Is it just an experience?

I have heard this said many time by doctors who do not understand what truly motivates mothers. "Women are putting the desire for an experience above the health of their babies." Of course this has been said in regards to homebirth and other alternative birthing situations. The thought behind this is that mothers are so selfish that they do not care as much as the doctor about the welfare of their own babies. Mother's are expected to feel as if medically trained strangers care more about their unborn and newly born child than they themselves do.

The mother's that I know including myself made the decision to have homebirths because we believe it to be the safest place to have our babies. For ourselves and our babies.

We know that a holistic approach to health is important. We do not believe that you can separate physical, mental, emotional and spiritual into compartments and think that one outweighs the other. We believe that these are equally important. To say that you have a body at any cost makes no sense to us because we have seen devastation to mothers and their babies when the other health issues are ignored.

We know that drugs introduced into our bodies pass to our yet unborn babies bodies and effect them and that without a real emergency situation this should not be done because our babies may be harmed by them both short and long term. Some of the "normally used drugs" are having permanent effects on our children in the name of convenience and speed.

We know that each of us runs on a different time clock.

We know that bonding produces a lifetime of being able to bond and love others. A baby that grows up into an adult that can care for others is vital to our culture as a whole.

We know that our spiritual lives are vital  to the health of our families and though science and medicine may not be able to explain them they are as real as life and breath.

We know that without the right hormones that a mother's  brain chemistry will not work correctly and depression may set in causing damage to families.

We know that hospitals in general intimidate family and friends and they are not able to take their needed and natural roles in birth.

We know that if a hospital or medical personel causes us to panic or feel uncomfortable we will not be able to relax and let our bodies, that know how to birth, do what they were made to do. This will cause problems that lead to interventions that lead to less than healthy holistic outcomes.

We love our babies and we will do anything to make sure that they are brought into this world in a manner that is full of dignity for us as mothers and for our babies as whole mini people. We will guard this right passionately. We will let other mothers know when they have been lied to or stolen from.

We know that for us giving control of our person over to someone else is not safe and to fight with someone while in labor over that control is crazy. We know that we are vunerable at this time and so are our loved ones.

We know that though there are caring professionals they have lives and plans going on and we respect and know that they cannot possibly be as vested in the birth of our babies as we are. We hope that when we need them that they will be there and not punish us for not letting them be gods to us.

We know that many things that have been said to be unsafe and high risk are not because we have seen them peacefully happen in front of our eyes.

We do not believe that it is healthy to live in a state of "what if" and "yea but."

We know that it is the right of each woman to choose her own safe place and that we will guard this right for each woman.

We will let mothers know if someone has said that something is safe and we find that they are not telling the truth. We will keep looking for safer ways holistically for women to have their babies so that the experience brings life in every sense of the word into the world.

Though I am only speaking for some I hope that my voice and the voice of others in unison will bring freedom to birth without fear or interference to many women.

To those that have said that those of us who choose not to do it your way "we care more about an experience that the health of our babies". I say "SHUTUP"