You just need a good doctor...

My mom is always trying to convince me to convert over to her doctor. She just loves him. He takes good care of her. I am thankful for that.

So she told me, not long ago, that her doctor's office had openings again. And really, midwives are expensive, all I need is to find a really good doctor.

I can't remember how I responded. Somehow just shrugged it off and moved on. She doesn't get it yet. I couldn't think how to start explaining the difference between the medical model and the midwiffery model of care.

Mom, do you remember the reams of doctors I went to as a kid and they tried this medicine and that medicine, and nothing really helped; I just got better on my own. Then when I was a teenager plagued with headaches. The first medicine made me an insomniac so I had headaches from lack of sleep. When i talked to the doctor about it he said he'd proscribe something different. We had a good chat about how I wanted to know what was wrong (treat the problem instead of the symptoms) and he wasn't interested in that. And mom, that WAS your doctor that you love so much to this day. And the headaches went away on their own. Because, by then, I'd had enough of doctors. And the asthma - that went away on it's own, too.

Of course, when I was pregnant with little a., well, of course you need a doctor for that! And look how much good that did me. Unnecessary surgical removal. I know that's a harsh way to say it, but it gets at the truth of what happened.

So, do you think I'm going to the doctor with this pregnancy??!? I'm not sick!! A doctor will look at me as someone with a condition to be managed. A midwife sees a person going through a stage of life.

Oh, ya, and for anyone still thinking about talking me into going to the hospital for the birth-
Ummmm, I'll let ya know when I'm sick, then you can cart me in on a stretcher.