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Vote for us at Circle of Moms ----->>>

2/28/2012

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Take a quick moment and Vote for We are Abel over at Circle of Moms.  Just click on the pink circle and scroll down.  We are a late entry so we towards the bottom. I know we can make it into the top 25!!!  Share the link with your friends, too.

Don't forget you can vote everyday too! 

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never forget

2/25/2012

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The months that surrounded Abel's birth shattered me.  Not in tiny little hairlines fractures . . . Shattered. Like a wrecking ball. Like a mallet to a mirror; with a force and finality that I had never known. 

The three of us clung together.  Are ability to trust, our faith, our innocence, our dreams- all burnt to the ground.  Our son's high pitched painful screams rang in our heads even when he slept. I sobbed as week after week only brought more bad news.  Those hits are still coming today.  Even though the woman I once was is gone, I am not.  My son is not. Life is not.

That is my experience, so  I cannot pretend to know what a woman that loses a child during childbirth goes through.  My pain and my loss are a different kind.  I have heard others accuse loss moms of just being bitter.  To harsh. To loud.  They tell them that some babies just die and they should accept that. That my son was meant to die, or meant to be disabled.

"Embrace peace.Move on.Have another baby." 

We are so removed from true pain and lose in our culture.  The mistakes made at my son's birth devastated his life as well as ours. This senseless, catastrophic event can not be ignored. It is an endless abyss between the what once was and what remains now. Life is sending up a warning flare for all to see.  Life demands that I STAND & SPEAK.  Not because I have not forgiven but because I have not forgotten.


"The Stupid   neither   forgive   or   forget;
the   naive   forgive   &   forget;
the   wise   forgive . . .  but   do   not   forget."

-Thomas  s.  szasz


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Abel goes to the Capital

2/19/2012

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Earlier this week, we heard that the midwives were rallying at the Capital in Salem, OR with legislators.  They have been under an immense amount of heat over the recent months as more and more families are speaking out about the shockingly low level of care received from midwives.  With 24 hours notice we gather a group of families, some driving for HOURS to come be a voice for those that have suffered preventable injuries under the care of midwives. 

I am so proud and grateful for those that dropped everything to come stand with us. It was such an empowering day.  I thought about all the stories I have heard about women injured, babies that died . . . and our own experience at Abel's birth.  I hope that families everywhere find the strength to publicly voice their experience and heartache and that legislators finally step up and say that no romanticized ideal is worth a baby's right to the best chance at life.

ALL birth providers should:

-be held to the same high standard of risk assessment, accountability and transparency.

-be licensed.

-carry malpractice insurance.

-follow evidence based practices.

-have their outcomes reported to an unbiased, separate organization to be presented to the public quickly so that consumers can make an educated decision.

This is not about taking away a woman's right.  By offering misleading information, withholding statistics and not holding themselves accountable in any way- it is the midwifery community that is taking away a woman's right to an Educated Decision.

One preventable death or disability, is ONE too many.

Please Stand UP for Abel and contact your legislator.   In particular Rep. Parrish, who spoke at the midwifery rally voicing her support and making the horrific claim that Midwifery saves the state 2.5 million dollars a year.  My son's lifetime expense to the state will be astronomical.  Sadly, most of the children injured get to the hospital to late to be revived.  Just because they died instead of having a costly C-section or NICU stay does not make it a benefit to the state.  That is a shocking statement that turns my stomach.  Especially, when Representative Parrish said it to the face of the victims.  The lose of each babies life or quality of life a cost that can not be calculated,to the families, the state and society as a whole.

Senator Bates, Representative Greenlick, Representative Hoyle and Representative Keny-Guyer are also in key positions to make decisions on this issue.

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