Is there suddenly more oxytocin flowing at Channel Nine? Never would I ever have imagined an Australian TV drama about a midwife and a Birth Centre on commercial free to air! With gooey babies and relatively realistic and humorous shenanigans that actually make you think childbirth’s not all bad, will most often go right and we don’t always need to make a fuss about it. Okay, so it’s more Call the Midwife than One Born Every Minute. I am embracing Amazing Grace because the world needs the oxytocin. You don’t see umbilical cords or amniotic fluid on shoes. It’s sanitised for TV. It’s soap, please forgive! SPOILER: The homebirth dad might have let the snake out of the cage, but it was still an uneventful birth at home. Ta~daah!
I bought my ticket to the Birth Time Documentary (@BirthTimeWorld) and got to experience the premiere in the New Farm Cinema with around 300 other women, midwives, advocates and allies. There was a Q&A session with midwife Jo Hunter and fellow producers Zoe Naylor and Jerusha Sutton. The documentary features real women and real births on screen, with real tears and deeply personal stories. A drama can’t recreate the intensity of normal physiological birth but at least it tries.
Can we call it a tipping point? Word is: more women chose homebirth in 2020 than ever before in Australia. Midwives in private practice are doing a roaring trade and women and babies are doing very well thank you without the oppressive patriarchy breathing down their necks. Why use the toxic hospital system if you don’t have to? Birth with a midwife rocks! It’s about time ALL women got a piece of that! And maybe we’re on track to make it happen Australia! Below is a QR code to find out more. It *should* be readable with your mobile phone (obviously not if you’re reading this on your mobile phone).
Gratuitous selfie: Kylie Midwife and me, vibing in front of the photo wall at #BirthTime
I’ve been watching Amazing Grace too and I too am shocked that normal birth is being championed on prime time, commercial television. I agree with you, it is of course ‘sanitised’ somewhat but it does seem to be doing its best to represent normal birth and the nature of the midwives’ work accurately and without sensationalism. I’m so thrilled to hear that more women than ever before choose home birth in Australia in 2020! Yessssss ❤💪🙌
I wonder if it will have the stamina to move beyond season 1. I hope so. Would be wonderful if it attained the depth and longevity of Call The Midwife.