My Birth and Midwifery Library

I have amassed quite a collection of birthing, breastfeeding, and midwifery books over the past 4 years. It started with a purchase of Heart and Hands and has slowly morphed into a whole bookshelf. In fact, I'm already past a whole bookshelf now with all of my folders and related materials. When making up my inventory lists I was shocked to find that I own over 200 books and then videos, periodicals, and teaching visuals on top of that.


There is no interloan library here. My husband's school librarian gave me the access code to the online periodical library they use in order for me to have more resources. The highschool library only has 5 medical books, the newest of which is copyright 1977... older than me! The BAMBI group here has a lending library, and about 200 extra titles and piles of videos that I can supplement with.


Of course, there are still many books that I will need eventually, but what I have has been amazingly useful for my first year of midwifery school. How did I come by all of these books? Was it expensive? Well, thanks to half.com and other similar sites, I spent about 45% of retail price, including shipping. Last summer I had a huge pile(s) shipped to my sister-in-law's house which ended up taking over a corner of her bedroom. 10 suitcases later and upon final count, 100kg (over 200lb) or our 200kg of luggage was books for me! Half of our luggage was books. I love books.


And for those midwifery student friends of mine who want to drool. Here's a pic, with the best midwifery book having it's rightful place front and center... HMII.

If only it were still so nice and organized... now it looks well-used and borrowed from!

Phase 2 is done

I just finished Phase 2 and requested the rest of the curriculum! The huge step only took 2 months to complete. Orientation is next and I'm giving myself a goal of 4 months to complete.

So what have I done in the last month?
Completed my inventory and documentation codes. Made a ton of charts. Set up my filing system. Started filing my piles of notes, clips, articles, handouts, etc. Read 3 books. Critiqued 9 articles on a variety of subjects. Wrote a few philosophy and formula papers.

This month I'm working on reading another book, commenting on 20 articles, creating client handouts, finishing some quizzes.


I did prenatal care for friend again yesterday. She's now 36 weeks. The baby had been in the same position the last few checks but yesterday decided that was too easy for me so switched it around some! Took me about 5 minutes (and with a very patient friend) to work around the wiggly parts to figure out the position. And when I went to check the heart rate couldn't count for long enough before the baby wiggled on away. I am just secretly wishing her labor goes so fast that she can't get across town and come to my house instead. In 15 minutes I'd have that bed pushed over to the side of the room, birth pool out and filling, supplies set up. I can dream can't I???

Birth as an American Rite of Passage

I finally finished this book yesterday (along with a few other assignments). Very interesting on the rites and rituals performed in the medical model of birth and why women choose to birth this way. Really helped me understand why I feel called toward midwifery. And I didn't even have bad births. Which makes me want to respond to Letisha's blog:

LABOR MEME

Since it is labor day and what woman does not love to hear about other labor stories? So here we go!

How long were your labors?
#1: 4.5 hours
#2: 3.5 hours - today is his birthday!
#3 & #4: 5.5 hours

How did you know you were in labor?
#1: I went in for a 5-day late checkup and the monitor showed me having contractions. I could't feel them so I went home. After my water broke, it was labor.
#2: I was grocery shopping and having to stop every few minutes to catch my breath. Got home and after an hour of contractions while watching TV realized that maybe it was real contractions.
#3 & #4: Contractions woke me up.

Where did you deliver?
#1 - a natural birth suite at a hospital
#2 - at home with Certified Nurse Midwife
#3 & #4 - unassisted birth of twins at home, and YES IT WAS PLANNED

Drugs?
#1 - I opted for Demerol after it was heavily pushed on me; if only I'd known that I was so close to the end I would've refused

C-Section?
No way no how was I going to opt for a "Planned Cesarean" of twins as my "only" choice, so we stayed home.

Who Delivered?
I "birthed" my babies. Delivery is for pizzas.

We're back from the USA

This post has been a long time coming. We visited the USA for all of June and July and have finally gotten back into our normal/regular routines for school.

Some midwifery-related news:

I was able to meet my sister-in-law's midwife this summer and got to tour her birth center. She was able to answer some questions for me and was happy to hear that I was enrolled in such a good midwifery program. That's now two SC midwives that I have met and can consider asking to apprentice with. I got to hear the baby's heartbeat at that appointment.

I brought back books from the USA. 200 POUNDS of books to be exact. Good thing we had a large luggage allowance! We just got a new bookcase for the bedroom and I need to put up a picture of all of my beautiful midwifery/birthing books collection. I have a library for midwifery students to drool over. I have saved and shopped and waited for the right prices for over a year. Over the 3 years that I've collected books, I've spent maybe $2500. That may seem like a lot, but the center shelf of my collection is mostly big textbooks and if I'd paid for just that shelf new, it would've cost $3000. I've paid probably 1/3 the price.

I am doing prenatal care for a mom here. This is her 4th pregnancy and she will be doing another hospital waterbirth. She figured I can give good if not better care than her OB and I see her every week for playgroup anyway. She said that if the baby is coming too fast as have some of her other births, she'll just come to my place and use the new birth pool I bought.

I started schooling full time August 1st. I have completed some work already but have not even finished orientation yet. I hope to be done with all of that by January 1st. My plan is to update on this blog once a week (somewhat for accountability, and also to appease other's curiosities). I'll do a weekend update of what I accomplished for that week. I've tried to get in 16hr a week but have been managing 10 to 12 which isn't too bad considering I have 3 little ones at home and one in school.

If all goes as planned, my family and I will be living in Indonesia next summer for 6 or so weeks. I have discovered a birth center there that is run by an American midwife. She trains student midwives and I am in much need of learning some clinical skills. My goal is to finish up my resume and attach that to an official application by Monday. I am so so excited. I've thought about it almost every day since I found out about it almost a year ago. The best part is that my family can come with me, it's a cheap place to live, and I can bring my twins who will most likely still be breastfed at almost 2yr old by then.

I just can't wait to see what this next school year has in store for me!

I'm certified!!! (and other info)

As of this week, I am officially:

Erin Kannon, Doula (CD CBI) and Childbirth Educator (CBE CBI)

I finished all of the births and requirements needed! The two required births were fulfilled in a non-conventional way. The first was a friend who wanted me to doula at her unassisted birth (Hi "M"!) which ended up at my house... maybe she'll OK it for me to post about it here??? The second birth ended up being for a mom that I did all of the prenatal meetings with. Did not attend her C-section, but still gave many hours in a Postpartum Doula role helping with breastfeeding, etc..


Midwifery studies: Though I'm not supposed to start officially with AAMI until Aug. 1st, I'm going ahead and doing the pre-orientation paperwork. I'm also ordering tons (probably 100lb worth!) of books to bring back from our summer visit.


Recently I have been asked how I as a midwife would support a woman in unassisted birth. Many midwives do not support women wanting this option. I am obviously a big fan of unassisted birth: I did a UC with my twins! Let me paste in one of my assignments on the topic.

Unassisted Birth

Unassisted birth is a great option for most women, if they choose to go that route. Women choose to go unassisted for many reasons, such as the need for privacy, previous sexual abuse, lack of money, lack of insurance, no caregiver with the same birth philosophy, previous birth history, or no desire for assistance. I believe that planned unassisted birth is one of the safest options for childbirth. Yes, most women choose a midwife for homebirth, but that isn’t necessarily always safe depending on the midwife’s ways of practice. It is unfortunate that little to no research has been done on this aspect of childbirth.
Living in a country with no options for childbirth other than high-intervention hospitals, I do know of some women who have chosen unassisted birth. I did labor support for one woman on one of the remote islands … over the phone! I am currently pregnant with twins and am planning an unassisted birth for my babies. I refuse the risky testing, “high risk” label, or the “necessary planned” C-section.
As a future midwife, I would be willing to offer support to pregnant women wanting unassisted births. That could be in any prenatal facet, for phone support during labor, coming over to assist when asked, to do postpartum checks, or to help with a birth certificate. The legal situation for a midwife doing this maybe be questionable, but I believe that women have the right to choose what they want for their own medical care and birth.

my resources

I've had a few people ask about what resources I use in my childbirth classes. I use a combination of:

the Bible!

Childbirth International resources
some of Transition to Parenthood's pages

and many books, such as:
Henci Goer's The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth
Penny Simkins "Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn" and "The Birth Partner"
Ina May Gaskins "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth"
Myles "Textbook for Midwives"
Elizabeth Davis' "Heart and Hands"
Dr. Sears "The Pregnancy Book" and "The Birth Book" and "The Breastfeeding Book"
Mary Renfrews "Bestfeeding"
Nilsson's "A Child is Born"
and many many more I can't think of right now.

Some of my other resources come from direct conversations or online forums with other midwives, doulas, and childbirth educators.

Which path to midwifery?

I've been reading through Paths to Becoming a Midwife: Getting an Education. I really really want to go the direct-entry/CPM route. But, to even have the slightest chance of working here legally, I almost have to go the CNM (nurse) route. I do not like the active management of most nurse-midwives, or that most have to work in hospitals being told what to do by doctors who do not understand true natural birth. Even if not in a hospital, they have so many obstacles to overcome. If I were living in the USA, it'd not be the way for me to go.

The CPM will work in the USA but most likely not be recognized here. CPM is expectant management and the approach that I will take. So what to do??? Too soon to make the big decision. I know what I want in my heart.

Baby Catcher

"Birth is normal until proven otherwise." Peggy Vincent's book, Baby Catcher is amazing! I just finished reading it and was moved. It shows the joys of catching babies, the heartache, the stress, the affect on a midwife's family, and more. Definitely not for the squeamish though!

Hmmm, now which book to read next... Food for Thought by Susan Jen. I have to finish my health certification too.

Receiving Books

Amazon is amazing! I ordered 4 books, and it took only a week for the first 2 to arrive and then another 3 days for the next 2 to come! They're all books I've been wanting for a while to help me with my midwifery quest.

The Doula Advantage It'll help me with doula skills while working towards the MW goal.

Baby Catcher Story of a midwife.

Spiritual Midwifery It's an Ina May Gaskins book with great info. And I love the birth pictures in it... hippies. I swear one of the pages they look my parents!

Hearts and Hands It's a midwife textbook with all the basics. I figure if I learn it really well, then I'll maybe be able to shadow someone working here. Then I can learn more from them.

At some point, I need to post how I've come to want to be a midwife. I'll post my own birth stories, too. Also will post my general timeframe for meeting my goals.