Welcoming Tanner Matthias!

“There really was a baby!” –Me, in birth video

As was my pregnancy custom, on October 30th I woke up around 3:00 a.m. with definite contractions. They were spaced about 30 minutes apart, however, and I kept myself awake unnecessarily waiting for them to get bigger or closer together. I finally got up at 4:30 or 5:00 and Mark got up too. As I as I got up, contractions picked up to about three minutes apart. I couldn’t believe I’d “wasted time” by lying down, non-sleeping AND non-laboring! I felt very adrenaline filled and excited. The sense of urgency and “coming soon” was very familiar to Zander’s exceedingly fast labor, whereas my sense of need to call Mom during a contraction and then changing my mind afterward was similar to Lann’s. And, leaning on the kitchen half-wall as an ideal labor position was similar to Alaina’s. There was no slow lead-in here, these were sharp, strong, intense contractions that I already couldn’t talk through. Though they felt big and serious, they were also short in duration. I lit my birth altar candle and since I wanted to have clean, freshly washed hair, I decided to take a shower.

After showering and even blowdrying my hair for cuteness in future pictures, the intensity of the contractions increased again. Mark got to work on filling the pool and heating more water as soon as I got out of the shower and he kept messing with the pool even though I was starting to feel like I needed him (also needed pool, so he wasn’t doing the wrong thing!). I felt sure that this was picking up FAST. We texted Mom and she contacted Robin and Summer (midwife and doula). I felt a weird sensation of time pressure then, looking out window, waiting and not wanting to be observed, waited for, or watched. The pool continued to take a lot of time and attention and was annoying. Plus, the hose popped out when Mark was in the laundry room and flooded the floor. I was saying things like, “this had better be the best thing ever, because right now I hate it!” I couldn’t decide if I should keep standing up or try something else like sit on the birth ball or try the water. It seemed early for water (except during contractions!), so I sat on the ball at which point contractions became HUGE, but, also only 8-10 minutes apart. I was confused and kept trying to figure out what made more sense—smaller, more frequent contractions while standing up, or bigger but far apart on the ball. I was laughing about my indecisiveness and kept saying, “so, tell me what to doooooooo!” (which is actually my most despised thing in labor). I opted to stay on the ball because I felt open there and when standing I felt like I was closing my legs together and tensing up. On the ball, I started humming the Sacred Pregnancy Standing at the Edge song I listened to so often during my pregnancy: standing at the edge…clinging to my innocence…one more tiny step…time is here and now…diving into the unknown. I believe in me, I believe in meee-eeee. I believe in me, I do, I do…

Later, in the pool, I turned on the rest of my Sacred Pregnancy playlist from the CD, which I both liked and didn’t like because I could no longer anchor myself then with the “I believe in me, I do” hum. I talked and joked and laughed about stuff a lot. And, I would sing little things like: let’s find something else to say and not owie-zooooowie… I do not know how else to say that these were intense, big, powerful contractions. To my memory, they feel like they were the biggest, most painful contractions I’ve ever had—but slooooooowly far apart. The sensation of downward pressure was powerful already during each, but the distance between them very confusing. After back and forthing verbally for some time, I decided to get in the pool: this had BETTER be WORTH IT.

I loved the pool, but I also, intensely, felt like I was on “display” or being watched. I also felt a little isolated or separated and observed, even by my own mom (who, mindfully, went to sit on the couch to give me space). I kept feeling worried and pressured about my midwife and doula getting there any minute, even though we talked in advance about how I mainly needed them for immediate postpartum care and only wanted them to come in at the very end. I had never talked to my mom about specifically when to tell them to actually come though, so I kept thinking they were sitting in the driveway waiting for me (they weren’t, because they were being respectful of what they knew I wanted and needed). As with my other babies, I knew in my heart I wanted to birth alone, but then with immediate postpartum/follow-up care. This is hard to balance and gauge. And, I acknowledge that it isn’t really fair to the midwife either! My birth brain really needs to be alone and unwatched and I knew in the pool that I wanted to push my baby out before anyone else was there.

I took my favorite birth goddess sculpture into the pool with me where she kept me company and floated with me and reassured me until I was pushing and set her outside the tub (ever practical, I didn’t want her to get lost in what I knew would end up as bloody water!).

If you look close, you can spy the little goddess in my hand.

Here, I was laughing about feeling like a little toad in a pool.

My mom kept me supplied with food and drinks and occasional encouragement and Mark stayed close, touching me and being present. There was lots of waiting in the pool (I feel like) for those slow but BIG contractions. I got out to pee and finally saw some BLOOD. I always wait and wait for this sign because for me it is the herald of nearly full dilation. I have no blood or any leaking or discharge until I’m only a short distance from pushing out a baby! I shook and shook in the bathroom at this point too, which I think was related to the temperature change from getting out of the warm pool and not transition per se, but it could have been both.

Back to the pool and out one more time to pee (more blood! Yay! Blood is so fun! Really. It is super encouraging for me to see during labor at this point.) I started to weirdly fret about my bladder at this point getting in the way of baby’s head (potentially): this can happen, you know, I told my mom and Mark (even though I was totally peeing and had no signs of bladder being in the way). I could tell baby was moving down and getting close to pushing, but I felt impeded with the amniotic sac intact. I moved to hands and knees in the tub and talked to myself: it’s okay. You’re okay. We’re okay. I can do it. We can do it. You can come out baby. We want you. We want you. (I cried I tiny bit saying this.)

I like how you can see my friendly little birth altar glowing in the background.

I turned back over then and kept on smiling…

One hour before birth.

Some time after this, I started feeling inside after each contraction and could feel a hard lump getting closer and closer every time I had a (now close together) contraction. I didn’t feel sure it was a head though, but that maybe I was somehow feeling my own pubic bone or some other mysterious part of my anatomy never before felt. It felt squishy kind of, though hard underneath. (Duh, because it was an amniotic sac around a baby head, Molly!), so then I imagined I wasn’t fully dilated and was somehow prolapsing my cervix instead of feeling a baby’s head. I think these types of thoughts are one of the hazards of being a birth professional. They are also proof, to me, that no matter what odd or frightening things you think, babies’ heads still move down and come out anyway! At this point, the baby began to have hiccups. He was so low that it basically felt like my anus was hiccupping. I had Mark feel them very low on my belly—just above my pubic bone—and then I laughed and said, this counts as a fetal heart tones check!

Finally, my water broke at last and I knew he was almost out. Pushing was intense and big and felt huge and hard and long. I became convinced baby weighed ten pounds and was probably not going to come out. I felt like it was taking a long time and a lot of work, but according to Mom and Mark it was about four pushes and date stamps on pictures reveal about 5-6 minutes total of this hard work. I also kept thinking someone else was going to come in. I felt the familiar burning on my front right side and knew I would tear again (labial/clitoral). It felt scary and I looked at my mom and said I was scared (she said, “I know”). I almost pushed through the burn, but then I stopped myself and waited for the next push and then his head was out, along with a bloom of blood in the water which does indicate tearing, but I didn’t get checked for tears (by my specific decision and request) so I don’t know for sure. A minimal follow-up push and his body came out into my hands. He bobbed to the top of the pool and I lifted him out of the water. He cried a little and was already reasonably pink. He was looking around and was a little bit gurgly. I talked to him and kissed his head and told him I loved him: oh my little one, oh my little one. Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! There really was a baby! Oh, he’s CUTE! I noticed his cord was around his neck and arm and somewhat awkwardly moved it off. It was 10:20, a little over five hours after I got up.

We called my dad to bring the kids back over to see the baby and cut the cord and they arrived a few minutes before Summer and Robin got there.

After Robin and Summer arrived, they helped me out the pool which I was eager to get out of, but had a lot of trouble actually doing, and onto my futon nest on the floor between the pool and bathroom. This is the part I didn’t like. So familiar and so not fun. The weak and wounded transition. But, Summer (doula) reminded me that the warrior moments are in feeling the vulnerability too. Sometimes the warrior is found in showing the vulnerability and needing the help.

After some lying on the futon and waiting for the placenta, I went to the bathroom (still holding baby attached with cord) and the placenta finally came out there (after it was washed, I swallowed a small piece of it). Zander and Alaina cut the cord as they had been waiting to do and then left for playgroup with my friend who was waiting patiently outside to take them. When the placenta was examined, they saw he had a velamentous cord, which is fairly rare and can actually be dangerous and possibly explains my widely spaced contractions (giving baby time he needed).

The baby’s temperature was low and it took us some time and effort to get him warmed up and that was probably because I was in the water a little long after birth and that is my only regret about this birth. When his temperature was normal, we weighed him and he only came up as 6lbs4oz. He then weighed 7lbs4oz at two days, which means he was really bigger than that at birth. He weighs eight pounds now at a week. So, he weighed something at birth, but the exact amount is unknown! He was 20 inches and had a 14 inch head.

As I laid on my futon and latched baby on for the first time, I realized that in all my planning and fretting and preparing and deadlining, I’d forgotten how very, very much love was possible.

Alaina took this pic of his sweet little (apparently blonde!) head.

Birth socks!

Nursing my little pumpkin.

Feeling festive on Halloween!

3 days postpartum after ceremonial bath.

This is what newborn motherhood feels like for me. It is sweet and precious and infinitely tender and precious.

My traditional “he could still fit!” picture

—

Edited one year later to add that Tanner’s birth video is now available online: Welcoming Tanner Matthias (Home Water Birth Video) – Brigid’s Grove

Ready or Not!

Oct24

I woke up this morning thinking that considering how close my due date is to Halloween, I’m surprised I have not managed a pumpkin + belly picture of any kind! So, despite the fact that I am intensely crabby crabbilicious, have a cold, and am wearing ugly clothes, I can now check pumpkin belly picture off my list.

I also dreamed I gave birth in a random driveway full of Halloween decorations! I said: “this was my first outdoor birth!” (the baby also had all his teeth, including molars)

Also, non-belly, but here is our annual pumpkin patch picture from our homeschool group outing last week:

The inexorable march towards Birth-Day is such an interesting, liminal place to be in. It both feels “mysterious” and inevitable. The closer I get to my official due date, the more wide open the possibilities seem as to when he will be born…when, in reality, the options narrow each day! I still have a certain sense of unreality about the whole thing—like, am I really going to do this? Am I really going to have a BABY????!!!!!

However, I’ve spent the last nine months working towards exactly this…

(This is what my schedule for this week looked like on Monday)

And, I hit 39 weeks on Monday too!

Look! My mom made matching mother-baby birth socks for us to wear after the birth. 🙂

And, this is how Alaina has been…

(Clingy clingolicious and sleeping like crap)

We realized a couple of weeks ago that we’d better order a couple of key things, like a car seat, to finish getting ready for Tanner. Shortly after, UPS, the mail carrier, and FedEx all came to the door within the space of about thirty minutes and then, same day in the evening, FedEx came AGAIN.

It is also both fun and a little shocking to see Tanner’s clothes come out of the laundry with the rest of the family’s. He’s really on his way!

My final night of in-person class until January was October 7th and my students surprised me on final exam night with a whole bundle of baby presents and said it is in appreciation for everything I’ve given to them and how committed I am. I came very close to crying!

(I felt a little guilty about their three part comprehensive final exam then!)

My “crunchy mom” student also gave me an amber teething necklace. And, there wasn’t a bottle or pacifier to be found in the bundle of gifts.

A post about American postpartum practices continues to make the rounds on Facebook and when I read this quote…

“The problem is that no one recognizes the new mother as a recuperating person, and she does not see herself as one. For the mourning or the injured, we will activate a meal tree. For the woman who is torturously fatigued, who has lost one 10th of her body’s blood supply, who can scarcely pee for the stitches running up her perineum, we will not.”

Why Are America’s Postpartum Practices So Rough On New Mothers? – The Daily Beast.

…I thought that this is what I am SO not looking forward to doing again any time—the being someone in recuperation. I am healthy and happy and strong while pregnant and it is such a hard adjustment to “suddenly” be weak and wounded. I hate it. I’ve tried to explain to Mark how weird it is to one day be a bopping around pregnant woman and the next day to be having to have someone help you get into the shower and feed you! AND, that said, I have totally excellent postpartum support because it is like my personal obsession to get those needs adequately met after not having a clue how hard it would be after the first baby. Every baby, I have less and less of a birth plan of any kind (other than, “have baby at home”) and a more exhaustively detailed postpartum plan right down to: “I get this kind of tea with this honey in it immediately after the birth.”

One of my friends who shared the article made the interesting observation that perhaps this phenomenon is made worse by the empowerment culture of the homebirth/natural birth community, because of our emphasis on women as strong and capable (which they are). But, perhaps that translates into the assumption, goal, or expectation (either from herself or others) that the mother than then “triumph” over the vulnerability of postpartum just like she can or did during labor and birth. After I thought about this, I went ahead and took my sister-in-law up on her offer to come help me postpartum this time as well. I already have my mom and Mark and my postpartum doula and I have midwifery care. So, when my sister-in-law originally offered I felt like I shouldn’t say yes, also because she has a little baby herself. However, then I thought, bring on the love and help!

Though as I mentioned, I haven’t spent a lot of time making specific or detailed birth plans, I have revisited this past post based on the “what if” thoughts of Leilah McCracken:

Let’s shift the internal dialogue and think “what if?!” in powerful ways: “What if I have the most beautiful experience of my life? What if I could actually feel a wet, moving baby on my belly—just after birth—and fall in love with that feeling forever? What if I give birth and feel pure exhilaration? What will happen if I give birth as a powerful, free woman—what will happen if I claim my right to give birth as my biology impels me to? What if I emerge victorious, free, and powerful? What if—what if my baby never feels anything in her first moments other than my body and my love? What if I push my baby out into my own hands, and pull her up, and kiss her wet head, and cry and moan and weep my joy in private, darkness and love—what if… what if this birth is the most loving, sweet and gentle moment of my life? What if I give birth with wild joy and courageous abandon? What if…”

What If? Shifting the Dialogue of Birth | Talk Birth.

And, I’ve been wondering if going on a massive Unsubscribe From All The Things mission is a type of virtual “nesting”?! (Our non-virtual kitchen cabinets have been getting a ruthless sweep through too.)

I do not picture laboring during the day at all, so every night I go to bed thinking “tonight could be the night” and then when I wake up in the morning, I feel like I’ve got a “bonus” day ahead of me! Since two of my other babies were born two days before their due dates, I’ve had my sights set on tomorrow as a likely possibility… (the 25th, which could be tonight or tomorrow evening and still qualify)

Also, not totally related, but we got some new pigments recently and I am very fond of this “rose gold” one…

I keep feeling a sensation of needing to “get more done” during each “bonus” day I wake up to and have been feeling frustrated with what feels like overall household inertia from everyone else around me—all the rest of the family members seem content to just “hang out” and wait. I do not do “hanging out” well at all and feel like perhaps I should somehow go ahead and knock out the 50 page paper I have rolling around in my brain for one of the remaining three classes I have left in my D.Min degree. However, then my brain isn’t quite in it (and the household is not cooperative. Seriously. My other kids lately. Whoa!). So, today, I made one of the teas for my Sacred Postpartum class and did some other small projects and to-dos instead (like this post). The 50 page paper can keep waiting!

International Babywearing Week!

Oct6

October 5-11th is International Babywearing Week and we’ve cooked up a couple of new things just in time! First, we have been working on casting one of my original babywearing sculptures in hand-finished resin and after a lot of trial and error, we’ve finally got some ready and listed!

And, not to pat myself on the back too hard, but I’m really, really pleased with the new pewter babywearing pendants we’ve created together too. These are hard to get to cast correctly, which is probably why I’m so pleased with them. We only have a limited quantity available. One of them is actually freestanding, so she can double as a tiny little birth altar figurine when you’re not wearing her. I stand her by my bed at night. 🙂

We also have a new discount code that is available for this week only! For 15% off on any of our etsy shop items, enter babywearing2014.

For more about Babywearing Week, check out the info pages and celebration ideas from Babywearing International: International Babywearing Week – Babywearing International

…all babies are born hard-wired for connection. For dependence. It is completely biologically appropriate and is the baby’s first and most potent instinct. I remind mothers that after birth your chest literally becomes your new baby’s habitat. Mother’s body is baby’s home—the maternal nest.

via Inseparable | Talk Birth.

I’ve never written much about babywearing on my blog, perhaps because it is such an integrated and essential part of my life with a baby that I don’t spend much time consciously thinking about it. When my aunt was here, she gave us a wonderful new Boba carrier for Tanner and I’m so excited! I think all babies need their own new carrier, no matter how many other babies and carriers we’ve already had. 😉 I’m a huge fan of my Ergo, but I’m also looking forward to trying something new (but similar) for our new baby.

This is an excerpt from one of my only past posts about babywearing:

…She most wants to be with me, but often she doesn’t want direct play, she wants to ride along and see what interesting things I’m going to do. I think this is part of baby’s biology and part of how the motherbaby relationship is socially and biologically meant to be at this point—mother goes about her business grinding corn, perhaps, with baby very close and watching. Unfortunately, this doesn’t include typing things on the computer, which is what much of my work actually entails. So, I save household work to do while she’s awake and riding along and I do computer-based work while she sleeps. That way, we usually both get our biologically appropriate needs met within our cultural context…

via Integrated Mama | Talk Birth.

And, one more related post:

Before Descartes could articulate his thoughts on philosophy, he reached out his hand for his mother. 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 and is vital to survival. The infant’s first instinct is to connect with others. Before an infant can verbalize or mobilize, she reaches out to her mother. 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 the mother’s body that she returns for safety, nurturance, and peace.

via Talk to Your Baby | Talk Birth.

Womenergy moved humanity across continents, birthed civilization, invented agriculture, conceived of art and writing, pottery, sculpture, and drumming, painted cave walls, raised sacred stones and built Goddess temples. It rises anew during ritual, sacred song, and drumming together. It says She Is Here. I Am Here. You Are Here and We Can Do This. It speaks through women’s hands, bodies, and heartsongs. Felt in hope, in tears, in blood, and in triumph.Womenergy is the chain of the generations, the “red thread” that binds us womb to womb across time and space to the women who have come before and those who will come after. Spinning stories, memories, and bodies, it is that force which unfolds the body of humanity from single cells, to spiraled souls, and pushes them forth into the waiting world.

via Womenergy | Talk Birth.

Stretching Time

Sep23

Getting back from a trip is like giving birth: take it one step at a time, remember to breathe, honor The Return, accept the unexpected, anticipate some chaos and disarray…

However, there aren’t as many boxes of jewelry and sculptures stacked around my living room when I have a baby usually! Streeeeetch tiiiiiiime.

I posted the above as my Facebook status yesterday morning after having returned from a four-day trip to a festival in Kansas. When I originally wrote: “streeeeetch tiiiiime!” I was thinking of a fantasy of literally being able to expand time, but realized immediately after posting that it can more rightfully be read as time to stretch my own capacities. Just like giving birth.

I feel like I’ve been pushing myself incredibly hard over the last two months. I keep thinking: just this one more thing and then I can rest. But, one thing leads to another thing and then just one more thing (hmm. Is that like labor too? One contraction at a time…) Of course, like most of my life, all the things are good things, there are just a heck of a lot of them. I also recognize this as a recurrent fall season feeling for me, regardless of pregnancy. I date my awareness of it to my first miscarriage in 2009, but perhaps I engaged in this same cycle of drawing away, folding in, and wishing to retreat before that as well and just didn’t write it down.

My oldest son turned 11 this week! Isn’t that incredibly big?! I’m glad he is gracious enough to have his birthday celebration this coming weekend, since I didn’t get home from Kansas until 6:30 on the night of his birthday. Having his brand new computer as an early gift right before I left for my trip helped a lot! Speaking of his birth, here are three versions of his birth story, one from my mom…

I arrived at the Remer home at about 10 p.m., where Mark let me in and told me Molly was in the shower. When I got upstairs, and unloaded my belongings, I could hear Molly humming “Woman am I” from behind the bathroom door. When she came out, wrapped in a green towel, she was so adorable that I had to take a couple of pictures. She said she’d had 7 contractions while in the shower, and was glad I was there.

via Lann’s Birth Story–Baba Style! | Talk Birth.

One from Lann himself…

Swimming

Swimming down out of mama.

Crying!

Nursies.

Happy now.

via Birth Stories by Two Year Olds… | Talk Birth.

And one from me:

After checking the baby’s heart rate and my blood pressure, the midwife asked if I wanted an internal exam. I said that I did. She checked and said, “the baby is at +2 and I can’t find a cervix.” This was highly confusing to all of us and so we asked what she meant and she said, “your cervix has disappeared” and then said, “you can start pushing when you feel the urge.” I was in complete disbelief and stared at her and said in total seriousness, “are you telling me the truth?”

via My First Birth | Talk Birth.

One of the things that made the prior week extremely difficult and stressful (and is the reason that I completely skipped making any posts for the week), is that Mark’s back went out and he was in extreme, lying-on-the-floor pain and thus unable to finish the molding and casting we had planned for sculptures for the Gaea Goddess Gathering, nor able to do any finishing work on the large quantities of pewter inventory we needed for me to be able to take for my booth there. I did not do a very good job taking care of him at all. It was an unexpected, very bad-timing hurdle and I did not handling it gracefully or with any Zen-like aplomb, instead felt over-the-top stressed and unhappy, especially since I was also supposed to be able to grade midterms during that time and did not get a chance to grade a single one until the actual day of my class, and then only under stress, duress, rushing, pushing, and snapping. WAHHHHHH!

This experience reminded me that the problem I find with the often repeated and popular self-care advice about “asking for help” or “learning to receive” is that almost always everyone I can think of to ask for help has just as many things on their plate and on their minds as I do. Adding to someone else’s to-do list doesn’t feel like “receiving,” it feels like abusing! When I posted this thought on Facebook, a gracious friend responded in a way that soothed my heart:

“There are seasons to these things. I feel like we’re all paying into a giant karmic pot…I try not to pass up what feel to me like simple or easy ways to give (if it’s easy, it doesn’t count, right? Wrong.) even when I’m in a season of receiving. Have you considered that your writing, which probably comes as naturally to you as breathing, is a huge gift to the community? If I lived near you, I would totally offer to double some of our meals to share (or clean your bathroom or whatever), out of gratitude for what I’ve gained from reading your blog posts and articles. It may well be that what you need now, and hesitate to ask for, could be on someone else’s “easy” list. And if it’s not, well, we have to trust each other to express our boundaries.“

Some things, like grading midterms, just can’t be passed to someone else, much as I’d like to. Others can be. My example that actually prompted me to post was a really simple and semi-stupid one and it was that I needed a piece of black fabric cut in a circle. I couldn’t get to where it was stored by myself with my big pregnant belly and Mark couldn’t get it for me because he was lying on the floor with horrible pain (chiropractor appointment the next morning helped, luckily). I couldn’t ask my mom because she was driving to KS. So, I messaged two friends who both kindly agreed to do it for me without hesitation, BUT, I know that in asking it added one more piddly task to their own huge to-do lists and meant that they had to dig in their closets for me, since I couldn’t dig in my own. While small, it was exactly the kind of thing I mean—passing on a piece of something that is on my personal list, grows someone else’s and it doesn’t seem “fair.”

This is by far not the first time I’ve had this thought—Mark being out of commission suddenly and unexpectedly is what prompted it this time—but I think it whenever I read a “tips” list and also sometimes when someone reaches out to ME for support, receiving, or help and it feels like it is going to tip me over the edge from “handling it all” to “freaked out and need to hide” and I don’t want to be that person for someone else…like we’re all just passing it down the line! Theoretically it might be a “seasons” thing and most of my people are in a similar season with similar balancing and juggling experiences of their own. But, I don’t know. My mom is 61 now and her overall commitments don’t seem to have slowed down any in this new season of hers—instead of just plain old regular kids needing time and attention from her it is adult kids PLUS grandkids, as well as still friends, husband, projects etc.

All that said, I do feel very grateful that my current class at FLW is one of the Best Classes Ever ™. I am not in an emotional position right now to handle problem students or class conflicts and this class has neither, just interesting, engaged, responsive, fun, committed people from lots of diverse backgrounds. They are working on a great class project right now too: Community Outreach Project.

Regardless of everything else, fireside drumming and dancing was on my agenda and I off I went. Two friends and I packed up my car and headed for Gaea Goddess Gathering in McLouth, KS, where we met my mom, my sister-in-law (and nephew!), and another friend as well as friends we’ve made at past festivals. I had a booth for Brigid’s Grove and also gave a presentation on Womanrunes on Saturday afternoon. I had the beautiful experience of meeting some Brigid’s Grove fans in real life who touched me with their stories and honored me with sharing their journeys. I later overheard one describe me to someone else as I walked by as, “she is my favorite artist.” <blush>

While we had stocked up on our various goddess pendant designs, I was surprised to find that my niche is apparently still in birth art, regardless of setting. The pieces that spoke to the women at this festival were still our birth spiral pendant, our baby in the heart pendant, and our mama goddess pendants. Until this year, I did not fully realize it was possible to make these kinds of connections with others through the creative work of my hands and it really feels like a sacred trust.

Here are some pictures of our (very red) booth:

And, I have to note that if I was about two more weeks pregnant, I think these stairs at Camp Gaea would tip me over the edge into labor!

Speaking of pregnancy, I am 35 weeks now. I have what feels like a million contractions a day AND I have to admit that I still sometimes think the baby is twins, despite the two ultrasounds and the fact that I am not measuring big. I’m so weird! I haven’t checked his heartbeat myself for months now, because he is so wiggly all the time, but yesterday I felt like checking it and I still found two heartbeats in distinct locations, both with the “clop-clop” classic sound of a real heartbeat rather than one with the “whoosh” of a cord. They were different rates too—one on each side of my belly (still have that sensation of having “two sides” that I referenced a long time ago) and when I went to listen for the “other one,” I knew exactly where it was and went straight to it, just like I knew where the real baby’s heartbeat was. I’m a freak, I tell you.

Speaking of twins though, my friend Bibi finished writing up her surprise homebirth of twins story recently and it is a wonderful read:

…We talked about the possibility of an ultrasound to find out about possible birth defects or twins or the hundred other scenarios that had run through my mind. The best idea that our midwife gave me was to sit quietly with myself and determine what I really needed. So that’s what I did. Every night I asked my baby if he or she was okay.

The answer was yes. There is no other way to describe it, but I just knew that everything was okay. I knew that there was a mystery to this pregnancy, and I certainly suspected twins, but with no concrete evidence I thought it was wishful thinking…or maybe I didn’t want to know because the idea of twins scared me as much as it thrilled me.

via Surprise Twins: A Birth Story | The Conscious Doer.

And, returning to birth art, here is my MANA birth art display mock-up pic (as best as I could do on a concrete wall, that is!). This involves complicated couriering of the items by my sister-in-law to her midwife in KC, who will transport them to St. Louis for MANA in October (we can’t attend as vendors because it is the same week as my due date, but we were asked by the organizers to provide a “local birth artist display”) and then back to KC for my SIL to eventually get back to me in Rolla. I just love circles of women and how needed connections are found or work out…

While at GGG, I also finally had a chance to wear my belly bindi to this year’s main ritual!My mother blessing is tomorrow afternoon and today we needed to make a belly cast to paint during the mother blessing as well as clean house and so forth… (even though I just got home Sunday night. What am I doing?!) Oh, and grade all the papers that were submitted over the weekend?!?! I felt on the edge of tears from the time I woke up almost until the time we did the belly cast—feeling stressed, rushed, and WHY. However, we had a great time doing the cast (even though we had to stop to rescue a hummingbird from the actual jaws of a cat, save Alaina from being clawed by another cat, and answer computer questions from the boys. Sometimes I have to pause and realize that the overwhelm I feel lately is probably just a feature of the realities of having three kids with various needs already, a job, a business, a dissertation to write, books waiting to be born, and several serious life passions and be preparing to add another human to the family. Perhaps it would be weird if I didn’t feel overwhelmed and a little panicky, rather than it feeling like it is a personal failing that this is how I’ve spent a lot of time feeling lately.) And, I truly think it turned out to be my prettiest cast:

I love this picture because of the little feet across from me!

Yes, I did make this belly cast while standing in my undies in the front yard!

After we finished, I felt like I’d finally shifted gears in my brain to accepting that this is what I was spending my day on, not scrubbing the toilet or grading 25 papers. I then set up my birth altar for the mother blessing:

I had a lovely time. (And then I did clean the toilet and the bathroom sink.)

Today Mark also hung up a poster that I’ve had for a year. I want to remember this!I got a lot of lovely brand new mama goddesses listed on etsy this evening too:

Tuesday Tidbits: National Breastfeeding Month

Aug12

I was feeling kind of bad during the first week of August about having not gotten around to making any World Breastfeeding Week posts this year (I was still coming down from Mamafest on August 2nd, plus in “second stage” on birthing a really huge project, to be revealed soon!). Anyway, Pathways to Family Wellness Magazine took care of it for me with the image above! The referenced article is on the Pathways site here: Breastfeeding As an Ecofeminist Issue | The Outer Womb and on my own site is here: Breastfeeding as an Ecofeminist Issue | Talk Birth. I noticed it was shared 3,552 times on Facebook, which seems “viral” in terms of breastfeeding memes! (I confess I wish it would have directed back to my own site or page with that number of shares though!) And, no, I didn’t read the comments on it except for a handful, because I am not really interested in any criticism right now. BUT, the one critical comment I did see was about “society” having nothing to do with it is up to women to take care of themselves/assert their “natural rights” which “no one can take away from them,” and so I have to repeat: breastfeeding is a sociopolitical and sociocultural issue. It does not occur in a vacuum and in the privacy of our own homes, it is intimately and inextricably linked to the health of society as a whole and inevitably impacted by the circles of support, broken or healthy, that surround each and every breastfeeding dyad. Breastfeeding is a systemic issue. Women, families, babies, men, children…we are all embedded in an expanding network of social, political, and cultural systems every, single, day. It is inescapable, for better or for worse.

As a related image of the embedded, interdependent nature of reality, including breastfeeding, I really appreciated the graphic in this post by Science and Sensibility.

Breastfeeding is a women’s health issue, a reproductive rights issue, and promotes gender equality and empowers women! It both systemic and personal. Neither context can be ignored.

I was very pleased to get an email from Routledge publishing at the beginning of August promoting World Breastfeeding Week and offering a compilation of related free resources through the end of the month. Routledge is a textbook publishing company and I use some of their textbooks in my Human Services classes: World Breastfeeding Week – Routledge.

In addition to breastfeeding-specific textbooks, they also are offering free online access to related interesting textbooks like The Politics of Maternity and Social History of Maternity and Childbirth. This tells me they recognize the birth-breastfeeding continuum!

Since our Mamafest event was coordinated by two LLL Leaders and our other local Leader helped with it as well, it made since to me to register it as an official Live, Love, Latch event. Live, Love, Latch is an initiative launched by La Leche League USA this year in honor of National Breastfeeding Month in August. The point of these events is celebration of breastfeeding and breastfeeding support.

The purpose of the celebration is, of course, to celebrate breastfeeding, but also to highlight support. All in attendance will be counted as participants, with the goal being to break the previous year’s record for breastfeeding supporters attending. Leaders have autonomy to decide on the details of each celebration.

This celebration theme provides an opportunity to educate family, friends, healthcare providers and other community members about how breastfeeding can be supported, and also emphasizes the value of the support network behind every nursing dyad.

via About – Live, Love, Latch!

I will write more about Mamafest in another post this week (I hope!), but if you’re curious, the photo album is available on the Rolla Birth Network Facebook page. We had 84 people sign in on our Live, Love, Latch sign-in form and about 100-120 people in attendance overall. It was really a successful, fun, exciting event.

After sharing these other images and thoughts, I couldn’t resist making another image of my own:

And, we set up a new coupon code at Brigid’s Grove in honor of National Breastfeeding Month! Use WBW10OFF for a 10% discount on any item through the end of the month. 🙂

Sacred Pregnancy, Week 1, Part 2: Connecting

Aug11

The focus of the second part of the first week of Sacred Pregnancy training was about connection. This was perfect, because I keep feeling like I have been going through the motions of being pregnant. My head still feels disconnected from my body and the physical experience. The baby is “distant” and still feels more like an “idea” than a reality. I really, really, really had “closed out” that chapter mentally and it is taking a lot of work to open the closed space back up. And, yet, as I worked through this section, I realized that almost everything I’ve done this year has intentionally and consciously been undertaken in order to make room for this baby and in preparation to give him and myself what I know we will need, which is times to ourselves to rest and to just be together. I have been driving myself very hard this year and especially in the last couple of months to finish many big projects and this is because I’m trying to give myself what I know I will need. I’m working hard to allow myself to pause and rest, when I didn’t expect to have to do so.

Also, the whole process of our business evolving and growing this year is directly connected to this process of my pregnancy. They were conceived and have grown alongside each other. My “pregnancy journal” this pregnancy is in the projects I have co-created and birthed with my husband over this year. This baby’s development is inextricably linked to the development of our shared business together. My efforts to pull in and to integrate my projects together under the Brigid’s Grove umbrella, while still an ongoing process, are connected to pulling in my resources and my very soul to welcome this baby.

I listened to Nina Lee’s Child and Mother song with my eyes closed, one hand on my belly and the other on my heart, in the heart-to-heart meditation process described in the course. My eyes were filled with tears. I love you. I want you. You are welcome here.

Speaking of “this baby,” we did name him some time ago, though we haven’t shared it with many people. His name is Tanner. His middle name will probably be Matthias, after an ancestor, though we have also looked at Malachi as a possibility. I was driving to class one day before I knew whether the baby was a boy or a girl and thinking about how I needed a boy name too and not just a girl name. I had told Mark that I knew I wanted a tree or woods-related name for him and as I was looking at the beautiful trees lining my drive, I knew it: Forest. What a great name! I was so excited to have “found it.” Then, on the way home again, “uh. oh. Forrest Gump. Oh no! I can’t use it after all.” We talked it over at home and Mark vetoed it immediately because of the Forrest Gump connection. After we found out the baby was boy, we talked over names all the way home from St. Louis and I suggested Tanner as a possibility (briefly considered Tannen instead to better blend with our last name, but then thought of Biff Tannen of, “Hello!, McFly!” fame from Back to the Future and decided not to use it). This way we will have Lann, Zan, and Tan–who could resist?! Tanner actually surfaces on every baby name list I’ve created since 2003, when I was pregnant with our first baby, and is one of the few names on those lists that stands without having ever been crossed off (Alaina’s name also appears on said lists since 2003, even though we didn’t get to use it until 2011!). Anyway, I looked it up later and in addition to referring to the actual profession of a tanner, it is also from the German word for pine tree or…forest.

The other core work for this section was on messages about birth that we wish we would have received (or wish we would receive)…

Lento Tempo

Jul28

“Invite the inner woman to speak in her language of poetry, bones, clouds, dreams, red shoes, fairy dust, ravens, and fissures of the heartland. She who dwells in the wild within will help to navigate the cliffs and valleys. She will show you the passage through – give you eyes to see in the dark. And then, when you are able, she will give you wings to fly out from that both nurturing and devastating abyss into divine light.”

–Shiloh Sophia McCloud

I’m taking an elective class called Women Engaged in Sacred Writing and one of our class texts is Women, Writing, and Soul-Making: Creativity and the Sacred Feminine by Peggy Tabor Millin. While the book itself is not about birth, I was struck by the author’s use of the descriptor “lento tempo” to describe the “slow time” associated with creative projects. My thoughts turned to our family as we await the birth of my sister-in-law and brother’s baby boy. He is arriving firmly on his own timetable and the waiting for him is a process of discovery in and of itself. I’ve never been overdue myself and so it is interesting to notice the parallels between waiting for labor to begin and the very process of labor itself!

Millin writes about the various creative works that require “slow time” and also writes that women crave this time and need it to survive:

Like the gestation in the womb, change happens in lento tempo, slow time. Women crave lento tempo and need it to survive. Slow is the timing of fertilization and incubation, of creative process. Creative writing often resists being manipulated to meet deadlines. We may need to wait on dreams or synchronicity to inspire and guide our work. In lento tempo, we learn the wisdom of letting things rest—bread dough, marinara sauce, roasted turkey, babies, tulip bulbs, fresh paint, grief, anger, ourselves. Almost every book of advice on writing suggests putting a manuscript away for a while once it feels complete. Then the final edit can be undertaken with a fresh ear and eye. Centered Writing Practice teaches us patience, to do by not doing…

…Through focused attention, we engage watchful listening—to our inner voice and to our experience. What we achieve is not a perfect product, but a spinning spiral of synthesis. The movement of this spiral cannot be driven, hurried, or organized. Lento tempo is the natural rhythm of creation—of body, earth, and universe. As such, lento tempo is the rhythm of creativity we hear by practicing awareness…

Women, Writing, and Soul-Making: Creativity and the Sacred Feminine

(emphases mine)

While waiting with my mom, sister-in-law, and brother in Kansas, during one day of our visit we suddenly decided to look up any local labyrinths. We found one at a Lutheran church located only five miles from where we were driving at the time and so we swung by and walked the labyrinth together, pausing first to take symbolic pictures crossing the little bridge over to it—just like my sister-in-law prepares to cross the bridge into motherhood and take her own labyrinth journey of birth. We sang “I Am Opening,” one of our mother blessing songs, together when we reached the center. During the course of our visit, we kept discovering new “signs” every day that “today is the day!” and we eventually made a joke of it, since so far none of the signs have borne fruit! However, on this day we decided that our time in the labyrinth was a story and a precious moment in and of itself, independent of whether it eventually ended up having any part of the baby’s birth story.

I also recently re-read a quote from a book I read two years ago that describes the inward and outward swing of women’s lives. Since it is the time of the new moon now, it seemed particularly relevant:

“When we become practiced in the art of moving between the ‘upper’ and ‘under’ worlds of our lives (outwardly focused and engaged with the world; inwardly focused and listening to our soul) not only does the pattern of light moving into dark, into light again become clear, but also the gradations. We often experience this movement in dramatic (and unpleasant) swings from one to the other, but bringing practice and awareness to this journeying allows us to settle more gently into these transitions; just as the moon takes two weeks to darken, or lighten in small gradations. After all, we do not spend half the month in a dark moon, and half with a full moon. Rather, there are just a few days each of full darkness and full moon, and all the rest of the time is in gradual transition.”

Journey to the Dark Goddess – Jane Meredith

May we honor the call of lento tempo in our own lives, in our pregnancies, in the lives of our children, and in the unique unfolding of our births and creative projects.

Tuesday Tidbits: New Babies

Jul8

“Breastmilk is the bio-available, species-specific food which is perfectly crafted for human babies. It is delivered by the elegant and nurturing act of breastfeeding. Literally organic, it is made by the mother’s body, and delivered to her baby via her breasts. In contrast to artificial baby milk, human milk is a raw food that does not require processing and distribution. It does not use valuable resources nor does it pollute the environment.”—Máire Clements RN IBCLC (via http://bit.ly/1hc8Jsw)

“Breastfeeding is a mother’s gift to herself, her baby, and the earth.” —Pamela K. Wiggins

via Breastfeeding USA.

New pregnant + nursing mama goddess for a friend.

New babies are on my mind as I prepare to attend the birth of my nephew and as I continue to tie up loose ends in preparation for my own new baby in a couple of months. I know I’m only 24 weeks pregnant, but I feel a powerful and almost obsessive drive to get organized/squared away in order to make the space for him that he’ll need from me and that I’ll need for myself. I’m in serious “planning mode” right now and I’m pretty sure I can be exhausting/frustrating for people around me when I do that, but I have to do it. I know what I’m like, I know what postpartum can be like for me, I know what having three kids is like, I know that the new school session starts on my due date (and I’m still planning to teach my online class like usual. Not in-seat. I’m not that crazy!), I know that I push and push and rev and rev and speed myself up to get it all done. So, Planning Mode On. I WILL be resting in November, no matter what, but for me that means making smart, mindful choices now. I’ve retired from a couple of writing commitments, finished several projects and followed through on some obligations that have been on my mind. Mark and I are working hard on preparing and building our business to carry us through the reduced income we’ll have when I’m not teaching.

So, anyway, I read this article and it touched my heart with its sweet, bittersweetness! I look forward to being a temporarily perfect mother one more time…

I was looking at you today and thinking about how right now, today, the day you turn 3 weeks old, I’m a damn near perfect mother to you. I think this is why I love, crave, the newborn stage. Maybe it’s just biology, evolution. But for me, I think it’s more, because for me, it’s the only time I truly feel like a 100% capable mama. Like I’ve got this shit IN THE BAG. I’m a knock-it-out-of-the-damn-park newborn mama.

My job is defined. My role, clear. I nurse, clothe, bathe and hold you. I give you the breast to comfort you, whenever you want. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to wonder. I don’t believe it can be done “too much.” In fact I think that’s the biggest crock ever. I wrap you up and carry you against my chest. For hours. Sometimes I lay you on your back so you can kick and look around and I can watch you and coo at you and smell your head. This is what we do, round and round, I know it and love it and own it completely because you’re my 4th!. I’m tired, oh, so tired, but I know how to mother you now.

I know just what you need. I know what to try.

And this, I know, will fade…

via A letter to my newborn, while I’m still a damn near perfect mom – renegade mothering.

Reading this also reminded of why parenting the first baby can be so particularly hard—because with that one, you don’t necessarily know what they need or what to try. The learning curve is steep and you’re a one day old mother with a one day old baby. For me, I put a lot of pressure on myself with the first to love and cherish the newborn experience all the time because I knew how important and precious and brief the newborn time is. But, I severely underestimated the “trauma” involved with becoming a parent for the first time:

…Several weeks ago my husband was bouncing our screaming daughter in his arms as we half smiled to each other about how it is almost endearing that infants get so worked up for seemingly no reason. Over her screams we reminisced about what was hard with each of our children when they were this age–our firstborn not latching; our second with an undiagnosed dairy allergy.

This playful, patient banter was so different than the days and weeks after our first son was born. I remember sobbing tears of inadequacy as my husband looked at me through bleary eyes and said, “Why didn’t anyone warn us about THIS PART?”

The part where you think you are supposed to have all of the answers. The part where you take home a helpless human with no instruction booklet. The part where you have to go back to work after six weeks and restaurant owners ask you to feed your baby in a bathroom. The part where you forget how connected you and your husband once were as you fight over bath temperatures and take turns waking each other up with irrational nightmares that your baby is buried amongst the pillows in your bed…

via The Trauma of First-Time Parenthood | Raising Kvell.

The post above is a response to one on the New York Times:

Given the ideology of parenting, it’s not surprising that we typically blame biology for the experience of postpartum depression. But the circumstances parents face are often demonstrably miserable. The fact that postpartum depression rates are much higher among the poor than among the wealthy, who can purchase peace of mind through hired child care, supports the idea that the phenomenon is, in most cases, more circumstantial than biological.

As a recent parent myself, I urge you to consider this the next time someone you know greets the transition to parenthood with hopelessness or even despair. Pursue kindness over ideology. For a person whose suffering has been met with judgment, a sympathetic ear can make all the difference…

via The Trauma of Parenthood – NYTimes.com.

I also thought about the information feeding frenzy of pregnancy and early parenthood when I read this article from Lamaze:

There comes a point when a trickle of helpful information becomes a flood. The process of teasing the facts from the fiction can you leave you feeling overwhelmed, confused, and frustrated. So what’s an information-hungry pregnant person to do?

Find a tour guide. Would you travel to the Amazon without a guide? And yes, I AM comparing pregnancy information with the rain forest — it’s dense, sometimes scary, and incredibly difficult at times to see the forest for the trees. A “tour guide” in pregnancy comes in the form of a childbirth educator, doula, and respectful care provider. These trained professionals can help you make sense of the information and opinions you uncover, and while their job is not to make decisions for you, they can provide evidence based information to help you determine the best path for your pregnancy and birth…

via Lamaze for Parents : Blogs : Birth in the Media – How Much is Too Much When You’re Pregnant?

Which then reminded me of my favorite article on the subject from Pam England:

However, a pregnant woman, with only months or weeks before giving birth, does not have time to gather, learn, and assimilate all the information out there. Many women are conditioned to believe that if they have lots of information, then they will “pass the test” or be able to control their birth outcome. Gathering birth information sometimes becomes a kind of addiction; parents can feel the adrenalin and endorphin surges as they learn, learn, learn by surfing the net and reading. There is often an extra surge when their eyes are glued to the medicalized birth shows on TV.

via Birthing From Within – Information Frenzy.

I was contacted today by a jewelry artist in Australia wanting to pair some of our goddess pendants with her own work making breastmilk and placenta jewelry. I’m so incredibly excited about this idea and can’t wait to have a co-created piece once my new baby is born!

This is one of ours with a red jasper stone, but OOH, I can just SEE the placental possibilities now… 🙂

I had my placenta encapsulated with my last baby and I’ll be having the placenta encapsulated with my new baby as well. I wrote about my past experience here: Placenta Encapsulation—Three Days Postpartum Comparison…

You can read a recent e-newsletter from Midwifery Today about placentophagy here: E-News 16:13 – Placentophagy.

Yahoo with a Doppler!

Jun23

Ever since 17 weeks pregnant I have been able to pick up what seemed like two heartbeat sounds via doppler at home. The first time it happened was so surprising and so distinct (and the rates were different) that I went to our first ultrasound halfway expecting to find out that I was having twins. It was only one little boy though, but he was so squished up against his anterior placenta that I still kept thinking it might be twins and they missed one somehow. I developed somewhat of an obsession with trying to figure it out and felt like I had a split personality—one part of me was completely convinced there had to be two babies and the other part of me was completely convinced that there could only be one and the two parts duked it out constantly, so I could be equally as certain about either possibility within the span of about five minutes. Luckily, the Pregnancy Resource Center in a nearby town was looking for volunteers to do training ultrasounds and so I had the opportunity to go there last week for a quick ultrasound and finally set my mind at ease by stopping the crazy-making flip-flopping my head was doing about the whole thing. I’d told my doula/friend that I felt “crazy” about thinking it could be twins, but that “I’m not just some random yahoo with a doppler!” Well, it turns out, I am just a random yahoo with a doppler as the second ultrasound also showed just one little boy baby (with one heart) who has been in there mystifying me!

So…for those other random yahoos with dopplers out there googling for answers, here were my reasons for thinking it could be twins:

Heartbeats were regularly different rates (127/135 and 147/156) AND on at least two occasions I picked up a distinctive double “clop-clop” sound in two separate places rather than the secondary sound being the “whooshy” cord sound googling told me I could be hearing (and that Logic Brain told me was most likely what I was hearing).
Two distinct locations that made me think it couldn’t be same baby from different angle—i.e. one heartbeat low on left side and the other “heartbeat” high on right side (I pictured two ying-yang style babies in there!)
Baby’s position via ultrasound so “crammed” into placenta like he was crowded by someone else.
Original (real) baby never changing position very dramatically (at least while I was paying attention) at all between about 15 weeks and 21 weeks. Head-down with back/heart on low left side (since then he has switched around several times).
The sensation of being “one-sided” pregnant as in I felt aware of the real baby on the right, but a sense of “blankness” on the right side (Logic Brain correctly identified for me that this was because my placenta is anterior and on the right and thus blocks a lot of baby movements. I also had an anterior placenta with my second baby though and I never once thought he was twins).
The clear and real sensation that when I was listening for both heartbeats that I was listening for the “second baby.” That is how I would feel in the moment—“time to find the other baby”—but then Logic Brain would kick in afterward and say things like, “I thought I heard a second heartbeat sound” (but in the moment, it would feel like I was listening to one baby and then the other baby).
The fact that Mark also heard it and thought the same thing AND that our midwife was able to pick up two sounds/two rates as well (at about 18 weeks) and she said that it was uncommon to hear from multiple angles like that while baby was still fairly small.
Having been pregnant quite a few times and never before having had any thoughts of twins or hearing any double heartbeats.
Twins being everywhere (including the main characters in the book club book I’m reading with the kids and seeing four sets of them at the LLL conference, etc. 😉 )

And my reasons for thinking it wasn’t twins:

Only one baby seen via first ultrasound (and, obsessively googling revealing that it is fairly rare for a mistake to be made and two babies to be overlooked via ultrasound).
No dreams about it being twins. (My mom teased me about this one, but I felt certain I would have had some dream intuition about it). Then, the night before I heard back from the PRC that I could have an ultrasound there, I did have THE DREAM and it WAS twins. Of course, Logic Brain correctly told me that if I’d spent hours before bed reading stories online about Star Wars and then dreamed I was fighting with light sabers, it would not, therefore, mean I was a Jedi.
The fact that most often the first heartbeat sound was of the “clop-clop” variety and the second of the “whoosh, whoosh” variety (but fast, meaning it was the cord and not the placenta, uterine arteries, or my own heartbeat).
I read online that many, many times when FHT are detected during any pregnancy, it is really the cord and not the heart, but for the purposes of determining fetal life, both count equally and thus cord tones are regularly accepted/recorded as FHT with no distinctions made between them.
No dramatic weight gain (I am up to about ten pounds gained now at 22 weeks) AND not measuring particularly big (around 24 weeks or so) AND not looking particularly “big” either. I was pretty sure there was not actually room for two babies in there!
Having an anterior placenta and knowing that it could impact sensations of fetal movement as well as ability to hear heartrate clearly. Also, finally my husband’s Logic Brain pointed out to me that babies with posterior placentas probably look equally as “squished” into them if they were viewed from the back as our baby did with his anterior placenta, only with posterior placentas they aren’t “in the way” and thus you don’t get the same impression of the baby’s being tucked into it like a pillow.
The sneaking sensation that perhaps the “distraction” of wondering if it was twins was keeping me from actually thinking about the real baby and everything he will need from me/what will need to change/how I will cope with just one new baby I wasn’t expecting to have!

Before we knew for sure, I took a video to try to show what I was hearing. Unfortunately, it isn’t as convincing as some of the non-video’ed times were (like when one was at the very top right and the other very low on the left!), but it is what I have to share as a “how to know whether you, too, are a random yahoo with a doppler” data point.

So, this experience, coupled with my gender mispredictions, means that basically my overall “intuitive” track record during pregnancy is pretty terrible! At the ultrasound they did let us listen to the heartbeat both ways—cord and back and coupled with the visual image, I could more clearly “see” what it was I had been hearing and how it was able to work (nothing really explains the rate differences though except normal variability in fetal heart rate and/or a none-too-spectacularly-sensitive-home-Doppler). Also, this was the first baby for which I’ve ever been able to see so clearly via ultrasound the exact location and insertion of the cord. It was very cool and I wish I had a picture of it to share!

Here are two of the pictures I did get:

And, one of me today at 22 weeks!

Now that I’ve passed 20 weeks, I do feel a lot of movement even with the anterior placenta, so the “one-sided pregnant” feeling is fading.

Tuesday Tidbits: Pregnant Woman

Jun10

I’ve got a whole collection of thoughts rolling around and wanting to be shared! Tonight is my teaching night, however, so I have to boil it down.

First of all, I’m 20 weeks pregnant already! I can hardly believe it, though I also feel as if I’ve been pregnant for a “long time” too. I remain in a state of being both constantly aware of being pregnant and constantly in something like disbelief or “denial.” I feel surprised when I see myself in the mirror and in my head I still feel distanced from the idea of being pregnant and the identity of Pregnant Woman. It still feels somehow “far away,” like that chapter of my life is still closed for me mentally.

This picture was taken at the St. Louis Renaissance Festival on Sunday, one day before 20 weeks. I wasn’t sure my pretty Holy Clothing dress would actually still fit, but it did!

One of the reasons I decided to hire a midwife for this pregnancy was because I feel like I need to bring it back into the front of my mind and to give time and attention to this experience. I need some time to focus on being pregnant and on my new baby and have interaction with someone who cares about exactly that. I need someone to pay attention to me as Pregnant Woman and to care about me in that way that midwives do so well.

I finally added a couple of items to my Amazon wish list for new baby boy as well. I’m intrigued by this Nesting Days carrier and also by the new Ergobaby Four Position 360 Baby Carrier.

(Yes, I do still have Alaina’s Ergo, but apparently I think maybe each baby needs its own new baby carrier!)

With regard to Pregnant Woman, I took the leap and signed up for the online Sacred Pregnancy retreat training in August. I’ve thought about it several times and now feels like the right time for me—I hope to benefit from it both personally and professionally.

Signing up for this training represents another moment of Leonie Dawson‘s #AmazingYear workbook 100 Things list, ftw. I had it on my list as a tentative, but it has now become a reality.

Speaking of the Amazing Year workbook, I’m gearing up to give two presentations at the La Leche League of Missouri Conference coming up this week. I’m doing a session on the amazing year and my first continuing education eligible session on active birth/pelvic mobility. I’ve been working hard on preparing for both sessions as well as getting all of our booth stuff ready, since we’ll be having a Brigid’s Grove booth at the conference too. (Mark will be working at it while I attend sessions.) My LLL Group also has a sales table in the boutique for which I am providing most of the items and we also got silent auction donations ready over the weekend.

Back to the Renaissance Festival where some dear friends were working as pirates, I received this lovely surprise birthday gift.

It is perfect for my Red Tent plans for August!

Speaking of the Red Tent, I enjoyed watching this video again today and thinking about my plans and wishes for this event:

And, surfacing from celebration and shifting to the pain women experience as part of the childbearing year, I appreciated two powerful articles this morning. The first was about a backlash to the backlash with regard to traumatic birth:

If we want to reduce the prevalence of traumatic birth experiences, we’re going to have to confront some common expectations, narratives, and perceptions around childbirth to help shape women’s beliefs and emotionally prepare them for the realities of childbirth. Childbirth is often glamorized as a spiritual journey, but physically, it is called labor for a reason. Sure, it can be a transcendent experience for many women, but it can also be a challenging ordeal involving blood, sweat, and tears, among other bodily fluids. Without adding any other stressful or complicating circumstances, childbirth already has all the necessary ingredients to be bewildering, frightening, and emotionally exhausting. And yet, because of the subjective nature of experience, two mothers can have the same events happen during birth, and one can emerge merely rattled while the other emerges with PTSD.

A good place to start with recalibrating beliefs and expectations of childbirth is with the image of an ideal birth with little pain, no complications or medical interventions, dim lights, and soft music. It’s a lovely and inspiring conception of birth, but we should also acknowledge that absolute perfection is rarely a reality. Most births don’t have complications but some do, and it is unfortunate when women feel they or their births are failures for failing to meet their preconceived notions of success. Women should strive for a birth that is manageable and meaningful, but without a sense of entitlement that it must be fast, painless, and stoic. Holding unrealistic expectations of childbirth can set women up for disappointment…

via Recalibrating Our Expectations of Childbirth | Cara Paiuk.

(Just a note that the conclusion of this otherwise powerful piece felt a little forced and a little too close to “at least you have a healthy baby” for my taste.)

And, then there was this essay about a cesarean picture on Facebook that was reported as “violent”:

This is motherhood. Raw and uncut. Refuse to be silent, show up and stand out, rip off the covers and be seen. This is the motherhood behind closed doors. This is the warriors path and these women are foot soldiers on the battlefield to make miracles and bring fragile lives onto this Earthen soil. Don’t let anyone tell you your birth wasn’t beautiful, that that your moment of utter transcendence wasn’t real. Never believe for a moment that you, too, did not emerge a butterfly…

via A Slightly Twisted Fairy Tale » The warrior with a scar.

The cesarean post reminded me of some of my own previous posts about Cesarean Courage. And, the piece about recalibrating childbirth reminded me of these two articles, the first about the strength found in our most shadowy “what’s ifs” and darkest places:

I’ve also come to realize that despite the many amazing and wonderful, profound and magical things about birth, the experience of giving birth is very likely to take some kind of toll on a woman—whether her body, mind, or emotions. There is usually some type of “price” to be paid for each and every birth and sometimes the price is very high. This is, I guess, what qualifies, birth as such an intense, initiatory rite for women. It is most definitely a transformative event and transformation does not usually come without some degree of challenge. Something to be triumphed over or overcome, but something that also leaves permanent marks. Sometimes those marks are literal and sometimes they are emotional and sometimes they are truly beautiful, but we all earn some of them, somewhere along the line. And, I also think that by glossing over the marks, the figurative or literal scars birth can leave on us, and talking about only the positive side we can deny or hide the full impact of our journeys. What if it was okay to share our scars with each other? Not in a fear-mongering or “horror story” manner, but in honesty, depth, and truth—what if we let other women see the full range of our courage?

via What If…She’s Stronger than She Knows… | Talk Birth.

And, the second about the many possibilities for 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…

via Birth Regrets? | Talk Birth.

Last night, I enjoyed looking at photos from a very interesting art exhibit called Mama that explores birth as a creative process…

The artist has a beautiful etsy shop as well in which she sells her “mamamore” sculptures:

I’m currently looking into ways to reproduce some of my own sculptures, so that I can make them more readily available to women without burning myself out in the process. Here is a photo of a recent batch that mostly headed to Canada for a shop there, with a few extras that went on etsy (and a few are prototypes for possible casting in resin).