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Ronnie Falcao, LM MS, a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA

Books and Newsletters about VBACs, Unassisted Birth and Pleasurable Husband/Wife Childbirth

From: Marilyn A. Moran <76003.1014@compuserve.com>

Hi, everyone! I never had a cesarean, but I have something to share with you about the subject.

Our youngest child (baby #l0) was born in l972, at home with just my husband with me, as I had planned. I was not going to give birth one more time with some other guy between my legs. I was going to share the experience with my husband, and no one else! The reason? Birth is a sexual experience.

I won't go into the details of my previous births, nor into Patrick's birth, either, other than to say it was MARVELOUS!!!

It's what happened afterward that I want you to know about. In l977 I started a newsletter for do-it-yourself homebirth couples called The New Nativity. I got it out until the end of l990, when I passed it over to someone else (because I wanted to get out a new book). In those 14 years I printed 244 personal accounts written by couples who did what we did. AND 30 OF THEM WERE DO-IT-YOURSELF HOME VBACS!

Mind you, this was at a time when OBs were 'considering' permitting some women 'a trial of labor.' Not all were allowed to attempt it. Only certain candidates.

Other women, however, without asking any doctor for permission to try, just stayed home and did it!

My successors have now brought the total DIY homebirth accounts up to about 316. I'm sure the number of VBACs have also climbed proportionately. (Incidentally, the current editor is Valarie Nordstrom,4820 69th Ave. No., Brooklyn Center, MN 55429. Maybe she has some back copies in which VBACs have appeared. I don't know. You could ask her. Or subscribe. They will appear, I'm sure. Subscription: $l0.00 per year.)

Incidentally, in 1986 I came out with a collection of 50 DIY homebirth accounts, entitled HAPPY BIRTH DAYS. It contains 8 VBAC accounts. All turned out beautifully. So much so, that I have come to the conclusion that once mom's abdominal scars have healed from the cesarean, she is in as good a condition as any other pregnant mom. And if she is at home in the seclusion of her bedroom, with her lawfully-wedded spouse making whoopee (that's what I said!) she, and he, will have a very joyous experience, the way God planned it to be.

They've got to have the freedom to engage in deep, warm kisses, nipple stimulation, clitoral stimulation, coitus in early labor--especially coitus in early labor because seminal plasma contains the hormone relaxin, which as all OBs know softens the cervix and lengthens pelvic ligaments, permitting the descent of the mother's conjugal love gift.

My new book, PLEASURABLE HUSBAND/WIFE CHILDBIRTH; THE REAL CONSUMMATION OF MARRIED LOVE, is out, finally, and I think you will enjoy it. How I wish there was something like it when I was having children! As Gregory J. White, M.D., said in his Foreword to the book, "Most parents-to-be should read [this book]. It may well change their lives--for the better." We were cheated in decades past. Nobody told us the truth about birth. It's getting out now, though.

And I am proud and happy to be doing my part in tearing down the shroud of silence surrounding the conjugal act of birth.

Remember, "My lover belongs to me and I to him." (Song of Songs, 2:l6)

Marilyn