Representing Georgia Friends of Midwives I attended The Big Push for Midwives Summit in Birmingham last week. Almost every state was represented and I am so excited to put into action all of the wonderful, inspiring ideas I learned from other state grassroots leaders and midwives!
As I arrived in Birmingham on Sunday to attend the meet and greet at the Highland Hotel in Five Points, it was pouring down rain. After changing out of my driving-long-distance-clothes (yoga pants and a tank top) and into a more presentable ensemble
in the car as the rain beat down on the windshield, I met up with Russ Fawcett, the legislative chair with North Carolina Friends of Midwives and self-proclaimed mid-husband. Oh, did I mention he’s also a nuclear engineer?! I found his mix of midwifery politicking and nuclear engineering absolutely fascinating! After meeting several other midwives and consumer activists from around the country, Russ and I headed over to the Bottletree Café for a rock concert benefit hosted the Alabama Birth Coalition (ABC).
http://www.alabamabirthcoalition.org/Over a dinner of the best black bean burger and sweet potato fries ever, I enjoyed the music of several bands who donated their time to the ABC to help raise money for the legislative battle Alabama faces as it prepares to gain licensure for their Certified Professional Midwives. This was the first sign that wow- was this trip going to be worth my while! A rock concert benefit! GFOM is so going to borrow that idea from ABC! There were mommies, daddies and babies everywhere- in a bar! Babies in slings, toddlers holding their mammas’ hands, dancing with their daddies. Plus every dollar spent was matched- all benefitting ABC. It was a loud, loud rockin’evening! They even thru in a few testimonials from moms and dads who spoke about why homebirth is important to them. I spoke with Susan Petrus & LeAnne Pearce about borrowing their brain-child idea and hosting a GFOM rock concert benefit in Georgia!
A small-town celebrity- the Cheeky Maiden, aka Missi Burgess, herself showed up at the Bottletree Café. (
http://www.cheekymaidensoap.com/) I actually smelled her before I saw her- carrying her little box of essential oil-infused natural handcrafted soap around the Bottletree Café. She generously donated the welcome gifts to each Push attendee. An extra plus for me was that the Cheeky Maiden and her family put me up in their home in cute little Calera, AL for the 3 nights I was attending the Big Push for Midwives Summit. I am confirming that yes, her soap company is run right out of her home. I stayed an extra day in AL shrink wrapping and labeling soap myself, with ‘help’ from little Arwen, age 4, and Charis, age 3, the Cheeky Maiden’s two daughters, both born at home- so was son Ezra, age 2, but he couldn’t be bothered with soap duties as there were toy block towers to destroy! By the way, the Cheeky Maiden’s home smells as wonderful as you would imagine- with soap-curing aromas wafting into the house from the sudio-converted garage.
Anyway, Monday morning I braved pounding rain and rush hour traffic and arrived at the Highland Conference Center in Five Points, Birmingham and spent the next 9 hours soaking up all the ideas I could from other states grassroots leaders and midwives. I could hardly write fast enough to keep up with the brainstorms! The GFOM steering committee (myself, Reid, Krista, Natalie, Sonya) are currently in the process of organizing all the wonderful ideas from other states and will be putting many of them into action in the next few weeks and months. Our immediate efforts will focus on fundraising and building our membership. The Big Push was full of great fundraising ideas that will simultaneously build a geographically diverse membership: homebirth baby calendar, movie nights, picnics, midwife appreciation day, BOLD/Red Tent, rock n roll benefit concert, GFOM t shirts, bumper stickers, fun run/walk/stroll, trivia night, garage sales, you name it.
After a session on ‘social networking’ at the Big Push presented by 3
very young astute gentlemen from
http://www.companyfiftytwo.com/, I learned some awesome tools on how to streamline our communication process in an effort to stay in better contact with GFOM members and to expand our membership base beyond homebirth families. We want you to know that we are STILL HERE. STILL WORKING towards licensure of Certified Professional Midwives. Other states confirmed what we are experiencing in GA, that more and more families are choosing homebirth- as hospital midwives are being ‘let go’ all around Atlanta and beyond, and maternity care in GA is not improving- duh! We are WORKING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT! But we need 100 people doing 1 thing each- not 1 person (or in our case 5) doing a hundred things!
We are calling on you- you who support homebirth in GA- to step up and answer our calls to action and our calls to help! There’s plenty to do! Stay tuned for a list of how you can help!
Tuesday’s Big Push session focused on consumer efforts and avoiding burnout as grassroots organizers. We all have families, other jobs, run small businesses out of home offices and have lives to live. My 3 hour drive home on Wednesday night was exhilarating! My brain was so full of wonderful ideas gleaned from other states! I was so inspired! Everyone can do something! For example: can you and your kids have a lemonade stand (or garage sale?) this summer and donate the proceeds to GA Friends of Midwives? Talk to those who stop by to buy some lemonade about midwives! Even if they wouldn’t necessarily choose a homebirth, most folks don’t see why
you shouldn’t be able to. Go 1 step further and ask them to sign up for GFOM; take their name, email address and zip code along with $1 and send it to us! (If we’re ever in a position where we need constituents from specific zip codes to call their representatives- one call could make a HUGE difference!).
Another idea: Go to
http://www.cafepress.com/ and buy a few clever t shirts that say something like ‘Georgia Women Deserve Midwives’ or ‘Midwives Help People Out’ or even onsies that say ‘A Midwife Helped me Out’ or ‘Safely Born at Home with a Midwife’ and donate them to GFOM so we can sell them as fundraisers! Can’t buy a few? Just buy one! Everyone can do something!
Thank you for all you do!
