Partera1

I am so sorry to hear what happened to you. As a chilbirth educator it is a story I hear all too often which women grieve for long periods of time. It is so sad to hear all of this, I begin RN school in September in another phase of finishing my masters degree in ARNP-CNM. I have a BA in medical anthropology and have been a doula, lactation educator and childbirth educator for four years and in reporductive healthcare as an MA, midwife assistant, and EMT for eight years. I attend births in a freestanding birth center on-call and have never had a birth go over 7 hours. Grant it we dont have high-risk pregnancies, but we have also only had to transport 2 women in three years. We do hypnobirth, waterbirth, and natural birth. I have to go to nursing school to become what I want to become. But now I am afraid I will be brainwashed into thinking c-sections and inductions are normal and birth is an illness and not a natural processes in a womans life. I have been to the FARM met Ina May Gaskin, work with Penny Simkin and Hency Goer and am now moving to California to finish school, where I hear there are barely any midwives and only few birth centers. I will miss Seattle!! Any advice?!!

Im not a nurse but I work as a midwife assistant in a birth center and as a doula in the hospital. I start RN school in September. I know that from my experience the nurses in our hospitals here are overworked and often not patient with moms. They are medicalized and interventionistic due to policy and such. I am sure it will be a hard transition for you to get used to but you will be an asset!! Good luck!!