Welcome to Granola Forever!

Welcome to the first ever post on a new blog that is dedicated to pregnancy, birth, parenthood, and life!

After a brief one and a half month gestational period (gestational periods for ideation are much shorter than that for children, and the birth far less painful - we'll see how the early years compare) we are finally launching a blog that is dedicated to evoking thought and enabling choice among young parents.

First, let's get it out of the way that I am a man, and this does in fact seem a bit of a weird subject for a man to begin a blog about. Frankly, I have no idea how much I will or will not post on this blog. Hopefully whatever I do place on here is of some small value to the community that embraces this blog, but my premise for creating this blog was not to provide an outlet for my ideas - it was to provide an outlet for my wife's burgeoning passion regarding the lack of information that most women seem to have about the pregnancy and birthing process, and the general obliviousness of so many young mothers regarding the choices that are available to them. I just happen to be my wife's personal IT support staff, which means that I get the job of set up, and then she gets to play with it however she wants :)

The fact of the matter (at least regarding our personal experience) is that underidentification* is a HUGE problem in the medical field, especially among obstetricians. (I can't wait for some doctor to jump all over me about this one.) What is underidentification, you ask? Put simply, underidentification is a phenomenon than occurs among professionals where they fail to identify with a client/patient as a human being and instead identify with a client/patient as a problem that needs to be solved. When this occurs, rather than explaining possibilities and revealing choices in medical care, a doctor tends to explain the doctor's preferred choices and steers a patient towards a pre-set solution based, not on the patient's wishes, but on the doctor's comfort level. While the end result is likely a medically positive result, it is not necessarily the best medical and psychological result, and in the realm of pregnancy and childbirth, such an approach can leave a young mother feeling objectified and violated.

The hope of this blog is to help young parents avoid these types of situations, not by telling them what to do, but by helping them to ask the right questions, encouraging thought, stimulating research, and promoting the type of assertive conversation with doctors that will empower and enhance an experience that should be one of the most joyous experiences in life.

Oh yea, the purpose is also to have a good time exchanging ideas regarding parenthood, life, and all the groovy stuff that goes along with it.

Enjoy!

* Both the label "underidentification" and the concept taken from Susan R. Martyn & Lawrence J. Fox, Traversing the Ethical Minefield: Problems, Law, and Professional Responsibility 130-31 (2004) (citing and quoting John T. Noonan Jr, The Lawyer Who Overidentifies with his Client, 76 Nortre Dame L. Rev. 827, 833 (2001)).