Photos of Midwives and their Advocates Hard at Work!

Look at these great T-shirts!

Best One Liner from Big Push, so far!

"I'm a child of the 60s. I always thought I'd get busted for pot, not pit!"

States Report on their Progress

So far this morning, we've heard reports from Idaho and Missouri -- two states that recently got legislation legalizing Certified Professional Midwives!! -- as well as state still struggling with the process: Iowa, South Dakota, Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, and Georgia.

Its amazing how many of our strategies are the same, as are the challenges we face! But I am learning some innovative ideas and am interested in getting home and implementing them!

Birmingham Day 1

Here is me, getting ready to get on the airplane to Birmingham, Alabama – sitting in the Des Moines airport, wondering what I will learn in the next 2 days, and excited about the progress I have to report in our own state.

The purpose of The Big Push National Birth Summit is to help organize activists and advocates from every state where direct entry or Certified Professional Midwife attended homebirth is still illegal or unlicensed. We’ll spend all day Monday and Tuesday meeting with each other, as well as organizers from the national Big Push campaign, to talk strategy, success, and failure. We’ll gain nuts and bolts knowledge, as well as mutual support and solidarity!

We’ll learn what is going on at the grassroots in places like Florida and Ohio, and talk about the huge diversity of interests we have in making out-of-hospital birth an accessible option for families.

And, at the same time, we’ll have a lot of fun! Sunday night we are all meeting up at The Bottle Tree , a Birmingham venue, for a night of music provided by Vulture Whale , 13 ghosts , Duquette Johnston , John Jeremiah Sullivan , and Kate Taylor in benefit of the Alabama Birthing Coalition. And, academic dork that I am, I am looking forward to the “fun” of hearing a lunchtime presentation on African American midwifery in the Deep South, by Shafia Monroe of The International Center for Traditional Childbearing .

I imagine a bit of fun and information sharing during informal times, too – especially with my roommate Debbie Pease, an amazing organizer for South Dakota Safe Childbirth Options .

I’ll keep everyone posted on what I learn, do, and see this week – and I can’t wait to share with members of Friends of Iowa Midwives when we have a general membership meeting and picnic this fall!

Birds and Birdsong

My grandma used to dream that she was a bird - and in her most recurring dream, she would fly over cornfields to an abandoned barn, sitting lonely in the fall sun. It always sounded like a desolate dream, to me -- but she experienced it joyfully. She told me she would love to be able to fly like a bird.

We'd spend hours looking at picture books of birds, tracing them with pencil and tracing paper - and watching them from her front porch window. And, when she died, I gained possession of two gorgeous green glass birds - cardinals, I think, from the crest on their heads - which I have in my bedroom, and like to think of as grandma and grandpa watching over me.

So, I know she would love this new book by Dr. Miyoko Chu, a professor in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University. I heard her interviewed on a terrific Iowa Public Radio program earlier this week. Its a pop-up book of birds in their natural habitat, with audio of their native songs! Did you know that some birds can actually harmonize with themselves???? Listen in .....

Gene Robinson's Invocation

Huffingtonpost is reporting this about the decision made by the Presidential Inaugural Committee not to ask HBO to air the invocation, given by Gene Robinson, an Episcopal Bishop, and the first openly gay, non-celibate, person to serve in that capacity. I, for one, really missed the opportunity to hear this prayer as part of the celebratory events - I'm grateful to HuffPost and Youtube for providing it for us now. It's a beautiful call to action.

Bless us with tears and anger, indeed.