Never Read the Comments

Mar8

I try to keep a simple maxim in mind with regard to reading or watching things on the internet: Never Read the Comments. This doesn’t apply to the comments on interesting personal, birth, or spirituality blogs that I read regularly—those comments usually contribute to the discussion and are interesting to consider. I’m talking about anything remotely “viral,” most things from the mainstream media, anything that is part of the natural parenting movement that has become picked up on by the mainstream media, most things about celebrities (particularly if they are making a homebirth or attachment parenting-oriented choice), most things about women’s health or about feminism, and anything that is controversial, particularly if I feel deeply about one side or another of the controversy. If I do read the comments, I often feel despairing about both the future and nature of humankind. It also creates a deep frustration and sadness that then has no real outlet. In my human services classes, I always teach that our first and deepest value to respect the “inherent dignity and worth of each human being.” I live by this. I persist in this belief even when I encounter those who challenge the notion. It is what I return to over and over again when my faith in people is shaken.

I also sometimes share with my classes that the quickest way to start questioning that value is to read comments left on YouTube videos. 😉

Yesterday, I shared some pictures that six-year-old Zander drew in what I’m thinking of as his Never… series of drawing. Today, when I once again yelled, “WHY do I read the comments?!” he said he would draw me a picture and he did…

Birth Regrets?

Mar8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kids: Hilariously Awesome & Awesomely Horrible

Mar7

Sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh at Zander’s creativity and dramatic style or to take him to therapy! Today, he showed me this drawing titled, “Never Camp Outside.” It is both kind of genius and disturbing…

Never Camp Outside

Other features in the series: Never Box a Bear, Never Dive into a Volcano, and Never Sleep in the Street…

Never Dive into a Volcano

Never Box a Bear
(yes, that would be a headless guy with blood spurts)

My kids are all pretty sensitive to violence in the media and we avoid exposing them to violent TV shows/games as much as possible, but their own brains come up with a lot of horrible stuff—if it comes from them, they’re okay with it and enjoying grossing people out. If it comes from outside of them, their tolerance is a lot lower (example: just today they watched a Good Luck Charlie episode and had to hide their eyes when Charlie was almost breaking a glass reindeer).

When we had a lot of snow days recently the boys got all into getting embellished (with washable markers) for a movie project! Pretty creepy!

: Getting decorated!

: Tough face

: ATTACK!

: Pretty good, horrible makeup!

: These pictures are what made me say to the boys, “you are awesomely horrible!”

: So detailed with backs of necks and backs of ears too.

: Aww! Snuggling monsters!

: First horrible makeup also involved painstakingly constructed paper fingernails/claws, each tipped with “blood” and taped around his real fingers.

: Even monster need smoothies.

: All decked out with an “8 pack” and then posed in very smug manner!

: Matching hand art (feet were done too).

: “Disease” make up job at grandparent’s house.

A friend on Facebook commented that I was a “cool mom” for letting them draw all over themselves like this and my response was, cool or crazy or lazy or a combination of all three.

When it was Alaina’s turn to get embellished via washable markers (“beware a tiny girl with a blue marker,” Lann was heard to say), she then did some work on my cheeks too…

Later, I was making pumpkin cookies in the kitchen and waxing eloquent to Mark about human trafficking and the roots in patriarchal religious structures and then looked in the bathroom mirror and saw my face was still decorated…sort of reduced the oomph behind my impassioned soapbox!

Speaking of Alaina, this month she learned how to say her own name. Instead of calling herself baby or “me,” when asked she’ll say, “Lainey” often accompanied by, “me tiny.” Last week, she described herself as strong and funny (true), and she petted my face and said, “Mama, pretty!” (Lest I become too conceited, I recall her also describing Daddy’s 1956 tractor as “pretty” recently). She also says both “thank you” AND “no thank you” and also “love ya! And, she loves squeezing into a box outside with her favorite kitty, Gizmo:

Zander’s drawings made me think I should do my own series. First up for me, based on some of today’s experiences, would be:

Never Read the Comments

(on any articles online about things that I care about and on YouTube videos whether I care about them or not)

Never Buy “Delicious” Fish Oil Capsules for Kids

(unless you like throwing away $17, five years later)

Never Trust “Tastes Exactly Like” Recipes from Pinterest

(banana ice cream…cauliflower pizza crust…garbanzo bean cookie dough…I’m always instantly intrigued, however, if you don’t have dietary restrictions that prohibit the “real” versions of these things, don’t bother experimenting with them. Your family will thank you.)

Tuesday Tidbits: Story Power

Mar5

“The great motherhood friendships are the ones in which two women can admit [how difficult mothering is] quietly to each other, over cups of tea at a table sticky with spilled apple juice and littered with markers without tops.” ― Anna Quindlen

This week, almost ten years after I actually had my first experience with my first baby practice breathing in the womb, I received yet another comment from a mother worried that the practice breathing movements she was feeling were really her baby having seizures. This reminds me of both the power of personal stories and of the power of the internet. I didn’t know ten years ago that my voice would still be able to reach off the page and touch another mother’s life today. That feels good! I also like that this long-lasting post is just my little story. It isn’t a scientific article, it isn’t written in a professional tone, or written with detached objectivity, it is just me telling my story about something that happened and what I learned from it. And, that speaks to other mothers in an irreplaceable way. Since the post now has 130 comments on it, it has become a story-house, so to speak of woman after woman’s stories of this experience and so each woman who comes for the initial story can then benefit from the voices of many other mothers, all in the same place.

And, in a beautiful full-circle experience, the original author of that “miscarriages are labor, miscarriages are birth” quote I’ve used so many times since 2009 and that meant so much to me, found my website this week and left a comment with an update about her own life:

“I am so pleased that my words brought you comfort during a painful time of your life. My miscarriages shaped my life profoundly, as did my experiences as a miscarriage/stillbirth doula. Happily, after many years of infertility, I did give birth to living children, and am now a happy grandmother. The older I get, the more I realize that those little souls who spent their entire lives within me brought me incredible gifts. I am a much better person because they existed…”

Her story and her “old” words reached off the page to me and touched me deeply at a time when I desperately needed them and they’ve gone on and on from there to help many other women.

A lot of other things about stories have been popping off the page at me…

I got a e-newsletter from one of my favorite writers, Jen Loudon, and she was doing an interview with Justine Musk. About said interview with Justine, Jen says:

She writes powerfully about the intersections of so many things I care about: being a creative woman and a feminist, the power of shaping our own stories, the sacred obligation to “connect with your gifts and search for that sweet spot where they cross with the call of the times,” truth, and even thigh-high boots…

And, speaking of feminism and all that good stuff, I followed an internet rabbit trail that started with First the egg’s link to a post at blue milk about slacker moms and white privilege (really good observations, by the way, that behavior reflecting questionable judgement exhibited by a white, middle class mother is way more likely to be blown off or viewed as a funny story than the same story about a poor and/or not-white mother) and eventually landed me at this post about “mothers you hate.” Nestled midway through the article was this interesting observation:

“…The militant mother feels strongly about what happens to her body during birth – and to her baby’s – and she wants women to know about their options. She’s also readily marginalised by powerful institutions. In pro-choice circles we otherwise call the women fighting for rights like these ‘activists’. As a feminist, it concerns me that we’re so intolerant towards birth activism when abortion activism is core to our understanding of bodily autonomy. The activist mother’s beliefs are dismissed as inflexibility, but I’ve had just as many mothers recommend an epidural to me as I’ve had women recommend drug-free births, and they all did so with equal enthusiasm…”

Thinking about mothers and how they interact and how they experience themselves and their lives, my eyes then snapped to this quote in a longer book review:

“…In a sharp observation early in the book, Smyth comments that ‘the role of mother is not immediately intelligible to those who find themselves inhabiting it’ (p. 4). This is certainly borne out in the confessional writing and memoirs of young (feminist) women, who try to make sense of their experiences as a new mother. They write of a crisis of selfhood, feeling undifferentiated in ‘a primordial soup of femaleness’ (Wolf 2001) and of experiencing a gendered, embodied and relational self for the first time (Stephens 2012)…”

Returning to the power of personal stories (but also reminding us not layer our own unresolved personal stories on top of another mother’s grief), I read this very strong, powerful article about miscarriage:

“…I am grieving my enormous loss while simultaneously feeling more at home in my body than ever before. No one seems to want to hear this. No one seems to believe me. Ironically, it wasn’t until I began sharing my story of my daughter emerging from me at 15 weeks that I began to feel sprinkles of shame. Why would I be ashamed of chromosomes gone wrong? How would I have any control over this? Magical thinking and long stored up dark reserves seep out as women experience reproductive hardships. They think they must have done something to “deserve” this, had to have been “unlucky”, and chase every possible line of thinking imaginable to connect the dots. There are no dots here. Miscarriage isn’t about pregnancy ambivalence or anxiety, prior abortions or outbursts of venomous anger, feelings of sadness or anything else that you can seemingly control.

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 [elicit] 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…”

One of my own unresolved bits about my own losses that gets layered on top of (or in the way of listening to) other women’s stories is the WHY of my own losses. I don’t know for certain that Noah’s birth at almost 15 weeks was actually because his life wasn’t sustainable. I continue to have the lingering fear that it was really the UTI I had at the time (the first of my life) that killed him. My gut says that his lifespan only extended that far and was genetically programmed to end at that point, but there is a little part of me that still wonders, what if my body killed him. Ditto with my early miscarriage, my fear is that my hormone levels were low and because I got pregnant again “too soon,” my body couldn’t sustain what might have under different body-circumstances been a perfectly viable baby.

What stories have touched your own life this week? How have your stories helped another mother?

“We live by story. Yours enlarges the circle.” — Richard Rhodes

I am a Story Woman

Birth art journey: mamapriestess

Feb27

This month during my computer-off retreat I felt the itch to add to my birth art journey collection. I haven’t made a new addition to it since Alaina’s dental work in September. Since she is so very interested in rituals and likes participating in women’s circles and wearing my special jewelry and setting up altars (this month two words added to her vocabulary were “altar” and “sacred bundle.” Adorable!), I created a mamapriestess sculpture as the next in my series:

It felt perfect to me, which was great, because I’ve been experimenting with (single) priestess sculptures since my priestess ordination in July and I had a lot of bum starts like this unfortunate try:

Couldn’t figure out yet HOW to do a standing figure after so many creations of seated figures. This one quickly ended up in my closet as did this one:

Not only not very attractive and leaning over, but ended up with burned hands and a broken skirt piece too!)

My next attempt was this one:

Ah! Getting better! Then, this one:

I created a mini version of her intending to include it in a “sacred bundle” at a festival, but I didn’t end up using her for that after all:

Larger priestess and mini priestess and tooth decay sadness mama sculptures.

I became enraptured with the tiny priestesses though and made this one also, who is still one my favorite sculptures (I call her the Womb of Creation):

Each figure in what I think of as my original birth art series has a special meaning to me. It is a 3-D journal of my life with my daughter. Each figure either had a message for me or was created to express a message or a lesson or to incorporate some aspect of my identity or to capture a memory. Here was the full series this summer:

After making the newest mamapriestess to add to the birth art journey series, I was on a roll and I created this version which I like even better:

And, I made a mini-mamapriestess as well:

Then, I started making other mini mamas and their babies:

And, I made a custom sculpture for Journey of Young Women:

Before mailing, I included her figures in a little grouping of minis on the altar for our women’s circle ritual this month:

The same week that my picture of my first custom sculpture order taken on my kitchen counter in front of a humble cake pan lid took off on Facebook (seriously, it had around 250 likes and over 130 shares, which is pretty close to “viral” in terms of birth art I think 😉 ), I also had two photos entered in a Goddess art contest in which this one won a prize…These figures are very near and dear to my heart and really represent my own journey through pregnancy, birth, and motherhood is a way that feels very meaningful to me, so I appreciated the feedback from the contest hostess on the photo also:

I love this one, Molly. It’s so perfect in its simplicity. The cast of shadows from the bright sunshine is lovely! The detail and uniqueness of each of the Goddesses Gathered is amazing! I find myself looking at each one wondering which is me! Such a special little altar for the Goddess. I can imagine myself focusing all my prayers in the center…. knowing that they will either slip through the crevice as dream seeds planted in the richness of the dark unknown, or being lifted upward to be gathered by the air, the wind and the very spirit of life and infinite possibility. Thank you for sharing. Blessings.

And this photo was a runner-up in the art contest 🙂

The “famous” cake pan lid photo!

In new experiments this week, I tried making some very tiny sculptures to use as pendants, with one continuing the “mamapriestess” motif…

Even tinier than that are these two I just finished late last night:

And, if I do say so myself, I made a pretty cool sculpture using a rock I found in the woods:

And, since my mamapriestess sculpture was about her in the first place, at her insistence, I gave the first little mini-mini mamapriestess to Alaina to wear as a necklace:

Finally, lest anyone think all I do is waltz through the forest photographing my art in the sunshine and feeling all Goddess-esque and Earth-mama divine, this is really what is sometimes like behind the scenes:

Crabby and wanting to go back inside (note my hand holding her back from stepping on me).

Scratchy knocking-stuff-down cat and toddler with pig ball “helping” me set up my little sculptures!

She also is very, very, very eager to help me put the pigment on (note the table and her arm!)

While this birth art journey has very much been intertwined with my pregnancy-after-loss journey, my preparation for birth, incorporating the lessons of birth, and expressing the phases and feelings of life with my new baby-turned-bigger-baby-turned-toddler as well as my life as a woman, I realized that it was high time I add another figure to my series that includes all of my kids!

They’re all bigger than this in proportion to me, obviously, but these aren’t meant to be perfect representations (I also don’t just have a smooth, faceless head!)

I also finished a bunch more sculptures late last night (my oldest said they look like a rainbow :)):

“In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within ourselves.”

—Everyday Blessings

Tuesday Tidbits: Bragging Rights

Feb26

“Before I had children I always wondered whether their births would be, for me, like the ultimate in gym class failures. And I discovered instead…that I’d finally found my sport.” –Joyce Maynard

“Our body-wisdom knows how to birth a baby. What is required of the woman who births naturally is for her to surrender to this body-wisdom. You can’t think your way through a birth, and you can’t fake it.” –Leslie McIntyre

This week I particularly enjoyed a saucy post by my friend, colleague, and doula, Summer. Titled Bragging Rights, she talks about her own experience birthing a very large baby (nearly 12 pounds! I enjoy bragging about her baby too!) and whether or not she really “deserves” bragging rights on birthing a big baby. I absolutely love her concluding thoughts on the topic:

“…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!…”

What a great idea that all mothers deserve “bragging rights.” What are your bragging rights moments from your births, however they unfolded?

I immediately thought of one for each of mine, reflecting that each birth does hold a key moment for me, the first thing that comes to mind when I think about that birth, a moment of being power-full.

First birth: my moment was arriving at the birth center fully dilated after having worried I was “only two centimeters.”

Second birth: having a two-hour labor—it was a train ride and I DID IT. Wow!

Third birth (miscarriage): coaching myself through labor and being brave enough and strong enough to open and let go of my little non-living baby.

Fourth birth : catching my own baby! By myself! With my own two hands! And, she was ALIVE!

“…the stories I see of birth in the media don’t reflect the intense emotions, the physical power, or the immense impact of the experience itself. Women screaming, fathers fumbling about, doctors doing most of the heroic work–these images don’t do justice to my experience. I felt empowered, strong, heroic in my efforts to bring my daughter into the world yet, I am painfully aware how little others see the heroism in my birth experience.“ –Amy Hudock (essay in Literary Mama)

“...if you want to know where a woman’s true power lies, look to those primal experiences we’ve been taught to fear…the very same experiences the culture has taught us to distance ourselves from as much as possible, often by medicalizing them so that we are barely conscious of them anymore. Labor and birth rank right up there as experiences that put women in touch with their feminine power…” –Christiane Northrup

Hope and Healing

Feb25

Day of Hope and Healing…

What does that mean to me?

I pause a moment to honor my own courage and heart in trying again. In feeling fear and doing it anyway. Of daring to hope. It takes courage to open oneself up to loss again. To risk pain. To knowingly step forward into what may result in suffering. I celebrate my own daring to try again. For me it paid off, others continue to experience only additional pain and loss. It was a gamble. A roll of the dice. Losing babies shows you how chancy the childbearing year is. How full of promise and how full of pain and disappointment. I’m shocked by how often I continue to think about pregnancy loss, miscarriage, my own little Noah.

Just this weekend, I talked to Mark about the unresolved feelings, questions, and confusion and what ifs I still have and I guess will always have about my own miscarriage experiences. And, I told him, I still think about it every day. Every, single day, three years later. Is that just because I’m a “highly sensitive person” or is it because I was changed to the core by the death of my little baby? Every day I remember him, every day I remember what I learned, and every day I remember how it felt. So, this Day of Hope and Healing to me, is a chance to acknowledge and remember, to celebrate my own strength, and to love the gifts that loss brought me. I still feel a sensation of having a “hurt place” instead. A distinct spot in my uterus that remembers the baby that did not make it. A place that bled with such vigor that I was afraid I would not live. A place that tried so hard not to let go and then yielded. I laid in the bathtub and thought, “I will always be a little bit pregnant with him,” and maybe I am.

Today is The Amethyst Network’s Day of Hope and Healing event. I spent some time yesterday in the woods thinking about this and what it means to me and the above is what I spoke into my little voice memo recorder. I’m excited about our vision for The Amethyst Network in training for miscarriage doulas and offering support for loss families, so today on our Day of Hope and Healing I also donated to our Indiegogo fundraising campaign. We’d surely appreciate your donations as well 🙂 Also, make sure to check out the Day of Hope Pinterest board for inspiration.

A couple of weeks ago, Zander made some sculptures while I was working on my own and he surprised me by making this little “guardian of the dead.” He says she is holding and nursing baby Noah:

Based on my own past “guardian of the womb” experience, I also made a new little sculpture for myself:

On the way back to the house after taking these pictures, I noticed that some tulip bulbs I planted in a terribly haphazard manner last year are actually starting to come up! That felt like…hope.

Today I also made some revisions to my miscarriage memoir and decided to reduce the price to only 99 cents on Kindle!

Book Review: Fathers at Birth

Feb24

(Amazon affiliate link included)

Fathers at Birth

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

Reviewed by Molly, Talk Birth

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

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

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

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

—

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

Review originally published at Citizens for Midwifery.

Mental Defrag (computer off week reflections)

Feb22

“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

A couple of weeks have already passed since my annual computer-off retreat. I wrote down a bunch of notes/reflections during my time off and was planning to do a series of posts about it. However, life keeps rolling along, so perhaps the moment to do so has already passed. Essentially, I wanted to take this digital sabbatical for two reasons:

To “defrag” my brain. That is what this felt like for me. It wasn’t/isn’t that technology is “bad,” but that I think differently with its ever-present tug in my life. It splinters my attention/thoughts/time and I felt the need to regroup and reconnect with myself. I felt a strong need to redefine my relationship with technology and my use of it.
To take a break from the digital noise all around me and experience quiet/internal solitude. I feel like too much time online contributes to a hoppy, jumpy, revved up, skipping, shallow thought-process and a brain filled with other people’s thoughts/ideas rather than my own.

Three things my period of mental defragmentation revealed:

It isn’t really technology use that fragments my attention/time/energy most of the time, it is actually my kids! (Notably, toddler-age person. Regardless of whether computer is on or off, I spend a lot of the day waiting for naptime!)
The story I tell myself about all the things I “really want to do” not getting done because I’m spending “too much time” writing blog posts or on Facebook or whatever is really just that, a story I tell myself, it is not backed up by real life.
I get more done and feel much less scattered and fragmented if I single-task while using technology–i.e. when grading papers, JUST grade papers, rather than putting a picture on Facebook, checking email, and then popping back to the papers and then back away again. This is common sense, but it took enforcement to realize the difference it really makes. It is also extremely easy to fall immediately back into the same jumpy pattern.

I wrote a TON of notes in my journal about this experience, which was funny because I hadn’t written in that particular journal since May of 2011 and that probably truly is related to tech use.

I started to dream vividly again once I stopped going to bed with my ipad.

I did a lot of things with my week off…and…one of my big realizations was that these are all things I probably would have done anyway! I kept doing things I really like and I didn’t do things I imagine or claim I want to do, because…ahem…I either don’t really want to do them OR they take more time/energy than I can give in a life with kids the age of my own (regardless of whether my cell phone is on or off).

But, I did paint something, which I have been claiming to want to do. And, I learned that I’m not very good at it and don’t really want to do any more! 😉

I attempted to recover from the failure of Operation Pug (perhaps more about this someday) by buying beanie baby pugs for all the kids.

I played with clay a LOT, both polymer clay…

And regular clay…

I wallowed in books which I always feel “denied” from having a chance to do!

I got ready for and taught another birth workshop (which I would have done anyway)…

I made homemade tapioca pudding with the kids (and, as I said, I made it the week before my sabbatical and the week after too, so it isn’t really about technology interfering after all!)

I took the kids to see a play at the theater (again, would have done it anyway) and couldn’t resist another picture of the cool Millennial Arch sculpture in front of the building.

I spent a lot of time down in the woods on the priestess rocks (on January first of this year I started what I plan to continue as a year-long practice of visiting these rocks every year and taking at least one picture. I haven’t missed a day yet, so again, technology not interfering with my true “want to do’s”).

Zander made me a super-awesome sculpture that I will write more about in a minute…

And I made more super awesome sculptures myself (and have continued to do so, even with the computer back on).

I did not sew on my penny rug, or map out big charts about my life, or keep up with my daily journal, or draw, or clean the house, or take up new hobbies, or make masks, or do loads of school with the boys, or listen to all the saved up guided meditations and recordings that I can’t resist downloading when they come as free links in interesting newsletters, which are all things I tell myself I would do if I didn’t “waste” time online. I did start doing yoga again and walking outside with Mark again at night (both things I’ve continued since this retreat).

A couple of other things I noticed:

The “itch” or the “twitch” to check email/open Facebook is very frequent. If I sit with it for a minute, it passes.
A lot of my technology use that makes me feel like I have too much to do is very whim-based and kind of ADHDish. If I sit with it a minute, the false urgency of needing to act or respond also passes.
It is peaceful and still to disconnect. It feels like a mental relief and a rest for my brain. The need to “defrag” is real. However, I don’t need a whole week to do this, just bits of time during each day and a minimum of one full day each week.
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).
I have a persistent imaginary scenario of being Playful Mom making projects and singing songs with my kids all day and I’m really more of Parallel Play Mom in which I like to work on my things while my kids work on theirs, whether the things I’m working on are online or offline. Maybe it is time to stop apologizing about that.
Time is a kind of blobby, amorphous thing that pretty much gets “used up” regardless of what I do with it. I just always want to be conscious of how I’m using it up and whether it is in harmony with my values, goals, and purpose.

Multimedia Review: Pregnancy Health Yoga

Feb18

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

Multimedia Review: Pregnancy Health Yoga (book/DVD set)
by Tara Lee and Mary Atwood
ISBN: 978-1-84899-081-4
http://www.taraleeyoga.com/shoponline.php

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

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

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

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

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

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

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