A lot of infertility is not age-related. I started infertility treatments (though didn't go as far as IVF, fortunately) at 24, and on infertility message boards I was far from the youngest and far from alone in my age bracket.

Well, if you had experience with infertility, you might have a better understanding. Sometimes being told you're infertile is a really galvanizing experience. I wanted to wait a good while and get established in my career before having children, but being told I was infertile at 24 made me want to have a child ASAP -…

Because now the little shitstains' parents would sue for child endangerment for kicking someone off a bus.

The problem being that when you're a crappy athlete/uncoordinated/ungraceful (not that I would know from experience or anything...), you just get a different kind of shit. I'd rather have an emphasis on individual stuff that gets you up and moving, but I'm a crotchety old bitch.

So we should ignore terrorism, then? It'll just go on forever, so who cares?

Shit, I'd have a hard time not donating most of my kid's college fund to this lady if I found out my son was behaving this way.

I tried to perfectly follow every damn rule, then the pregnancy police swooped down on me for eating FUCKING SOFT SERVE ICE CREAM because of some remote chance of listeria. Like, no. It's summer, I've worked at Dairy Queen and know their ice cream cleanliness standards, give me my fucking dipped cone.

If it makes you feel better, if you DO end up needing a c-section...they immediately brought my baby to my chest after getting off the worst of the goop from his face, and i was allowed to keep him right next to me while they sewed me up. Really depends on the hospital, but my c-section was a wonderful, warm…

I had a semi higher-risk pregnancy and I just saw an MFM specialist in addition to my midwife. It worked out really well. I agree with you. And the whole CNM thing is very important; those women (and men) have a whole lot of training/apprenticeships/education.

Like samarkand said, many of them are covered my insurance just like a doctor, especially if they are directly affiliated with a hospital.

Not all midwives hold this attitude, though. Mine certainly didn't. They were very into carefully considering interventions before making a decision, but they really supported all of my decisions, including the one to have a c-section.

Midwives are fucking awesome. Mine were extremely supportive, even though I ultimately ended up with a c-section. They never really pushed an agenda at all - they just gave a lot of information about the risks and benefits of everything. I really appreciated the no-nonsense honesty. They actually made epidurals sound…

You're off on a lot of assertions, but I'm not going to repeat other commenters because they said it all perfectly well.

I realize that. I'm just venting some apparently impotent rage, because the POTUS has to grovel to a religious group while their priests molest children with impunity and they generally violate the whole idea of a church not promoting a political agenda, etc.

The only thing I can think is, "Why the FUCK does the White House care?"

It's kind of insane. I'm sure you've likely been on some pregnancy message boards and seen the inevitable "My mother-in-law's second cousin is angry with me and sending me harassing messages on FB because I said I only want my husband in the room! What do I do?"

That is so bizarre!

Well, medical science has produced the epidural, which is pretty darn good. And with a c-section, there's a spinal followed by lots of fun painkillers.

Well, Renee is not an English name, so there you go. Not that I'm defending the name at all, but we Americans just dropped the accent on the second e is all. It's a horrible name, but that part of it is somewhat logical.

I will! Sleepover! (I'll bring the moscato.)