That's kinda my feeling, amych. I mean, the end goal is a baby and mother who are living, right?

I've had friends who have run the gamut of birth and parenting -- some of it has seemed insane0vision to me -- 4 days of labor -- OMFG awful.

It seems to be like the place to be is a happy medium. I'm dealing with demands from a helicopter parent -- packed playdates all summer, teach him how to ride a bike so he can bike with us for a week at the end of summer, organic, no fructose, manna sent from angels, blah blah blah, two half hour to an hour calls a day...

My eyes have rolled so much this summer they are in the basement.

BALANCE. MODERATION.

Yes, but your feeling might not be an accurate assessment of what was being said by this particular person at this particular time.

And you don't know that it wasn't. Since neither of us were actually present during the interview, we won't ever know.

But if I had been that writer, I would have been pissed off.

Also, what amych said.

I'm offended as fuck that we have a culture that says anyone "failed" at birth

I simply don't understand the whole thing about a desire to avoid modern medical technology. I mean I can understand wanting a less impersonal environment (though from my perspective I was happy to know we were already in a hospital if anything went wrong, and our daughter needed some attention after was was born), but I don't understand the negative stigma of taking advantage of medical facilities and pain management.

but I get pretty tired of how blithely holistic birth advocates forget that the leading cause of death of women of childbearing age used to be CHILDBEARING.

It's not always blythe forgetting though. A lot of what killed women in childbirth is no longer a factor in home births due to germ theory and nutrition.

I don't have the percentages at the tip of my fingers, but childbed fever (which, pre-cleanlieness standards killed more women in hospitals than at home) and rickets or polio(which could make the pelvis, shall we say unsuitable for childbirth) were widespread and account for a large percentage of deaths in childbirth. They aren't factors in a modern home birth.

Again, not saying there aren't Natural Assholes, just not willing to let them be the sole proprietors of the Natural world.

I blame the woo.

In things that are cool news. Kid barters his way from a phone to a Porche. [link]

Hey, it's Pi Approximation Day! I may need to approximate some pie.

DJ, I read that yesterday. Cracked me up that the porsche is too expensive to maintain so he's looking for an Escalade.

I simply don't understand the whole thing about a desire to avoid modern medical technology. I mean I can understand wanting a less impersonal environment (though from my perspective I was happy to know we were already in a hospital if anything went wrong, and our daughter needed some attention after was was born), but I don't understand the negative stigma of taking advantage of medical facilities and pain management.

Because sometimes it makes things, in some ways, worse.

An epidural manages the pain, but it can lead to slowed or stopped contractions. Then the pitocin is administered but it can lead to incredibly hard contractions.

Some people feel strongly that a cascade of medical interventions can lead to an emergency c-section anyway after 16 hours of hard labor. My one cousin wound up having hers before the next epidural could kick in. They shot her full of morphine once the cord was cut and she doesn't much remember her unanesthetized abdominal surgery, but it was no picnic.

Now, we have a living cousin and a living cousin's child. It was indeed a positive outcome. Nobody failed.

But when it came time for my sister to have her baby she opted to labor at home for longer than many people might have (and I won't say how long in this context lest I be accused of shaming or bragging or whatever) because she didn't want those interventions. She was four minutes from the hospital and in close contact with her doctor and did it safely -- but if she'd been in a hospital she would not have been allowed to labor that long.

After laboring her ungodly amount of hours, she went to the hospita. She went from 3cm to fully dilated in four hours. She delivered my niece in three pushes. Apparently, my sister's uterus, when allowed to do what it was going to do opted for a long labor and a short delivery.

Now before anyone tut-tuts about risky it wasn't. Long early labors aren't unusual or dangerous. Its just that most people would rather not have them. My sister rather would.

I always figure, if mother and child survive and the kid lives through adolescence without any major physical or psychological scars, it's a resounding success. But I don't have kids, won't be having any ... and I get nervous around little ones ... so what do I know?

We just had an unplanned fire drill.

It was nice to be outside, because it's gorgeous here today, but 8 flights of stairs was probably about 7 too many for me today.

Also, ow.