Sacred Postpartum, Week 1: Birth Stories and Vow

Oct22

Backtracking a little into week one of my current Sacred Postpartum class, for the first week’s assignments in reviewing our own birth and postpartum experiences, I set up a mini sacred space and put on some of my birth power bracelets (Mark and I started making these recently and I love them! It is like carrying a mini-mantra, birth power reminder with me every day).

I did my vow page and then a collage of reminders to myself. I made a birth stories page and then printed out copies of each of my kids’ birth stories and stapled them to the back of one journal page per story, including one for my third baby who was born in a second trimester miscarriage (the stories are all available on my blog here. I didn’t include pictures of the actual print outs! ). Then, I did a page on the front of each birth story with pictures of each kid and significant words/lessons from their stories. I ended with a collage of myself as I prepare for my upcoming birth at the end of this month (39 weeks now, 37 when I did the assignment) and took a picture of a blank page as well as a symbol of the story yet to be written…

(click for bigger pix)

Lann

Zander

Noah

Alaina

Anticipation

Ready…

I also just have to pat myself on the back again about having enrolled in these trainings at this point in my own pregnancy. It was a stroke of genius! And, while I knew I would benefit from them, I had no idea how very deeply I would do so.

Sacred Postpartum, Week 2: Ceremonial Bathing

Oct11

My Sacred Postpartum class began last week, though this is my first post about it. One of the assignments this week was to prepare a ceremonial bath.

Despite the deceptively simple sound of the assignment, this bath was an incredibly surprising and illuminating experience. I originally put off doing it because I had “too much to do” and then when I started getting it ready and setting up a little altar and doing the smudging, I felt both nervous and kind of apprehensive. I told my husband, “I think this is the first real bath I’ve ever really taken.” I’m not really a bath person. I took baths as a little kid and then moved on to showers and never took baths again except while postpartum with each of my kids. And, that is when I had my “breakthrough” moment. My eyes were prickling with tears and I said: “I associate taking baths with being weak and wounded.” I associate baths with cleaning blood away from myself and gingerly poking around for tears in my most vulnerable tissues. I associate baths with crying and holding my empty belly after the death-birth of my third baby in my second trimester. In fact, the last bath I remember ever taking in my current home was the one following his birth in which I sobbed my sorrow into the water and bled away the last traces of my baby’s life. (I think I probably did take a postpartum bath after the birth of my rainbow daughter the following year, but I don’t have a memory of it. The only bath I remember ever taking in this house was my post-loss, grief bath.) I associate baths with strings of blood and mucous floating away from me through the water and feeling injured, hurt, damaged and invalid. Deconstructed, taken apart. Lost. Shaking. Barely being able to lift my legs to get myself back out. Having to call for help and be dried off. Hollow. Changed forever.

For this bath, I set up an altar space, turned on my Sacred Pregnancy playlist, smudged the room and the tub. My husband brought me my October 2014 004 mother’s tea (a blend I made last week with friends using the recipe intended for later in this class). I added salts from the salt bowl ceremony at my Mother Blessing. I added a little bit of my sitz bath mix. I added almond milk and honey. My husband went and picked a rose and scattered the petals in on top of me after I was in the tub. As I settled into my milk and honey bath, I felt restless at first, but then I calmed and my mind became more still. I went through my previous bath memories and I cried a little bit. I completely relaxed and sank lower into the water. I touched my body gently and honored what she has given and where she has been wounded. I rubbed my wiggling belly and talked to my baby about having a gentle, easy, smooth birth with a gradual emergence. My thoughts turned to my possible plans for water birth for this baby. I realized that my own “weak and wounded” bath memories are probably, in part, related to why I don’t feel particularly attracted to water birth (though I wasn’t really attracted before I ever had any kids either, so it isn’t all related to those past bath experiences). Can I be strong and powerful in the water, or is that just where I bleed and cry? I’ve been planning to try water during this upcoming birth because I’ve never done it before and because it might help prevent the issues with tearing that I’ve had in the past. However, I have had trouble actually picturing myself doing it. As I stilled into this peaceful, non-wounded, ceremonial bath, I could picture a safe, secure water birth better than ever before.

Smudging the room.

Essential oil blend from my mom.

Salts from the Mother Blessing salt bowl.

Sitz bath mix preview.

Almond milk.

Fresh picked rose petals on a blooming belly!

And, later that night we set this up in the living room…

(glowing pumpkin head courtesy of the kids decorating for Halloween, not for Sacred Atmosphere!)

And, to finish the assignments for this week’s class, we made and enjoyed Thai sweet tea for dessert after dinner!

National Midwifery Week!

Oct8

“…As we ready ourselves to accept new life into our hands,
Let us be reminded of our place in the dance of creation.
Let us be protectors of courage.
Let us be observers of beauty.
Let us be guardians of the passage.
Let us be witnesses to the unfolding…”
—Cathy Moore (in Sisters Singing)

Lots of events in October! I just found out that National Midwifery Week is October 5-11 (same as Babywearing Week). It is finals week for me (I teach on an 8 week session schedule) and so I don’t have time for a lot of things other than grading, but I did pluck some delicious quotes out of past blog posts…

“It’s hard to describe if you’ve never been there, but to watch a woman access her full power as a woman to give birth is awe-inspiring, and I never get tired of being witness to it. It’s an honor to watch that transformation take place.”

~ Julie Bates, CNM

“There is no ‘normal’ birth–each is individual and nonconforming. Childbirth opens an extraordinary spectrum of physical, emotional, and spiritual growth opportunities that is nothing less than extraordinary, which women should be supported in freely exploring. The Midwife must guard parameters of safety, yes, but she should also encourage women to play their edges, experience deep currents of emotion, discover their own ways of transformation, and chart new creative territory.”

–Elizabeth Davis

“Midwifery asks us to truly become at home with ourselves, with nature, and with women. Birth takes us out of our external experiences, our linear timing of progress, and our everyday rituals. In contrast, birth time is measured in a circular movement like the seasons. There are rhythms and patterns. If we let birth unfold with spontaneity and attuned to nature, we will end up appreciating the nature of our souls as well.”

–Mary Sommers (More than a Midwife)

To me, midwife means: loves women. I wrote about this idea in a past post:

I know the traditional root of the word midwife is “with woman” some sources say “wise woman”, but I’d like to offer another. When I was pregnant with my second son, I had a wonderful midwife and we spent many hours together talking about birth and midwifery. During one conversation she said to me, “you can’t be a midwife unless you love women.” This struck me profoundly—a midwife must love women…

via Midwife means “loves women”… | Talk Birth.

To acknowledge midwifery week and the profound gift of service offered by midwives to so many women, we also set up a special discount code in our etsy shop. It is our best one ever: 20% off a purchase of $12 or more (expires October 12). This could be the perfect opportunity to find a special gift for your midwife! To receive the discount use midwifeweek2014 for the 20% on $12+ (Remember, this week only we also have one for International Babywearing Week: babywearing2014 for 15% off any purchase.)

We’ve been working on improving our colors for our birth art sculptures recently and are finally getting some really nice results! We also have new pigments ordered so we can do even more colors soon.

Tuesday Tidbits: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month

Oct7

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Many of us are all too aware of the face of pregnancy loss and the 1 in 4 women who will have this experience as part of their journey through the childbearing year. When my third baby died during my second trimester of pregnancy in 2009, I found the image of tiny footprints on my heart to be a very significant symbol. Since that time, I always keep footprints charms on hand to share with other mothers. I’d hoped to create a new sculpture in honor of this year’s awareness month, but didn’t manage to do so. Instead, in honor, we created a new memorial bracelet for mothers impacted by babyloss. A portion of the proceeds goes to benefit the local pregnancy loss support group in making jewelry items for memory boxes.

Footprints on My Heart Memorial Bracelet by BrigidsGrove on Etsy.

Our shop also picks one organization a month for a donation to a nonprofit organization. Our October donation went to Brittany’s Blankets for Tiny Babies. We sent footprints charms and forget-me-knot charms:

My Sacred Postpartum class started on October 1st and our first week’s assignment was art journaling about our birth experiences. It has been almost five years since my first miscarriage-birth and while sometimes I feel like I seem weird or like I “shouldn’t” keep counting it, I’ve always given Noah’s birth equal weight as a birth experience in my childbearing life. So, I included a page for his birth story in my art journal as well.

(Side note: I have been seeing a chiropractor recently to make sure I’m in good alignment for my upcoming birth and it means a lot to me that she remembers and counts Noah’s birth experience too, saying things like, “well, since you’ve had four births before,” even though I’m in her office with only three kids.)

I’ve mentioned before how powerfully I needed other women’s stories after my own miscarriage experiences. My two favorite books for this are:

Miscarriage: Women Sharing from the Heart

Our Stories of Miscarriage: Healing With Words

I’ve also shared the link to my friend’s miscarriage-birth story in a past post. It is one of the most powerfully written miscarriage stories I’ve ever read. October also marks her due date with that baby and so I want to honor her memory by sharing the link to their birth story again today:

…Three words. It only took me three words to tell you, friend, acquaintance, or stranger, what happened to me. I wonder how many more words it will take to tell myself — the MAMA, the bearer of lost life — what happened.

11 weeks. Saturday night. Walgreens bathroom. By myself. Cabernet Sauvignon in the public toilet. Doughnut-sized clots of tissue that just kept coming. The sensation of birthing jellyfish. Sticky red hands from trying to clean myself up, pulling red chunks out of my underwear. Staring into the toilet and wondering how in the world I could possibly flush it I did, after a long time and many tears. Drips running down my legs and polka-dotting my feet. Telling an employee there was a bloody mess in the bathroom. Walking out of Walgreens in blood-stained jeans.

Did you like it better when I had only said three words? I liked it better when I was still pregnant.

via Losing Susannah | Peace, Love, & Spit Up.

I did note in an article I just read this week via a different friend who recently experienced miscarriage, that personal stories can also be unhelpful to others though, especially when they redirect from the woman in front of us to our own experiences (though, I would venture to say that is because so many of us feel as if we have to hold our own stories close to our hearts, and therefore somewhat unresolved, because of a lack of cultural permission to talk about them normally):

I am left feeling more alone than I ever thought possible. Solicited or not, countless women say to me, “Why is no one talking about miscarriage. No one talks about postpartum depression either. All of these things women go through that nobody talks about. Why are we not talking about it if everyone is going through it?” It’s only now that I realize why I don’t want to share my experience as openly anymore. The more I talked about it, the less understood I felt.

All I yearn for is the simplest of engagement, “How are you feeling?” Four words. Nothing more.

Instead, I am bombarded by horror stories of women losing their longed for dream in a pool of blood or heroic war stories of women whose histories in no my way resemble mine and go on to have healthy children. Are the details of someone’s sister’s friend’s friends’ 4 consecutive miscarriages supposed to be heartening?Women use my openness about my loss as a springboard to delve into their reproductive aches and pains, recent or decades old. The sharing feels tinged — needing to be less this, more that, better than, more than, and most definitely triumphant in achieving their desired family size. I propose that we simply listen to one another, with presence of mind and heart, no matter the level of uncomfortability.

via Grand Losses: Musings on My Miscarriage | Christy Turlington Burns.

This article is extremely powerful and I highly recommend it. The author goes on to explore how women blame themselves for their reproductive losses:

Miscarriage is simpler than all of that. It is loss of life that wasn’t sustainable.

I have fantasies of shouting this from rooftops and tweeting random cryptic notes containing the facts about pregnancy loss in the hopes of galvanizing women’s perceptions of themselves. I daydream about pleading with women not to blame their beautiful bodies for their reproductive devastations. I wish I could dare every woman who has at some point or another wondered if they were somehow the root cause of a reproductive disappointment to turn that question on its head. “What if you are not the reason that this happened to you? What if it just is?” I can’t help but wonder if this would illicit more anger, more grief, more relief, and/or more hope. Or maybe something else completely. I am confident that it would engender less competitiveness, less perfectionistic strivings, and more self-love.

via Grand Losses: Musings on My Miscarriage | Christy Turlington Burns.

Related past posts:

Tuesday Tidbits: Miscarriage Care | Talk Birth.

Tuesday Tidbits: Miscarriage and Story-Sharing | Talk Birth.

Tuesday Tidbits: Miscarriage | 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: Creation and Distraction

Sep9

“I have discovered nothing more stunning, nothing more emotionally stirring, nothing more intriguing than a woman as she creates life.” –Patrick Stull (in Evolve)

From the Celebrating Motherhood book I’ve been using for an intermittent series of posts, comes this thought about creativity from Meinrad Craighead:

Images are like children. Children come out of our bodies as distinct creatures with their own life form…They have come out of us, but they have their own energy separate from us.

Women create—we all create—out of our bodies…The creativity in women’s bodies, the potential in our bodies for making children from our many eggs is, I think, no different from the potential for making imagery from our many eggs…It is very important for we women to understand that whether we are creating biologically or metaphysically from those eggs, it is all the fruit of our body, the fruit of our creativity.

–Meinrad Craighead, from Sacred Stories quoted in Celebrating Motherhood (p. 43).

After quoting Craighead, I remembered I’ve quoted her previously and so I went looking for that quote, which was:

“Come into my lap and sit in the center of your soul. Drink the living waters of memory and give birth to yourself. What you unearth with stun you. You will paint the walls of this cave in thanksgiving.”

–Meinrad Craighead

This quote was used in the context of a post I wrote about my last computer-off week and “defragmenting” my brain, in which I eventually came to the conclusion:

I always have “too much to do,” technology or not. It is kind of how I’m built. I am packed with ideas and plans and goals all the time, so are my kids, so are my parents. I think it is genetic. Also, this makes us interesting people albeit perhaps not Zen enough for some as well as for my imaginary conception of how my life “should” be.

via Mental Defrag computer off week reflections | Talk Birth.

This post led me to another one musing about the “distractions” of technology:

I have to say that when I read content decrying technology as negative and lamenting the abundance of children on their “devices,” part of me hears: “these new-fangled kids driving cars instead of good old horses and buggies!” This is reality. In my specific family, technology and screen-time built my family’s financial security and our literal home. My husband made a living for years off of screens—eight hours a day in front of one in fact. I use one now to support my family and to, get this, be with my children. Using a computer (ipad, etc.) is how I teach, how I write, how I communicate, how I interact, how I earn money, how I sell my creations. My mom was on the phone a lot when I was a kid. I’m on the computer a lot. Maybe Idealized Mythical Past Mom was in the cotton field a lot, or washing laundry for others, or working in a lace factory, or milking cows, or shelling peanuts or making paper flowers, or keeping up the house, or taking care of younger children, or, or, or. Moms have never “not worked.” And, they’ve never been non-“distracted,” just the mode and texture of this “distraction” shifts with times, contexts, roles, activities, and availability of whatever. Perhaps it is all just life and living?! I am as interested by mindfulness and present moment awareness as the next person and yet I always wonder: “can’t I be typing this blog post in the present moment?!” Can’t I be thinking about my to-do list in the present moment? Can’t I be smelling this rose in the present moment? AND, can’t I also be sending this text in the present moment? Why does “present moment” have to be synonymous with no to-do list and no technology? I can very presently us both…right?!

via Tuesday Tidbits: Blogging, Busyness, and Life Part 2 | Talk Birth.

And, I’ve been thinking about the snappy feeling I have this week and how I can be both controlling and flexible, good-humored and humorless, happy Mom reading books aloud and crabby Mom saying, “get that out of my face,” on edge and content, often within the same day and same hour. This reminded me of a post I wrote quite a while ago about “dualism” and how we are received, perceived, and experienced by people can all be true:

And, I started to reflect that I guess I am all these things and how people experience me and my writing is in part up to me and in part up to them. Just like in real life. I can be gentle, kind, and nurturing. I can be critical, judgmental, and harsh. I can be helpful and I can be selfish. I can be patient and impatient. I can be friendly, I can be preoccupied. I can be energetic and enthusiastic and upbeat and I can be exhausted and defeated. I can be a fabulous, fun mother and I can be a distracted and grouchy mother. I can be funny and I can take myself too seriously. Different people, relationships, and environments bring out different expressions of who I am. Sometimes I really like myself a lot. I like who I am, I like how I move through the world, and I’m impressed with my own capacities. I have great ideas and solid values and principles and the ability to articulate those in writing. Sometimes I actually hate myself. I see only the bad parts and I wish I could just be better. I feel hypocritical and over aware of inconsistencies in my own thoughts/beliefs and my expression of my values in the world. I often want to be better than I am, but in rare moments of grace and self-compassion, I realize that I’m pretty good already. And, in some moments of self-righteousness and superiority, I actually feel better than some people in some areas/some ways!

via The dualism of blogging and life | Talk Birth.

I hope I can remember to extend enough compassion and grace to others to realize they are the same way and not write someone off based on one experience or encounter!

(Isn’t it convenient that I’ve already had all these thoughts already and can just go back to my blog to mine for them, rather than starting from scratch all the time? 😉 )

Returning to creation and motherhood though, I think this etsy shop (Shaping Spirit) has the most amazing and best driftwood sculptures of all time:

And I wanted to share a new picture of our cesarean birth goddess design that we re-worked slightly and re-cast recently:

I thought of her as I read a beautiful article about why grieving for birth is selfless and not selfish (shared via Summer Birth Services):

Women grieve stolen birth experiences very deeply, but their grief often remains private because modern birth culture maintains that a healthy baby is the one and only goal. The roots of “the healthy baby lie” are found in the reality of birth, that the outcome is unknown and one potential outcome is, quite undeniably, death. But to women, birth means a great deal more than being alive afterwards. Birth is the introduction to their baby, it matters a great deal.

Mothers spend many months imagining birth, sometimes many years. They imagine feeling more love than they ever imagined when they set eyes on their new baby. The reality is that sometimes things go awry – women are not so stupid that they can’t grasp that – but when they reach out to tell their stories they are often told one of two things; that they should focus on their healthy baby; and that they had unrealistic expectations of birth. But it is not unrealistic to expect that you will feel joyful when you give birth…

via Grieving for Birth is Selfless Not Selfish – Whole Woman.

“These are her endless years, woman and child, in dream molded and wet, a bowl growing on a wheel, no mud, not bowl, not clay, but this becoming, winter and split of darkness, years of wish.”

–Muriel Rukeyser (quoted in Celebrating Motherhood, p. 47)

Sacred Pregnancy Week 4: Honoring, Sealing, & Postpartum Care

Sep1

“I am the strength of all women who have ever birthed a baby and I am ready to join that tribe.”

–Anni Daulter (Sacred Pregnancy)

Me to my husband last night: “so, I know I might look like I’m just dancing around with flowers in my hair, but I’m really getting certified.”

Yesterday, I finished the last assignments for my Sacred Pregnancy class. While I primarily took this class for personal reasons and am glad I did because I truly think it was the absolute BEST thing I could have done for myself to get ready for Tanner, to spend some time focused on my pregnancy, and to get ready for another mindful birth and postpartum experience. I have also completed all the work needed to be a Certified Sacred Pregnancy Mini-Retreat Instructor. On October 1st, I start the Sacred Postpartum training program—again with a dual purpose of personal enrichment and professional development.

I completed some of the activities out-of-order and finished the silk painting and honoring crown from week 3 in conjunction with the postpartum and “sealing” work of week 4.

I chose to use my drumstick as my stick around which to wrap my silk, since the drum is one way I express myself. Bringing the words painted on the silk into my drumming seemed like a logical companion. My silk power was bold fearlessness! Zander and Alaina also worked on small pieces of silk with me.

I’d delayed making the flower crown I thought because I’d told myself that I’ve already had several flower crowns at different ceremonies and so making another one for “no reason” felt kind of redundant. However, after I finished my second silk painting, I looked behind me and saw some wildflowers and I realized I did want to make a crown and I wanted to be with real flowers and not artificial. I’d been going to do artificial since I have some and thought then I could at least check it off the list. I don’t like fake flowers though, I like real ones. As soon as I realized that there were enough wildflowers scattered around the yard that I could make a real one, I got excited about the idea. My daughter helped me find and cut the flowers and then we put it together. And, then took some picture with my new silk and the crown together.

“The first few months after a baby comes can be a lot like floating in a jar of honey—very sweet and golden, but very sticky too.” –American College of Nurse-Midwives

I love the idea of a post-birth sealing ceremony SO much. This is similar to a mother blessing, but it is held postpartum to help “seal” the birth experience and welcome the baby and the mother into motherhood (or mother of however-many-children-hood). Absolutely wonderful. I also love the song Standing on the Edge from the Sacred Pregnancy CD. I identify with it so much as I prepare for my next birth as well as to welcome a new baby who I wasn’t expecting to have. As I’ve noted often in recent blog posts, I’m working very hard to wrap up a variety of projects so that I can cocoon with my new baby and give him and me the time and space I know we will need after birth. I have gotten better and better at taking care of myself postpartum, in asking for what I need, and getting very, very clear with my support people about what is most important to me.

We actually made the flax pillows for the sealing ceremony at the beginning of the week and then used them on Sunday (Alaina and I made the PPD tincture together the same day as the pillows). My husband tucked me in with the flax pillows and scarf and draped the silk painting across me as well. I lit my pregnancy candles and listened to Standing at the Edge. I spoke aloud the things I celebrate myself for–all the projects and children I have given birth to.

As I was setting up my wrap and pillows, my almost-11-year-old son had said he’d like to do it too. So, after my own sealing experience, each of my kids in turn got sealed in the scarf with the flax pillows. And, then they went and got my husband and we sealed him too! For each, I offered a blessing: “I’m glad you were born. I’m glad you are my son/daughter/husband. I love you. Thank you.” I placed my hands on different parts of their bodies as I spoke and then ended with kiss on the forehead. They all loved it and were very calm and contemplative. I think it was good for all of us and was, in its way, a “sealing” of their births and our relationship.

While I always have had a mother blessing ceremony before the baby’s birth, this time I’m going to make sure to do a postpartum sealing ceremony as well. The birth I actually sealed most consciously was the second trimester birth-death of my third son. On my due date with him, which also happened to be my birthday, I did a ceremony outside by our little labyrinth and the tree where we buried him. I spoke aloud, “I am not pregnant anymore,” and took time to hold and honor the powerful, honorable, birth and release I’d given him.

I’ve written a lot about my own postpartum thoughts, experiences, and feelings and they are grouped under the appropriate category on my blog here.

I also want to share a picture of my new mother-of-four goddess pendant! This pendant, too, has been part of my personal emotional preparation to integrate the new baby into my maternal identity. It took a long time for us to get the cast right for this sculpt and I’m so happy to have it to wear now.

August 2014 073

The Sacred Pregnancy online retreat training experience was a very positive one. Lots of personal benefit as well as professional development! I’m so glad I decided to go for it!

Past posts in this series:

Sacred Pregnancy Week 1, Part 1: Sacred Space

Sacred Pregnancy, Week 1, Part 2: Connecting

Sacred Pregnancy Week 3, Part 1: Fears & Forgiveness

Sacred Pregnancy Week 3, Part 2: Empowerment and Self-Care

Aug26

I told you I had a Sacred Pregnancy weekend! On Saturday of last week, after my fears and forgiveness work, I moved on to some empowerment and self-care exercises.

I had been trying to find time to do the silk painting since Wednesday and kept feeling disappointed to not be able to make room for it. On Saturday it became Priority 1! I decided to modify the exercise for my whole family to do as a collaborative “welcome” wrap for baby Tanner, rather than tearing it up to wrap onto sticks as we were supposed to do. I’m going to do the tearing and sacred stick making on my own another day using a different piece of silk.

We listened to the Sacred Pregnancy CD and all worked together outside on a hot, hot August Saturday. It was a lovely, sacred, shared, collaborative project (with a touch of a chaos and a sprinkle of yelled, “don’t spill it!”). Very fulfilling and much fun.

Later in the day I also did my sacred bath and self-care day. My 3-year-old daughter and I made a special salt scrub for me to use using sunflower oil, sea salt, and gentle baby essential oil blend (made by my mom). After the empowerment silk painting (which was part of my self-care too), I set up a special altar in my bathroom, turned on Nina Lee, drew a Mother’s Wisdom card and meditated on it, and then did my salt scrub on my entire body, followed by a refreshing shower. I really took my time with the scrub and thought about how often I rush through or “don’t have time” for lotion or other personal care treatments after showering. I felt nice and “buffed off” afterward! (I tend to very dry skin.) I also had two cups of Caramel Bedtime Yogi tea that I’d made in a jar in the sun that morning. I “run out of time” for iced tea often too. So, this time I didn’t!

These next photos aren’t related to the class work, but they are very related to my own Sacred Pregnancy creative process! In addition to the Womanrunes book, we‘ve been working overtime lately to develop an improved production process for my birth goddess sculptures so that we can actually have them available on a regular basis. While still not perfect, we’ve gotten much closer during the last week and hope have four different designs ready to list in our Etsy shop over the next two weeks.

Wednesday Tidbits: Mother Care

Aug20

“I watch her face become alight with joy and ecstasy. ‘You’re here, oh look, you’re here! You’re so beautiful! I love you! We did it!’ It hasn’t been easy, but it was worth it…She knows–in a way that can never be taken from her–the story of her own courage and strength.”

–Jodi Green in SageWoman magazine

After talking with my doula last week about my own powerful need for postpartum care, I re-read my own past post about “birth regrets” and was reminded again how the theme of inadequate postpartum care in my own life resurfaces multiples times. I told my doula that I’ve never really been happy with my postpartum care, recovery, and experience until I hired her for my last birth and became very, very, very clear about exactly what I needed from the people around me following birth. This is despite having an extremely helpful mother who cooked and cared for me very well and lovingly after each birth AND an extremely involved, nurturing husband. I still needed MORE. Postpartum is hard! Many hands, helps, and small care-giving tasks are needed.

It is interesting to me to see that this is where my regrets and “things to fix” come from, rather than from the births themselves. It is kind of hard for me to write about clearly because I did get good care every time from my mom and from Mark, but I still needed MORE. And, I don’t think it is necessarily “fair” to them to skip bonding with the baby because they’re so busy helping me crawl to the bathroom, or whatever! I also didn’t take particularly good care of myself–emotionally, mainly–following birth.

Midwives are wonderful and midwife-attended birth is wonderful, but it feels like very often birth is the moment and then they fade away and the mother must pick up the early postpartum pieces herself, when perhaps her vulnerability and need for support and physical care is highest then, definitely more than prenatally and, I would argue, often more intensely than during the birth itself.

(Oh, and by the way, I still joke that what I’ve really needed is a continuous postpartum doula for the last 11 years…when my first son was born).

My birth regrets post is a companion to my “bragging rights” and birth post:

‘…Frankly, I think all mothers get bragging rights on their babies births. Birth is awesome and amazing and power-full. Every mother must face it. Sure, she may face it differently than me, but it IS a labyrinth we all go through. This is the way of life. So, mothers, brag away. Brag about whatever part of your labor and baby’s birth made you feel empowered….find that piece, even if it’s just a tiny moment, and cling to it. Shout it from the rooftops!…’

via Tuesday Tidbits: Bragging Rights | Talk Birth.

Speaking of doula Summer, Rolla area families should take note that she is available for a variety of different birth and postpartum packages as well as birth classes: Summer Birth Services. I’m looking forward to her care again in October when I have my baby!

And, still speaking of Summer, I am so excited to share that she is moving forward with the Womanspace community resource center idea that we have talked over and visioned for so many years.

…I visualize a center. A place where women can come together to learn, to talk, to develop, to grow. A safe place. A nurturing place. A supportive place. Hostess to LLL meetings, book clubs, birth circle, birth info nights, prenatal yoga classes, birth classes, birth art workshops, pregnancy retreats, journaling workshops, craft classes, crafty mamas meetings, a miscarriage support group, postpartum mamas support group, birth counseling/consultation sessions, dancing for birth, prenatal bellydance, drop-in support chats, blessingways, red tent events, meet the doulas night, Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal groups, women’s spirituality circles, playgroups, baby massage classes, baby/tot yoga, girls’ coming of age classes, an ICAN chapter, Friends of Missouri Midwives meetings.

A gathering place. A woman’s place.

It will have a large, open meeting room, access to a bathroom and another, smaller room that could be an office, consult room, or playroom. We will have counter space to plug in some minimal cooking implements like a microwave. There will be comfy couches, chairs, toys, a lending library of books and films as well as perhaps toys/games/puzzles. There will be big pillows on the floor and beautiful art all over the walls. Other women wishing to have groups/classes for women, could also use the space for their groups/events.Think we can do it? And, if so, what can I not do to make space in my life for it? In a way, my vision is that this will be that classic “room of one’s one” that every woman needs access to. WomanSpace…

via WomanSpace | Talk Birth.

The above is an excerpt from a post I wrote four years ago! It is so exciting to have it going somewhere. Summer posted on her blog today with her expanded and deepened vision of this space: WomanSpace ~ Making the Vision a Reality

Related to celebrating women and mothers, I updated my mother blessing/women’s ritual page this week: Blessingways / Women’s Programs | Talk Birth.

And, returning to the need for mother care, it so important to recognize that women need support following birth regardless of the week of gestation at which she gives birth. Personally, I was knocked off my feet by my need for immediate support following my first miscarriage. I had never once dreamed miscarriage would be such an intense, physically demanding birth experience. I’m glad this information is now reaching others via Stillbirthday…

When a mother is experiencing pregnancy & infant loss, she needs immediate support.

If you’re a bereaved mother on facebook, it is extremely likely you’ve heard the cry of the newest bereaved mother, sharing that she just very recently endured the death and birth of her beloved baby.

What is some practical support she can use? We have three little buttons published in several places throughout the website, for support prior to, during and after birth in any trimester. Here’s a link for support in the earliest days and weeks after birth:

Switching gears somewhat, another one of my quotes from a Pathways magazine article was turned in a Facebook meme and has been shared on Facebook over 3,000 times. I again would have missed it except for two of my friends tagging me in the post!

Remember that in honor of National Breastfeeding Month, we’re offering a 10% off discount code on any of the items in our shop through the end of August: WBW10OFF.

I am 30 weeks pregnant now! I had a bit of an “OMG, can I actually DO this?!” moment last night when the new session of classes began for me. My students asked me how much longer I have left of my pregnancy and my answer was, “about ten weeks.” I have 8 weeks of class…

It is a hot time of year to be pregnant and while I feel good and healthy over all, I am noticing some different things compared to past pregnancies. I weigh 165 pounds now, which is pretty big! I have way more round ligament pain than I’ve ever had before, including just randomly while walking or sitting, rather than exclusively related to getting up “wrong” or twisting in a not pregnant-friendly way. I also keep having some mild heartburn. And, getting up from the floor is a much bigger challenge than ever before.

I’ve mentioned several times in recent posts that Mark and I have been working on birthing a big project together and it is finally here!
Our first collaborative book project! I did the writing and he did all the illustrations, layout, and formatting. This has been a project about 18 months in the making, a more significant undertaking and more significant expenditure of energy than I could have guessed when I began.

I like how the experience of the final stages of the book have paralleled my own pregnancy. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, our co-creative work on our business endeavors this year is really entwined with the progress of gestating and preparing to welcome our new baby.

As we’ve worked over the last weeks on the final push to finish the book, I saw this meme on Facebook:I shared it on our page and noted that when you’re both creative and you’re both home, the effects may be even more dramatic!

Our Embrace Possibility pendant is the design that has perhaps always held the most personal meaning for me, but as we continue to focus in on our shared vision and to embrace new directions, ideas, and projects in the context of our co-created business, she returns to me as very personally meaningful.

“Encoded in her cells,
written on her bones…
The mantle settles around her shoulders.
Sinking into belly, bones, and blood,
until she knows,
without a doubt,
that this is who,
she really is…”

(Embrace Possibility Pewter Goddess Priestess by BrigidsGrove)

And, I shared this on our page recently since it has spoken to me anew in multiple ways this month:

“…These waves of power.
They are you.
You are doing it.
You ARE it.
This is energy, this power, this unfolding might of creation.
It’s you.
Your body
your power
your birth
your baby…”

Birth Spiral Chakra Blessing | Talk Birth.

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)…