releasing my inner hippie

I don't mind a little tofu eating or sandal wearing. Never have. But I've always been a little hesitant to truly embrace the hippie and the dippy. While I love vegetable based dishes, including those that don't involve meat or dairy products - I find myself vaguely suspicious of vegetarianism and downright dubious about veganism. And organic?? - a pack of lies and propaganda - I'd no more buy an organic cotton shawl than a syringe full of heroin.

But as I approach my time of confinement - I find myself really dreading the idea of confinement in a rather dreary NHS hospital. I don't want their food or their rules. I figure hospitals are for sick people and if I'm too sick to care that I'm in hospital then that's exactly where I should be. I'm embracing the whole concept of natural child birth and the empowering birth experience.

And to whom have I turned for inspiration? Those crazy women from The Farm - just up the road from where I went to high school. I've just finished reading Ina May's Guide to Childbirth - and what a fantastic book it is. A nice easy read - it's packed with useful information and a real sense of the positive experience of going through labor without drugs. (And I love painkillers!)

What's really funny - is that the beginning of the book has all these birth experiences and there are loads of women who are describing their treks to Tennessee to birth on The Farm and this strange and exotic locale of Summertown (well, Summertown is strange). But it's a bit odd to see the place you grew up described as the apex of some epic and mystical journey.

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We interviewed a doula last Friday (kind of like a birth consultant) and she asked me where I was from. I told her I was from Tennessee and that my mom lived not very far from where Ina May Gaskin practices and teaches midwifery. This woman - who will be studying to be a midwife - was just amazed. She asked me if I'd been to The Farm. I have. I told her my mom had a lot of friends there - though I didn't know if she knows Ina May (turns out she has met her). I discovered I could probably be really cool in holistic midwifery circles.

I hadn't yet finished Ina May's guide at the time of the interview - but it would have been pretty nifty to be able to point to one of the photos of glowing ecstatic women giving birth and say "I know this woman, she was a guest at my wedding. She was wearing clothes on that occasion"