Holistic Moms Network

This week, I heard that T was invited to be the guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the local chapter of the Holistic Moms Network and I kind of invited myself along. I found out about the group from a homebirth client and I have been really interested in checking it out and joining. When T heard I was interested in going to the meeting, she asked me to help her with her presentation, which was about local birth options (including, of course, homebirth).

Anyway, we went to the meeting together and it was great! There was a crowd of about 30 people, mostly moms but some dads, too. We talked about midwives, doulas, birth centers, and homebirth. We were asked a lot of questions and the crowd was really into it.

One crazy thing that happened was the discussion about Washington hospital. One woman raised her hand and shared that her first baby had been born at Washington and she had been traumatized by the experience and how she was treated. As soon as she spoke, another woman raised her hand and said the same thing! Then, the stories continued. T and I looked at each other and tried to figure out what to say. So many women spoke up to share basically the same story, which was that they had been interested in a natural birth but were treated horribly at Washington and ended up with tons of interventions. All the women said they were thinking about or planning to birth at home next time. I hate that so many women are having bad experiences there. We seriously need to do something about that hospital. At least the women who came to the meeting now know they have options when it comes to giving birth.

One of my clients was there, as well as some of T's former clients. We felt the love :) My client later told me that one of the women at the meeting told her that she was really lucky to be working with me and T, since that woman felt like she would trust us as her midwives. Aw, gee.

I thought it was such a great group an I'm really looking forward to joining. It's only $45 a year and there are lots of fun activities like craft nights and camping trips. Each month there is a meeting with a speaker who talks about all kinds of "holistic" things. This is definitely the homebirthing, homeschooling, cloth diapering, breastfeeding, raw milk drinking crunchy crowd. Yay, I found a new community!