Dear colleagues I have just ploughed through forty emails and a wealth of discussion and wisdom. I want to make some fairly fragmented points. On Wednesday morning at 4am my mother in law died in our home. After three months of Acute Leukaemia she achieved in death what she had never achieved in life-power. She made her desires to die at home known to us early on and we respected that wish. She was surrounded by her family, her garden, and her dignity was maintained to the end. I am reminded of a poem I saw on a memorial in the Bavarian forest years ago that said �we are such stuff that dreams are made of and our lives are rounded with a little sleep.� It was such a peaceful sleepy death. As the warmth left her body we played music and sat around her bed. A short while later we went out to watch the sun rise and gaze at the fading stars. There was extraordinary peace and beauty in those moments we spent accepting her passing. I was confronted by the reality of how different her death would have been in hospital. Our medicalisation of birth and death have given our lives a taste of fear when we should be experiencing our most treasured and real moments. >From our beginnings to our endings we have learnt to fear life and struggle against its simplicity and inevitability. So much energy wasted, so many valuable moments lost. As midwives when we stand watching over birth, protecting the mother�s wishes, facilitating the power of women, we achieve our greatest moments. The more we see the power and potential of women realised the less we are really needed and the better the experience is. I warned you this was fragmented! It is women that have taught us the skills we have today as midwives. So why do we have this fear or resistance to their participation in our professional body? Once again we fear. We fear what may happen, and how it may not work, and what if, and have we thought about that, and we do just what we do every day to birth a death, we control, restrain and never experience the possibilities awaiting us. If we are frightened of having women have a say in our professional issues then I think we should re-examine what being a midwife is. Is it is not with women? I also think we should ask ourselves have we really got anything to lose. We have not got a spectacular thing happening here with midwifery in our country. While we think of all the what if's regarding women in our professional body let us ask have we really got that much to lose. I don�t think so. We have been chasing our tails for years now with rhetoric and committees and working parties and more rhetoric and committees and working parties and I think we have been too safe for too long. We can keep going in circles or we can take a risk and see if all of the rhetoric, committees and working parties have any basis. Having recently seen the power of consumers as we (NSWMA) lobby for rebates for midwifery care I am even more convinced we need to work with women. Yes, there will be problems and yes, it won�t be easy but we don�t exactly have Utopia now so what have we to lose. We need to answer all the questions that have been posed on the list and we need the doubting Thomas�s to help us deal with the practical details but let�s deal with them and let us move on. I for one think life is to short and I�m simply dizzy from all this circular action. The NSWMA voted on pursing the matter of consumers being involved in the association as a matter of urgency at our recent AGM. It�s time to get a move on. Let�s stop fearing all the possibilities! There are thousands of those and most are imaginary. Perhaps what we really fear is it might work and the old toothless lion will awake with a roaring powerful reality. Women and midwives power in partnership! Is this simply rhetoric to make IMD balloons look pretty or is it a belief???? Hannah -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
