wow,
Grandhighpoohba, hi, I have to disagree with you a little bit there from your 13:50:24 post: there are actually more people than just you involved in 'your' birth - remember the baby? Are you thinking of free birthing?
Of course there's a team there - and you and your babe are part of it. No wo/man is an island. A baby isn't an inert tooth you can wiggle and pull out yourself.
I find it difficult to accecpt this idea that mothers come first, before everyone else - before the baby, before everyone else in the room. There are health and saftey guidlines for midwives and health care workers put there for VERY good reasons.
In Holland the health and saftey guidline list is long and detailed of how you have to have your house, and modify your furniture, to exact specifications, down to the centimeter so that the midwive can actually help you without damaging herself. Midwives come into inspect with a measuring tape, and things must be PERFECT for them before they will help you. I think this is common sense, and decency. Most babies in Holland are born at home - they are doing something right.
I can't see how asking a midwife to come in and help you out when she's in between her shifts is a good practice
Think of the practicalities.. when is that woman supposed to rest?
She was supposed to be off, asleep or having her dinner / life, putting her own kids to bed. What about the next woman on her caseload? Had this midwife enough time and rest to be back at the top of her game for the next woman who deserved the best attention also?
It's important to remember that a midwife doesn't go home to tuck herself in after she's worked to help you, and seen you and babe all tucked up in your own bed.
No! She goes out and helps another woman and another until her shift is over - that is if some cheeky mare on her caseload doesn't get herself incapacatated in the pool, and needs a few midwives to help each other to hoik her out!
What are you like It seems strange to me, this thought that a birthing mother is the most important person in the room - and people should bend over backwards for her - really? My thinking is that no one is more important than another, no one is less important either.
It's no wonder midwives are leaving the profession with the lack of respect shown and the unrealistic and rigid mindsets of mothers to be. They need to recruit gymnasts with speed habits to keep up with the caseloads and expectations
Let me just say, before you have switched off completly
I really do wish you all, all the best in your lovely homebirths, but please try to remember that midwives are women just like you, who need and deserve respect and consideration, just like you. They're not there primarily to be at your beck and call outside their hours, or asked to do things that might damage their health, they are there to help you give birth, and to safely deliver your baby. They are trained to do this.
There is a team there, no matter how pregnant you personally feel: I am Mother, hear me Roar feelings can get the better of us!
But really, no woman gives birth on her own. At best it's a dance between the mother and the baby. At worst it involves a whole lot of other people.
Good luck with birthing your lovely babies, at home where you are actually safer from infections etc, and I hope you, your babe and your midwives enjoy the experience safely and with mutual respect.