women then have to travel for long distances to prenatal clinics, and once they have started labor.  Moreover, care in these hospitals is focused on pathology, and tends to be less flexible and more impersonal than in small hospitals.  There is often severe overcrowding in the prenatal clinics, with long waiting times, and women are herded through the clinics like cattle.  Authoritarian attitudes set administrative convenience before the needs of the women for whom the service is supposed to exist."

Is it me, or does this sound a lot like public school too?  The answer in both situations is small units which act autonomously in the best interest of the client, not some "higher" bureaucratic authority.  Anything "higher" is really a support service to help the practitioners (be they doctors, midwives, or teachers) in best supporting their clients.  This is one thing which my church gets right, at least philosophically if not always in practice. 

The most important calling in our church is to be a parent.  Everything else is about supporting families, not controlling them or interfering in their lives even more.  I feel perfectly justified in withdrawing my children from any program our church offers if it is not supporting them and is instead damaging them.  That is consistent with the stance of the church.  It is my opinion that the next most important calling is that of a Visiting teacher or a Home teacher, who spend time with the members one on one.  Any Bishop or Stake President or Relief Society President or even the Prophet/President of our church needs the avenue of Visiting/Home teachers to reach out the way Christ reaches out, which is ONE on ONE with REAL people, not statistics.  It is a higher calling to serve one on one than it is to "lead." 

I'm not saying leadership isn't important. If anything I feel called in that direction, and I am reminding myself, too, that the things that "look" big are, in the eyes of God, subordinate to the small and simple things.  There is great meaning in small and simple tasks like changing diapers and wiping noses, and bathing and feeding and cleaning and beautifying and healing and helping and teaching, one on one, one child at a time and one brother or sister at at time. 

It is my understanding, that if Jesus were on the earth today, he wouldn't be in an office building giving speeches or trying to control the world.  He would be on the streets, seeking out the poorest of the poor, like Mother Teresa, searching out the friendless, the fatherless, the widows, those people who have had so many hard knocks that they act like porcupines.  Some of them are hard to touch because they are in so much pain.  He would be spending time with the children who are "un-adoptable" and institutionalized, the mentally ill, the homeless, the lonely widows and those in nursing homes.  I imagine he would take great delight in being with our handicapped children with Down syndrome and other such disorders.  But wait, that's where he wants US to be.  Because we are his hands.

If Jesus were training in my profession, to be a midwife, he would want to see plenty of one on one care (which there is), with the relationship between client and practitioner being the foundational structure of any medical system, because it supports the individual and the family.  Everything else "above" that would be in support of the client and their chosen practitioner.  A midwife would be WELCOMED into a hospital and her clients treated with the utmost respect. 

I think the ideal in my area is a small, midwife run birth center, at the cross roads of Hotchkiss (and thus Paonia and Crawford), Cedaredge, and Delta, where the hospital is located.  A midwife friendly OB would be available at the local Delta County hospital (5 min away) and cesareans would be available when needed.  I find that when I am reading a story about a home birth gone awry, I am reading a story about a midwife who was afraid to go to the hospital and was procrastinating a transfer until there was no other option.  I am reading a story about a hospital that treats the midwives and their clients with contempt and hostility.  Hospitals should be a support system to help PEOPLE, and people have the right to choose what happens to their bodies and to the bodies of their children (which is another soapbox for another day). 

The same can apply in the arena of education.  The family is the foundation of society.  Efforts should be made to support the family without infringing on their choices.  Wouldn't we all like smaller classrooms with one on one attention for our students (be that in a home schooling, co-op or public school situation).  Wouldn't it be nice to have support from "above" when we needed it without a huge bureaucracy to work through and a bunch of red tape?  Wouldn't it be nice if there was respect for every one's decisions for their children?  What if the system were actually about PEOPLE instead of maintaining "the system" and keeping everyone in a job?  It seems that it's always about money.  What it should really be about is time.  One on one time; at school, at home, at church, at the Doctor's office. 

The education I am pursuing involves mentors.  I am looking at the midwifery schools, but I do not know yet how much I trust them to deliver a really superb educational opportunity.  I know that the best quality education is about mentors and inspired learning.  Schools have to cater to those who are motivated mostly, if not only, by money.  They have to make sure that a certain "standard" is met by all the students they "graduate."  I want more than that, not less.  And I feel that seeking out a variety of qualified mentors from different perspectives in the birth field, is a better way for me to become a truly superb midwife than anything a mere school can offer.  As soon as I'm just checking things off of a list, the quality of my study and my work goes down.  I'm no longer learning for the right reasons, but just to fulfill some outside requirement.  My inside requirements are so much more than that, but it is tempting to settle for what the "experts" consider to be the standard of care.  Maybe I still will go that route and try to do better at the same time.  All I really know is that I need superb mentors. 

Enough ranting for the day.

Anna