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The Farm Midwives are near and dear to my heart. After all, both my daughters were born there! If you are curious to read the birth stories or watch the birth videos you are in luck = Everly’s is here & Adalyn’s is here.
Before I discovered the Farm midwives, I was one of those pregnant girls that had no idea what was in store and I had no idea birthing outside of a hospital was even possible. This was true until the medicalized birthing community began to try to strong-arm me into having a baby the way they deemed best.
The vibes I got to my OB/GYN’s office where the starting point and then fear mongering and later the flat-out demands of my OB/GYN sent me over the edge. I began researching birthing options…
There were people who were having babies at home unassisted but that was too scary for me as a first-time mother so I kept looking for other alternatives. Another option was having a baby at a birthing center but none of those existed near my home.
Then I explored the idea of hiring a midwife to attend my birth in my home, I liked the idea of having the freedom and comfort that comes from a home birth setting but I wasn’t comfortable with doing it alone. I liked the idea of having a trained professional present case anything wrong… but the lovely state of Indiana doesn’t license midwives therefore the practice of midwifery is deemed illegal for those midwives which do choose to attend home birth and they can be persecuted.
Ultimately we decided to travel to a community where birthing women were welcome, midwifery was legal and the midwives had working relationships with the local hospital and the medical community. We chose to have our girls at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee.
Choosing to birth at The Farm with the Farm Midwives was an amazing experience, we knew the place was magical the first time we met our birth midwife and I really feel like the story of the Farm midwives and the experiences that birthing women have there is worth sharing which is why I present to you:
Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin & The Farm Midwives
The world premier of this film was just presented over the weekend at the LA film festival and I am so excited for them.
Ina May Gaskin and the courageous midwives of the Farm commune inspired the modern midwifery movement. This beguiling documentary tells their empowering story with depth, intelligence and wit.
Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives – (DIRECTORS Sara Lamm, Mary Wigmore PRODUCERS Kate Roughan, Zachary Mortensen, Sara Lamm, Mary Wigmore FEATURING Ina May Gaskin, Stephen Gaskin, Pamela Hunt, Farm Midwives past and present, Kristina Kennedy Davis) – ★World Premiere
The the movie trailer brings back such fond memories of both the times I stayed at The Farm anxiously waiting to meet my child and I really feel like getting this movie out there is important when it comes to changing women’s perceptions of childbirth.
Birth isn’t typically something women need assistance doing and there is absolutely no reason why a pregnant woman should be made to fear her body or the process regardless of whether or not she has complications with the pregnancy. The sooner we trust our bodies and the process the better our births will be.
The world premiere at LAFF on Saturday was thrilling—the film played to a sold out theater and we were amazed to see all that beautiful archival birth footage projected onto the mile-high screens. As one friend said, “Your movie even made the DUDES CRY!” and it was true, there were not many dry eyes in the house. We heard words like “healing,” “thank you,” and “it made me want to use a midwife,” over and over. Ina May called the film “Delicious!” (A moment we will remember for the rest of our lives: after one of the births, the entire audience spontaneously burst into applause! Can you imagine if you had 300 people clapping when you delivered?!)
Because of the overwhelming response, and because our local NPR reviewer called the film “heart-stopping” and labeled it “THE must-see movie” of the entire Festival, LAFF added an additional screening, for this coming Saturday night, the 23rd, at 7:20pm. If you have friend in the Los Angeles area, please send them this link and tell them to come on out: http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2012/films/3042