Dillards 56: Running a Marathon but not Working

[Ivycoveredtower]

49 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

I love Call the Midwife. Yes, I know it's fiction, but they always explain to patients that they are nurses with additional training in midwifery. I find it strange that some of the states have so little regulation. By the way, I was born at home 70 years ago with a midwife and a doctor. Fairly common in England at that time.

actually to call the midwife well some parts are of course fictional is based on the memoirs of the real life Jennifer worth. 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Worth

[SapphireSlytherin]

My DH's brother was born at home to a 22-year-old mom (in England). DH was born in hospital (two years earlier) because their house at the time didn't have hot running water and the midwife wouldn't allow it. This was 1966-1968.

[Thorns]

Disclaimer: I work in pediatrics, in a Scandinavian country where health care is free and available, the society is secular and the population reasonably trusting of the health care given, and home births are uncommon. Sooo, my experiences, exposures and biases are rather skewed, and will probably not reflect the experiences of a lot of people, esp in the States. 

First, I'm curious - what exactly happened during the birth that went so wrong? I've seen it referenced a lot of times, but never a more official version. Newborn death (of presumably healthy term babies) is luckily extremely rare nowadays, and in some of those cases unpreventable, and I would like to be able to make a more informed "judgement" of her handling of the situation. 

Second - home births are reasonably safe, IF properly and vigilantly attended to in a selected population with the proper safeguards in place.  The problem is, I'm not sure that Vanessa and Jill even know what those words mean, and even less sure that they know how to achieve it. I've attended plenty births where everything seemed perfectly fine, and then suddenly things aren't fine anymore. A lot of times the problems are more or less easily fixed ("the baby just needed a little help to get started/get out") IF you know what you are doing and prepared for it to happen. On the flip side, some problems are VERY insidous, and you need to know of them to catch them early on. I truly hope Jill and Vanessa have aquired the skills and judgements neccessary to reflect on this. 

[SassyPants]

12 hours ago, lomo6 said:

Well this is a distressing update.

Putting aside the fact that she is endangering people's lives for a moment...I do feel sorry for Jill. It's easy to write her off as stupid, but if she had grown up in a different home, I think it would have been a completely different story. 

In another world, I could see easily see her as a nurse or some kind of other medical professional. You don't have to be in MENSA and have a charismatic personality to do so (for example, a childhood friend of mine is now a professional EMT in a major metro area, despite having had a pretty bad learning disability when we were growing up)...you just have to go to a real high school that prepares you for one of the variety of nursing certificates or degrees (or whatever else) that exist.

Jill could have had a real career and still done the Christian mom thing - she didn't get married until she was 23 and could have had the degree wrapped up by then, instead of extending her sistermom years.

Honestly, Jill is the only Duggar daughter to have shown a sustained interest in something outside of motherhood, and slowly had it squashed out of her. Even before Derick, remember how she was excited about learning Spanish? I actually think Jill is a relatively bright and curious person, and that some of her more annoying personality traits might come from having had to repress that side of herself. 

I agree the kids were ripped off for any real opportunities, but it extends beyond education. You also have to see your adult role models (which JB and M very much limited to almost no one but them) working hard for years on end. I know that some will disagree, but beyond pro-creating, JB and M never provided decent role models for sustained work, drive or effort. It's one of the reasons why Jill did and apparently still does not want Dillard working away from the home. Such a disservice was provided to all the Duggar kids. Most people do not get far without a decent education and a sustained work effort, since none of the Duggars has particular, outstanding skills in any one area, I'd say they will all be in the group of people who will have a difficult time ever being successful or even have the ability to successfully support an average sized family.

It is said that JB is work 3 million- a drop in the bucket for the sized family he is trying to support. 

[Cleopatra7]

27 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

I agree the kids were ripped off for any real opportunities, but it extends beyond education. You also have to see your adult role models (which JB and M very much limited to almost no one but them) working hard for years on end. I know that some will disagree, but beyond pro-creating, JB and M never provided decent role models for sustained work, drive or effort. It's one of the reasons why Jill did and apparently still does not want Dillard working away from the home. Such a disservice was provided to all the Duggar kids. Most people do not get far without a decent education and a sustained work effort, since none of the Duggars has particular, outstanding skills in any one area, I'd say they will all be in the group of people who will have a difficult time ever being successful or even have the ability to successfully support an average sized family.

It is said that JB is work 3 million- a drop in the bucket for the sized family he is trying to support. 

The version of fundamentalism that the Duggars follow is built on the supposition that the only way you can have an ideal family with children who don’t rebel is for the parents to have no outside life beyond being managers of the home. This means that the husband can’t have a conventional 9-5 job, not just because that might involve socilizalizing with non-Gothardites, but also because it would mean not being at home to micromanage his family. Most adults can’t handle this kind of pressure cooker environment, which is why so many families have ditched ATI, leaving the true believers like the Duggars and the Bateses. At the same time, JB and Michelle have clearly been checked out of the aspects of day to day parenting for some time, having outsourced those responsibilities to the older kids. Given these dubious role models, I suppose Jill dreams of they day when she too can outsource parenting to her older children, although who know how many she’ll eventually have. Regardless, it’s obvious that neither Derrick or Jill the job type people and expect others to find their “godly” lifestyle.

[Ivycoveredtower]

1 hour ago, Thorns said:

Disclaimer: I work in pediatrics, in a Scandinavian country where health care is free and available, the society is secular and the population reasonably trusting of the health care given, and home births are uncommon. Sooo, my experiences, exposures and biases are rather skewed, and will probably not reflect the experiences of a lot of people, esp in the States. 

First, I'm curious - what exactly happened during the birth that went so wrong? I've seen it referenced a lot of times, but never a more official version. Newborn death (of presumably healthy term babies) is luckily extremely rare nowadays, and in some of those cases unpreventable, and I would like to be able to make a more informed "judgement" of her handling of the situation. 

Second - home births are reasonably safe, IF properly and vigilantly attended to in a selected population with the proper safeguards in place.  The problem is, I'm not sure that Vanessa and Jill even know what those words mean, and even less sure that they know how to achieve it. I've attended plenty births where everything seemed perfectly fine, and then suddenly things aren't fine anymore. A lot of times the problems are more or less easily fixed ("the baby just needed a little help to get started/get out") IF you know what you are doing and prepared for it to happen. On the flip side, some problems are VERY insidous, and you need to know of them to catch them early on. I truly hope Jill and Vanessa have aquired the skills and judgements neccessary to reflect on this. 

http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/1119601/jill-duggar-midwife

 

here is an article I found about Vanessa, Jill and the birth that went wrong. 

[Oh_Dear!]

Sorry but I missed it somewhere...  what happened with the Vanessa lady to lose her liscence?  And I thought that Jill had some sort of certificate. Did she lose that?  

I haven’t been following these guys too closely because they seem to have gone off the deep end. I can only manage a few people going off the deep end at a time, and Trump has been taking that stop tenfold. 

[Ivycoveredtower]

1 minute ago, Oh_Dear! said:

Sorry but I missed it somewhere...  what happened with the Vanessa lady to lose her liscence?  And I thought that Jill had some sort of certificate. Did she lose that?  

I haven’t been following these guys too closely because they seem to have gone off the deep end. I can only manage a few people going off the deep end at a time, and Trump has been taking that stop tenfold. 

Quote

The woman, whose name is Tiffany Nance, alleges that when she gave birth to her daughter Jozzie in 2014, inaction on the part of Giron resulted in Jozzie being born with cerebral palsy and prevented Nance from receiving antibiotics for group B strep, a common bacteria that can be passed on to babies during vaginal birth, with sometimes serious or fatal consequences. Nance claims that she begged Duggar to call 911 during her complicated and painful labor but that Giron would not allow it, concluding that if Duggar's only training consists of her apprenticeship with the midwife, then there's no way she's qualified to deliver babies.

 

[Palimpsest]

5 minutes ago, Oh_Dear! said:

Sorry but I missed it somewhere...  what happened with the Vanessa lady to lose her liscence?  And I thought that Jill had some sort of certificate. Did she lose that?

Venessa Giron lost her licence to practice as a midwife in Arkansas, but is still practicing (legally) in Texas and Oklahoma.  https://www.facebook.com/AMB-Midwifery-155580851151697/

Jill passed the academic test, but the practical hours she had served under Giron were wiped out.  She would have to redo all those hours with another midwife to be eligible for a permit herself.  She doesn't seem to have tried.

[Oh_Dear!]

4 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

Jill passed the academic test, but the practical hours she had served under Giron were wiped out.  She would have to redo all those hours with another midwife to be eligible for a permit herself.  She doesn't seem to have tried.

Did Jill do all of her hours under Vanessa? How many hours would she have to redo? Are the hours the only think that’s holding her back from getting her liscence?

[Palimpsest]

4 minutes ago, Oh_Dear! said:

Did Jill do all of her hours under Vanessa? How many hours would she have to redo? Are the hours the only think that’s holding her back from getting her liscence?

1.  I really don't know but I think so.  Poor Jill really got screwed when Venessa messed up and lost her license.

2.  It is not so much "hours" than it is experience for apprentice lay midwives: 

Quote

a. The applicant must attend a minimum of 20 births as an active participant. b. Functioning in the role of primary Lay Midwife under direct on site supervision, the applicant must attend a minimum of an additional 20 births, of these: a. A minimum of 10 must occur in an out-of-hospital setting and b. A minimum of 3 must include at least 4 prenatal exams, birth attendance, the newborn exam, and 1 postpartum exam, each conducted personally by the applicant with direct supervision. c. 75 prenatal exams, including 20 initial exams d. 20 newborn exams e. 40 postpartum exams

https://www.healthy.arkansas.gov/programs-services/topics/licensed-lay-midwifery

3.  What is holding her back? Goodness knows.  She hasn't shown any signs of registering again as an apprentice midwife to re-do the practical experience.  Perhaps she isn't interested in getting properly licensed now she is married.  

[QuiverDance]

Goodness, if Jill really put her mind to it and found a group to train with, she could knock that out in three months, easily!  I don't understand why she wouldn't go for it. 

 

 

[Alicja]

1 hour ago, Thorns said:

Second - home births are reasonably safe, IF properly and vigilantly attended to in a selected population with the proper safeguards in place.  The problem is, I'm not sure that Vanessa and Jill even know what those words mean, and even less sure that they know how to achieve it. I've attended plenty births where everything seemed perfectly fine, and then suddenly things aren't fine anymore. A lot of times the problems are more or less easily fixed ("the baby just needed a little help to get started/get out") IF you know what you are doing and prepared for it to happen. On the flip side, some problems are VERY insidous, and you need to know of them to catch them early on. I truly hope Jill and Vanessa have aquired the skills and judgements neccessary to reflect on this. 

Home births can be safe, the issue is that CPMs are woefully under-qualified in the US. Nurse midwives in the US are university educated and highly qualified, however very few attend home births. If you want a home birth, you'll need a CPM. You don't need a college education to be a CPM at all, just high school diploma, a few courses and then an apprenticeship attending births. CPMs are also allowed to attend high-risk births (i.e twins, breech, other complications). Homebirth also isn't integrated into the maternal healthcare system, which makes all of this even more difficult.

Overall, CPMs are under-qualified and under-regulated. If the US had a similar midwifery system to say, Canada or UK, Venessa wouldn't be practicing now, and Jill would either be university educated or she would have chosen to be a doula instead.

In general, America's maternal and child health system is terrible. Our maternal and infant mortality rates are sky-high, the highest in the developed world.

[Ivycoveredtower]

5 minutes ago, QuiverDance said:

Goodness, if Jill really put her mind to it and found a group to train with, she could knock that out in three months, easily!  I don't understand why she wouldn't go for it. 

 

 

I believe she'd also have to retake her test IIRC it's a yearly test and she hasn't mentioned ever redoing it. I also think there is another test she has to take also. 

[VelociRapture]

54 minutes ago, Oh_Dear! said:

Sorry but I missed it somewhere...  what happened with the Vanessa lady to lose her liscence?  And I thought that Jill had some sort of certificate. Did she lose that?  

I haven’t been following these guys too closely because they seem to have gone off the deep end. I can only manage a few people going off the deep end at a time, and Trump has been taking that stop tenfold. 

Jill (and Jana) lost her apprenticeship permit when Venessa had her Arkansas license revoked following the botched birth mentioned above. It’s likely she’d have to start over on the assisting at births requirement because it’s likely that those births she already had were under Venessa’s supervision. Venessa definitely screwed Jill over, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing given the circumstances. If Jill were smart she’d find a new mentor and work on finishing up her Arkansas licensure requirements. But it’s Jill and she was raised to avoid critical thinking, so instead we see her continuing to worship at the altar of Venessa. 

During one of their frequent trips home from SCA in 2015, Jill passed an exam for NARM (North American Registry of Midwives.) It might possibly allow her to attend births in some places, but not in Arkansas because she hasn’t passed the state licensure requirements.

40 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

Venessa Giron lost her licence to practice as a midwife in Arkansas, but is still practicing (legally) in Texas and Oklahoma.  https://www.facebook.com/AMB-Midwifery-155580851151697/

Jill passed the academic test, but the practical hours she had served under Giron were wiped out.  She would have to redo all those hours with another midwife to be eligible for a permit herself.  She doesn't seem to have tried.

I thought I read that Venessa couldn’t practice in Texas either.

 

[Palimpsest]

2 hours ago, Thorns said:

First, I'm curious - what exactly happened during the birth that went so wrong?

IIRC, Venessa was specifically found negligent for failing to test the mother for group b strep. The baby later developed group b strep, survived, but has CP.

The strep test aside, the AR regulations require midwives to work under the supervision of a physician and Venessa seemed not to be doing that consistently, as in this case. 

11 minutes ago, VelociRapture said:

I thought I read that Venessa couldn’t practice in Texas either.

She's still listed as a registered midwife in TX:  https://npidb.org/doctors/other_service/midwife_176b00000x/1356514137.aspx 

[VelociRapture]

5 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

IIRC, Venessa was specifically found negligent for failing to test the mother for group b strep. The baby later developed group b strep, survived, but has CP.

The strep test aside, the AR regulations require midwives to work under the supervision of a physician and Venessa seemed not to be doing that consistently, as in this case. 

She's still listed as a registered midwife in TX:  https://npidb.org/doctors/other_service/midwife_176b00000x/1356514137.aspx 

The article I read had to have been wrong then. They probably put Texas instead of Arkansas. I really don’t think Venessa should be practicing anywhere though. That woman is another disaster waiting to happen. 

[Palimpsest]

5 minutes ago, VelociRapture said:

I really don’t think Venessa should be practicing anywhere though. That woman is another disaster waiting to happen. 

Agreed.  You follow all this much more closely than I do, but isn't it suspected (but not proven) that Venessa was involved in Jill's botched attempts at home birth too.  The Duggars and Venessas of this world are scoff-laws in so many ways I wouldn't be at all surprised if she were practicing without a license in AR.

[VelociRapture]

1 minute ago, Palimpsest said:

Agreed.  You follow all this much more closely than I do, but isn't it suspected (but not proven) that Venessa was involved in Jill's botched attempts at home birth too.  The Duggars and Venessas of this world are scoff-laws in so many ways I wouldn't be at all surprised if she were practicing without a license in AR.

I honestly don’t know if she really was involved or not. I think some people suspected she was, but I don’t think any sort of proof has ever surfaced. Venessa released a statement soon after Jessa’s first birth in which she denied being involved in Spurgeon’s birth and said that both Jill and Jessa made choices she didn't agree with... however, she said nothing about not being involved with Israel’s birth.

http://www.duggarfamilyblog.com/2015/11/statement-from-arkansas-midwife.html?m=1

[Carm_88]

1 hour ago, VelociRapture said:

I honestly don’t know if she really was involved or not. I think some people suspected she was, but I don’t think any sort of proof has ever surfaced. Venessa released a statement soon after Jessa’s first birth in which she denied being involved in Spurgeon’s birth and said that both Jill and Jessa made choices she didn't agree with... however, she said nothing about not being involved with Israel’s birth.

Kinda the pot calling the kettle black isn't it? Venessa isn't exactly a safety ambassador. I would consider using her as a midwife, unsafe and a choice that most medical professionals would not agree with.  

[VelociRapture]

4 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

I honestly don’t know if she really was involved or not. I think some people suspected she was, but I don’t think any sort of proof has ever surfaced. Venessa released a statement soon after Jessa’s first birth in which she denied being involved in Spurgeon’s birth and said that both Jill and Jessa made choices she didn't agree with... however, she said nothing about not being involved with Israel’s birth.

http://www.duggarfamilyblog.com/2015/11/statement-from-arkansas-midwife.html?m=1

Quoting myself:

I watched one of those preview videos TLC had made for the Jill’s Special Delivery episode. We already knew that her friend Rachel Tuuk (who studied Midwifery with her and just got married) was there, but I think the other dark haired women shown with them is Debbie Query. A bad screenshot from the video showing who I believe was the attending Midwife (dark hair in dark clothes):

And a photo of Debbie Query:

Spoiler

I know there was a lot of uncertainty because of how badly edited the actual episode was. It’d honestly make a ton of sense if Debbie had been there considering Jill was shown going to an appointment with her during her pregnancy. 

Based off everything I’ve read, it sounds like Jill’s water broke and she had contractions sometime between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. The plan was to labor for a while, then call the birth team - they ended up calling them earlier than anticipated because the contractions were so intense. Birth team (Michelle, Jana, Rachel, and possibly Debbie) arrives - Michelle, Jana, and Rachel are shown driving over at the 20 hour mark. According to the preview, Jill labors at home for about 48 hours before the meconium sends her to the hospital. She then apparently labors even longer at the hospital before the Doctors conclude a c-section needs to happen due to the baby’s position and the length of labor.

ETA: Rachel’s maiden name is Goad. I’m pretty sure she’s originally from Texas and possibly met Jill through the distance learning program she did - I think that was based in Texas. 

[SassyPants]

7 hours ago, Cleopatra7 said:

The version of fundamentalism that the Duggars follow is built on the supposition that the only way you can have an ideal family with children who don’t rebel is for the parents to have no outside life beyond being managers of the home. This means that the husband can’t have a conventional 9-5 job, not just because that might involve socilizalizing with non-Gothardites, but also because it would mean not being at home to micromanage his family. Most adults can’t handle this kind of pressure cooker environment, which is why so many families have ditched ATI, leaving the true believers like the Duggars and the Bateses. At the same time, JB and Michelle have clearly been checked out of the aspects of day to day parenting for some time, having outsourced those responsibilities to the older kids. Given these dubious role models, I suppose Jill dreams of they day when she too can outsource parenting to her older children, although who know how many she’ll eventually have. Regardless, it’s obvious that neither Derrick or Jill the job type people and expect others to find their “godly” lifestyle.

The Duggars and Bates true believes????

IMO, selling your marriage and family's private moments and anonymity to the public in exchange for easy money is far worse than going to work every day and having to interact with co-workers.

Such bullshit.

[patsymae]

5 hours ago, Ivycoveredtower said:

I believe she'd also have to retake her test IIRC it's a yearly test and she hasn't mentioned ever redoing it. I also think there is another test she has to take also. 

I can't imagine that would even occur to her. As others have pointed out, even though Jill did do some work to achieve her certification or whatever it is, which is to her credit, she has no frame of reference for working hard to overcome setbacks--somebody gets in your way, they're persecuting you. They don't accept "outsiders'" standards--that's why Jana is a concert pianist and Josh was a graphic designer after putting something together with Word fonts. Her family, and then she and her fuckwad husband, considered themselves missionaries even after their own organization told them they weren't qualified, and they still think that handing out tracts and lecturing people about Jesus makes them qualified missionaries. There's a name for the syndrome--i'm too lazy to look it up--that the less qualified you are at something, the higher you rate yourself, because you lack the critical thinking skills to measure your own performance. That's Jillymuffin in a nutshell.
It also makes me wonder about Dickhead and his own "education"--Pistol Pete is no John Kennedy, but maybe because of his family he went to school as a legacy and got by on Gentleman's Cs? That might explain how he managed to get a real degree in a rigorous field yet not be able to, or interested in, or even think of it as a possibility, to do supervised work for a sustained period of time in order to achieve a goal.

OK, i'm rambling.

[Season of life...]

Jill said Samuel napped during the main event, which is convenient, but babies are known for following their own agendas. I understand that there were probably enough people to see to Sam's needs, but what if he cried inconsolably? Isn't one of the reasons some women prefer a home delivery is it's more peaceful than the hospital? I wouldn't be able to concentrate on what I had to do if there was a screaming baby in the next room. I just think it's inconsiderate for Jill to bring her child with her. Her job is to focus on the laboring mother, and if she has to keep half an ear out for her own kid, her focus can't be 100%. She could take Sam out of the house, but then she isn't able to support the mother. Also, and this is just my opinion, but if Sam isn't vaccinated I wouldn't want him within shouting distance of my newborn. I have no idea if the Dillards vaccinate or not.

I'm glad she is pursuing something she loves, but being a midwife is not a hobby. She should understand that ongoing education is a part of the responsibility she takes on when lives are placed in her questionably capable hands. 

[patsymae]

 

Quote

"I'm glad she is pursuing something she loves, but being a midwife is not a hobby. She should understand that ongoing education is a part of the responsibility she takes on when lives are placed in her questionably capable hands."

 

This. But I would be amazed if any Duggar, with the possible exception of John David (the pilot, right, who has to at least show up and land on time and follow flight plans, although I'm sure he can pick and choose what flights to undertake) understands that difference. I think you really hit the nail on the head