Birth

A friend of ours had a little boy last night or this morning depending on your point of view(just after midnight).
I'm struck by the treatment she was shown at the hospital. Upon being admitted she was whisked away to be tied down to all the monitors and told she needed to have an epidural. This was not what she wanted at all! She ended up being able to transfer to the midwife side of things where she was able to walk around, sit on a birthing ball, EAT, and use water as a means of pain relief. Such a difference in care depending if you were in the doctors care or midwives care. I was just shocked that there was such a Jekyll/Hyde care in the same hospital.
I think its unfortunate that doctors tend to have the mindset that giving birth is a problem and not a natural process. I hope that women will become more informed over the whole pregnancy/birth process. Whatever each women chooses is her choice but too often I have found the medical field will not be exactly truthful in giving positive and negative of each situation.

**I'd like to note that I do not think all doctors are bad, there are some great ones. Also not all midwives are great, there are some bad ones.

So yes I have strong opinions in the birthing world;) I talked to my friend several times yesterday and the last time I spoke with her I said have fun. She was like, um yeah-you're crazy this is painful. I said yes, it's like a marathon. There will be lots of work to get to the finish line, but what a prize you will receive when you cross that line!
I'm sure she still thought I was a little crazy but it's such an awesome thing to be around when a baby is born. Really had me thinking that I'd like to get back to working in that field sometime in the future. Right now I feel like I'm right where the Lord wants me, ministering to my children. I do try to stay up-to-date in the birthing field and am happy to help out when I can.

Edited to add: I just finished watching The Business of Being Born and I highly recommend watching it. Loved it! It brings up many of the same points I ponder or support depending on the issue.

What did we do last weekend?

Saw a volcano up close and personal.....



Dressed up as 'good' and 'bad' animals(good animals being native bad being introduced animals)



Sat on an African Giant Slug

......saw a lot of Hawaiian artifacts in a few older buildings. It was fun to see the buildings, didn't realize until we were there that I kind of missed seeing older buildings. Saturday was museum day and we were able to get our whole family into the Bishop Museum for free! Wish we wouldn't have taken so long to get there-it has been on my list of things to do for quite awhile. We had a nice afternoon there.

BTW we have a new toothless wonder.....can you tell she has two missing on the same side?