Archive | March 2012

Virtual Screening of More Business of Being Born!

How exciting! Tonight birth activists and pregnant women across the country have the chance to virtually attend a free screening of one of the More Business of Being Born films: “Special Deliveries: Celebrity Mothers Talk Straight on Birth” on The Huffington Post.

From the press release:

LOS ANGELES, CA – Executive Producer Ricki Lake and Filmmaker Abby Epstein present an online screening of Special Deliveries: Celebrity Mothers Talk Straight Talk on Birth from their highly influential four-part DVD series More Business of Being Born on Monday, March 5^th at 6:00pm PST on The Huffington Post. Lake, Epstein and special guests from the film including Kellie Martin will host a live Q&A chat following the film beginning at 7:10pm PST. Viewers are encouraged to ask questions and engage in conversation with Lake, Epstein, and Martin by directing messages via twitter to @rickilake with #mbobb as the hash tag.

More Business of Being Born, a follow up to their landmark documentary, The Business of Being Born, offers a practical look at birthing options as well as poignant celebrity birth stories from stars. The virtual screening will air on HuffingtonPost.com and MyBestBirth.com. BabyCenter will host the virtual screening on their Facebook fan page.

I’m also excited that the Classroom Edition of the film premieres today. I would definitely like to add it to my birth class library.

More about the episode of MBOBB airing during the screening tonight:

Special Deliveries: Celebrity Mothers Talk Straight on Birth

Featuring celebrity moms Laila Ali, Gisele Bundchen, Cindy Crawford, Alyson Hannigan, Melissa Joan Hart, Kellie Martin, Alanis Morissette, Christy Turlington-Burns and Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Special Deliveries is a collection of intimate birth stories from a diverse group of mothers. Whether they chose to deliver at a hospital, home or birthing center, these heartfelt and humorous testimonies speak to the lasting power of the birth experience. True inspiration for any mother-to-be, this group of women trusted their bodies and intuitions, taking responsibility for their birth decisions even when things didn’t go according to plan. None of these courageous women has ever spoken on the record in such compelling detail, and, on this DVD, the filmmakers weave together their passionate narratives as a celebration of the journey to motherhood that will leave viewers with a renewed sense of amazement about the power of women.
(Running Time: 74 min)

Enjoy!

Bits of the month

Mar3

I’m trying something new—a weekly (or monthly) wrap-up sort of post where I share bits and pieces that don’t warrant full posts and that allow me to share personal type things about homeschooling and so forth as well as just random thoughts and ideas and material for my personal memory archives. I’m inspired to do this by Molly Westerman’s always interesting links for thoughts posts and by a blog I stumbled across recently called The Holistic Homeschooler(she does a weekly “homeschool mother’s journal” post).

So…here goes…

What I’ve been up to

Me = grading papers and final exams. The last day of the session is today

What boys have been up to

They both enjoy playing Minecraft to an almost obsessive degree. This week they’ve been working on plans for programming mods for the game and setting up sort of mock worlds with things they’d like their mods to have. Lann worked on a Batman themed mod and Zander’s is about “hunchback zombies” (many of whom are holding cakes).

New dog Dagger!

They’ve been making movies for the last several months in a very dedicated manner that I’ve really enjoyed observing. Over 300 video clips have been filmed since this new project began. And, then, this week, the perhaps inevitable happened—they dropped and broke my camera. It was around $300, but I quickly realized that I didn’t have any grounds to be mad at them (despite the fact that they’d been carefully instructed to always keep the strap around their wrist and to be careful). When you give 8 and 5 year old’s free reign with a camera, breakage is definitely a possible side effect. I also try very hard to remember the people before things mantra. So, now their extensively movie making projects are on hold until we figure out a replacement. I’m thinking a low cost kid-friendly, video-capable camera and an adult camera might be the most logical plan.

They buzz with ideas constantly. Lann’s big project idea this week was for a virtual reality helmet. Mark and I both struggle with the balance between expressing interest in his ideas and offering reality checks. It can be extraordinarily exhausting, truly. The other thing they came up with is a cartoon strip about “Poo Log Dog.” This is based on their intense dislike of our new little dog, Dagger, who showed up skinny and starving last month and is now part of the family. I like him, which is a real shocker, because dogs are not my favorite. The boys are less enraptured.

We’re back to our no artificial colors experiment which seems to have a drastic impact on Z’s rage fits, Lann’s teasing, and their cooperation with each other. We’ve had days and days of happy playing, bright energetic faces and ideas, and very little discord or meltdowns.

I love this baby's eye view picture taken by my friend at the playgroup Valentine party last month.

What baby has been up to

Walking more and more—I think we’ve almost seen the last of the crawling baby and the funny little one foot on ground, one leg down scoot-drag-crawl.

Climbs up on couch and onto stepstool in bathroom

Walks unsupported outside

Loves outside—loves so very much.

Likes to do mischievous stuff on purpose and stare at person til they notice and then squeal/yell while staring in their eyes.

Makes addle, addle, addle sound with tongue. Still uses adorable, “hmmm?” question-intonation sound to ask for or about things. Says Dagger, dog, Daddy, dragon, and quite a few other things. Refuses to perform any of them on command.

Loves to spin! In hammock swing outside, on Sit n Spin toy, dancing with brother. (A long time ago, pre-kids, I went to a workshop on play therapy. One of the speakers maintained that you should never bounce or rock or jiggle a baby, because it predisposes them to become addicts later in life—i.e. they start to like the feeling of having a “scrambled brain” and seek out that stimulation. It is amazing how certain, seemingly small experiences can leave a powerful legacy that cast a shadow on happy moments!)

What Mark has been up to

The man is quite focused on his plans for an aquaponics system. Is drawing plans for the greenhouse and figuring out supplies to buy. Planning to take a week off soon to focus on building it. We’ve also been doing our work party with a group of four friends. We take turns working on each other’s homesteads on alternate weekends. It has been a really good, community-building experience.

Homeschooling report

I finally did a Cartesian diver experiment (about buoyancy and air pressure) with the boys and it worked perfectly. While we did so, Alaina mashed her breakfast and a fruit leather into a cup of water.

I also signed them up for Studyladder. Jury is still out on whether this was a good plan. The graphics and style seem “primitive” in a way, like they were programmed in the late 90’s. However, I like it because they have math and science and counting in other languages, as well as reading. It seems much more comprehensive and full scale. Lann has also been wanting to work on his Click N Read Phonics lately and Zander has been doing Reading Eggs (still our favorite) and occasionally Starfall (we pay for the “more” version). Jumpstart we’ve let go, because even though it has really cool graphics and features, we can rarely get it to start up without crashing/freezing/or being generally frustrating.

I’ve been trying to find a good new book to read aloud to them. We keep reading the first chapter of various (free Kindle) books and then deciding we want something different.

This week (month) in blog news

I hit the 200,000 hit mark! That is pretty good for something that started out only intended for a local audience. I checked my annual stats too and noticed that in 2008 (my first full year of blogging), I had 8,000 hits during the entire year. Just this past week, my All that Matters is a Healthy Husband post had 8,000 hits by itself. ;-D Another new post that had a lot of shares and views was the Spontaneous Birth Reflex. I was happy to finally write it and also its related companion piece about the Rest and Be Thankful Stage of labor. My Honoring Miscarriage discussion and giveaway are still open too.

What’s on my mind

I am nearly speechless and also horrified about the current political obsession with contraception. This isn’t about birth control it is about woman control. I can’t stand it! And, I do not consider contraception to be a “women’s issue,” it is a human issue. Last time I checked, men participated in sex too. And, they too, desire a size of family that is compatible with their other needs (financial, personal, whatever). Likewise, many, many happily married, monogamous couples choose to use birth control and ; enjoy being able to have sex without procreating. It would be bizarre to characterize a man’s desire to be responsible for his own fertility as, “being paid to have sex all day.” It is equally bizarre to apply this claim to women.

In my work for my doctoral classes, I focus extensively on body politics, reproductive rights/politics, feminism, women’s rights, and personal autonomy as well as the historical and sociopolitical context of these issues. Since I live in a conservative area and have a “public” reputation to maintain, I shy away from addressing any of these subjects in depth here (I’m very googleable by students and prospective clients—heck, this blog was originally intended exclusively as a business tool for my local clients). However, in an ironic twist, that is exactly the kind of social control/inhibition/silencing/oppression of women that I am so passionate about addressing in my doctoral work. In fact, my dissertation is going to be about a thealogy of the body and how women’s bodies are the very terrain upon which patriarchal religious structures are built and maintained.

What I’m reading

I just finished reading The Hunger Games for book club—gobbled it up in a couple of hours—and I’m in the middle of the second one. I also finished reading Sisters Singing which is anthology of women’s prayers, blessings, songs, and readings. I read it over the course of several months in short segments during my daily meditation/altar time. I also finished reading Daughter of the Forest (also for book club) and Nobody Girl (don’t bother) and I am Woman by Rite: A Book of Women’s Rituals. I’m currently reading Peggy O’Mara’s Way Back Home collection of essays. The boys and I are listening to the sixth Harry Potter book on tape while in the car. I really love doing this! I less love realizing that by the time we finish we will have spent a minimum of 19 hours in the car. Whew. When I’m on my own I’m listening to Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce, one of my favorite childhood authors who wrote The Song of the Lioness Quartet, which is where I got Alaina’s name (I guess when I was approximately 12). I recently finished re-listening to Two for the Dough and Three to Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich.

Articles I’ve enjoyed

Breastfeeding support: less is not more

What an awesome logo for the upcoming LLL of Illinois conference!

“I feel saddened by the alarming regularity at which women give up their desire to breastfeed because breastfeeding is not the ‘best’ way to feed babies. It’s the normal way. The idea that breastfeeding is somehow extraordinary persists because we live in a culture where very limited paternity leave is normal, where an expectation to continue cooking and cleaning and exercising and socialising in the post partum weeks and months is normal, and where a perception that unpaid work (especially if it is physical and monotonous) is pointless drudgery is normal.”

Breastfeeding – Does Science Mislead Parents & Professionals?

“A clear majority of public opinion in the United States supports the view that ‘breastfeeding is healthier for babies’, yet substantially more than half of the surveyed population disagree that ‘feeding a baby formula instead of breastmilk increases the chances the baby will get sick’.

If exclusive breastfeeding was the norm against which other methods are measured, breastfeeding would not be ‘protective’ and breastfed infants would not enjoy ‘lower risks of ill health’; they would instead be referred to as ‘normal’, while formula fed infants are in fact ‘exposed’ to increased risk of poor health and development.“

Also enjoyed this post from The Minimalists about turning off the internet at home. Since we live out of town and I work from home teaching online AND since it is super important to me to have a home based life, it wouldn’t make any sense for me to shut off the internet at home and drive into town to use it, but for a while after reading this article I fantasized about it.

And, this inspirational short post from Roots of She.

And, some pictures:

This heart-meltingly adorable sight met my eyes as I sneaked away from Alaina's napping self this week.

Tiny, independent nature girl!

Sweet sibling moment even though I lose crunchy points because they're watching a movie (it is Kipper though)

Yes, we have a michief-maker in the house!

I have about 14 others things I was going to include, but forgot about, such as the fact that we had our first local birth network meeting in February and I feel really good about it. But, now this post is terribly long and cumbersome anyway. I’m too wordy to do a bits and pieces type post, I guess! I thought it was going to be short and simple—instead it took several hours over the course of multiple days to get ready to post. Sheesh!

Birth Quotes of the Week

Mar2

Quotes that recently caught my eye…

“Your own wisdom is more powerful than anything you see around you. The price for living your dream is facing your deepest fear; ask yourself ‘What am I afraid of most?’ Facing your answer is the price of greatness.“–@Roots of She

“In acknowledging woman-to-woman help it is important to recognize that power, within the family and elsewhere, can be used vindictively, and that it is not only powerful men who abuse women; women with power may also abuse other women.” –Sheila Kitzinger

“A woman who is enjoying her labor swings into the rhythm of contractions as if birth-giving were a powerful dance, her uterus creating the beat. She watches for it, concentrates on it, like an orchestra following its conductor.” –Shelia Kitzinger

“If you have never been called a defiant, incorrigible, impossible woman… have faith. There is yet time.” –Clarissa Pinkola Estes (via @Roots of She)

“Pregnancy is a uniquely intimate relationship between two people. All of us luxuriate in this relationship once, and half of us are lucky enough to be able to do it all over again a second time, from the other side as it were. Never again outside of pregnancy can we be so truly intwined with someone else, no matter how hard we try.” -David Bainbridge

“We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.” –Marian Wright Edelman

—

Reading this last quote made me remember my Small Stone Birth Activism article and so I posted it yesterday!

Small Stone Birth Activism

Mar1

As someone who feels deeply, passionately, and intensely about the need to transform the birth culture in the US, I have often experienced an immobilizing feeling of not doing enough. Of not helping enough. Of not being enough to affect the kind of social change I want to see happen in the world. As a mother of small children, I often feel limited with regard to the kind of large-scale changes I’d like to make in the birth world. I have been a childbirth educator since 2005 and I’m also trained as a birth doula, a postpartum doula, a prenatal fitness education, a prenatal yoga teacher, a birth art facilitator, and a breastfeeding educator. I’ve accepted that birth doula work doesn’t fit into my life right now (and even without young children, I do not know that I actually possess the strength to lend witness to the hospital birth machine). I’ve happily taught independent birth classes, usually privately in homes one-on-one, for quite a few years which feels like smaller scale change than I envision. It is also becoming less easy to integrate into the rest of my life’s responsibilities. Rather than relying only on teaching independent classes as my primary outlet for change, I enjoy discovering alternate ways of educating others about birth.

While reading the book The Mother Trip by Ariel Gore, I came across this quote from civil rights activist Alice Walker: “It has become a common feeling, I believe, as we have watched our heroes failing over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward the building of an edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame. This is the tragedy of our world.” Ariel adds her own thoughts to this: “Remember: as women, as mothers, we cannot not work. Put aside your ideas that your work should be something different or grander than it is. In each area of your life—in work, art, child-rearing, gardening, friendships, politics, love, and spirituality—do what you can do. That’s enough. Your small stone is enough.”

These quotes caused me to reflect on the myriad methods of “small stone” birth activism that can be engaged in as a passionate birth activist mother embroiled in a season of her life in which the needs of her own young family take precedence over “changing the world.” We can offer the small stones of:

Speaking positively about normal, natural birth, to whomever we are speaking with whenever the topic arises.
Birth advocacy bumper stickers.
Sharing our birth stories.
Creating little informational cards (inspired by Carla Hartley’s Trust Birth Initiative cards) to seed around our communities in creative locations. I am fond of using Vistaprint and ordering their horizontal premium cards for just the cost of shipping.
Creating bookmarks with inspiring information about birth and giving them to pregnant women, handing them out at health fairs, etc.
Buying subscriptions to enlightening magazines for doctors’ offices.
Buying gift subscriptions to enlightening magazines for our public libraries.
Talking to pregnant women—my most recent approach is simply to say, “I wish you a wonderful birth!”
Responding to “action alerts” from the organizations in our states promoting healthy, normal birth and midwifery.
Supporting healthy birth related organizations with your membership. I am a member of 11 birth-related organizations. I also maintain subscriptions to a variety of magazines and journals.
Volunteering—either for advocacy organizations or directly with pregnant women.
Showing up at events, fundraisers, and rallies. Maybe we are not able to plan these events by ourselves at this point in our lives (or maybe we can!), but we can certainly show up and be counted!
Talking to non-pregnant women and girls about birth.
Giving empowering books to pregnant friends (or to not pregnant friends!).
Buying memberships to supportive organizations for friends and family members.
Give back issues of inspiring, positive magazines to people as part of your baby shower gifts.
Making donations as you are able to local chapters, statewide organizations, or national organizations promoting birth, breastfeeding, doulas, midwives, etc.
Making your birth stories available online.
Blogging about birth and about issues in the birth world (in addition to writing my Talk Birth blog since 2007, I’ve also blogged for ICEA and maintained the CfM blog).
Being an online childbirth educator—visit message boards (especially “mainstream” message boards) and give accurate, evidence based information. This has the potential to reach many people, but also can be very time-consuming (and addictive in a way) and can replace the face- to-face good you could do, so be careful with this one.
Participating in online research (such as the Birth Survey transparency in maternity care project).
Writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper educating the public about birth options and midwifery care.

Despite my persistent feelings of wishing to do more, when I examine each of my offerings, I begin to acknowledge that maybe my own small stones of effort are enough after all…

What stones do you add to the pile?

—-

Molly Remer, MSW, ICCE, CCCE is a certified birth educator, writer, and activist who lives with her husband and children in central Missouri. She is the editor of the Friends of Missouri Midwives newsletter, a breastfeeding counselor, a professor of human services, and doctoral student in women’s spirituality. She blogs about birth, motherhood, and women’s issues at http://talkbirth.me.posts.

The first version of this article was published in Citizens for Midwifery News, March 2008. Revised version published in the Fall 2009 edition of the International Journal of Childbirth Education (ICEA’s publication).