I'm a little bit nutty.

I joke about that all the time. When I explain why I do something I do (in regards to food or birth or my home, in particular), I always feel I have to preface it with, "Well, you know that I'm nutty about birth/food/etc, but..."

I guess I'm being defensive.  I have my guard up.  I'm braced for criticism.  I also want people to understand that I won't judge them for doing it differently.  I'm "weird," I believe birth is best at home until the birthing system in our country changes to honor and respect a woman and her ability to birth on her own, I think the conventional food in our country is killing us, I think cleaning with natural products is the best, I am a liberal Christian and believe strongly in that.  But these are all just my opinions.  I obviously believe them and have done my research or I wouldn't put them in place, but that doesn't change the fact that it's just what I've decided is best for my family.  

I respect anyone's right to decide things differently.  I only advocate for knowledge and empowerment.  As long as you don't just accept everything at face value and believe everything "they" tell you without doing a little research on your own, I will 100% respect you.  I will not judge you.  I promise you this.  

If you have done your research and you believe a hospital is the best place to birth and you are my friend and you tell me you are getting induced, I will not tell you that you or your choices are crazy.  I will never imply to you that you are putting your baby at risk.  I won't even joke with you about that.  What kind of friend would I be if I didn't support you in your well-informed choices?   

Would I be induced?  No, not unless there was a sound medical reason, in which case of course I would!  But that doesn't change the fact that my decision not to have an unnecessary induction is mine alone.  I fully understand that it's based on my own opinions of the research I've read.  

Do you know how many people have told me I'm crazy?  Have even gone so far as to tell me I'm selfish and putting my baby's life at risk for my comfort by birthing at home?  Do you know how many friends have picked on me?  "Friends" have even sent me links to awful, biased websites to instill fear in me.  To harass me for my well-informed choice to go with a midwife and birth at home.  

So I believe birth is natural!  So I want to be at home so I can avoid drugs, avoid unnecessary medical interventions and so that I can bond with my baby right away!  My baby was taken from me during my last birth for no reason other than the nurses' convenience, and despite it being in my birth plan and my husband arguing, they still took her away minutes after her birth to bathe her.  Because, you know, she really needed a bath!  I don't want that experience again...but it's not for me, it's for my baby.  I want my baby to transition into this world in the most peaceful way possible, to be given straight to me and not to be messed with after that.  It is my baby's best interests I have in mind, not my own.  I would die for my children.

Am I taking a risk at home? Of course I am.  Every woman who makes a choice on where to birth is taking a risk.  Almost every study done on the matter shows a pretty equal risk.  Let's face it: birth, while normal, can always be risky.  Driving a car, much more risky.  But we don't call the decision to drive selfish.  We don't say that putting our kids in the car to go to play group is a risky and selfish thing to do, but the truth is it is risky.  We understand that everything in life carries with it a risk.  If I need to transfer to the hospital, I will do it in a split second without any second of hesitation because I believe in hospitals when needed.  And if that does happen, I'll be taking a risk there, too.  

I am a person who does her research.  I am a person who refuses to believe everything that is status quo without confirming it for myself.  Maybe that makes me weird and maybe you consider that a waste of time.  I totally respect that.  But for me, it works.  For me, it's how I prefer to live.  But when someone criticizes a choice I make, particularly to go so far as to imply I am risking my baby's life, they clearly don't understand me at all.  They clearly don't know that I have done upwards of three years of research on the topic.  I have read every single thing I can get my hands on - the good and the bad.  I don't shy away from contradicting information simply because I don't want to know.  I have read the anti-homebirth articles and I have read the anti-homebirth blogs.  

Similarly, I have read the anti-vegan blogs.  I have read the negative reviews of The China Study, of Forks Over Knives.  I have read the arguments against that diet at The Weston Price Foundation, because that is a diet I bought into before learning more about veganism.  It is important for me to educate myself without my own bias.  It's difficult - incredibly - but I do it.  

I love milk.  I adore cheese.  I eat yogurt at least once a day!  I would have preferred to not give these things up.  In fact, I downright hate vegetables.  Enacting this new diet is one of the most difficult things I'll ever do, so I certainly didn't do it "just because."  I put a lot of thought into this, I've read so many articles and studies and even books this week that my head is spinning.  

My point here is that regardless of what you may think of me for being one to buck traditional or accepted things in most cases, I don't do it just to be weird.  In fact, I hate being weird.  Being a vegan is something that is going to be difficult for me to admit to anyone in person.  It's easy to admit it online, but I hate being thought of as weird, I hate being disliked.  So there is obviously a very good reason I have chosen this new lifestyle, and I didn't do it flippantly or because it was the easy thing to do.  Quite the contrary.  

Same thing with homebirth.  I tell very few people in person that I am having a homebirth and when I do, I brace myself for the negative responses.  I use my blog as my sounding board because it's so much easier to admit these things online than it is in person.  But I still flinch a little when I see a new comment has been written, prepared for criticism.  

I won't judge you, even if I disagree with your choices.  Please don't judge me.  

I welcome learning about anything!  And I won't stop sharing what I learn, because I believe, as Martin Luther King said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

But I don't lose respect for people who take the time to research things and come to a different conclusion than I do.  In fact, I got into a nice little discussion with someone on my post about being vegan, and though we disagreed, I respected that he or she was obviously quite knowledgeable about the topic.  That's what I love and support - knowledge!  That doesn't always mean agreeing with me.  As long as you're respectful in your disagreements, I don't see anything wrong with that at all.  :) 

Here's a really great blog post my friend sent me today.  The last paragraph is what spoke to me the most.  And the video, of course.