Happy Birthday!

Today we celebrate the gorgeous birthday of Bethany! Cannot believe 2 years ago that she chose us to be her parents.

Also on a Bethany update, she decided to wean this week. Her last feed was Tuesday 28th 5.30pm and she hasn't asked since, well she did today but that ship has sailed!
I always wanted her off the breast before my next pregnancy - could this be a sign?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Face of Birth

So excited to see Face of Birth!

3 weeks until the journey

Three weeks today until my appointment at Weird Sistas in Freo. I'm excited and nervous, all wrapped into one.
I've been doing heaps of blog reading on other people who have started this journey, and I do see this as a dread journey and not just a "hairstyle".

I came across the blog, Boho Girl, and even though her most recent entry is the story of her transformation to softness (the brushing out of her dreads after years of being loc'd), I really connect with her story.
I have read a lot of people "letting go", this isn't going to be about the way I look etc etc Well, this is a little vain moment - but yeah, this is about how I'm going to look and I want that!
I work in the business world of Finance and Government, where there is expectation on how I am meant to be, but that isn't me. I don't want to be a finance officer, I want to be more than that.
This year I start my studies to become a midwife, do I want to become a homebirth midwife? I'm unsure, I like the thought of fighting the system from the inside, but really that's years down the track... But my dreads will be constant reminder of patience, committment and not to conform to society.

Patience will be a huge effort for me, and Bethany has taught me so much already. Dreads take at least 6 months to settle down and at least 12 months to be mature. This will be patience.

Committment. Committment to many things. To finish my study and to become a midwife. Committment to my dreads. I know they take a bit of work in the beginning with palm rolling and crocheting to ensure they look good. It isn't that I start things and not finish them often, my studies are one that once I find it "too hard" - I quit. Whilst I want to shave my head one day, I don't want to do it at the first sign of my dreads being "too hard", just like I don't want to give up on midwifery.

Conformity. I will not CONFORM! I will not be a Medwife! I will be one with women, working towards their best interests. I will not be quiet and let a couple be talked to like they are ill-informed, I will provide evidence base care and information. I will not let the "system" break my spirit and my beliefs.
I will not conform to the norm because that is what society expects. Likewise, I will not conform to the sterotype "hippie" either. I trust my dreads will represent me, in this moment, in this chapter of my life.

I am a proud homebirthing, co-sleeper, breastfeeding, attachment parent, cloth nappy/menstural pad user, trying to live lightly on this Earth - even though I admit to consumerism and not always going with the best possible choices for my family (green-wise), I will aim to do better, but do not put me in any box with labels.

I much much more than this... I am many things.

The lunette is now available in different colours in Australia. I'm such a consumer that I want a green one. Why? Cos it's GREEN!


- Posted from my iPhone

They said it would happen

My co-slept, booby baby sleeps through the night. In fact she has been for a while now.
Another thing I was told would happen in her own time, I no longer feed to sleep or during the night.
Her choice, never forced : )
it kinda just happened, and I didnt really notice. She still feeds in the evening and on weekends, but that's about it.


- Posted from my iPhone

with a heavy heart...

It's been a really tough week, but not nearly as tough for my friends and family who knew the woman, mother, daughter, lover who died from childbirth - who happened to be a proud and passionate homebirther.
Caroline was part of a homebirth community who my friends and family are apart of in Victoria, to me, she is an extended family friend. This is personal, it touches me greatly.

At a time where I am lost for words, I find I have to find them. I have to defend my choices, the choices of others, when people are uneducated and say homebirthers are risky and irresponsible. I think people who chose to birth at home are the ones that are educated more so than others. We know the risks, we also know the risks for going to the hospital with the medical system the way it is!

Today, Homebirth Australia spokeswoman, Michelle Mears' article was posted on the Herald Sun.
It is the words I'm looking for.

MANY parents around Australia today will be feeling sorrow for Caroline Lovell's tragic death and sadness for the family she has left behind.
Her death following her planned home birth was the first incident of a mother dying related to a home birth in Australia in almost 20 years.


The call for a ban on home births in yesterday's Herald Sun because of one maternal death in 20 years is completely illogical. About 20 women died in Australian hospitals in childbirth last year -- should we ban hospital births, too?


In Australia our maternal mortality rate is one of the lowest in the world at 8.4 in every 100,000 women. The latest statistics, from 2003-05, show only 65 maternal deaths occurred in Australia. None of these were related to home births.


Home births have consistently been proved to be safe. Large international studies show there is no increase in deaths of mothers or babies when women birth at home with a midwife.


Many studies show women who have a planned home birth have fewer interventions, including epidurals and inductions, and use of forceps, vacuum extraction or caesarean births. Women who choose a home birth are less likely to suffer from postpartum haemorrhage.


More and more families are choosing to have a home birth in Australia, with a 33 per cent increase between 2004 and 2009. In the US, they've just recorded the highest rate of home births ever, with a 30 per cent rise in home births in the same period.


The choice about where to give birth belongs with a woman and her family. Parents have the right to make decisions about their children -- what they eat, where they go to school and also where they give birth. To suggest that right should be taken away is ridiculous in today's democratic society.
Home birth supporters want women who choose to birth at home to have a safe birth with the assistance of trained professionals.

Women who opt to birth at home choose to do so as they've decided that it's the safest place for their babies and themselves. Women choose a home birth because they want to give birth in the comfort of their home, with a midwife they know and trust. They want their families to be with them and they want to be in control of the experience.
The Herald Sun reported the transfer rates at a home birth are 50 per cent -- the transfer rate for private midwives is actually from 10-20 per cent. The majority of transfers occur before labour or when there is slow progress in the labour.