about control... any feminists around??

There's another issue, and that is control. I should really post my daughter's birth story - maybe if you ask nicely. wink. - then maybe you'd understand. All was going hunky-dorey for the pregnancy. We were all healthy and happy etc. etc.. Then we ended up at the hospital for a version to try to turn our breech baby. It was an afternoon thing the day my mat leave started. Well, I started having teeny tiny contractions and they said I was in labour and well, we were just railroaded. They said you need this and that and we didn't know about anything they were talking about. We tried to phone people to get advice, and got none. I couldn't even reach the phone, and they would come in and give me heck when I sat up. I said I needed to get up and walk around because my back hurt, and they gave me a heating pad instead. And we had no power. And so we gave in. And ever since I've been trying to figure out how that happened - how did they take our power away? And what can I do to not let that ever happen again?
And then you wonder why I am so defensive about hospitals, about medicine. I don't want to be railroaded again. So, yes, I trust the midwife - trust her with my life when it comes down to it - but I need to still feel like I have not given her all the power. I need to feel like I made the decisions, not her, and we didn't just go along blindly. Because some days it would be easy to just go along with everything and be the perfect compliant patient.

So, you can see that this is MY issue, not the midwife's issue. Just to be clear. Some people are suggesting she's not the right midwife for us, but I think once I get over some issues she'll be fine. I am very confident in her abilities to keep us alive, and she has been so so respectful and patient with us so far. I believe in my heart that she will respect our wishes in the birth.