I Never Thought I'd Be Here

I never planned on being an advocate. My general belief is that right usually prevails...that when individuals fight for what they need and believe in (at least in the U.S.), they have an opportunity to make great things happen. Who needs an advocate when you can handle it yourself? It's simple, sure. But it's also often true.

But here I am, practically by accident, advocating for the common good on behalf of those who can't or won't. That's not a far leap, I suppose, for a former newspaper reporter. As a journalist, I believed in the public's right to know - that an informed public would use fairly presented information to rally for change when change was needed. Now I'm not so sure.

I find myself in this place not because my sense of righteousness is inherently wrong -- I still believe in informed individuals' abilities to make good things happen. But, I've learned that a majority of people often aren't informed -- they don't seem to understand (or maybe don't care) that they might need to fight for change. Too many of us don't know we have choices. We've become a society that often lives for the status quo... even when the status quo has stopped working.

I look around me and I see a need for change -- for improvement -- in many areas of American society. I don't have time or energy to be a scatter-shot advocate, so I've chosen to focus on a few things that I can affect on both personal and global levels.

Shortly after I left journalism to be with my newborn son, I realized that the vast majority of parents in the U.S. don't realize they probably need to be making informed choices in pregnancy and birth because those choices may affect the health of their families in the long term. Many parents don't understand that there are serious ramifications to not making choices, and leave the decision-making to health care providers who are often procedure-and-medication happy. By failing to ask questions -- by participating in the births of children in absentia -- parents are giving up their first opportunity to weigh in on the welfare of their children.

I became a childbirth educator and doula (someone who helps laboring parents through the birth process) so that I could help families understand those choices. I am happy knowing that my assistance has made things better for some parents and babies in a very concrete way -- surgeries avoided, wishes honored, babies healthy. But the number of families I personally can work with in a year is less than the number of babies born on a busy day in two or three of my city's busiest hospitals.

My individual call for change is part of a worldwide phenomenon, really. Around the world, women and their partners are standing up for the right of choice. I'm hoping that if I add one more loud voice to that ongoing discussion, we'll collectively force good changes in the status quo.

I'll use this space to talk about the research and share my thoughts, and in the process I hope that someone (including me!) will learn something. From time to time I'll talk about things that have nothing to do with pregnancy or birth -- and in some of those off-topic observations I'll still be advocating, but sometimes I'll just be making observations.

Ultimately, I wish there was no need for people like me to advocate for healthy options in pregnancy and birth or for parental informed consent. Do I really want to be here? No. But since the need exists, I can't imagine being anywhere else.