Midwifery Today conference

I think I perhaps may be the worse blogger in the world... for one, I constantly forget that I have this outlet here to rant, rave, ooooh and ahhhh.. and second I often wonder if anyone ever actually reads a smidgen of anything I write on here. Anyhow... either way I am back to muddle up cyberspace with more of my blabber.

This past weekend I had an amazing opportunity to go the Midwifery Today conference in Philadelphia, PA. I previously had gone to this same conference 4 years ago and found it to be utterly amazing. This time was no different. I decided to take my two daughters with me and turn it into a girls only trip. We arrived at our hotel at 1am Friday morning after 12 hours worth of traveling. I had to be up by 7am for the all day conference... man, was mama tired!

Being a birth junkie, I can't describe how amazing it is to be in the room with the likes of Elizabeth Davis, Ina May Gaskin and Michel Odent. I guess one can compare it to a football fanatic having a chance to chat with Jerry Rice or Joe Montana. Michel Odent's session on alternative methods for pain relief was nothing short of fascinating. He spoke a lot about the physiological process and how pain plays a factor in labor along with the cascade of hormones and endorphins. It makes sense when put in the perspective of how one can't remove one peice of a puzzle and then still expect for all the others peices to fit together to create the same picture. It just doesn't work! Friday evening we were treated with the most beautiful birth film I have yet to see called Le Premier Cri (The first cry). This film was a montage of highlights of births across the world, including a water birth with dolphins!

The highlight on Saturday was a workshop with Janice Marsh-Prelesnik on expressive arts. This was such an incredibly fun time... singing, dancing and creating works of art with other beautiful women. Lunch was spent with a table of more amazing women... I had the opportunity to chat with several student midwives, a nurse-midwife, as well as lunch with Ina May Gaskin herself. That evening was the cabaret.. 2 hours of more songs, dancing, poetry and a hilarious play put on by Naoli Vinaver and Michel Odent. I some how got the nerve to read the two poems I had wrote about Kayla's birth. It was incredibly scary, but at the same time it was comforting to share such personal peices of me with a room full of supportive and powerful women--doulas, midwives, childbirth educators, birth advocates and more.

The girls had a great time... and I came back home refreshed and ready to get into gear with moving things forward--creating a plan to be able to start midwifery school (hopefully when Ava turns 3) and pursuing some other exciting opportunities in the birth community. I can't wait!