And she knows how to make people

BittyPrincess had a fever yesterday; it was pretty dramatic overnight but by midmorning she was running around only slightly crankier and more tired than usual. Getting 13 hours of sleep two nights running, when she averages a measly 8 (for a child her age this is a downright anemic sleep schedule) should perhaps have been a tip-off that she was getting sick. Either way, I skipped my clinic rounds for the day based on how hot she'd been burning in the night/morning, and settled in for a day of complete crankass bickering from my children. Sure makes me want to stay home with them...

Anyway, by evening I thought she was basically better. As I finished up our bookreading (Twelve Days of Christmas, but whatever, I let them do the picking) and everyone started getting settled in, BittyPrincess sat up in bed, leaned forward, and in high dramatic wide-eyed take-over-the-world fashion, said "I know how to make PEOPLE." She then settled happily into her bed, apparently prepared to dream about miniature-bitty-princess army creation.

Well, what a downright spooky thing for a 4 year old to say.

Not that I haven't occasionally been accused of plotting to take over the world, just that I never considered shooting people out my vagina to populate those plots. Or, that's not the intended purpose of my children, anyway.

And of all the million little unexpected consequences of this whole midwifery gig on my children, I didn't really think evil-army-creation was going to be on the table. Overly detailed information about all things baby-making (and all consequences involved), yes. Inability to make iron-clad plans for days with the kids, yes. A little too much talk about vaginas and birth in public places...ability to say words like "nipple" and "vagina" without blushing...disconnect/lack of understanding about how 99% of the population does this whole family-making thing...all expected consequences.

Luckily, this morning, the evil army is made of paper cutouts.

Exam complete

That was a long day. But it's done. And now just the waiting part...4-6 weeks before we know whether we passed or not...

I got some questions after my exams about whether it felt good to be done. It doesn't. I'll be done when I have my license in my hands. Maybe then we'll have enough money to celebrate with something other than air-popper popcorn and a movie we already own.

Breech Birth Video

I came across this video today and I have to share it. In it, a baby is born in footling breech position. It is not a particularly quick birth. What makes it amazing is how well you can see how baby is active in the birth process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD5939e5PZ8&NR=1

I'm not sure that I will be doing breech births at home, well, ever. Not that I might not be singing an entirely different tune at some point in the future, but my intention in the meantime is not to plan breech births at home. They are riskier, it's true, which doesn't mean that they should never be done, just that new-minted-midwife me isn't going to be the one doing them. How difficult this choice is may make these births more triumphant when they're successful (which I'm totally happy about, I'm just not sure I'm the practitioner that can help with that). In the meantime, living semi-vicariously through the videos and others' accounts, knowing full well that I don't yet have the knowledge or the patience to be as hands-off as the midwife in this video is. I want this kind of birth to be an option for women. Right now, the standard is c-section for those women whose babies are in heads-up position at term, and it is darned hard to get any other kind of birth without splitting entirely with the medical community. Thank goodness for trained practitioners (of any sort) who know their stuff and are willing to attend vaginal breech births. I just wish there were more of them out there. Maybe someday I'll be one of them.