#midwifery midwife

[pseudowho]

"Good girl-- good girl, that's it! Listen to your body."

A bag full of snacks, and books, and massage oils, all woefully surplus to requirements, flung to the side of the room. The dappled reflection of under-lit water on the dark ceiling. A stack of warm towels. A tiny woollen hat. A little trolley of equipment; a calm attendant wearing smiles and blue.

Kento, knelt at the edge of the pool, his shirtsleeves soaked to the shoulder. One thick arm looped around your neck and chest as if he meant to throttle you, when really, he just needed to be held. Or, did you need to be held? The paired clinging comfort to be found in the gloom of fear, was not mutually exclusive, it seemed.

"Amazing work...you're doing so well, sweetheart...just going to listen to the baby's heart..."

Your heart and Kento's pounded in tandem, almost as fast as the little pwssh-pwssh-pwssh-pwssh of your baby's heart, tinny on the Doppler, as the midwife's hand swished through the water. Kento whispered to you, his cheek clasped to your temple, sweatslick hair sticking you together.

"Our baby-- that's our baby-- god I love you, I love you so much, I'm so sorry, I wish I could do this for you--"

You gasped, splashing legs clamouring for resistance against the edge of the pool, writhing back against Kento. Kento's face crumpled, his teeth gritting so hard against your agony, they crunched.

You bellowed, another contraction roaring through you like wildfire, and you gripped Kento's arm. Your scream became a roar as you pushed, absurdly, overwhelmingly dragged from your body by a brutal force of nature. You barely heard Kento's hushed rumble, through the haze of blinding pain.

"...can do it, you can do it, you're so strong-- not long now-- nearly here, they're nearly here, our baby--"

You gasped again, seeing stars for a moment, surely being cleaved in half and you panicked, crying out and digging your nails in. Kento didn't care, surely deserving this, certain your nails didn't sting as much as the stretch you felt stung. You babbled at Kento and the midwife, pleading, bargaining.

"I can't do it anymore-- please don't make me, please please--"

"You're doing it, sweetheart. The biggest part of the head is coming with the next push-- with the next one, just listen to me, and breathe. No pushing. Just little breaths."

You looked up at Kento, your eyes feverish with the love that ripped you asunder. Kento nodded, trusting you, trying to hide the fear and miserable male helplessness and uselessness that threatened to fill him with violence, if he did not cling so desperately to being gentle instead.

Kento felt you tense; another pain peaking as you shook your head, sobbing so briefly, only to be replaced by gritted resolution. Kento saw the fire in your eyes as you began to roar, and thought his heart may break with the weight of his adoration.

Kento grasped you close, your fingers plaited together. He whispered to you as you trembled, fighting against nature as your body pushed for you.

"...that's it-- that's it-- just breathe, little breaths, little breaths-- I know it stings, good girl, good girl-- and the head's out!"

Kento's heart stopped, to see the crest of a little head, its soft waves of hair swishing in the birthing pool. Invigorated by thrill, almost weeping with excitement, he whispered to you, heated and trembling.

"--oh god-- right there, they're right there-- nearly got them, we'll know what we've got--"

"Just one more big push, sweetheart-- one big push with the next contraction, and your baby's here--"

Almost ten months of blooming and worry and scans and building and laughing and crying and aching and fearing, all ended in one enormous push, and a whoosh, and a cry...

...and a cry, wet and sweet and crumpled and on your chest, mother and child still bound together by the string of life.

Kento buckled against the side of the pool. Still he held you, looking down at you, looking down at your baby, blue and angry and baleful at having been shoved into the world from their warm dark kingdom.

Arms replaced the womb, and Kento huffed a couple of great sobs to hear you babble love at your scrumply flailing babe.

"--oh my god-- oh you're so beautiful-- oh, mummy loves you-- daddy loves you--"

Daddy. Kento almost buckled again, nuzzling his tears away into your hair, smothering your sweaty cheeks with kisses and relief. His voice was thick with joy, the fever of pain in your eyes replaced with elation, clasping the boon of a champion within your arms.

"Thank you. I can't...I can't thank you-- I-- love you, love you both so much--"

You gazed up at Kento, basking, your eyes glazed. "Kento...Ken...what have we got? Tell me-- tell me what we've got."

Kento sniffled, looking at the midwife as if for permission. She looked on, an enamoured, privileged bystander, and nodded encouragingly to Kento. Kento leaned over you, gently lifting his baby's legs apart, peering under the cord.

He huffed a single wet laugh, and looked at you, honey-brown eyes rimmed red. Kento's voice was gravelly as he stroked your hair back, to your wondrous grin.

"You were right, lover...as always."

[innefableidiot]

A bit more of duck omens, it kinda felt like a crime to not make this but I would be glad to introduce:

BILDUCK THE SHUHITE

[feminist-furby-freak]

There is something particularly offensive about TIMs calling their surgical fuckhole ("""neov*gina""") a vagina.

Vaginas are amazing! Not only do they stretch to allow for childbirth and generally return back to their pre-pregnancy state (incredible!!!) but they are self-lubricating, they expand and dilate during sexual arousal, they are self-cleaning, they have their own unique ecosystem, they change based off of a woman's menstrual cycle.

There is no organ like it. The vagina is truly "the stuff of life." To compare a wound made out of the rectum or a mutilated inverted penis to the miraculous vagina is so sexist and insulting. Your """v*gina""" is a numb, infected, receptacle for a penis. Mine is one of the most intricate and versatile human organs. Stay jealous. They are totally incomparable. To say that they are similar is to reduce the vagina to fuck hole. It is so much more!!!

Anyway I love vaginas and hate TIMs <3

[psychopomparia]

I thought this said Intellectual Malewifery

[voparwave69]

Calling all homestuck muppet joker allies...we are looking for midwives for TMJ. So far it is I, @the-cal-zone, and our most passionate and devoted team member, @walternitram.

With the death of Kermit plush...it is time to fill the hole he left behind, and help @the-muppet-joker with his egg laying.

Here I have depicted what could be -- eggs upon eggs upon eggs, the sacred nest, and sopor slime to aid in the labor processes. The Joker sings to us from heaven, though it only falls upon TMJ ear holes.

As you can see here. It is his dream. And we can make it come true.

I will deliver a speech, and an inspiring song:

LIsTen up, midWifE mAn. YoU're doING somE importanT shIt! I meAN, yOU're helpinG bringiNg liFe intO thIs worlD, maN. It's somE real MIRACuLOUS shIt, anD i'M telLinG yA, thAT'S somE reaLLy mOtIvAtiNg shIt right thERE. So keEp beinG a midWifE, brO, cAuSE YOU'rE doinG

Now LIsTen to this to understand.

[rainbow-baby-one]

Midwife Gift for Midwifery Student Sweatshirt Future Midwife Shirt for Boho Midwife T-shirt for Registered Midwife Clinic Tees

[wikipediapictures]

Midwife

“Village Midwife Rachel Yusufu (holding the baby), Mnyiramba, and Ayah Brim Masasi, Msukuma, weighing an infant and giving advice to the mother during an infant welfare clinic session at Kishapu Native Authority Dispensary and Clinic in Shinyanga District, Lake Province.” - via Wikimedia Commons

[b1tch-calling-you-out]

Just finished reading Witches, Midwives, & Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English for free on Internet Archive! ⭐⭐⭐⭐

❝Women have always been healers, and medicine has always been an arena of struggle between female practitioners and male professionals. This pamphlet explores two important phases in the male takeover of health care: the suppression of witches in medieval Europe and the rise of the male medical profession in the United States. The authors conclude that despite efforts to exclude them, the resurgence of women as healers should be a long-range goal of the women’s movement.❞

[riotclitshave]

[oatmilk-vampire]

Absolutely terrified to think I'm actually considering enrolling into medical assistant school.

[mariemariemaria]

I can't believe they killed off jenny lee's boyfriend wtf

[innefableidiot]

If you're ever feeling sad just remember that bildad the shuhite is always proud

HAPPY SHUHITE SUNDAY

[feminist-furby-freak]

Following after seeing your take on pregnancy and childbirth! It's refreshing to see as it does appear radblr can verge on antinatalism occasionally.

Understanding how significant and transformation birth can be, how it underpins the bond between mother and child and is crucial to societal cohesion - is still not synonymous with 'women are breeders and having children is awful and disgusting and women who want to be mothers have been brainwashed.'

I really think if society was more centred towards women and children instead of this male version we currently live in, having and raising children would be a lot easier and actually enjoyable for women.

For 95 percent of human civilization women were assisted with child rearing on a ratio of 15 caregivers to one child. Modern women have 3-4 alternative caregivers if they are lucky and extremely supported today. It's just so obvious to me why it's so difficult, we're all separated trying to do it alone when that's never how child rearing worked.

Random vent! But love to see rad doulas x

I totally agree. And I do understand why many radfems lean antinatalist when in our current patriarchal world pregnancy and motherhood are (very often) tools for oppressing women. The natural birth movement has largely been co-opted by the “women’s true purpose is to have babies” Christian extremist crowd but I’m lucky to live in a progressive city where this isn’t the case. I’m doing my thesis on childbirth and feminism and I’ll see if it there is a way to share it on here when it’s finished without doxxing myself.

[the-lunar-library]

TO THE RAVENS

Tanais, Akantha's mother and a skilled midwife. She lives her life in careful devotion to the gods, as if by some mathematical equation, her piety and obedience will keep her and her loved ones in the gods' favor. But she's perceptive enough to realize that doesn't work, and she copes by telling herself humans are helpless before the gods, and the best she can do is accept their trials. She lives in fear for Akantha's well-being – especially when Akantha has the recklessness to blaspheme against the gods themselves.

Tanais (original name Eusebia, “pious”, extremely on the nose) was at first a much more negative and narrow character. Akantha was always intended to be a rebel, and her mother embodied everything she wanted to resist – family expectations, cultural boundaries, and most of all religious strictures. That tension is still there in the novel, but Eusebia was going to be an anxious, constricting presence, full of warnings and outright anger against her defiant daughter.

But time went on and Eusebia started to change, grow more sympathetic. I started to dig into her backstory. And (I know I keep saying this, but it's still true) I did research into the lives of women in Greek culture, women under Roman rule. And there's so much we don't know about them, but one thing we do know in fair detail – because men were interested in it and thus wrote about it – is midwifery. Not all of their medical know-how holds up today, but midwifery was a profession where women displayed skill, intelligence, and authority. And unlike in the stateroom or in the temples or just in marriage, period, this was a place where their power wasn't seen as threatening to men. They were allowed to flourish; even enslaved midwives were seen as notably valuable, which sounds dark (because it is), but it still represents stature, importance.

So while Tanais (she stopped being Eusebia) in many ways chains herself to convention, largely out of fear and uncertainty, she has a means of supporting herself, of dealing with men on a somewhat more equal level, and of helping other women. She wouldn't see herself as a champion of women, as Kokkonas does, and many of the things Akantha does appall her. Some people like to smugly interpret that “Well behaved women rarely make history” line, as if the only value in a woman's life comes from defying norms. Tanais doesn't defy norms, she doesn't make history, but she really does help people.

And her having that role might be why her character ended up softening, becoming more sympathetic to the reader. She and Akantha still are in conflict, Akantha's still angry with her at times, Tanais still does things that might shock the reader, but hopefully there's a stronger bond of sympathy between her and her daughter. Hopefully the reader gets an understanding of why Tanais is the way she is, the sort of pressures she's faced. If Kokkonas has partially defied convention, Tanais has protected herself within it. I'm sure the reader won't agree with all of her decisions, but hopefully they can understand her.

Tanais is Akantha's mom and Karyai's stepmom; there's some resemblance with her daughter, but Karyai and Akantha more closely resemble their shared father. As for her name, during my pre-writing, I spent a fair bit of time flipping through my Latin dictionary, looking for interesting words and potential names, and that's where I found Tanais. (Which is a Greek name, but you find lots of Greek names and terms in Latin.) I really liked the sound of it, much more than Eusebia. Tanais is an ancient name for the Don river. Which, I agree, isn't the most logical choice for a woman who lives on the Moon. But I thought about it, and I don't think it's that unusual for people to name their kids after places they've not only never been, but never have any expectation of seeing. It's not like we don't give our kids names that relate to the Moon, like Luna and Selena. And, being so much larger, planet Earth would loom in the lunar sky pretty inescapably. So let's just say there's a custom among lunar peoples to name their children after things from Earth.

[birlwrites]

fleshing out the bloodfinch pantheon armed with information about semi-obscure catholic saints. i've created a saint called the cephalophore who is the patron of those who are wrongfully accused or punished and he's depicted with a disembodied head or an axe (because i'm obsessed with the implications behind martyrs being associated with what killed them) OR a set of scales tipped to the left

the latter is because then i also decided to create a counterpart, the rule-saint, who's associated with fairness and justice and cold hard truth (which are sometimes contradictory). she's depicted with a quill and a set of scales tipped to the right and she's the only saint who's always depicted looking straight ahead instead of off to the side and she's said to have been a midwife in her mortal life. supposedly, she also had a gift for knowing when people were lying to her

the rule-saint and the cephalophore are counterparts, not rivals - they can both be invoked for the same purpose, and they're often depicted together, each of them with one hand helping to hold up the scales, which are shown as balanced. the cephalophore is stubborn, righteous, and idealistic. the rule-saint is realistic, incisive, and pragmatic. both of them are necessary to achieve justice. neither of them has any time for nonsense. i'm obsessed with them

[ani-talwar]

“You never see a policemen alone. Yet we nurses and midwives are always alone, on foot or bicycle. We would never be touched. So deep is the respect, even reverence, of the roughest, toughest docker for the district midwives that we can go anywhere alone, day or night, without fear,”

Call The Midwife by Jennifer Worth.