Hi everyone! I'm excited to have found this forum. I am 20 years old, and have not had any children, nor am I pregnant. I feel really lucky to have found this way of thinking before I got myself subjected to the system. I'm here because I love to learn, and I want to be prepared for the future. I started getting interested in birth 2 years ago when I got engaged. My 3 sisters all had OB managed type births, and it didn't sound fun. I was scared to death about the thought of trying to have children. So I looked it up. After 2 years of studying, I am now confident that when I decide to get pregnant I can do so normally and endure through labor. I am also studying to be a doula (I'm attending my first birth in January!).
As a side note, I'm interested in why the forum is called "normal birth" rather than "natural birth." I offfended one of my sisters saying I believed women were created to give birth "normally." My reasoning was that if it wasn't "normal," the worst it could be is "different." If I used "natural," that would imply if it weren't "natural," it would be "fake," or "artificial."
Anyways, I'm just happy to be here.
Kelsey

Hello to you and delighted that you have found us. Much of the terminology to describe models of childbirth is slippery because different people use the same language to mean different things or, to be frank, concepts were co-opted. For example, in the twenty odd years that I have been involved in birth issues (and some of them have been very odd), "natural" childbirth shifted from meaning "without medical intervention" to "without pain medication" to "not cesarean surgery."  The Lamaze International website has a page that explains about normal birth as we use the term with links to the 6 Care Practices that Support Normal Birth. Check it out. I look forward to your posts.

-- Henci

Hey Kelsey *wave*!
:-D
maria.