I just finished watching "Pregnant in America". 

I first heard about the movie waaaay back before we moved from Fayetteville to Portland (Gresham if you want to get technical). I stumbled across a Myspace page for it actually.  It was still in production, but the director and his wife were creating a buzz about it. Once we arrived in Oregon I avidly checked up on it via the myspace page, and nearly offered to support a showing of it, but I had no one to show it to at the time, I hadn't found my niche In Oregon yet, so I passed. 

Then Emery was born.  Things changed pretty vastly after that, midwifery pursuit and Birthingway were all put on hold for lots of reasons. I discovered Facebook, deleted my myspace account and we moved back to Texas.
Now, here we are in Austin. I'm trying deperately to find my path to midwifery. Desperately.  Everyday I'm searching, looking, hoping, scouring every source that I know of, waiting for that AH-HA moment to say, " Here Erin, this is they way, do it this way."  With no luck...yet. 

 So, being bored, I decided to peruse Hulu for a movie to watch...BAM! There it is, "Pregnant in America".
I know this movie.....could it be?
The Full thing?!
Not just a clip.....wow!

So.

Now the Activist in me is all sorts of riled up!

Curse you Cytotec!
Curse you Pharmaceutical Companies!!
Curse you insurance companies!!!
Curse you Medical Industry!!!!
Curse us America for not allowing our women, our mothers, our society, our culture to know that natural birth is possible!!!!!!

All that being said-

Thank you advanced medical Technology to help when needed, but please, stay out of Birth until you are needed, and only when you are needed.
Thank you Insurance companies for supporting families, when it is needed.
Thank you America for being a nation that allows people, women, families, the right to choose their own way of doing things, now let it happen that way, please.

Maybe my life-calling/career goal list shouldn't read like this:

1. Become a Midwife
2. See Number 1.

Maybe, just maybe, it should read like this:

1. Become as educated as possible on the "flawed" aspects of the Birth culture in America.
2. Share this knowledge with all who will hear it!
3. Become A childbirth Educator (this is a great platform to share this knowledge!)
4. Become a Certified Doula.  Advocate for those vulnearbale women at the mercy of the medical "McDonal-ized" Medical system.
5. Become a Midwife. (I may be 70 by the time it happens, but it WILL happen.)

Are you readers still willing to hold me accountable?
I'm going to need it.

-Erin