woohoo!

Today Alberta decided to join BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia in publicly funding midwives! Starting April 1st (my birthday!) the provincial government will cover midwifery care. The details still need to be figured out, but it does cover births at home and the birth center, which were important points to be included for the midwives to accept funding.

On Thursdays my study group meets at the birth center. About an hour after we got there today, it was overrun with camera crews from different news stations doing interviews. Molly and I made it into the story, along with Carly and Naomi. If Andy can figure out how to post the news story I'll get it up here.

There are still lots of questions to be answered and some battles to be fought when the committee gets together to figure out the finer points of the funding arrangement, but today is just a happy day to dream about all the good things to come.

Here's the actual news release. Check out the background section. It talks about Alberta having 31 midwives and 6 student midwives. I'm one of those 6! (In truth there are many more students than that, just 6 of us are members of the Alberta Association of Midwives).

http://www.alberta.ca/acn/200810/24550063EBE33-96F3-5ED1-46942B3A9CB6A7DE.html

My midwives

Patty and Andy shortly before Molly was born


JoanMargaret weighing Molly


Kimberley and Molly at the 2 week visit