You Know You're a Birth Junkie If....

My blogging sister Kathy posted the original list - here is mine! (Kathy's list is more of a serious list - this one is just for fun. Some are seriously spoof, and some will apply only to some of us.)

You know you're a birth junkie if.....

- You are vaguely surprised to discover that there are non-birth blogs out there. So weird.

- You experience an inexplicable magnetism toward all pregnant women.

- The question is not "if" you have a placenta in your freezer, but "how many?"

- Your husband can pontificate, at length, on the benefits of natural birth and the evils of the cesarean epidemic, because he's already heard the sermon so many times from you.

- There is no longer any topic that is labeled in your mind as "too much information" when it comes to birth. Occasionally, you embarrass yourself by discussing vaginas with your friends' husbands before you think. Oops.

- When the bread gets stuck coming out of its plastic bag, you think "Shoulder dystocia!" and then quickly recite to yourself the major methods for resolving it (McRoberts, Gaskin, Zavanelli, etc.)

- When you hear that someone has a baby, your first question is not "How are you?" but "How did your birth go?"

- When you are staring off into space and your husband says "What are you thinking about?", you often respond with a passionate and long-winded sermon on a birth topic.

- When your birth friends post their labor updates on Facebook, you spent the entire labor stalking Facebook (along with the other local birth junkies) until the entire thing turns into a riotous labor-stalking party, ending with a flurry of congratulations to the mama when the final post "Baby is here!" is made.

- You have to make repeated, stern commands to yourself to avoid giving unwanted, unrequested advice to pregnant mamas. (Just breath.... and again.... and again.)

- You regularly hear birth stories that make you want to bang your head against a wall. Violently and repeatedly.

- When you hear of a mother who does not eat her placenta, you think "Oh! How odd!"

- You are working on building your birth library, and it does not contain a copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting." Except perhaps as a special display with a stake through its heart.

- When you see a pregnant mother on the street, you have the immediate urge to walk over and start giving her information about doulas, natural birth, childbirth classes, homebirth, and local birth resources. Sometimes you do.

- Your idea of "free time" is watching birth videos on YouTube or blogging about birth.

- Your mind operates in "birth space" most of the time that it's not actively engaged on real-life topics.

- When you hear about news in the birth arena, you're already writing a mental blog post about it before you have finished reading the article.

- Your idea of "girls' night out" is not dinner and drinks at a local restaurant, but attending a local women's birth forum discussion group.

- A positive, empowering birth story totally makes your day. Ditto for the announcement of a new pregnancy.

- When you reach out and discover your local birth community, you have the feeling that you've finally found your tribe. :)

- Your husband is heard to mutter things like, "With a frank breech, they should have considered a trial of labor before funneling that mother into an automatic scheduled cesarean birth. It's not like it was a footling."

- You can't watch TV shows like "A Baby Story" because they make you so angry and depressed that you can't function.

- You can reel off reams of birth-related statistics - current and past cesarean rates, WHO recommendations, local cesarean rates, etc.

- Getting to tell someone your birth story is a special treat because you love to remember it.

- All of your Facebook friends know that you are a birth junkie because you compulsively post a steady stream of birth-related articles. Some of them probably think you're more than a little strange.

- You are known as "the birth lady."

- You think it would be fun help catch a baby in an emergency (plane flight, etc.). In fact, you've put some thought into how you would do it.

- You know and can recite from memory the reproductive history (pre-conception, prenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum) of every woman at your church, MOMS club, etc..

- You consider having another child just because you miss your visits with your midwife so much and because you love giving birth and/or being pregnant.

- You greet your husband at the door with, "Hi, hon! I've got a birth video that you've just got to see!"

- Topics like the cultural determination of episiotomy methodology, various placenta preparation recipes, and dilation-determination techniques are common subjects of dinner-table conversation.

- Your husband tries to talk his co-workers into having homebirths.

- You find analogies to birth in just about everything. My friend Kathy found an analogy to hospital birth in dishwater and to pregnancy length in seedlings (right, Kathy? I'm going from memory only); I found myself contemplating mustard greens and meditating upon the nature of placenta blood vessel patterns (they are remarkably similar!).

- When interviewing a new doctor or caregiver, you intentionally throw out the term "midwife" or "homebirth" to see how s/he responds in order to find out if you really want to work with him/her.

- Your idea of a dream vacation is not a cruise to Hawaii but traveling to Tennessee to visit Ina May Gaskin at The Farm.

And last, but most certainly not least...

- Your husband has seen more of your birth-community friends naked than clothed - because you showed him all of their birth pics/videos before he met them in person!!

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Got any more to add? Let me know!