Yeah, this is one topic where I just wind up arguing with everyone. I don't think the primary problem is "women be stupid" nor is it "all hospitals are deathcamps."

The same thing that happens when it takes longer than 7 minutes to get to the OR while in a hospital, I'd imagine. It's not like women are laboring in an OR while at the hospital. They still have to get you there and get you prepped.

A lot of this is highly dependent on the hospital you go to. I gave birth at a nationally-recognized women's specialty hospital and while I did have complications (like, they happened before anyone even did anything to me there, it wasn't anyone's fault, they had already begun before I even walked in the door), what…

Actually, most maternity wards are on separate ventilation than the rest of the hospital.

Yeah, every time the issue of midwifery care and homebirths come up, it's pretty clear that a lot of people don't even realize that CNMs exist. Which is a shame because they give great care for both well-woman visits and obstetrics. So this is my PSA: YES YOU CAN SEE A MIDWIFE FOR YOUR ROUTINE GYNECOLOGICAL CARE! You…

I just think this whole thing is such a matrix of problems, it's not as simple as "people are stupid ha ha look at the stupid people." Where you live really determines what kind of care you're going to get at the hospitals available to you and there are still plenty of hospitals where birth is treated as a disease and…

Are you saying I'm lying? Or...? Yes, I know multiple women who have had homebirths who are not at all anti-vax.

I know plenty of women who have had homebirths who vaccinate their children on schedule.

We really need a better system of certifying and regulating midwives in this country. Most CNMs are prohibited from attending homebirths by their insurance and other types of midwives are largely unregulated and that is terrifying.

It is really not a hassle to let a mother pump and dump. You don't even need electric pumps, there are manually-operated ones (they're a pain but in a pinch they work), they're made completely of plastic and are about the size of a water bottle. Give the women a hand pump and a bottle and let her pump and dump at her…

Ugh yes. When I weaned my 1-year-old, I did it totally by the book, decreased slowly over time and still wound up with awful clogs and milk blisters and felt like shit for a couple weeks. Being forced to do this with no access to medical care or all the meds/tricks to decrease milk supply safely (decongestant tablets,…

Amongst my fandom friends "too many dicks on the dancefloor" has become the universal way to refer to shows with too many misters, not enough sisters.

Word. Most uncomfortable position ever.

I'm using my son's diapers inside the belly band so my dog is literally wearing diapers. He's just finishing a 2 week course of a really powerful broad-spectrum antibiotic because the first didn't really take and he's still peeing every which way (and then lifting a leg at other times and nothing comes out and he's so…

Don't knock boring but comfortable until you've tried it. (I mean, define boring? My husband isn't a boring person and I really enjoy spending time with him. But we've been together for 15 years and there are no surprises there any more. Which is fine. I don't need my marriage to be So! Very! Exciting! I need it to be…

Pet stores sell dog panties, actually. They're usually for female dogs in heat, but there's no law saying you can't use them for a dog with the runs. I'm using a store-bought belly-band right now because my male dog is experiencing incontinence after an UTI.

This is where I'm at. If everyone above is right and it really is a show about misogyny, it's a show about how misogyny effects men and... mkay. I'm sure that's a vauable conversation to have, but I'm not interested in being a part of it really. I've been steeped in stories by, for, and about men for 40 years My quota…

I've decided I'm on Team Nussbaum. I can practically smell the testosterone wafting off the screen and... I'm just not interested in #dudeproblems. It's okay if other people are, but I'm just not any more. Too much gritted teeth and gruff yelling 3 inches from one another's faces and I just kind of zone out.

Not me, my good sir or madam. I am standing on the shoulders of giants. I just about fell out when I had an unexpected car problem and instead of having a panic attack when I got the bill I looked in my bank account and saw that my savings line item for "car repair" pretty much equaled exactly what the bill was.…

Allow me to drop Lesson 1 of Budgeting 101 because I am 39 and only just learned it this year: