We met with a midwife today and all we talked about was things going wrong, about emergencies. It’s a communication issue to my mind.

This midwife, and most midwives, feel like they have a very good handle on easy births, on births where nothing has gone wrong. What they are preparing for, and rightly so, are emergencies. What will we do if X Y Z, and how to do it safely.

Unfortunately speaking at such length and exclusively about what you don’t want to happen and what to do if it does, makes it feel inevitable. And when in the process of selecting a midwife, it makes it seem like the ones who are likely to be most prepared to deal with emergencies, are the ones those emergencies are most likely to happen to.

That is almost certainly an illusion.

Where it gets complicated with childbirth specifically is that there is a gnashing, churning mouth waiting to swallow up mothers. It is a vicious spiraling maw that, once you’re in it, has very little mercy.

This is, of course, most hospitals. Agency swallowing machines with a mercilessness in linear relationship with your fear of them.

One small wrong thing is less a problem to solve, and more a slippery footing from which to fall into this thing that does not give a damn about you.

It’s a communication problem.  

It’s all a goddamn communication problem.

The truth of it is that I appreciate being in a society that can do a whole hell of a lot to make sure our children and wives survive. I empathize with the fact that weighing discomfort or even trauma with even a fractional increase in mortality is a ridiculous game to play. But what I struggle with is that playing those Utilitarian games actually increases mortality in and of itself.

And it does so while draining any aesthetic vitality or humanity from virtually every element of our lives.

It’s the same with private equity, and of course, private equity owns a hell of a lot of hospitals in this country.

I don’t know, man.

The Amish.