Archive | November 2009

Simply Give Birth: A Mini-Review

Nov30

Only about a week following my miscarriage, I received a review copy of a new book by Heather Cushman-Dowdee (also known as Hathor the Cowgoddess). I have a pile of birth-related books waiting for me to review. However, I found that this soon post-miscarriage when I go to read them, my heart just isn’t in it, and I set them down again. However, Heather’s book was a different experience. Titled Simply Give Birth, the book is a beautiful collection of powerful birth stories (mostly unassisted births). When I got the book, I thought, “well, I’ll just flip through this a bit, even though my heart isn’t in it.” Well, I was instantly entranced in spite of myself. I didn’t finish reading it that week, but I picked it back up the following week and read it all the way through. What a treasure. It was very, very good and I really recommend it.

As I have briefly referenced here, I was struck by how the experience of “unassisted natural home miscarriage” parallels that of unassisted birth. Immediately after my body released my little baby, I felt strong and brave and powerful and like, “wow! I did it!” even though the outcome was not what I ever planned for or wanted. I rarely see feelings like that expressed in the many hospital/D & C miscarriage stories I’ve been reading lately and I feel happy that I was able to give myself and my baby the gift of “letting go” in our own dear home.

Reading Heather’s introduction about telling a new story about birth made me think there are new stories to be told about miscarriage as well. She says about the stories she selected for her book: “…all birth stories…prove what can be done. We can birth our babies and relish it too. We’re not stoic or fanatical, we’re mothers doing what mothers have always done, giving birth; with grace and spirit, and chutzpah, and moxie…they shared their grief, their passions, their exhaultation, and their fears. It takes massive courage to write about this most personal of moments with such candor and intensity and then be willing to share…”

Simply Give Birth is simply amazing. If hope you are lucky and find it in your Christmas stocking this year. If you don’t, or if you just can’t wait to read it, pop on over to the website and buy it ASAP!

New Blog

Nov23

I am a writer by nature and I have many things I’d still like to share, say, and explore about my third pregnancy which ended in miscarriage at 14 weeks. I keep hesitating to let the words come though, because this doesn’t feel like the right place to do it. Writing is healing for me–it helps me process, to learn, and to work through my emotions and thoughts. I HAVE to do it. I’m compelled. But, I’m not going to do it here. I started a new blog here instead. I will continue to write about birth and childbirth education via this blog and I’m not keeping the two—experiences or blogs—“secret” from each other. There will be overlap and shared links, I’m sure. I’ve just realized that if I’m going to be able to share openly in the way that I wish to, I must separate those posts from business website/blog. And, I need for only those who are interested to read it—rather than being “forced” to here or feeling like I’m “dwelling” too much.

I need to separate it too so that I don’t feel as if I’m continuing to ask my friends, my Facebook fans, blog readers, and clients to show sympathy for me or try to bolster my self-esteem by telling me how “great” I am (;-D) or being sort of forced to continue to reassure me. I have really appreciated the supportive comments on Facebook, but I almost feel like my pass on telling this story is expiring to the average person and I’d rather that they only read what I continue to need to say about this of their own free will, rather than having it piped into their Facebook feed. Why not just write in my journal then? (Indeed, I did write 19 pages in my journal about this birth/miscarriage.) Because, most of the time when I write, I write to share—“gathering and sharing information” is part of my life purpose and writing and sharing about this miscarriage experience is no different than my desire to share other birth information and experiences. So, follow me as you will…

Lavender & Letting Go (Warning: Miscarriage/Baby Loss)

Nov12

My life has taken a sad and unexpected turn. I was 14 weeks and 4 days pregnant with my third baby and we found out on Friday afternoon that the baby had died. Very early Saturday morning, he was born at home. Though it was different in some ways than a full-term birth, my experience of miscarriage was very much a birth–my water broke, I had normal contractions for about two hours, the baby was born (about 4 inches, well formed with eyelids, fingers, toes, mouth that opened, etc.), we saw the tiny umbilical cord, and so forth. I was surprised to discover that some of the same feelings of empowerment were also present after a “natural home miscarriage” as with a natural home birth–I felt strong and brave and like “I did it myself!” as well as amazed at how well my body worked and knew what to do. We learned the baby was our third boy and named him Noah.

I have a number of feelings and observations that I would like to share about this birth experience, but I’m not sure if this blog is the “appropriate” place to do so, because this is also my business website and I don’t want to “scare” any prospective clients away by being sad. There are a lot of losses that accompany the loss of a baby and one of the ones that is hard for me is that my life is devoted to helping women give birth with confidence, strength, and joy and to embrace pregnancy and birth as wonderful events. It is sad to me to now be a source of fear/elevated perception of risk—“if it could happen to her, it could happen to me!” Kind of like I’ve become a “bad omen” instead of a source of encouragement. 😦

One thing I do want to share about the birth of my third baby is that earlier that afternoon I’d received a package from Taylor’s Scarlet Thread. I had ordered a bonnet and apron from them for a Kirsten costume (Kirsten is an American Girl doll) for myself. They sent along a little lavender sachet as a free gift with my order. When my labor began, for some reason I wanted the sachet and held and smelled it throughout my labor. I also used it to kind of revive myself when I felt like I was fainting several times afterwards. I talked to the baby and to myself before I started having regular contractions telling myself and the baby that we need to “let go” of each other and that it was time to let go. During the labor, I chanted to myself, “let go, let go, let go” and smelled my sachet.  Several days later, I was reading a book about miscarriage and it had some aromatherapy suggestions in it. It listed lavender for “letting go”…

And Even More Birth Quotes

Nov2

Continuing my semi-regular addition of birth quotes I’ve used on the Talk Birth Facebook page recently.

“When women understand what’s available to us at birth, then we won’t ever give that over to an ‘expert’ the birth power, the orgasmic power that’s in our bodies” –Christiane Northrup

“Women have the inner power and the inner knowledge of giving birth. There is a parallel of sexuality and giving birth. Women who are giving birth, trust yourselves. Trust your inner power. Trust your ability to give life. This is something absolutely sacred that is inside all women in the world.” –Ricardo Jones, MD

“If women experienced the ecstasy of birth, they would have the high that would get them through the hormonal changes of the next week. Your body and your inner wisdom give you that high.” –-Christiane Northrup

“While many of us believe that encouraging a laboring woman to move when and how she wants to is healthier and safer than making her stay in bed, waiting for evidence that it produces better health outcomes is putting a burden of proof on normal birth that has never been applied to routine intervention.” –Amy Romano

“Pay attention to the pregnant woman! There is no one as important as she!” –Chagga saying, Uganda

“A pregnant woman is like a beautiful flowering tree, but take care when it comes time for the harvest that you do not shake or bruise the tree, for in doing so, you may harm both the tree and its fruit.” –Peter Jackson

“Can we create a world where all needs are met with dignity and individual culture is retained; where a baby anywhere in the world is born nonviolently and according to the instincts of its mother; where people progress in directions of full potential and spirit is not sacrificed; where women no longer obey, submit and apologize for who they are?” –Sister MorningStar

“If birth were a medical disaster in waiting, routine medical intervention would not disrupt the process. It does. If technology were integral to the process of birth, routine technology would improve outcomes. It hasn’t. If birth were inherently painful, all women would suffer without medicine. They don’t. The initial assumption[s] are proven faulty.” –Kim Wildner

“Having a baby [is] an opportunity to transform a life, because in the moments of labor and birth all the forces of the universe are flowing through a woman’s body…’If you have 12 babies you only get 12 of those opportunities. This is big fun.'” –Sister MorningStar

“I think that women can be just completely surprised by the change in them from giving birth—you have something powerful in you—that fierce thing comes up—and I think babies need moms to have that fierceness—you feel like you can do anything and that’s the feeling we want moms to have.” –Ina May Gaskin

“Birth has been broken. The spirit of women with respect to their innate birthing power has been broken. We can do nothing about the millions of broken births that have already taken place, but by seriously looking at the effect of fear–the powerful emotion that clouds our thinking and causes the birthing body to break down–perhaps we can keep the finely tuned, precision bodies of women whole for future generations…” –Marie Mongan

“When you destroy midwives, you also destroy a body of knowledge that is shared by women, that can’t be put together by a bunch of surgeons or a bunch of male obstetricians, because physiologically, birth doesn’t happen the same way around surgeons, medically trained doctors, as it does around sympathetic women.” –Ina May Gaskin

“In a modern world, ‘getting through’ labour without numbing or dumbing the process can be a very powerful experience for a woman, and very challenging.” –The Pink Kit

“When it comes to pregnancy and birth, we as a culture and as individuals need to wake up and claim our right to literally birth right!” –-Christiane Northrup

“Birth may bring you face-to-face with your insecurities, doubts, inadequacies and fears, as well as your joy, determination, willingness and courage.” –The Pink Kit

“$13 to $20 billion a year could be saved in health care costs by demedicalizing childbirth, developing midwifery, and encouraging breastfeeding.” –Frank Oski, MD

“Let us initiate our daughters into the beauty and mystery of being strong and confident women who claim their right to give birth and raise their children with dignity, power, love, and joy.” –Barbara Harper

When it comes to birth classes, “restricting yourself to what ‘everyone else does’ will only get you what everyone else got. The numbers say this is a very sad limitation to place on yourself.” –-Kim Wildner

“In the absence of the medical indication for which they were developed, birth interventions are at best worthless, at worst, harmful.” –Kim Wildner

“Let parents know that they don’t need special techniques and gadgets to give birth safely and happily. Make sure to communicate to every mother you help, that she has all the essential ingredients for a safe, healthy birth within herself. A womb, a baby, a vagina, and a few warm pieces of fabric make an excellent, complete birth kit.” –Laura Morgan

“Women’s bodies have their own wisdom, and a system of birth refined over 100,000 generations is not so easily overpowered.” –Sarah Buckley