Wednesday, February 13, 2008

A Crushing Blow

Sage Femme, the only free standing birth center in my metropolitan area, has closed this week. This is such sad, sad news for me. It was only in October that I discovered this hidden jewel. This is such a disservice to the women of my community. This comes on tails of my recieving about 5 calls so far this year from women looking for midwives (mistakenly thinking that I am one-possibly because of this blog or my website- though I certainly don't claim to be a midwife on either.) Of those five calls, two were women looking for a "woman of color" to attend them in birth. I had the depressing charge of informing them that there are no midwives or doulas of color in our area (to my knowledge- and I do try to keep up with who is doing what where). With the closing of Sage Femme (due to financial concerns) and the calls that seem to continuously come, I had to rethink things. My decision to resume doula work is my pitiful attempt to give women some choice. But what they really need is a birth center. In a city where we already don't have enough midwives, the loss of our lovely little birth center is grave indeed.

10 comments:

ZDub said...

How very sad, indeed. I hate to think about women giving birth and not having options. I love your blog and I wish you were my neighbor! You seem really cool!

LaborPayne said...

Zakary,
Its true- I am very cool :)

Anonymous said...

Glad you posted this. I am truly sad...I was feeling redemption. I am trying to prepare ahead of time in case I get pregnant, and just cannot figure out what best to do. Are midwives in hospital any different around here? I know I can refuse all sorts of things on paper right off the bat, but I do not think that's always best for the baby and me either...especially if something does go wrong then us natural birthers just proved a point. Ugh.

Mimi said...

That makes me so angry.

Anonymous said...

i hate that news.

LaborPayne said...

I hear you Jen,
I'm still trying to contact the lead midwife to see what the plans are for reopening if any.

Anonymous said...

let me know if you hear anything. Tell then there is a novice grant writer interested in their cause.

I knew the center had financial issues, plus there seemed to be orgnaizational issues. They also were in bad need of marketing plans. hopefully someone will pick it up and give it another try. I really wanted to work with with them in getting some grants but it just kept not working out.

LaborPayne said...

Jen,
I made suggestions about the marketing piece as well. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe it needs a complete organizational overhaul and now that can happen.

Anonymous said...

Please do not say it is so. My wife gave to birth to our son in December 2006 at Sage Femme. My wife had a very positive experience with Sage Femme. I also thought the whole experience was loads better than the hospital experience we had with our daughter. Sage Femme closing is, in my opinion, a sad comment on our society and our health care system.

LaborPayne said...

Marc,
I couldn't agree more.