Birthworkers of Color

So, I went to a meeting tonight for birthworkers of color. It was held at the birth center in Oakland and there were about 30 of us there. The meeting was organized by a doula who wanted to feel more connected to other women of color who are doing birth work and she just wanted to see what the interest was from the community. Apparently there is a pretty big interest!

It was pretty much 50/50 Latina and Black. Most were doulas, a couple of us were licensed midwives and a few others were nurse-midwife students at UCSF. Oh, and a few were labor and delivery nurses from Kaiser Oakland.

Because there were so many of us, the whole meeting was comprised of our individual introductions, which I liked because I got to meet some new people I didn't even know existed, and hear about some exciting work they're doing and upcoming conferences and such.

I'm both a little sad and a lot excited to say that I am no longer the only Mexican-American midwife in the Bay Area. There's a woman in Oakland who is a non-nurse-midwife who does homebirth, like me. She worked at the other birth clinic in El Paso and, like me, her grandmother was also a midwife. I think she recently moved here. Hopefully we'll get a chance to get to know each other much better.

This year marks 10 years that I've been attending births. It's interesting that I've now been around long enough to notice changes in the birth world. One of the biggest changes I've noticed is that the newest politically correct thing is to be gender friendly. There are several doulas and midwives who describe themselves as "queer" or "trans" and there is a very large and vibrant LGBTQ community of birthworkers and birthing families. Any time there's a large gathering of birthworkers, like tonight, there's bound to be at least one woman with a beard, ha. All the other Latina midwives check this box and I feel a little like an outsider. I'm totally cool with being culturally aware and respectful, AND, I like calling Louis my husband and not my partner, even though it's not politically correct.  

Another new thing I've noticed is that the cool thing now for women of color is to go through the program at UCSF to become nurse-midwives. I can see the appeal, with the ability to receive financial aid, land a steady job, and flaunt a little bit of the prestige of the school. On the other hand, there's no way I would ever want to be a nurse. I'm glad someone wants to do it, though, so that women birthing in the hospital have more options and hopefully receive better care.

I've noticed that I'm the only Latina midwife to not have a Spanish name and speak with a Spanish accent. I know there were some people in the room trying to figure out just what I was, lol. And, I'm still the only midwife from the southern half of the county.

Anyway, I'm glad I went tonight because I really miss my birthy community people and I know I need to be seen more often. Louis was supposed to put O down for bed as soon as I left, but she was still awake when I came home a couple hours later. *sigh* We definitely need to work on that.