Medicalized Pregnancy

"How are you feeling?" Is a question that I am asked with frequency, in fact, it is with the same frequency that I encounter people. Everyone, at least everyone who kind of knows me, asks me how I am feeling.

A seemingly disconnected conversation: With less frequency but with more irritation I am asked, "What hospital are you going to deliver in?" In this questions is already a presumption- so for me to answer honestly, I am already speaking against the asker's presumption. Sean and I are hoping to bring our little person into the world at the birth center in our neighborhood with the help of 2 midwives and possibly a doula. But with the question asked I have to be careful in my answer. . .

Recently, in a conversation with a colleague when asked the infamous hospital question I told her about the birth center and then (to save my ass)said, "if at anytime things become problematic then we'll transfer you to the hospital."
She asked, "and at what time do you think you'll decide that?"
I responded, "at any point our birth plan could change so basically the minute anything seems high risk."
She asked, "and how far are you from the hospital?"
Not far.
"Well I hope you aren't in labor during rush hour."
So instead of feeling supported or even understood I felt that I was being encouraged and asked to be more afraid. Instead of being invited to trust my midwives (who I do trust immensely) I was brought into a place of greater powerlessness, and encouraged to be in a situation where decisions would (likely) be made for me rather than with me.

The more we have read the more we feel right about our decisions, and though we know that our plans are just that- plans not rules- we feel strongly that these decisions match our values, and match our celebration that pregnancy is a healthy state and not an illness. I know that midwifery makes some people nervous, I know that things can go wrong, I know that even the best laid plans sometimes don't happen the way we want. Hospitals and the medicalization of birth makes me nervous, and things that I don't want- happen with tremendous frequency at hospitals, and things go wrong everywhere but I choose to not live in fear- because fear makes us unfree (core Christian value for me is living in freedom not fear).

So how am I feeling? This question for me lately has been a reminder of the way that people are constantly connecting pregnancy and sickness. Only when I have been very sick have I been asked so frequently. And never have people been so concerned with the health care decisions I was making.