Welcome to my blog!

Hello, 21st Century! I know, I’m a little late to the party. While everyone else has been text-messaging, Blackberrying, MySpacing, and iPoding like crazy, my technological development plateaued around 1999, when I finally broke down and got a cell phone. But here I am, fearlessly jumping into the cyberworld with my very own blog. I’m psyched about this, because I think I will be able to open a much wider dialogue about this topic I love talking about—childbirth choices—than I could just walking down the street tapping pregnant women or stroller-pushing moms on the shoulder and asking them about their birth experiences (which, believe me, I have done more than once).

Now I can go on and on here about the spectrum of childbirth choices and the wacky judgmental atmosphere that all moms are thrust into the minute they announce they are pregnant. But you can read all about that in my book. Instead, I want this to be a dialogue. I'll throw out some topics, and you tell me what you think.

One word that kept coming up when I was interviewing the moms for my book was "risk." Moms who delivered in a hospital could not understand why moms who chose to deliver at home or in a birth center would take such a "risk" with their babies' lives. Moms who delivered outside a hospital argued that by putting yourself in the hands of a lawsuit-fearing, time-crunching doctor, you put yourself at risk for unnecessary interventions. Then there's one of my best friends, who is due any day now (go, Eightball!). She is using a high-risk OB, even though she has had a completely healthy pregnancy. But as a first-time mom at age 39, she considers herself high-risk. Another friend of mine flew on an international flight and went mountain-climbing when she was seven months pregnant. Fearless and strong, or unnecessarily risky? Do the risk calculations begin the minute you get the pink plus sign on your pregnancy test? Or does it all boil down to that small window of time when the baby is making its way out of you?

Let me know what you think. And let me know what else is on your mind.