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Tuesday Tidbits: Mothers and Work

Apr16
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One of the best pictures I have of the “mothering” while “personing” experience!

“I’m winging it every day, praying, surrendering, steeping myself in grace by any means necessary. I grapple with finding my own integrity, to trust the path that I have chosen, to believe that I am mothering well, that I can claim for myself a belief in my own goodness.” – Elizabeth at Mothering with Soul

“Giving birth to a new life is about so much more than just the moment itself. The power of finding your strength as a woman through birth resonates for the rest of your life. It shapes you as a person, and as a parent.” ~ Gina Sewell

I want to say first that I believe, as the organization Mothers and More does, that all work that women do, whether paid or unpaid has social,  political, and economic value. In my own life I don’t distinguish between what I do for money and what I do as a volunteer, but that is partially a function of privilege, because I love all of my work and choose freely to do it. I recently finished reading the book The Art of Family and in it the author makes a point that I’ve made in various posts as well, mothers have always “worked,” it does no good to try to distinguish between “working mothers” and “stay-at-home mothers,” because the difference is much more fluid and alive than a category can hold.

FOUNDATIONAL TO A LASTING FAMILY is acknowledging that we will be many things to each other for our whole lives, even past death. We can abandon the old fears that family life will smother us and instead go after fully practicing ourselves in the presence of partner and children. In short, making a family is the best way to present ourselves, to stake our claim to a spot on earth. But “practicing ourselves’’ in front of our family, what does that mean? To give the essence of ourselves to our children is not necessarily dependent on the amount of time you spend with your children. Here, we must recast the debate over moms who work and those who stay at home with children. This is one of those divisions that turn up damned if you do, damned if you don’t, because it is a false one from the start. First, mothers have always been “at work,’’ whether farming, spinning, pioneering, running cottage industries, or investment banking. In history, women have always, of necessity, worked for the welfare of their families, some even forced to leave their children behind to find ways to sustain them. Imagine that pain, next time you come home late from the office.

The real issue with at-home moms and working moms is the struggle for identity. Having children is the most identity-challenging and identity-changing thing women do—starting with pregnancy, when even your body gets an identity change. That should be our first big clue. But we are terrified to face it. Who wants to watch your identity evaporate, which is what having children often feels like? Identity isn’t about societal roles, either, though the ones we get stuck with can be more burden than help to us. In fact, if we allow societal roles to determine our identity, we are not really in control, we are accepting a series of masks. We have to ask ourselves the hard questions: Who would I be without this job, without this kid, without this income, without this education?—getting at the core of who we are. This is a work we must do solely on our own, and it is excruciating work. But no human gets out of it, not even mothers. Babies make you ask, “Well, who am I now?’’ Though it is currently hot in intellectual theory to say we are nothing but social and cultural constructions, this is not a spiritual truth. Identity is something you build relationship by relationship, not role by role. Families, especially at the young-children stage, are not the pause button pressed down on who you are and what you want to pursue. Yes, we may have to put off finishing that degree, taking the promotion that requires weekly travel, writing that screenplay, or finally learning French, but those things weren’t going to make you you anyway. Your relationships make you who you are, because they give you a chance to actually manifest yourself, which is what you really believe in. We fill up what we do with who we are. What we do can never fill us up.

Gina Bria (2011-11-28). The Art of Family : Rituals, Imagination, and Everyday Spirituality (pp. 8-9). iUniverse. Kindle Edition.

This notion is also explored in an article I enjoyed from Mothering:

“…Women a few hundred years ago worked their butts off every day helping their family survive. They planted and harvested, killed and prepared their own food. The children either watched younger children, played (often unsupervised) or worked right along side them. Women who had to work outside of their home had other people or family members care for their children while they cared for others. The wealthiest women probably had other paid servants care for their children much of the time. Children played with other children. Children worked. Children solved some of their own problems and they found things to do…”

–The Benefits of Ignoring Children (Sometimes) – Mothering Community

Personally, I refer to this as “grinding my corn”:

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Grinding my corn sculpture from several years ago.

I want to be with my children, but I wish to be engaged in my own pursuits at the same time. When our lives feel happiest and most harmonious is when exactly this is occurring—when we are all together, but each working on our own projects and “doing our own thing.” I envision a life of seamless integration, where there need not even be a notion of “life/work” balance, because it is all just life and living. A life in which children are welcome in workplaces and in which work can be accomplished while in childspaces. A life in which I can grind my corn with my children nearby and not feel I need apologize for doing so or explain myself to anyone…

–I just want to grind my corn!

Returning to the issues of identity raised in the quotes from The Art of Family, the question is explored beautifully in the article Beautiful Catastrophe: The Death and Rebirth of Becoming a Mother:

You were twenty, twenty-three, thirty, thirty-five. You were free and young and somebody else.

We were free and young and somebody else.

But now, we’re mothers.

At some point the reality will hit us: We are never alone again, no matter where we are, and we are the only ones in the world who have become this person toward this child.

…

I’ve been the same woman my whole life. What about her? Where is she? Is she just dead?

Yes, she is just dead.

Does that seem harsh? Well, it is. So is motherhood.

Perhaps we can soften this whole thing by saying our identities are “transformed,” or we are “forever changed,” but the fact of the matter is that the woman you once were is gone, and she will never come back.

Period.

I also recently finished reading the anthology The Maternal is Political and in it Jennifer Margulis (later birth writer of the new book Business of Baby) says:

Jame’s working full time and my staying home wasn’t working. My working full-time and James’s staying home hadn’t worked either. We both wanted to be with our children. And we both wanted to work (something I was only able to admit once I tried being a full-time mom). But neither of us wanted to do one or the other exclusively.

–Jennifer Margulis April 2013 002

This is what we are working towards for my husband and me, hopefully this year. I think we both deserve to be home with the kids, I think we both also have other work that is valuable to pursue. I envision a life of seamless integration of our various roles and passions–all of us. We have a family mantra: “our family works in harmony to meet each member’s needs.” :)

“Is there one single aspect of motherhood that isn’t political? From conception to graduation, from your kid’s first apartment until you die, it is basically one political decision after another…” –Rebecca Walker

Also in The Maternal is Political, Beth Osnes writes about Performing Mother Activism (she has a one woman show) and I love her analogy of care being like a loaf of bread…

I go on with scenes that tackle the onslaught of societal expectations and repressive forces that creep into a woman’s life once she becomes a mother: “it happens one day. You find a large parcel on your front porch. You open it to find the status quo being delivered to you…well, actually, the status quo manual…” I go on with scenes that lambaste the fearmongering that goes on in our government and media: “The status quo wants you to dumb down, mother. It will tell you who to trust and who to fear.” I remind mothers that we must think for ourselves: “I say rage, mother. Do not go gently into that good night. Rage, rage, against the dying of your light.”

I have also stopped expecting that caring needs to be a whole and perfect project, like an unsliced loaf of homemade bread. I am April 2013 009coming to accept that, at least for me, caring about the world is more fragmented, much more like a store-bought loaf that splays open as soon as you open the bag. Here’s a slice of caring about antipoverty legislation, here’s one of caring for my three-year-old with the flue, here’s a slice of caring for victims of our country’s warring and, whoops, here’s even a slice of caring about my curtains. I have stopped imagining that caring is pure and unselfish; many people, including me, fashion their identities out of caring, whether for kids or for the world. Still: Bread is bread, and caring is caring. Whole or broken. Homemade or purchased. Consumed or given away.

I’m also learning that social movements will go on, even if nursing mothers or parents of toddlers have to drop out for a while. We will be back,someday, maybe when the youngest turns two or whenever we can again afford to dream like activists, rather than work like dogs. We may be more distracted than before, less available…But when we return, we will give a break to someone else who needs it—like those erstwhile college students who may be finding that carting babies to marches is harder than they anticipated.

And when we do rejoin the movement, it is possible that we will agitate and march and advocate from a deeper place within ourselves than we had known existed. It is possible that we will act from that cavity our children have hollowed out of us, that place where breath begins.

–Valerie Weaver-Zercher

And, as a lovely closing tribute to all women and all their work, remember this…

Mothers — you are powerful. Stand tall. You are full of grace. Stand tall. Join together and stand tall. Be as a Redwood tree. Stand April 2013 028tall. If you have stood next to a Redwood tree or seen photos of one, you will notice that they do not grow alone. They grow in groves with all of the trees connected together, even if they appear to be separate. Their shallow roots form a web that holds these big trees up in the wind. Redwoods do not fall very often. We can emulate those trees, mothers. We can hold each other up.

We may feel alone at times, but believe me and remember: You are being supported underneath the surface of where you live. Right beside you there is somebody thinking about you and supporting you whether you know it or not. Think of all the mothering that goes on in life. I have found in my life that it comes sometimes when you do not expect it and from someone you do not realize has your back. Someone in your root system seems to know that you need something. Women have a natural mothering instinct if they just listen to it.

–Stand Tall

Other past posts about mothering and working:

The tensions and triumphs of work at home mothering

Guest post: working/parenting interview

The Ragged Self

Surrender?

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Women of Color Can Push for Better Outcomes: What Every Mother-to-Be Should Know About Birth

Mar31

Guest post by Tara Owens-ShulerImage

As an African American Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, I have observed over my 18 years of teaching that childbirth education class participants are less likely to be women of color. My desire for more women of color to attend childbirth education classes is rooted deeper than just their presence in a classroom – it is rooted in my desire for more women of color to understand the disparities that exist in maternal and birth outcomes.

In a recent Science and Sensibility blog post by Christine Morton on maternal health disparities, she reviewed the work of several well-known public health researchers – Dr. Eugene Declercq, Dr. Mary Barger and Dr. Judith Weiss. Their findings point to the fact that African American women have higher rates of cesarean births at nearly every age group and across every level of education.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that one of every five non-Hispanic,black births are pre-term, African American mothers experience an infant mortality rate twice that of non-Hispanic, white mothers, and breastfeeding rates among African American mothers are 16 percent lower than white mothers.

Given the disparities that exist in maternal and birth outcomes for women of color, I think April as Minority Health Awareness Month is a great opportunity to talk about a few other factors that minority moms or mothers-to-be can control or influence. It’s a hard reality that mothers face real challenges in getting the childbirth care they want and deserve. Even though medical evidence may tell us certain practices are good for mothers and babies, the “system” is not always geared to deliver that care. Health care providers are rushed, spread thin, or incentivized for practices that are not most beneficial to the mother.

Let’s go back to the fact that African American women have higher rates of cesarean births than non-Hispanic,white women. Is it because African American women are sicker and need to have a cesarean birth? Researchers report that this is untrue. They conclude that higher rates of cesarean births among African American women are a result of a shift in obstetric practices to focus more heavily on use of childbirth interventions. And, when we bring in an induction to the equation, there is a correlation between the increased rates of induction to the increased rates of cesarean births!

Research shows that babies pay a steep price for these early births caused by inductions or a failed induction, which led to a cesarean. Babies have greater difficulties breathing, breastfeeding, and maintaining their temperature, which usually means being separated from moms and spending time in the Intensive Care Unit. While an increasing number of hospitals and health care professionals are shying away from unnecessary cesarean birth and induction, it’s one of many care practices that just aren’t supported by good medical evidence.

So how can women of color push for better care?

  • Become an active partner with your care provider. While doctors or midwives have professional knowledge and skills, they may not know everything about your personal background and preferences. Finding a provider who will also act as your partner can help you push for the care that’s best for you and your baby.
  • Ask questions – lots of them! Labor and birth in particular can be unpredictable. That’s why it’s a smart idea to prepare a list of rolling questions throughout your pregnancy to help you determine if the right care is being recommended during labor, birth and after birth.
  • Do your research. Understand your available care options before, during and after labor at the hospital or birth center. If you know that during labor you’d like the ability to walk around, eat and drink – choose a birth facility that will be more aligned with your birth preferences or wishes.
  • Participate in a childbirth education class. Taking a Lamaze class will help you understand maternity care best practices and be better prepared to navigate your labor and birth. A childbirth educator will help you identify the right questions to ask when making decisions about your care.

I encourage all women – particularly African American women – to learn more about getting the right care in pregnancy and childbirth by attending a childbirth education class. Skipping out on childbirth education is a lost opportunity to stack the deck in your favor and become a well-informed consumer of evidence-based practices! As a consumer, it is your right to be a partner in your health care decisions.

–

Tara Owens Shuler, MEd, LCCE, FACCE is the president of Lamaze International. She has practiced as a childbirth educator since 1995. In 2005, she became the Director of the Duke AHEC Lamaze Childbirth Educator Program. In addition to training individuals to become childbirth educators and preparing expectant women and their partners for a safe and healthy birth experience, Tara provides labor support services. Along with coordinating the Lamaze program in the Duke AHEC office, Tara works with her statewide AHEC partners in developing continuing education programs and/or resources for healthcare providers in North Carolina and assists with the Duke AHEC PATHWAYS Health Careers program for K-12 students. When not working, Tara and her husband enjoy playing with their dog, Gramps, and traveling.

Visit Lamaze International for great resources to help mothers and mothers-to-be learn their options.

The Revolving Wheel (Gift from the Sea)

Mar25

“With a new awareness, both painful and humorous, I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls–woman’s normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life. The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

Lindbergh’s notion of mother as the axis of the household wheel really resonated with me, as did her descriptions of being pulled off center and distracted by a million aspects of the “wheel” of life. Her comment that saints were rarely married women made me smile, because it makes me think of Wayne’s Dyer’s comments that gurus rarely have eight kids, because there is nothing like the experience of parenting to shake your sense of yourself as someone who has it all together, spiritually or otherwise. And, it makes me think about how after some reading about Zen philosophy, I decided that Buddhism and Zen were not for me, because attachment is at the core of a mothering life. I got super irritated with old Buddha and his remarks about being “non-attached” and I thought, “easy for you to say, Mr. Go Sit Under a Tree and Wait for Enlightenment while your wife stays home and takes care of your kid—I guess she was too unenlightened and ‘attached’ to let go.” Being a mother has taught me a lot about relationship as the ground of being and relatedness, not non-attachment, as the core of a rich human experience. As I described in a prior post:

I have learned a lot about the fundamental truth of relatedness through my own experiences as a mother. Relationship is our first and deepest urge. The infant’s first instinct is to connect with others. Before an infant can verbalize or mobilize, she reaches out a hand to her mother. I have seen this with my own babies. Mothering is a profoundly physical experience. The mother’s body is the baby’s “habitat” in pregnancy and for many months following birth. Through the mother’s body the baby learns to interpret and to relate to the rest of the world and it is to mother’s body that she returns for safety, nurturance, and peace. Birth and breastfeeding exist on a continuum as well, with mother’s chest becoming baby’s new “home” after having lived in her womb for nine months. These thoroughly embodied experiences of the act of giving life and in creating someone else’s life and relationship to the world are profoundly meaningful.

via Breastfeeding as a Spiritual Practice | Talk Birth.

Anyway, Lindbergh says:

…to be a woman is to have interests and duties raying out in all directions from the central mother-core, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. The pattern of our lives is essential circular. We must be open to all points of the compass; husband, children, friends, home, community; stretched out, exposed, sensitive like a spider’s web to each breeze that blows, to each call that comes…
How difficult for us, then, to achieve a balance in the midst of these contradictory tensions, and yet how necessary for the proper functioning of our lives. How much we need and how arduous of attainment is that steadiness preached in all rules for holy living…

She also acknowledges the essential, and yet often difficult to find, need for solitude to find stillness as the axis of the revolving wheel of life:

…Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves; that firm strand which will be the indispensible center of the whole web of human relationships. She must find that inner stillness which Charles Morgan describes as ‘the stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still…
This beautiful image is to my mind the one that women could hold before their eyes. This is an end toward which we could strive–to be the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations and activities…
… she must consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today. Quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering line of thought or reading, of study or work. It can be physical or intellectual or artistic, any creative life proceeding from oneself…
…It need not be an enormous project or great work. But it should be something of one’s own. Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day—like writing a poem, or saying a prayer. What matters most is that one be for a time inwardly attentive…
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh from Gift from the Sea

I recall feeling this way about my own mother—that she was the center of our family, the anchoring space, the core to return to.

Other thoughts from Lindbergh that I related to after finding them online when reading reviews of her book and stories about her life include:

“I cannot see what I have gone through until I write it down. I am blind without a pencil…I am convinced that you must write as if no one were ever going to see it. Write it all, as personally and specifically as you can, as deeply and honestly as you can. … In fact, I think it is the only true way to reach the universal, through the knot-hole of the personal. So do, do go ahead and write it as it boils up: the hot lava from the unconscious. Don’t stop to observe, criticize, or be ‘ironic.’ Just write it, like a letter, without rereading. Later, one can decide what to do.”

And that made me think about story and being a story woman and I also saved this quote (not from Lindbergh):

We constantly weave life events into narrative and interpret everything that happens through the veil of story. From our smallest, most personal challenges to global issues that affect nations and generations, we make the world fit into the story we are already carrying. This unceasing interplay between experience and narrative is a uniquely human attribute. We are the storytellers, the ones who put life into words. – Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher (via The Circle)

Here’s what’s been happening in my wheel lately and the stories I’ve been weaving (Zander featured heavily the last time I wrote a primarily personal update post. This one has more moments from Lann):

How funny that we had to wait for spring before being able to actually make a snowman this year! (*note bat posed for imminent destruction too!)

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Last week, Lann had his first test (yellow stripe) in taekwondo. He did a good job!

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Future plans involve moving on from cardboard armor, to real movie stuff…

In the car on the way home from a different class, Lann was planning his birthday party (Sept). He wants to learn how to make silicone movie masks. He said: “I’ll do the sculpting and art part, you do the reading and talking about it part, Dad can do the sitting around with his mouth open part, Zander can do the running around and squealing part, and Alaina can do the napping.” I said: “does Dad really only sit around with his mouth open?!” And Lann said, “Mom, in AWE!” He also said they’re going to go to the Drury Inn and dress up in Lord the Rings costumes, “and, we’ll have to hang up a sign that says Nerdfest.”

That same week we were briefly discussing the massive scale of the universe and the fact that the Earth is hanging around out there in space, spinning, and Lann said, “sometimes my brain hurts when thinking about a selection of topics.” ;) And, that reminded me of a long ago Lann story when he was about four. We were doing the whole, “I love you as big as the sky” type of thing, and I said, “I love you as much as the universe–and guess what, the universe has no end, it keeps getting bigger, and goes on forever!” And Lann said, “oh mom, that’s so beautiful I don’t know what to say.”

The week before, Lann hitched a ride to taekwondo with Baba and since I was on break from class, I was home with Zander and Alaina (usually they go grocery shopping with Mark while I’m in class). Zander came running in to get my iphone so he could take a movie of something and I heard him their room taking a movie and narrating to Lann as he does so, so that he can give him the movies when he gets home and catch him up on what Z’s been up to while they’re separated! Good buddies!

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Heartbreak of tooth decay sculpture from fall of last year–mama covers head, not wanting to know and yet holding both baby and the extracted teeth. At her heart is a jewel, because she acts with deep love.

We’re dealing with ongoing dental issues with Alaina. Despite our heroic efforts, she’s ended up with the most severe problems of any of our children. Last week I took her to the local pediatric dentist. He was really nice and informative and Alaina did really great with him. However, she needs a LOT of work, more than I thought, and it is going to be really expensive. She needs the crowns she already has replaced because they were not fitted correctly by the first dentist and there is decay around/behind them, plus she needs four other crowns and also two regular fillings. :*(

We’re definitely going to have to go through the general anesthesia route. The local pediatric dentist only does this work in the hospital and we got the estimate from the surgery center for the hospital portion only and it was $8900. Our insurance will cover part of it (we’ll still have to cover about $4500), but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that that is absurd. What a broken system. Taking your kid to the hospital for two hours to get their teeth worked on just should NOT cost $9000, no matter who pays for it, that is patently ridiculous. So, I’m going ahead with the consultation I made for her in Springfield on Wednesday. I called in advance to double-check and they do their oral surgery work in an outpatient surgery center rather than in a hospital and their estimate for the clinic part is $2000, total. That is more like it and is worth the two-hour drive (one way). I wish I hadn’t bothered taking her locally, because now we just have to do the exact same thing on Wednesday and then still go back. She has to have a physical first, before she can have anesthesia, so I also made an appointment for her first-ever visit to the doctor. What I really, really wish is that I’d just taken her to Springfield in the first place, last year, when we first started to get her teeth taken care of. I am so angry with the dentist we took her to in St. Louis. I was happy with the same office for Lann (different dentist, 8 years ago), but I have HATED everything that happened there with Alaina and I wish I’d never taken her there. I feel like they actually caused the problems she has now by not acting to treat the teeth I first brought her in about and then doing an absolutely CRAPPY job on everything they did after that. I don’t actually feel like I really have energy to really be angry though, my primary feeling is sadness and anxiety about what is to come.

In a cuter Alaina story, I made myself a little sculpture to use as a pendant, but Alaina appropriated it. When I finally put it on her, she said…”dooool.” I said, “did you just say ‘cool’!?” And she said, yes!

She also “knits” and likes tiny dogs…

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We get a lot of use out of the Ergo still too!

And, I guess our kids should be in a band:

Alaina sings!

Zander drums!

Lann drums too!

We went to my sister’s house a couple of weeks ago and the kids immediately took to my brother-in-law’s drums. Neither had ever drummed before and Zander really rocked it! Alaina singing was a moment I captured last week when I was printing invoices and she was sitting behind me putting on a show.

In my own news, I finally renewed my ICEA childbirth educator certification after dawdling on it for a long time, but I let my CAPPA certification lapse. It was a hard decision, but made the most sense. I’ve been moving on from birth education for quite some time, and continuing to shell out money for something I’m not using often doesn’t make a lot of sense.

My new classes begin today! After the hectic disequilibrium that comes with the final week of a school session, the following week feels a lot like coming home from being out-of-town—excited to see your familiar life, yet also slightly panicky about needing to “catch up.” Plus, there is so much to be unpacked…and then, BOOM, two weeks off is SHORT. My online class is full and my two in-seat classes have 12 students each. There was a lot of prep to do get ready for them–I always forget that these “breaks” aren’t about having a vacation, they are about preparing for next session.

I’m not sure how good I do about being the “axis,” but my wheel is a pretty fulfilling one :)

Women’s (Birth) History Month

Mar18

…we  need to grasp an honest understanding of birthing history – one that tells HERstory not HIStory.  Because birth is about Women.  It is a woman’s story. And we need to also understand why and how this herstory compels women to make the choices they make surrounding birth in the present day.

People become the product of the culture that feeds them.

It takes an immense amount of work to deconstruct cultural lies. Especially ones as insidious as the ones that we, as birthing women, have been fed for more than a century. We need to stop blaming women for their place in this System. Women are victims and by-products (not accomplices) of medicalized birth.

via That Joke Never Gets Old. Or Good

March 2013 039In honor of Women’s History Month, I’ve been considering the women in (recent) history who have changed the climate surrounding pregnancy and birth. While I’m sure Ina May Gaskin’s name would probably spring to the lips of most birth activists considering the theme, I felt like taking a quick look at the many other classic authors who have had a profound influence on my own ideas about birth. This thought, coupled with the fact that for some time I’ve wanted to write a post about “older birth books” that are still excellent reads today, has brought me to the present moment: a list of my favorite “old” birth books and the lovely women who wrote them. When I first started out in birthwork, I wanted to read “new” stuff—stuff that was “up to date” and “current.” After I read almost all of the “new” books, I started to cast my eye around for more and guess what I discovered? No surprise to many of you, but many of those “out of date” books with the retro-looking covers are still just as good and just as relevant as they were 20-30 years ago. Since medical information and science/evidence changes fairly rapidly and a pregnancy and childbirth 101 type book from 30 years IS more often than not completely inappropriate today, I had made the mistake of thinking ALL “old” birth books would be similarly irrelevant. Instead, many have a power and passion that is not easy to come by in any decade and that rouses the activism spirit, or stirs the heart, or challenges the psyche just as effectively today. Here are some of my recommendations (and of course, Spiritual Midwifery remains a good choice too, I just want to add some less usual recommendations!):

  • Transformation through Birth by Claudia Panuthos (also known for writing another great resource: Ended Beginnings: Healing Childbearing Losses). Written in 1984, this book “goes beyond” the scope of traditional birth books and really gets into some deep topics and insightful ideas. Previously written about here.
  • Special Delivery by Rahima Baldwin (another good, less well-known one from her is Pregnant Feelings, explored in depth in this post). Revised in 1986, this book is one of my favorite homebirth resource books. Though some segments are in fact, “outdated,” I still find this to be one of the very best (“old” or new!) resource books for women planning to give birth at home.
  • Open Season by Nancy Wainer (Cohen) in 1991 (how can 1991 be called “old”? Well, it is over 20 years ago and considering that many women giving birth today were born after that date, it IS old!). Nancy has a lot of FIRE and I love it. Some people have been known to call her “angry” or “bitter.” I call her…amazing. Her writing lights you up and calls you to action. She has incredible passion, fire, brightness, drive, and enthusiasm. One of her articles in Midwifery Today that is available online is also well worth the read: VBAC and Choice. And, I use some of her quotes in this post.
  • Birth Book by Raven Lang. This is the original counterculture birth book written in 1972 at the launch of what would become the modern movement to return birth to the hands of women.
  • Childbirth with Insight written in 1983 by Elizabeth Noble, is another one of the birth books that I say “goes beyond.” As a childbirth education, I especially benefited from her exploration of some of the failings of traditional approaches to childbirth education.
  • Lots of older books from Sheila Kitzinger are very good also. I particularly enjoy The Experience of Childbirth and Giving Birth: How it Really Feels.
  • My last recommendation for the moment is Mothering the New Mother by Sally Placksin (revised in 2000, which again sounds reasonably recent, but in reality is thirteen years ago–how is that possible?). It is classic must-read for doulas as well as any other birth companions. It is wonderful and I wish I would have read it before my own first child was born.

There are many more excellent books out there, both modern and “herstorical,” but I’ll leave you with these treasures for now. I’m grateful for each of these birth activists whose words and spirits helped deepen and refine my own passion for birth.

“I long to speak out the intense inspiration that comes to me from the lives of strong women.” –Ruth Benedict

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(Adapted from a post originally made at CfM several years ago.)

Book list: Preparing Children for Homebirth

Mar16

MR_024I’m on a book list kick apparently! The theme of our spring issue of the Friends of Missouri Midwives newsletter was Siblings. Happily, I got a lot of great content for this issue without having to write everything myself (sometimes I prepare issues that should be called “The Molly Issue”). Other than the letter from the editor, the only piece I contributed this time around was a short list of homebirth resources for children. If you have other good resources to add, I’ll gladly accept your contributions and update the list accordingly.

Here’s my list:

(Amazon affiliate link included)

  • Runa’s Birth by Uwe Spillmann and Inga Kamieth– my all-time favorite children’s homebirth book. The illustrations in this book are amazing; I love the tiny details like little shells/rocks on the windowsill and phone messages on the bulletin board.
  • Welcome with Love by Jenni Overend and Julie Vivas (also published as Hello Baby). It has nice, softly drawn pictures that glow with excitement and I really enjoy reading it to my kids.
  • Birth Day DVD by Naoli Vinaver—this one is great because the whole family is involved and older brothers join mom in the birth pool.
  • We’re Having a Homebirth by Kelly Mochel. This book is inexpensive, cute, and informative.
  • Being Born: The Doula’s Role by Jewel Hernandez and R. Michael Mithuna–really nice, detailed illustrations. Focus is on doulas and their job and the wide range of settings in which mothers give birth.
  • Mama Midwife: A Birth Adventure by Christa Tyner— this new children’s book about homebirth and midwifery is available to read for free online. It is cute, though kind of trippy. (I would have preferred it to be just people though, rather than a somewhat incongruous collection of animals.) LOVE the “birth song” at the end.
  • My Mommy’s Midwife by Trish Payne CNM—this one has children’s drawings as the illustrations. It isn’t about homebirth, but instead explains the role of the midwife and that she might come to a birth center, a hospital, or a home birth.

Books that I’ve not read, but would like to check out include:

  • Our Water Baby by Amy Maclean and Jan Nesbitt (water birth specific)
  • Mama, Talk About When Max Was Born by Toni Olson (home waterbirth)
  • Mama, Talk About Our New Baby by Toni Olson (companion book to the above about integrating new baby into the home)

MR_034

Birth Regrets?

Mar8

March 2013 034“I usually talk in my classes about how ‘this’ is the only chance you’re going to get to birth this baby. Sure you may go on to have other babies, but you only get *THIS* chance to birth *THIS* baby. I also share with moms that because of this fact, the significance of this birth is infinitely greater than the significance of this birth is to your nurse, OB, midwife, etc.” – Louise Delaney

As I was writing my post last week about “bragging rights” in birth, I was also considering the role of birth regret. I’ve come to realize that just as each woman has moments of triumph in birth, almost every woman, even those with the most blissful birth stories to share, have birth regrets of some kind of another. And, we may often look at subsequent births as an opportunity to “fix” whatever it was that went “wrong” with the birth that came before it. While it may seem to some that most mother swap “horror stories” more often than tales of exhilaration, I’ve noticed that those who are particularly passionate about birth, may withhold or hurry past their own birth regret moments, perhaps out of a desire not to tarnish the blissful birth image, a desire not to lose crunchy points, or a desire not to contribute to the climate of doubt already potently swirling around pregnant women. I’ve already acknowledged all of my own moments of birth regret, but never all in the same post…so, here they are…

First birth: This birth was great and very empowering, but I also learned a lot of things I’d like to do differently the next time. Maybe “regret” is too strong a word, but there were things I definitely knew I wanted to change for next time. I regretted feeling pushed into several things I wouldn’t have chosen on my own, such as giving birth in a semi-sitting position rather than on hands and knees. I wished I hadn’t had quite so many people around me at the birth and I wished I would have just stayed home, rather than driving to a birth center. I regretting not asking to squat after the placenta to help the “sequestered clots” come out and possibly avoid the manual extraction I experienced which was pretty awful (I swear my uterus actually twinges when writing/thinking about it). I regretted having a pitocin shot after the birth, because I still don’t think I actually needed it and it bothered me for a long time that I couldn’t figure out whether or not I’d really needed it. I was also pretty physically and emotionally traumatized by the labial/clitoral tearing I experienced and desperately wanted to fix that next time! Interestingly, most of these regrets were clearly connected to other people and to events in the immediate postpartum period, rather than anything to do with the labor or birth process itself.

Second birth: With this birth, I see very clearly how I deliberately made choices to “fix” the things that nagged at me from my first birth. I gave birth at home, I had very few people present, I gave birth on hands and knees. I was extremely distraught to tear again in the same unfortunate and traumatic way. I’d been totally convinced before the birth that it was all related to positioning and I could fix it, next time. I regretted getting up and showering, etc. so soon after the birth and I wished for more postpartum care (noticing a theme here…). I wished I hadn’t almost fainted several times and still recall the feeling of my head snapping back as I almost went under. That said, I felt the proudest and most exhilarated after this birth.

Third birth: Aside from the obvious of wishing my baby had been born alive, I “fixed” some things from prior births in that I stayed down after the birth to keep myself from fainting. I regretted drinking Emergen-C after the birth. I regretted not being better informed about coping physically with a miscarriage. And, I wished I’d been better able to assess blood loss. I also wished I’d had an attendant of some kind, particularly for immediate postpartum care. I still feel traumatized from the memory of what felt like extreme blood loss during this birth. This was the most physically demanding experience of my life. Not just my birth life, my whole life.

Fourth birth: My biggest regret from this birth was having tried to use a hypnosis for birth program while in labor. I feel as if there were some pre-birth benefits from using the program, but it was not a match for the way I labor and birth and I actually feel as if using it had a negative impact both on my ability to clearly remember and to focus my energy. I did still tear in the same place and in what seems like some new ways as well. I never want to tear like that again. I hate it. I’ve reached my physical and emotional limit with experiencing that type of tearing and I feel like I still have some negative lasting effects. I also think I had some nerve damage that continued until about six months ago. What I “fixed” this time was having a living baby and rediscovering that I could in fact do this and there was nothing wrong with me. I loved that I caught my own baby. (Best. Moment. Ever.) I also had the immediate postpartum care I’ve finally learned I really, really need. I consumed a small piece of placenta postpartum, I drank chlorophyll (and not vitamin C), when I went to the bathroom and did not look down, so I didn’t get all fainty and woozy from seeing the blood, and my doula encapsulated the placenta and I loved it.

It is interesting to me to look at these feelings and situations in the same place. With my last birth, I finally “fixed” the postpartum and blood loss issues that haunted me, but I created new things to fix by experimenting with hypnosis rather than the active birth, birth warrior, Birthing from Within type of experience that truly suits me. I guess I will never fix the tearing situation (I still want to write about that someday!). I also notice how impacted I was and still am by the two births that involved major blood loss. This came up for me very viscerally in reading the current Midwifery Today issue about hemorrhage. While the topic is important and the issue is really informative and useful, I actually had to put it down by page nine because my uterus was hurting/twinging so much (low back too). I really don’t think it was only my imagination either. (This is one reason my work with birth is never going to actually include becoming a midwife!)

I’m curious to know…do you have birth regrets? Or, things that you used subsequent births to fix, overcome, or cope with? Do you see any patterns to your birth experiences like I see in mine?

The other thing this exercise brought up for me is the important of preparing for the birth you want during this birth. This baby is only born once. This birth only happens once. I have clients tell me sometimes while still pregnant with their first baby, “well, next time, I’ll try XYZ…” Don’t wait for next time, do it this time!

The first birth is the pivotal birth. Every birth experience that follows builds on that one. Our choices now are choices for the NEXT birth. The first birth doesn’t have to be either perfect or awful and earth shattering to make us think. We don’t have to choose differently than the first birth; but it’s the first one that gives us a place to begin experiencing not just birth but ourselves as mothers, women, people. We may not all have ground shaking, earth thundering thoughts but we have them. The experience belongs to us. We choose what to do with it. Choosing to do nothing different is still an influenced choice ~ made on that experience…

…What will YOU do to have a first birth that leaves you with few regrets or changes for your NEXT birth? Why not have the birth of your choosing, rooted in truth and your ability to know yourself and your baby now?…

via The Home Birth Experience: The First Birth is HERstory | Real women. Real options. Real birth..

These types of triumphs and regrets produce both birth professionals dedicated to helping others and also mothers who become so hurt and disillusioned with birth that they may actively reject the “natural birth” movement.

March 2013 049

Book Review: Fathers at Birth

Feb24

(Amazon affiliate link included)

Fathers at Birth

by Rose St. John
Ringing Bell Press, 2009
Softcover, 255 pages
www.fathersatbirth.com

Reviewed by Molly, Talk Birth

Research has indicated that men at birth take on one of three roles: that of “coach” (20%), “teammate” (20%), or “witness” (60%). I’ve observed both in person and in birth films that this seems accurate. Many men seem to be likely to fall into an “observer” (witness) type of role during birth, instead of a more hands-on one. This can be disappointing to women, or to the men themselves, who pictured a more active role in the birthing process. Particularly in filmed births, I note the father of the baby sitting by a woman’s bedside and holding her hand, or patting her back at most.

Enter the book Fathers at Birth by Rose St. John. This book greatly expands the role of the father at birth to that of “mountain” and “warrior.” The mountain is strong, stable, calm, still, and supportive. The warrior is alert, responsive, focused, and protective of the birth space and laboring woman. He is there to serve.

In the opening chapter of the book, the author says, “If families are to remain strong, men and their roles as partners, husbands, protectors, and fathers cannot be considered dispensable or superfluous. both partners are diminished when the value of a man’s contribution is marginalized, minimized, or not acknowledged. When the man’s vital role during labor and birth is understood, both men and women are empowered.”

I greatly enjoyed reading a book that explores and expands the role of men at birth. In addition to serving as a helpful resource for men who wish to be active partners in the birth process, doulas will find helpful tips and tricks in the book, and childbirth educators will find language and ideas for reaching out to and better connecting with the men in their classes. It is a nice addition to any birth professional’s lending library.

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Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review purposes.

Review originally published at Citizens for Midwifery.

Multimedia Review: Pregnancy Health Yoga

Feb18

Pregnancy Health Yoga: Your Essential Guide for Bump, Birth and Beyond (Amazon affiliate link included)


Multimedia Review: Pregnancy Health Yoga (book/DVD set)
by Tara Lee and Mary Atwood
ISBN: 978-1-84899-081-4

http://www.taraleeyoga.com/shoponline.php

Yoga has played an important role in all of my pregnancies and births. I began practicing yoga daily in 2001 and it was only natural to continue that practice throughout my first pregnancy. I was surprised in realize in hindsight that I’d also used yoga throughout my first labor—spending a lot of time in a modified version of child’s pose and on hands and knees, and also in a supported version of downward facing dog. Later, as a birth educator, I discovered those same poses could be combined in a series of “birthing room yoga” poses. I loved the knowledge that my body had spontaneously used these poses during my own birth experience—it was an affirmation for me that deep birthing wisdom resides in our bodies and will emerge if we have the freedom around us to let it emerge, no books, classes, and “preparation” really necessary, just space, breath, and freedom of movement.

So, naturally I was very excited to receive a copy of the new book and DVD set Pregnancy Health Yoga: Your Essential Guide for Bump, Birth and Beyond. The book is particularly lovely, containing clear, colorful, ample photographs, not only of step-by-step pose instructions, but also close-up photos of flowers. Another special touch is a set of affirmations introducing each section. The affirmations are appropriate for pregnancy, labor, birth, and many can be applied into the rest of life as well (i.e. “Breathing deeply, I let go of tension with each exhalation”). The book and the DVD both do and excellent job connecting yoga to the birth process, something that I do not always find present in prenatal yoga resources (many of which seem to be simply designed as modifications to traditional yoga and completely ignore the connection between prenatal yoga practice and birthing itself). There are ample mentions of the baby and how your yoga practice benefits the baby as well as many integrated connections between the movement of your body and breath in yoga and in the dance of birth.

The included DVD is a restorative, simple, gentle yoga series of about 20 minutes. It includes a closing meditation and the content is basic and easy to follow. It helps pull together the information from the book into actual practice. The lines are clean, the narrator is pleasing, and the pregnant model is comfortable to follow. Many prenatal yoga DVDs include a large amount of modifications based on trimester being demonstrated by multiple models during the practice session, which I find distracting. This DVD is different in that all the poses are appropriate for all trimesters and when a very few modifications or adjustments are offered, they are smoothly incorporated into the flow of the existing pose, rather than being demonstrated by someone else.

My only critique of both the book and DVD is that they feel a bit choppy—the book primarily presents poses alone, rather than as a series of exercises, meaning the reader has to then create their own series of poses to practice from scratch, rather than having a prepared series of poses to practice routinely (there is a step-by-step photo exploration of a sun salutation that is an exception). The DVD helps provide an example series of poses though the manner in which the DVD is filmed contributes to a similar feel (i.e. rather than see the model move from one pose into another, the camera fades out and then back in on her already in the next position, so the sense of continuity between poses is impacted).

Pregnancy Health Yoga: Your Essential Guide for Bump, Birth and Beyond is a beautiful, helpful companion for pregnant women as well as for those who work with them. As well as chapters about breathwork and visualization, creating space, strength and stamina, and relaxation, the book includes a MR_110 useful section about working with common ailments and conditions (including backache, leg cramps, and symphysis pubis dysfunction), exercises specifically for labor and birth, and also section about getting back into shape postpartum.

“Yoga can create space where there was compression, can make open what was closed and can make soft our hard and abrasive edges. The process of pregnancy itself opens and expands our hearts and our capacity to love.” –Pregnancy Health Yoga

Related articles:

Incorporating Prenatal Yoga into Childbirth Education Classes

Moon Salutation Yoga Series for Blessingway or Women’s Gathering

Birthing Room Yoga Handout

Centering for Birth

Birthing Affirmations

How Do Women Really Learn About Birth?

Book Review: Mindful Motherhood

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Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this product for review purposes.

Guest post: working/parenting interview

Feb7

In late 2011, I participated in a working/parenting series at the blog First the Egg (authored by another Molly!) As I continue to balance my working/parenting life (and as I take a computer-off retreat during this week), I decided to revisit my guest post and reprint it here. I’m not changing or editing anything about it, so in this universe, I still had an infant, rather than a busy toddler girl!

working/parenting interview: Molly Remer

Balancing working and parenting... ;)

Balancing working and parenting… ;)

By Molly | Published: 18 October 2011

An interview with Molly Remer of Talk Birth, & part of working/parenting series that’s ongoing here. The first three of us were Mollys, but I swear I’m done and will give you guest post authors with other first names soon!

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What activities in your life do you consider “work”? Do you think of parenting–or some component of parenting–as “work”?

I do not think of parenting as my “job.” Being a mother is a *relationship* to me, not a role or a job. However, it is an extremely consuming relationship! And, perhaps paradoxically, some elements of mothering do feel like hard work. Like Adrienne Rich, I feel like one’s feelings about motherhood as a relationship and motherhood as an institution are two separate things–I can find motherhood as institution oppressive, while still finding the relationship with my children fulfilling. So, I guess what I’m saying is that there are parenting tasks that are work to me, but that the relationship dimension–which I place primary value on–is not a job or work.

A mothering moment that I’m not proud of came up for me immediately upon reading this question. My son was about three and something challenging had happened that I’ve since forgotten–I believe it was something to do with kitchen mess–and I said to my son with a sigh, “wow! Sometimes you are really hard to take care of” (like I indicated, not the best moment from me) and he replied, “I’m not hard, I’m soft! Just feel my little body!” He rubbed his hands all around his chest and stomach as he shared this–demonstrating his genuine softness. ::sob::

Has your relationship with work changed as a result of your experiences parenting?

Yes, I desperately snatch at free moments, packing one million tasks into my solo hours, like a starving person who is unsure where the next time-meal is coming from. I feel greedy for time alone to work in silence. I continue to require silence for my best work–I hate listening to music while writing, etc. This isn’t new for me, but the advent of motherhood layered on many challenges to experiencing what for me is an ideal work environment (silent and distractionless).

Do you do any non-parenting activities, for pay or without pay, that you consider “work”? If so, how do you juggle these roles and activities with parenting?

An example: I typed this whole response on my phone while nursing my sleeping baby.

Yes, I teach in-seat and online college classes. I write. I am a breastfeeding counselor. I edit a newsletter. I am a D.Min student. I facilitate groups. I teach birth classes. I consider all of these things work activities. I do not distinguish between paid and unpaid activities.

Something I feel is important to mention and is likely a feature of socioeconomic factors, is that to me my work equals passion, commitment, vibrancy, and aliveness. The place where the world’s great hunger and my own gifts meet. It is my “music.” The things I am “called” to do on this planet. The wild and precious life I have to offer to the world. Work to me does not connote drudgery or burden (except when I make it so, by expecting inhuman quantities of productivity from myself).

Is there work that you want to do but can’t right now? What does that look like for you?

Yes, I have three books in partial stages of development and just have to let them rest right now.

Do you ever feel misunderstood or judged because of how work happens in your family, or because of your relationship with work? What does that look like for you?

Yes, but I don’t feel like I have time to explore my answer right now. Women have always worked-–in motherhood capacities and in other capacities (usually simultaneously). I feel like we do all women a disservice by setting up or assuming either-or scenarios. I feel like people who think of me as a WOHM imagine I’m gone all the time and missing milestones, when really I’m out of the house ten hours per week and spend 99% of my waking and sleeping moments in the company of my baby, not to mention the fact that I homeschool my boys. I feel like those who look at me as a SAHM consider my teaching and writing to be my casual little “hobbies” that I dabble with in my free time, rather than career activities for me.

I could go on for ages, but both work and motherhood call to me now and I’m going to have to be okay with this being what I have to offer to the dialog in this moment.

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For more on Molly’s relationship with working/parenting, please click through to her lovely post “I just want to grind my corn!” and her follow-up “Surrender?“

Timeless Days: More Postpartum Planning

Jan30

“Understand that the tremendous energy going through you during birth is the same sort of power as the force of ocean waves moving towards shore. Know that just as a bird knows how to build its nest, and when to lay its eggs, you too will build your birthing nest…” –Janice Marsh-Prelesnik (The Roots of Natural Mothering)

So, after writing about postpartum survival tips and about what to share with mothers-to-be about the realities of motherhood, I found some more postpartum notes saved in my always overflowing drafts folder from the sidebar to Time in a Bottle by Beth Bailey Barbeau in Spring 2011 issue of Midwifery Today (p. 44).

  • “Encourage realistic contact between mothers-to-be and new mothers to help them shape more realistic expectations of postpartum life.” Yes! This is why I strongly encourage mothers to come to LLL meetings before they have their babies.
  • “Use language that shares your expectations and gives parents a vocabulary to articulate the demanding needs of their new infant.” Like Barbeau, I find it helpful to bring in the concept of the fourth trimester. The first three months are the “fourth trimester” during which baby pretty much wants to live on mom’s chest and replicate the womb (i.e. almost constant feeding–like the umbilical cord–constant holding and lots of motion, like being in the uterus, as well as being able to hear your heartbeat). After the fourth trimester passes, babies “wake up” even more and start really interacting with the world. I explain in a light-hearted way that even if you hold your baby for 12 solid hours a day following birth, that is a 50% reduction in what she is used to. And, I let them know that while the adult’s brain thinks, “how can this baby be hungry, I just fed him 30 minutes ago?!” The baby’s brain thinks, “it is has been 30 minutes since I’ve EATEN ANYTHING!!!!!” I also reinforce the idea that a baby that wants to be held and snuggled and nursed is a smart baby, not a manipulative one. And, of course, I also describe mother’s body as baby’s natural habitat after birth.
My husband and first baby during the first tender postpartum days.

My husband and first baby during the first tender postpartum days.

  • “Remind new parents that most cultures around the world have some sort of ‘lying in’ period, typically lasting 30-60 days or more.” Truly the things that support both a healthy birth and healthy postpartum are contrary to the expectations and habits of mainstream society. See Kathleen Kendall-Tackett’s handout on how other cultures prevent postpartum depression.
  • “Matter-of-factly inform the family, especially the extended family (if you have your client’s permission), that mama is going to be encouraged to stay in bed for a while after the birth and that she’s not ‘being lazy.’” Mothers can have a lot of difficulty giving themselves this permission and it can help to have the acknowledgement and encouragement to family members coming from an outside source.
  • “Remind them that a true six-week postpartum window allows for the placenta site to fully heal and supports minimized bleeding and stronger recovery.” An excellent tip for educators and doulas from Barbeau is to illustrate size of placental site healing area with hands like small dinner plate—if this was outside the body, how would you care for yourself…
  • “Encourage preparation for postpartum success!” I write about the idea of postpartum expression instead of postpartum depression. See ample past articles about postpartum planning and a nice specific story about creating a nest here.

“Although pregnancy and birth is a richly intuitive and instinctive process, a woman will prepare her ‘nest’ and birth according to the style of her culture, in the same way that a particular species of bird will build its nest with whatever is available.”

–Pam England

Let’s help make sure her nest is rich, resourceful, blessed, and beautiful!