Getting to Know You....
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| We wrote this About Us page to satisfy your burning curiosity as to who is behind this site. We know you are dying to know, right? Well, even if you're not, that's okay. Just skip this page. | Make Your Dreams Come True!
My wife and I work on our websites from home. They have proven to us that your hobby or passions can help you create very profitable websites. You don't even need to know much about building websites or being on the internet. Yes! You can turn that hobby and passionate knowledge into a stable stream of income that can help you make your dreams come true and help you beat this financial crisis. If you've ever dreamed of becoming your own boss and finding financial security you can either: 1. Continue dreaming 2. Click here now and start | |
| My name is Toni Rakestraw. My partner in life and parenting is my husband, John. Together, we have put this site together to help parents-to-be discover the joys of an homebirth... and the ecstasy of an organic birth. It took us quite a while to find our way on this journey. We went through four hospital births before our first homebirth. What a difference! Our children have obviously survived coming into this world despite the circumstances at their births. But birth is a family event. Its also a very intimate experience. Our older children have benefited from being a part of their younger siblings' journey earthside. | ||
| ABOUT TONI I've been interested in birth for most of my life. I was always present when our cat had kittens or our dog had puppies. I waited stubbornly at home to see our mare foal... and she did it when I finally spent the night at a friend's house! That was my first lesson in organic birth, but I didn't know it... leave it well enough alone! When I became pregnant with our first, I read everything I could get my hands on. I signed us up for an independent childbirth class. We were totally... unprepared. We ended up with a cesarean. I was okay with it at the time... I felt I had done all I could, but failed. Next time I'd get it right. Well, sort of. Slowly, we improved each time. We've had obstetricians, certified nurse midwives, certified professional midwives and traditional midwives. On this journey, I trained as a childbirth educator, a doula, and am currently a student midwife. Whether I'll ever be a practicing midwife is up in the air... but having the knowledge is priceless. I've birthed eight children and miscarried four times. I've learned how to chart my cycle to both avoid and achieve pregnancy. I'm teaching my children that birth is a normal bodily function, not a medical event. I'm also a bit of an artist. My favorite subjects are newborn babies and pregnancy. You can see some of my work scattered around this site and at our Zazzle Store. | ||
| My passion If you haven't figured it out yet, my passion truly is pregnancy and birth. It fascinates me. It has pushed acting, singing, art, horses and everything else I've ever been interested further down my list. If I can help someone else preserve their birth space and first few hours of peace with their new baby, I've done my job. Birth is sacred. We're hard-wired to birth and nurture our babies because of an intricate release of a hormonal mixture, and when we get interrupted, get pain relieving drugs or surgery, that hormonal mixture gets screwed up. I know this isn't the most popular way to approach childbirth, but we're in danger of losing our birthing choices. It's time we pick up our pens and fight to keep our choices to birth at home. Write to your legislators at the state and federal level, to the AMA and to ACOG. We deserve to birth where we want and our children deserve to get that hormonal jumpstart they are supposed to get at birth. I also write on a blog occasionally called Instinctual Birth. | ||
| ABOUT JOHN Toni and I have been together for over 28 years. We started to have children in our late twenties. We are the proud parents of 8 children: 4 girls and 4 boys. Out of that number 4 were hospital births , one of those was a surgical birth and 4 normal births (homebirths), with two of those being organic births. | ||
| I started out wanting to be the great American actor, had a great time working towards that end. But I woke-up one day looked in the mirror and told myself your having fun but not paying the bills. So, acting became a fun hobby and I found a full-time job. Our growing family turned into my new passion. "What's your passion?" That's what I ask people instead of... "What do you do?" I have found out the most interesting things about people by asking that simple question. | ||
| My Passion Being a birth ally for my wife has been the one of greatest rewards in my life. One of the best things about us is how having homebirths has made my family even closer and more connected. We all work together, that includes all the children, to help make the birth a magic experience. | ||
At the hospital births I was always on my way to somewhere... either rushing to the hospital or rushing to be home with our other children. The constant interrupters (nurses, doctors, billing people and family) who came in at all hours of the day.
Toni and our newest wee little one hardly had a peaceful moment to just bond and enjoy the sweet first acquaintances together.
Our homebirths for the most part have been wonderful! Toni's not rushed, norr am I. We have the other children near by (either in the room or in a room near us). We have all the comforts of home, BECAUSE IT IS AT HOME!
We hope to be able to help other women find their way to an organic birth. Our pregnancies and births were sacred. A few were organic. They were natural. We truly believe that if more women found this connection deep within themselves, with their unborn babies, that we could make this world a better place for babies, children, parents and families.
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