I recently met the woman behind the amazing sex-ed site Scarleteen. After talking for a few minutes, she asked if I would ever want to write some stuff about birth for Scarleteen. Um, HELL YEAH! Scarleteen embraces all aspects of sexuality and reproduction, and gives people judgment-free, factual sexuality information based on the assumption that everyone deserves a consensual, fulfilling sexual & reproductive life. And it turns out that they're doing all this amazing stuff for practically no money. Which means, they need some freaking money to keep doing this amazing work. I'm determined to generate $300 in donations from friends of mine. Friends in the family planning world will donate because we know how important good information is to people making healthy reproductive choices. Friends in the midwifery community will donate because we know that a healthy relationship to her sexuality can help to normalize a woman's birth, and that birth itself is a sexual event that people must be educated about. Friends in the queer community will donate because Scarleteen provides queer kids with much-needed sex ed which acknowledges their existence, which we never got in high school. So do it. Give these folks some money, whatever you can afford. And if there's a teen in your life, make sure they have this resource.

Emailed to Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington State:

Dear Senator Cantwell,

Thank you for being a champion for reproductive justice. In a just world, a woman would never make a choice about when, where or how to bear children because of what is covered by her insurance. She would not give birth to an unwanted child because an abortion costs more than she can afford. And she would not accept unnecessary routine interventions in a hospital that are paid for by her Medicaid when she would have preferred a cheaper physiologic birth with a midwife. You have shown time and again that you understand these issues, and in this you truly represent Washington state, where poor women can access Medicaid to pay for care with any licensed provider she chooses to see for her pregnancy, be it an abortion provider or a home-birth midwife. The language you championed in the Senate Finance Committee's healthcare bill which would require Medicaid to reimburse any licensed care provider working in a free-standing birth center is a step in the right direction for our nation, and I cannot thank you enough.

As you know, the House of Representatives has shown significantly less respect for women's health and reproductive justice. The Stupak abortion coverage ban is bad policy. Conservatives tout the importance of "patient choice" as an argument against any healthcare reform, but then they single out this one legal medical procedure and restrict women's abiltiy to choose to access that service. The Stupak ban does not maintain the status quo in regard to aboriton access. Rather, it would deny a woman the ability to purchase insurance covering abortion, even when that coverage will be provided soley from funds taken from women's own premiums rather than federal dollars. The Senate is our only hope for ensuring that this affront to women's self-determination does not become law. I know that you will fight as hard against Stupak-like language in the Senate healthcare bill as always do for women and families.

In August, I organized a meeting between a group of moms, dads and midwives and one of your staff members. We spoke about the importance of a real pulic option in healthcare reform, the specific challenges faced by women and young people in accessing comprehensive healthcare benefits, and the importance of midwifery care as part of a full range of reproductive health choices. Thank you for listening. Thank you for fighting for us.

God bless you,

Alison Cole Duren-Sutherland

 

How long have I been making noise for healthcare reform?  But I just can't feel like the House "reform" vote is a victory, though I know it is. But eliminating insurance coverage for abortion is NOT what I had been looking, hoping, and advocating for. Once again, the health of women is a political football. It is not about what's best for us, it's about political expediency, and that's just bullshit. The Stupak amendment is not about ensuring tax dollars don't pay for abortions -- the Capps amendment provided for that, along with the notorious Hyde amendment. It is about restricting women's access to healthcare.

 

Here's what our government says to women:  Making an intimate personal choice to end a pregnancy? No insurance coverage. Want to give birth in the privacy of your own home with a midwife and minimize costly intervention?  You may or may not be covered. Pressured into an unnecessary induction, epidural and cesarean because the ultrasound shows that the baby is big/small/whatever? Where's the checkbook?  At least in Washington State, the government is refusing to pay more for cesareans than for vaginal birth.  At least in Washington State, poor women can get Medicaid to pay for a midwife-attended birth or an abortion. 
 

My tax dollars pay for military action I do not support, and anti-abortion people refuse to allow premiums paid by individual women to go toward abortion coverage within their health plan. Why is my concern for life less valid than theirs? Please defund the Pentagon before asking me to give up my autonomy.  Women (& men) deserve the freedom to make our own best choices with dignity. Legal, covered abortion & homebirth for all women, now!

 

Studies show that a continuous, supportive presence, even if the person is on the other side of a curtain and not speaking, have a positive effect on a woman’s labor, making it shorter, less painful, and able to proceed naturally without intervention.  If you are pregnant with a supportive partner, the birth of your child can be a time of togetherness that enhances your partnership and sexual connection.  The continuous support of the baby’s other parent reinforces the truth, which is that no matter what, you are in it together as parents.  A friend, a godparent or grandparent of the baby, or a professional labor support doula can all act as the supportive continuous presence for a mom who has no partner or whose partner cannot be present.  The best professional labor support person will be able to facilitate and support helpful participation by the mom’s significant others, no matter who they are.  

When women are giving birth in the hospital, they experience a new set of caregivers, students, residents, hospitalists, etc during their birth when the shifts change every 12 hours.  This is why it is so important that a mom bring support with her, rather than hoping to find it from hospital staff.  When a mom gives birth in a freestanding birth center or at home, she generally has a small number of skilled caregivers whom she has met before her birth and who will stay with her until her baby is born.  The research which shows that a CONTINUOUS supportive presence is helpful in labor suggests to me that for most women the continuity of care provided to healthy women by out of hospital midwives would generally lead to healthier labors.  

Watch this video on continuous labor support!

 

Sex leads to pregnancy leads to childbirth.  This, of course, is a huge oversimplification.  It is possible to have lots of satisfying sex that doesn’t lead to pregnancy because a penis never goes into a vagina.  It is possible to have chemical or mechanical problems of the reproductive system that make it impossible or unlikely for penis-in-vagina sex to produce pregnancy.  People can also have penis-in-vagina sex but using any of a number of chemical, mechanical or physiological methods to prevent pregnancy (contraception).  But, penis-in-vagina sex has been until very recently in human history the only way to make more humans, and it is only recently that it has been as simple (and difficult) as taking a medicine to prevent pregnancy. 

 

When pregnancy occurs as a result of sex, it may not necessarily lead to childbirth.  Genetically abnormal embryos often spontaneously abort, and one pregnancy out of five will end spontaneously before halfway through the pregnancy (20 weeks).  Many women choose to end unwanted pregnancies through induced abortion, even in countries where abortion is illegal, clandestine, and dangerous because it is practiced outside the reach of evidence-based healthcare.  Illegal abortion is a leading contributor to maternal mortality worldwide.  In countries where abortion is legal, women have the choice to end an unwanted pregnancy with the help of a trusted healthcare professional and at little risk to their health or well-being.  So, women can be pregnant without ever having given birth or having a child. 

 

For most women who choose to get pregnant, sex gets them pregnant, though some use reproductive technology like insemination or in vitro fertilization to conceive.  However, all unplanned pregnancies, which is about half of all pregnancies, occur because of penis-in-vagina sex.  So, although it is a generalization, it is still generally true:  sex leads to pregnancy leads to childbirth. 

 

Knowledge is power.  Sex ed helps us take charge of our sexual and reproductive health, and an important part of reproductive health is the part where you’re reproducing: conception, pregnancy and birth.  Sexuality is affected by pregnancy, and childbirth is accomplished with the same hormones and muscular contractions as orgasm.  Sex, pregnancy, and birth are biologically and physiologically linked.  Childbirth ed is sex ed. 

 

All animals are built to reproduce themselves, and we humans do it with sex, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.  The pregnancy and birth of your child is your first act as a parent, and as parents you want to make the best choices you can for your children and family.  By getting educated about the physiologic process of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, you set yourself up for a healthy reproductive life, and prepare yourself to be an informed consumer of the health-care you receive during pregnancy and childbirth.  I want to bring childbirth ed to Scarleteen because when women and families are educated about birth it can be an empowering, transformative and even sexual experience in the life of a family. 

After a whirlwind week in Portland packing up my grandma's apartment for a move into assisted living and helping my mom negotiate grandma's move and her own healthcare, I came back home and took my final for midwifery school without really having spent any time studying at all.  After months of frustration with my school, I really enjoyed and appreciated the final. It reminded me of how much I knew, and tested truly applicable midwifery knowledge.  There were a few essays, but mostly multiple choice which is sort of ridiculous, as the answers are given to you -- your own knowledge is really tested when you have to come up with the answers yourself.  In my math classes in college, there were a lot of take-home, open-book tests where you could have all the resources you wanted, because the questions required you to use the skills from the class in innovative ways, rather than spit out rote answers you could find in the book.  This was not thabout, and I'm quite confident that I passed.  That means I've completed the academic midwifery program I set out to do.  But I still have 20 births to attend and skill to improve upon.  I am contemplating a move to Oregon soon, and am beginning to think about finding an apprenticeship there.  I am celebratory that I am done with this program, but the journey is far from over.  Everybody says, "Oh, now you're a midwife," and I look forward to the day when I can answer "Yes, I am!"  I imagine the NARM exam will be a little more intensive.  We'll see. 

Please sign this petition to the producers of the Today Show: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/accurate-reporting-in-birth-options

You can personalize your signature with your own comment to them.  Here was mine: 

I have already written to you about the importance for including accurate scientific evidence to truly help shed light on the best choices for the health of mothers and babies during the birth process.  Normalizing birth is essential for improving outcomes.  Please watch the video at www.reducinginfantmortality.com to see an evidence-based plan to reduce infant and maternal mortality, which are abysmally high in the US.

Home from Oregon tonight.  A lovely trip, lots of good time with old friends in Portland, yurt camping in Lincoln City, a pligrimage to the Tillamook Cheese Factory (Ramona was very excited, running around saying "CHEESE!" and stuffing her cheeks with cheese samples), and beach time in Lincoln City and briefly at the gorgeous Pacific City beach, where we had a very sandy picnic in the sun.  We made sauropods, triceratopses and dinosaur eggs with our sand molds, and Ramonazilla stepped on them all.  Every time we talked about the beach, Ramona talked about her toes, so we got our toes in the ocean a lot, and Ramona did an ocean dance on more than one occasion. 

Ramona tried to eat a strange berry (probably salal, probaby no big deal) and I freaked out and we talked about it a lot afterward, how we can never eat berries unless we're totally sure they can't hurt us.   She said "BLEAGH!" every time we passed the bush after that, to make it clear to me she knew we don't eat those.  My smart girl.  We had mostly good success using the potty seat on the camp-ground potty, and she forced us to make friends with very nice neighbors in the yurt across the way.  Ramona wants all of my time and attention when I'm around, though she does fine with my actual physical absence.  I came home looking forward to going back to work after a week of constant togetherness.  I am not a full-time mom, just as I am not a full-time worker.

It was very hard to leave the coast.  We want so badly to be living our life there, but it's not time yet.  Coming back home, there's the pressures of snack day at the co-op preschool, our serious need to rent some storage space, and a letter from my Congressional Rep thanking for my input about increased access to Certified Nurse MIdwives (which is great, but not what I was advocating).  I crave my own midwifery clients.  I want to be throught the hard work of being the apprentice, and ready to practice, but it's not time yet.  I have a lot to slog through first -- my school exam, 20 primary births, the rest of my CPM paper-work, another midwifery intensive workshop, and the extensive CPM exam.  I am dreaming and praying about finding women who come to the practice where I am apprenticing because they want to work with me.  I swear, I will make it happen.  But that's even more to do, getting myself out there...  But we went for a walk and saw ducks down by the Cedar River, changing their bright green heads for more muted fall tones.  And the first of the salmon are there, starting to spawn and die.  Fall is here, and here is beautiful and that is good.  

 Please, if you haven't watching this short film, do now:  http://www.reducinginfantmortality.com/

We can reduce costs and improve infant and maternal mortality by providing universal access to prenatal care with doctors, nurse midwives, and Certified Professional Midwives.  Please give poor, at-risk women access to primary midwifery care that wealthy women are able to buy:  INCLUDE COVERAGE OF CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL MIDWIVES IN ANY GOV'T FUNDED HEALTH PLAN INCLUDING MEDICAID. 

Take Washington State's best practices to the other Washington: the government should pay no more for cesarean birth than for complicated vaginal birth, and provide Medicaid clients access to the midwifery model of care. 

Emailed to TODAY@nbcuni.com:

To Whom It May Concern:

In a segment aired on the Today Show 9/11/09, your station purported to delve into "The Perils of Home Births."  A large portion of the segment was devoted to interviews with a grieving family who had lost their baby.  My heart aches for this family, but their experience does not shed light on the safety of birthing at home, just as the story of one family mourning the loss of a hospital-born baby is not evidence that all births should be removed from the hospital.

Biomedicine purports to be evidence-based, eschewing emotion-based "anecdotal evidence" for the stark light of fact.  However, no scientific evidence was presented in your segment to support the contention that planned home birth with a Certified Professional Midwife is more dangerous for mom or baby that going to a hospital.  As the segment itself points out, more babies die in hospitals (per 1000 babies born there) than at home.  I am surprised, however, that the growing body of evidence which supports the safety of out-of-hospital birth was ignored.  2009 has seen the release of two studies, one from the Netherlands and one from Canada, which support the safety of birthing at home with trained midwives who are integrated into the health-care delivery system.  While the impact of birth experience on an individual family is too important to allow for random assignment of families to home or hospital birth  (as advocates of evdience-based care prefer), the Canadian study especially controls for variables remarkably well by comparing women in similar states of health who were cared for by the same practice.  One important of scientific conclusions is that they must be replicable, and the studies mentioned above replicate the results of a 2005 study of out-of-hospital births with Certified Professional Midwives in North America.  The best available evidence shows that out-of-hospial birth is nor more dangers for mother or baby.  However, out-of-hospital birth has been shown to reduce rates of expensive medical insterventions including surgical birth. 

Finally, it is important to remember that, far from being an advocate for evidence-based practices, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynocologists (ACOG) is an organization designed to advocate for the interestes of OB/GYNs.  Rather than responding to the scientific literature cited above, ACOG has recently been soliciting anecdotal evidence on bad outcomes of out-of-hospital birth.  When the professional organization of hospital birth providers tells us that the only safe place for birth is in the hospital, we must approach this with the same healthy skepticism with which we would approach claims from oil-industry executives on the dangers of wind energy. 

I encourage the Today Show to further the health of childbearing women by featuring a segment on evidence-based maternity care rather than resorting to sensationalized scare-tactics which obscure the facts of this issue. 

Sincerley,

Alison Duren-Sutherland
Homebirth Mom

A week ago Friday I met with a group of moms (and one brave dad) to talk to Senator Maria Cantwell's King County Outreach Director about why health care reform matters in our lives.  Moms and midwives spoke about the low cost and positive outcomes associated with midwife-attended out-of-hospital birth, and encouraged Senator Cantwell to champion the inclusion of midwives in health care reform.  The lone dad at the meeting spoke about the importance of touch to babies, and the beauty of holding your brand new child in your arms, without having to fight against someone taking the baby away for measurments or procedures.  An immigrant woman spoke about coming to the US to give her kids a better life, but facing bankrupcy when she had to have surgery for a brain tumor which would have been covered in her home country.  Women spoke about the agonizing choice of spending the family's single paycheck to cover a stay-at-home mom's health insurance or let her go uninsured because she no longer had an employer to provide coverage.  One woman who chose to stop working ot care for her children spoke about having health insurance coverage be the only thing that kept her in an unhealthy and unhappy marriage.  I was so moved by the stories, and I realized after the meeting that I had mostly listened; after all the work I did to get face to face with someone who could influence the Senator, I stood back and let these women tell their stories, and it was good.  

The next day, I gave a workshop on getting healthy for pregnancy to a small group of women, friends and strangers at a natural medicine store in Seattle.  I mostly talked about nutrition, eating good food, including lots of protein, water, and vitamins/minerals, to build a healthy blood supply to nourish mom and baby.  But I also mentioned the benefits of strong, nourishing herbal infusions to promote optimal nutrition, and using homeopathic remedies when issues arise in early pregnancy.  I was reminded that I do have knowlege and wisdom, and that sharing it is empowering, to me and to those who listen. 

This week Friday I was honored to be welcomed into the home of a sweet family on the birthday of their second child.  I missed the birth, but provided postpartum support  to mom, baby, and my preceptor midwife.  The next day I returned for the 24 hour home visit to find a healthy family full of love and energy appreciative of their opportunity to birth on their own turf and be tucked into bed afterwards.  As a birth attendant, I still have so much to learn, and these families are my teachers.  I am so grateful for them. 

Today, then, I am listening to the rain outside and appreciating that my girl is napping peacefully.  Naps -- and everything else including eating, pottying and time apart from mom -- have been challenging lately becuase of molars, two of which are half way in and two of which are just about to break through the bottom gums.  I begged off of social engagements today to spend time with my girl and I'm so happy that I did.  We need eachother, she and I. 

Things are good in my little world.  I am learning, the rain is falling, and fall is coming soon. 

Attended my first birth as a student midwife since my own babe's birth.  I use the term "attended" loosely, as I missed the birth.  Babe was beautiful & nursing when I got there, thanks to my preceptor, who had to deal with a complicated birth unassisted.  I also had my first experience with suturing, which I know I need to learn, but I am not too excited about having to do ever.  I felt a little rusty, but I am impressed with the way midwifery care can minimize risk and deal with complications without medicines or machines, but by assisting the woman's body and baby in doing exactly what they were designed to do. 

Dear Nate and healthcare meeting participants,

I’m sorry I didn’t get around to writing this email sooner.  My 18 month old has been teething and she missed her mommy this morning.  We had some much needed family time this afternoon!

I am so grateful for your participation in the meeting we had today.  So many good and earnest people came together to honestly share their experiences with the failures of the for-profit healthcare system.  I am especially grateful to the members of the MAMA Campaign, who shared their vision for lowering costs and improving outcomes in maternity care by increasing access to Certified Professional Midwives, and the supporters of MomsRising who spoke so eloquently to the ways in which women in particular are disenfranchised by the broken healthcare system.  When we take time off to care for our children, we either pay a huge part of our family income to get access to healthcare or we lose our insurance and gamble the financial health of our families on whether or not we get sick.  We spoke with one voice about the importance of reform and our support for government provided universal healthcare.  Many of us even expressed our willingness to pay more taxes to provide funds for
this important undertaking. 

I want to thank each and every person who shared their personal stories in the hopes that someone else’s life would be improved if they spoke out.  And, Nate, I want to thank you for listening and joining in and taking our words and ideas to share with the Senator. God bless you all for taking the time to work for a better America. 

Sincerely,

Alison Cole Duren-Sutherland

I attended your Lakewood town hall tonight, and appreciated your intelligent answers and support for a public option in health care reform.  Many questions were asked about how to pay for reform.  I want to share some ideas with you. 

* INCREASED ACCESS TO MIDWIVES AND OUT OF HOSPITAL BIRTH.  Medicaid pays for a lot of births, and requiring federal Medicaid to reimburse a Certified Professional Midwife in an out of hospital setting reduces costly intervention, including Cesarean section.  The WHO recommends an optimal 15% c-section rate and the US rate is now 31%.  These surgeries are costly, many are unnecessary, and could be prevented with midwifery care for healthy women.  Please watch this video:  www.reducinginfantmortality.com.

*  INCREASED ACCESS TO ALTERNATIVE/COMPLEMENTARY PREVENTIVE CARE.  I listened to a round-table on preventive care held by the administration, and many medically-trained providers lamented the fact that they did not get adequate training in disease prevention.  Naturopaths, massage-therapists, acupuncturists, midwives, etc. all provide low-tech preventive and wellness-promoting care.  This also solves the problem of lack of adequate providers while expanding patient choice.

* INCREASED ACCESS TO FAMILY PLANNING.  Preventing unintended pregnancy reduces costs to insurers.  If everyone had access to services provided by state family planning waiver programs (like the Take Charge program in Washington), people would be able to control their reproductive lives and save the state money.

* REPEAL THE BUSH TAX CUTS AND INCREASE TAXES FOR THE WEALTHIEST AMERICANS.  We all benefit from the great things the US has to offer, and the ones who benefit the most need to give back the most. 

Thank you so much for the work you do for us.  Keep it up.

Sincerely,

Alison Duren-Sutherland
Medical Insurance Biller
Homebirth Mom
Apprentice Midwife

Please watch the movie:  http://www.reducinginfantmortality.com/

Healthcare reform needs midwifery!  My baby was born at home without any medical intervention.  She came straight to my arms after her birth, where she stayed as the midwives examined her and she began to nurse.  Out of hospital birth with Certified Professional Midwives can save the nation billions in procedure costs and hospital fees.  If all women had access to midwives in the hospital, in freestanding birth centers, and at home, the health of whole families would be improved and we would reduce the neonatal & maternal mortality rates in this country significantly.  We are rightly supporting the training of midwives to benefit public health in Afghanistan, we need to do it in the US.  Neonatal mortality rates are worse in communities of color.  If "the public option" in health care reform was nothing but increased access to midwives and contraception for all childbearing women who wanted to use them, the health of our nation would be better off and we would save money. 

Sincerely,

Alison Cole Duren-Sutherland

Senator Cantwell,

I have a meeting scheduled Friday the 28th at 9AM with your South King County outreach director, Nate.  As a member of MomsRising.org and a professional insurance biller, I am meeting with your staff to say that the health care system as it is is broken and must change.  We need a not-for-profit public competitor to put the emphasis back on excellent, evidence based health care, instead of on the profits of insurance companies.  And as a member of the MAMA Campaign, I am meeting with your staff to say that giving all healthy pregnant women access to Certified Professional Midwives outside of the hospital and Certified Nurse Midwives in the hospital with obstetricians handling complications will save the US money and improve outcomes for women and children.  Please watch this important video about infant mortality, found here:  http://www.reducinginfantmortality.com/.  Thank you for the work you have always done for women's health and rights.  This is one more issue where we need you to be our champion. Visit my blog (http://alison-cole.livejournal.com/) for more information or consider coming to the meeting on the 28th.

God Bless,

Alison Cole Duren-Sutherland

We all know I love Rachel Maddow.  I cheesily sent her an email today.  As the only mainstream news person who really paid attention when Dr Tiller was shot, I thought maybe she would think about covering the role of midwifery in the health care debate.  <Sigh>  A girl can dream..

Rachel,

I've worked in abortion care for six years now, and I want to thank you so much for your unflinching coverage of the murder of Kansas abortion provider and Christian grandfather George Tiller.  There weren't really any other places in the media where I felt like someone care about the experience of clinic workers in the wake of such terrible violence.  Thanks for "getting it" in a way that even my own partner, who is pro-choice because he knows it's none of his business, did not. 

I am also really grateful for your coverage of health care reform.  These days at the abortion clinic, I'm doing the health insurance billing, and this perspective on the health care system has made me a somewhat obsessive advocate for health care reform.  Profit-driven insurance companies need to be reigned in.  Only in the health care arena does the consumer not know what they will be responsible for paying until long after they have been provided with services, because insurance companies are not bound by the information they give to patients and doctor's offices about what will be covered. 

The real reason I am writing to you right now, though, is because I think you might be able to "get it" on another issue that is sometimes invisible to the mainstream media, probably because, like abortion, it is a women's health issue.  But it is also a health care reform issue, a public health issue, and a deficit reduction issue:  midwifery care and out of hospital birth.

The US has abysmal maternal and infant mortality rates, while spending huge amounts of money on high-tech maternity care, most of which came into use before it's benefits had been rigorously demonstrated.  Health care reform needs evidence-based birth care.  Science is now beginning to back up leaving birth alone, and when women give birth with minimal intervention, the cost-savings is huge.  That is why Certified Professional Midwives need to be a part of health care reform.  If CPMs were federally recognized as eligible for reimbursement by Medicaid, poor women would have increased access to safe, evidence-based, low-cost care.  In the midst of all the corporate advocacy happening in Washington, women from the MAMA Campaign and The Big Push for Midwives are trying to get the voices of women and families heard.  I am writing to ask you to cover the movement for the full range of reproductive justice in health care reform.  

The bottom line is that we need to reduce health care costs, or health care reform just won't work.  Women who choose to prevent pregnancy when they are not prepared to be parents save money for their insurer (the state in the case of a public plan).  Women who do not wish to be pregnant but are will save their insurer money by choosing abortion.  Women who are carrying a pregnancy to term and wish to seek midwifery care in an out of hospital setting will save their insurer money because interventions will be reduced.  Any reasonable insurer, while not mandating a woman to do any of these things, will provide her the coverage to do these things if she so chooses.  By honoring a woman's own wisdom about her reproductive choices, insurers win as does the dignity of the woman, who is given every opportunity to control her reproductive destiny. 

I am a huge fan and love listening to your show on my computer at work.  Thanks for what you do. 

Sincerely,

Alison Cole Duren-Sutheralnd

In becoming a mother, I fell in many ways like I have fulfilled a destiny.  Whether it was taught to me by my culture, or whether I had an innate desire within me, I have always wanted to be a mother.  I conceptualize God as mother, giving birth to all things from Her body.  The Mother is an feminine archetype, and birth is her rite of passage.  I am musing more and more these days on what it means to mother, mother well, mother on our own terms, release the way we were mothered to become our own embodiment of Mother.  I am studying to be a midwife, the guide for women on their own journey into motherhood, and my own daughter is growing.

I believe in the equality of all people.  But I am also very strongly woman-identified, as a women's reproductive health worker and myself a mother of a daughter, and a woman raised in a house by mother and grandmother.  In my activism, I suppose part of me feels that men, so long the privileged sex, can take care of themselves; to make equality, we need to make things better off for women, so long subjugated around the world, even into the 21st century.  And I know that what is good for women is good for societies, as mothers are responsible for raising the citizens.  My work for women, my passion for women's issues is human rights work. 

However, my woman-focus can serve to alienate men, even my dear feminist male partner.  It's a bummer, and something I need to focus on correcting.  The other day, he reminded me that our home-birth wasn't only beneficial to me and Ramona, but also to him, and that my birth work is not only about women, but people, families.  It is absolutely true.  But full control of our bodies is something that white men take for granted and women & people of color must fight for; and men can choose not to participate in the realities of pregnancy, birth, and parenting but women cannot.  So, I fight for women.

Jamie said that he thinks this is a change in me, being so woman-identified.  I still care about humanity as a whole.  But my work in this life is with pregnant women, and as my learning progresses,  I am seeing everyday more clearly how all my work comes together.  I also know that I could not do this work, I could not support women (and families) without some balance in my life; Jamie's masculinity helps to bring balance into my life.  His support and love have been absolutely necessary for me to progress on my journey toward midwifery and women's health advocacy.  I am so grateful for him, and the family that we have made together.  He is the partner that I need to do this work. 

Dear Senator Cantwell,

I have requested a meeting with you to discuss health care reform, but so far have been told that neither you or your staff have time to see me.  I wanted to let you know that HEALTH CARE REFORM NEEDS TO HAPPEN FOR WOMEN. 

THE CURRENT SYSTEM IS FAILING WOMEN AND FAMILES.  As a student midwife, abortion-care worker, health care para-professional, medical insurance biller, and mom, I have first-hand experience with American medicine. 

REFORM REQUIRES A PUBLIC OPTION.  A not-for-profit public plan with clear billing instructions similar to Medicaid would reduce time wasted by doctors, patients and insurance companies arguing about coverage, leaving more resources for health care. 

COST SAVINGS CAN BE REALIZED BY GIVING WOMEN A FULL RANGE OF REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE.  I know that family planning and abortion rights are important to you, and I thank you for your work on these issues.  Like women who choose contraception or abortion over carrying unwanted pregnancies, women who are carrying a pregnancy to term and wish to seek midwifery care in an out of hospital setting will save their insurer money, because the costs associated with a hospital birth will be substantially reduced.  By honoring a woman's own wisdom about her reproductive choices, insurers win as does the dignity of the woman, who is given every opportunity to control her reproductive destiny.

In closing, I would request that you or your staff make time to talk to me and other moms about our experience with the health care system and why HEALTH CARE REFORM MUST HAPPEN NOW.  We don't have a lot of money to spend lobbying legislators, but we believe the government can and must provide good health insurance, and we have ideas about how it can be done. 

Thank you for all the work you do.  May all your efforts be blessed. 

Sincerley,

Alison Cole Duren-Sutherland