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Alaina’s Complete Birth Story

Jun1

It has taken me a long time to finish typing up Alaina’s birth story. I wrote it in my journal at 3 days postpartum and the following is almost verbatim. I’ve gone back and forth about what to include and decided to just include everything, as originally written. I feel critical of the story somehow, like it is “choppy.” I used interestingly short, jumpy sentences and while part of me want to smooth it out, another part of me feels like it is more authentic in this format. I also feel like I “should” be posting it on a more significant date—i.e. her six month birthday, or something. But, it is finished now, so I feel like sharing now! Additionally, I thought about taking the self-analysis section about the use of a hypnosis for birth program out of the story, but, indeed, this was the FIRST thing I wrote in my journal, so it seems like it “deserves” to be included as well. It obviously was one of the most important details for me to write about. However, for the purposes of clarity, I moved it to the end of the story in this version. Likewise, I thought about making the section about my newborn- love into a separate post, but because those feelings are so intimately entwined with her birth and because, in my journal, that is exactly the chronology I used—first hypnosis criticism, second birth chronology, third baby love–it feels like it all belongs together in one story. It is funny how that first story has such value to me and that it feels almost wrong to edit, change, or add anything to it. It feels most honest this way.

The Birth of Alaina Diana Remer
January 19, 2011
11:15 a.m.
7lbs, 8oz; 20 inches.
Short version of her story is here and labor pictures are here.

I had a restless, up and down night, getting up at 3:00 a.m. and even checked in with my online class. Mark got up with me and we talked and speculated. Waves were four minutes apart and then kind of dissipated unenthusiastically away. He went back to bed at 4:00 and I listened to Hypnobabies. At 6:00, I was feeling trapped lying down and got up. Mark got up then too and worked in the kitchen on the dishes and things like that, while I walked around and leaned on the half wall during contractions (a lot. It was the perfect height). Sitting down in a chair caused horribleness, leaning forward on the ½ wall was good. Called Mom and told her to be on standby and to notify my blessingway crew. Also, called Summer (doula/friend) to be on alert. Felt serious, but not totally. Also was having back involvement which each wave. I felt like I would have a real contraction and then a closely following, but milder, back-only contraction (no tightness in uterus really during these, but definitely a wave-like progression and then ease of sensation).

I was very quiet during most waves until the end. I think because I was doing the Hypnobabies and was concentrating on that. Then, I would talk and analyze and be very normal in between. This pattern seemed to lead to a decreased perception of seriousness from others of my need for attention—Mark washed dishes, went outside to take care of chickens, work on fire, feed cats and so forth. The boys woke up at 7:00 a.m. and as soon as they came out and started talking to me (Mark was outside), I knew they needed to go elsewhere. We called my mom at 7:30ish and she came to get them. I did not want to feel watched or observed at all, so asked her to wait to come back.

I kept waiting for the “action” to increase and feeling distressed that it was taking such a “long” time. I suggested to the baby that she come out by 10:00. I continued to stand in the kitchen and lean on the ½ wall, sometimes the table or the bathroom counter. Dismayed to see no blood/mucous, nothing indicating any “progress.” Significant feelings of pressure and pain in lower back continued and at the time felt normal to me, but looking back seems like an extra dose of back involvement. In another intensity-increasing experience, the baby moved during contractions for the entire labor until the contraction before I pushed her out. She moved, wiggled and pushed out with her bottom and body during each contraction, which really added a new layer of intensity that was difficult. I was, however, glad she was moving because then I knew she was okay, without doing any heart checks.

I went into the living room, very tired from bad sleep during the night. We set up the birth ball in the living room so I could sit on it and drape over pillows piled onto the couch. I spent a long time like this. Mark sat close and would lightly and perfectly stroke my back. Continued to use Hypnobabies—finger-drop, peace and release, with most waves.

Mark fixed me chlorophyll to drink and I barfed it up immediately and horribly. Called Mom to come back and 9:00 or so, at which point I finally had a little blood in my underwear. Kept up my ball by the couch routine and moved into humming with each wave. Also did some contractions on the floor leaning over the ball. Also good.

On the ball, I began to feel some rectal pressure with each wave. However, I felt like the waves were erratic still, with some very long and intense and then smaller ones. Hums began to become oooohs and aaaaahs and I began to feel like there was a bit of an umph at the end of the oooooh. Went back to the bathroom and there was quite a bit more blood (plus mucous string) and I started to fret about placental abruptions and so forth. Left the bathroom analyzing how much blood is too much blood and began to critique myself for being too “in my head” and analytical and not letting my “monkey do it.” Said I still didn’t feel like I was in “birth brain” and wondered if that meant I still had a long time to go. Started to feel concerned that I was still early on. This is a common feature of all of my births and is how the self-doubt signpost manifests for me. Rather than thinking I can’t do it, I start thinking I’m two centimeters dilated.

I almost immediately returned to the bathroom feeling like I needed to poop. Serious contractions on toilet produced more pressure with associated umphs at the end. At some point in the bathroom, I said, “I think this is pushing.” I was feeling desperate for my water to break. It felt like it was in the way and holding things up. I reached my hand down and thought I felt squooshy sac-ish feeling, but Mom and Mark looked and could not see anything. And, it still didn’t break. Mom mentioned that I should probably go to my birth nest in order to avoid having the baby on the toilet. My birth nest was a futon stack near the bathroom door. I got down on hands and knees after feeling like I might not make it all the way to the futons. Felt like I wanted to kneel on hard floor before reaching the nest.

Suddenly became obsessed with checking her heartbeat. I knew you’re supposed to do so during pushing and I had stopped feeling her moving painfully with each contraction. I couldn’t find her heartbeat and started to feel a little panicky about that as well as really uncomfortable and then threw the Doppler to the side saying, “forget it!” because big pushing was coming. I was down on hands and knees and then moved partially up on one hand in order to put my other hand down to feel what was happening. Could feel squishiness and water finally broke (not much, just a small trickle before her head). I could feel her head with my fingers and began to feel familiar sensation of front-burning. I said, “stretchy, stretchy, stretchy, stretchy,” the phone rang, her head pushed and pushed itself down as I continued to support myself with my hand and I moved up onto my knees, with them spread apart so I was almost sitting on my heels and her whole body and a whole bunch of fluid blooshed out into my hands. She was pink and warm and slippery and crying instantly—quite a lot of crying, actually. I said, “you’re alive, you’re alive! I did it! There’s nothing wrong with me!” and I kissed her and cried and laughed and was amazed. I felt an intense feeling of relief. Of survival. I didn’t realize until some moments later than both Mark and Mom missed the actual moment of her birth. Mark because he was coming around from behind me to the front of me when I moved up to kneeling. My mom because she went to stop the phone from ringing. I had felt like the pushing went on for a “long” time, but Mark said that from hands and knees to kneeling with baby in my hands was about 12 seconds. I don’t know. Inner experience is different than outer observation. What I do know is that the moment of catching my own daughter in my hands and bringing her warm, fresh body up into my arms was the most powerful and potent moment of my life.

I was covered in blood again. Caked in my fingernails and toenails and on the bottoms of my feet again. And, I did tear again, same places.

I feel the moment of her birth was an authentic “fetal ejection reflex” including the forward movement of my hips. The immediate postpartum went exactly as I had planned. Summer arrived approximately 20 minutes after Alaina was born. She brought me snacks, wiped blood off of me, and served me a tiny bit of placenta (which I swallowed with no problem!). My midwife arrived approximately 40 minutes post-birth and assessed blood loss and helped with placenta. She said I lost about 3 cups of blood, but I think all of the fluid that came out with the baby, plus the blood from the tears, may have bumped the estimate up too high. I did not feel weak or tired like I’d lost too much blood, I felt energetic and really good, actually. I didn’t get faint in the bathroom either and my color stayed good throughout. “Don’t look down” (while using the bathroom) is an excellent plan for me!

My post-birth feelings were different this time. I feel more baby-centered in my feelings about it rather than self-empowerment centered. I also feel more critical in my own self assessment this time—like I didn’t “perform” well or handle myself well. I hypothesize that this may be related to using a hypnosis for birth program, because I didn’t feel “calm and comfortable” on the inside. On the outside I think I looked it, but my internal experience involved more “should” than I like. The hypnosis philosophy wasn’t really a match with my own lived experience of birth. Birth isn’t calm, quiet, and comfortable and I don’t actually think it should be or that I want it to be. However, I was trying to make it so and thus not using some of my own internal resources. I felt more mind/body disconnect than I have before also, perhaps because I was trying to use a mind (“control”) based method on such an embodied process. Anyway, it was good for relaxing during pregnancy, personally not so good for behaving instinctually in labor. I did use it though and technically I guess it “worked” because Mom and Mark couldn’t read where I was in birthing and though I was very calm. It didn’t feel calm inside though, it felt HARD. I also was very stuck—almost in a competitive-feeling way—on thinking it was going to be fast and feeling stressed/concerned that it wasn’t.

I also want to include this segment from my journal, written when she was three days old:

She is so wonderful and amazing and beautiful and perfect and I just want to etch these days into my mind forever and never forget a single, precious, beautiful, irreplaceable moment. I want to write everything down to try to preserve each second of these first few days with baby Alaina—my treasure, my BABY! The one I hoped for and feared for and worked SO HARD to bring to this world (in pregnancy more so than in birth). I can’t really though—I am here, now. Living this, feeling this, knowing this. The newborn haze is my reality in these moments, but it will pass away and the best thing to do is to fully live it. To feel it and to be here—without struggling to preserve it all. It is here in my heart and soul and preserved in the eddies and ripples of time. The unfolding, continuous ribbon of life and experiences. I have a weird, petrified feeling of forgetting—i.e. when I’m 89 will I still remember how this FELT?!

What do I want to remember?

Newborn photo (c) Sincerely Yours Photography

Alaina newborn photo (c) Sincerely Yours Photography

    • The scrunchy feel of a newborn’s body.
    • The little mewing squeaks and sighs
    • How she is comforted by my voice and turns to me with a smacky, nursie face…
    • The soft, soft skin
    • The soft, soft hair
    • The fuzzy ears and arms
    • The little legs that pull up into reflexive, fetal position.
    • The utter, utter, MARVEL that I grew her and that she’s here. That she came from me. That sense of magic and wonder and disbelief when I look over and see her lying next to me—how did YOU get here?!
    • The miraculous transition from belly to baby. From pregnant woman to motherbaby unit? How does it happen? It is indescribably awesome.
  • The sleeping profile
  • The scrunchy face
  • The “wheeling” half coordinated movements of arms and legs—sort of “swimming” in air.
  • The peace of snuggling her against my chest and neck.
  • The tiny, skinny feet.
  • Putting my hand on her back and feeling her breathe, just like in utero

I was still scared she was going to die until the moment I held her.

Molly & Alaina newborn photo (c) Sincerely Yours Photography

Six Healthy Birth Practices Handout

May17

Lamaze’s Six Healthy Birth Practices are one of my favorites resources when discussing birth plans in my classes. I find that some materials about birth planning on the internet are unnecessarily cumbersome (while simultaneously being very “cookie cutter”). As I tell my clients, the Six Healthy Birth Practices provide an absolutely phenomenal “basic” birth plan and concisely cover each element of a healthy birth. I suggest using them as a foundation for any birth plan the client plans to write. For use in my own classes, I created a one page handout briefly summarizing the practices: Six Healthy Birth Practices. At the bottom of the handout, I also include my own even simpler summary of the information. I just love them and think they should be the core of any class that serves women planning hospital births. Seriously, what women deserve in a birth environment can be summed up in six, clear sentences! How practical.

I also absolutely LOVE the video based on the practices that is available from Injoy. It is extremely affordable (I actually own three copies of it!). It is very concise and clear (just like the practices themselves) and I love how it shows women in a hospital environment, getting their needs met and having satisfying births. While I personally choose homebirth for myself and am a big advocate of homebirth, at least 90% of my clients are planning hospital births and deserve information and resources that support healthy, satisfying births in the environment they have chosen. I have a variety of great videos in my library, but many of them focus on homebirth and I think the message this sends to clients is—“good birth = homebirth.” While that feels personally true for me, it isn’t actually the message I want to share with my clients—I want to share my enthusiasm for birth, period, and to help them discover resources and plans for having a beautiful birth in any setting. I want to communicate to them that they deserve access to these healthy birth practices in the hospital and I hope we can create a birthing world in which all women can expect to have access to these practices in any setting. So, I like how this video shows women getting their needs met within in a hospital setting.

Additionally, the videos are available for free, practice by practice, on the Mother’s Advocate site, which also includes a variety of accompanying handouts to print.

And, again, here is my own handout for use during birth classes: Six Healthy Birth Practices.

I know I sound like a “commercial” for Lamaze’s Birth Practices and though I am a Lamaze member, I am actually certified with other organizations (ICEA and CAPPA). I think it is important that childbirth educators not limit themselves only to the materials and information provided by their own certifying organization and instead seek out excellent materials from a variety of the wonderful organizations that exist to support birthing women!

Handouts for Birth Booths

Apr11

A frequent topic on email lists for birth professionals is good handouts/resources for booths at maternity or baby fairs. Rather  than making copies of materials or creating my own handouts (reinventing the wheel in a less-professional looking way!),  I am a fan of using glossy, professionally printed, but still very low cost stuff for tables and also a fan of materials that address good maternity care in general. My top faves for having on a booth or as handouts are:

Labor Pictures

Mar28

I’ve mentioned before that I was disappointed not to have any birth pictures from my last baby. What I do have is quite a few labor pictures and I want to share them in a post since labor pictures don’t often get as much “glory” as birth pictures 🙂 I didn’t have any birth pictures with my first son either, though we have several immediately after as was my preference at the time. I have two labor pictures with him, this one, taken in fairly early labor:

Trying to decide whether or not this is it!

Then, my mom took this one of me after I got out of the shower. I was going to try to go to bed, because the birth center staff seemed pretty sure I wasn’t really in labor and should just get some rest. This picture was taken about 5-6 hours before he was born:

With my second son, my mom took a great series of birth pictures as he was emerging. They’re really good and step by step as he comes out—however, the angle is a very direct “rear view” that I don’t feel comfortable putting on the internet! With that birth, there is only one picture from the actual labor (and, it is a nice active labor picture that isn’t too graphic and it has actually been printed in several publications):

About 30 minutes before giving birth to second baby

I like how you can see all of my older son’s playdoh creations in the foreground. That’s homebirth for you!

With my daughter, my mom took a series of labor pictures and while I’m sad not to have birth pictures too, I like the story that these pictures tell:

Taken during the morning of birthing day–wanted one last “belly picture” of pregnancy.

Spent a lot of time on the ball with Mark at my side

My birth nest is all ready! (on floor outside bathroom) Notice that my birth altar is set up nearby.

More time on the ball…

Proving I can still smile one hour before she is born! (+ advertising my alma mater)

Accidentally got trapped on floor in horrible and painful position.

The closer I get to having a baby, the nearer to the floor I get (hands and knees is right for me)

Switched into ridiculous too-small PJ shirt right before pushing.

She’s here! Closest thing to a birth picture that we got.

First nursing

OBs and Normal

Feb20

I’ve been looking through posts on my old book blog, because I shared lots of birth-related thoughts/quotes there that are now lost in the shuffle and would be more relevant transferred over to this blog. From the book The Mother Knot by Jane Lazarre, written in the 70’s she shares an anecdote about her OB that I think carries a huge ring of truth still today:

My obstetrician had whispered a secret to me on a sunny afternoon. I had come to the office prepared with my written list of questions. Why was I feeling nauseated, I asked, and what was all this pain in my thighs? And he had answered wearily, ‘If you want answers to questions, have a miscarriage, or toxemia, or let something else go wrong with your pregnancy. We don’t know anything about normal births.’ So much for technological know-how. [emphasis mine]

This is a perfect example of the differences in approach to caring for women present in the midwives model of care and the modern obstetrics model of care. Another good example of some differences is in the Snow Baby story I put on the CfM blog on Friday.

My Baby Girl is Here!

Jan23

“A baby, a baby, she will come to remind us of the sweetness in this world, what ripe, fragile, sturdy beauty exists when you allow yourself the air, the sunshine, the reverence for what nature provides…”

– Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser (in Literary Mama)

Three generations!

Alaina Diana was born at 11:15 a.m. on January 19th, 2011! She only weighed 7lbs, 8oz and was 20 inches. (My other babies were 8lbs4oz and 9lbs, 2oz.) I’ve sent a short-version birth story to a couple of friends over the last couple of days and decided I could work it up into a short blog post as well (of course, a full-length birth story will eventually follow). I actually had a little trouble getting started in writing about her birth—it was pretty uneventful until the end and I felt like the best description would be: walked around the kitchen, sat on the birth ball, walked around a little more, more time on the ball, hummed and ooohhhhhed, seemed as if  suddenly things changed and I felt big, big things happening and then baby was born all at once! And, I caught her! Emotionally more than temporally, it felt like a long labor and I felt like I experienced less mind-body integration than with previous labors (the actual moment of birth was much more instinctive and powerful than with the other babies though). In general, lots was unexpected about this labor—-it lasted longer than I expected (about 5 hours that were serious, but some warm-up time before that too) and was somewhat erratic and I had quite a bit of back pain. Right before pushing, contractions were still 4-8 minutes apart and it was hard for me to assess where I was/how “active” of labor it was—I was thinking I could either be at the 3cm point OR the transition point! My water didn’t break until seconds before she was born and I felt like it REALLY needed to break, but wasn’t. My kids weren’t here, because her birth was during the day (also unexpected, and a Wednesday, not a weekend!). It was just Mark, my Mom and me.

I spent a lot of time on the birth ball and Mark would stroke my back in just the right way

After criticizing myself at length for being “too analytical,” “thinking too much,” and not letting “my monkey do it,” I experienced a spontaneous birth reflex and pushed her out in a kneeling position and it only took one contraction—her whole head and body came out all at once, no moment of crowning or head birthed and then body following, just a bloosh of entire baby. I caught her myself. Mom and Mark both missed seeing her come out, because the phone rang at the same time. My mom went to stop it and Mark was moving around to the front of me, and when they looked again, I was holding her (Mark says it was about 12 seconds). So, no birth pix 😦

I did tear again, exact same extra-delicate and non-“traditional” place from what I can tell. Feels better than previous births already though–I know how to heal from this (even though I wish I didn’t have to).

My plan for immediate postpartum worked out perfectly and just like we planned. The midwife came about 40 minutes after the birth and checked blood loss. My doula was here about 20 minutes after and fed me a bite of placenta—and, I ate it! No gagging or anything!

I have very different post-birth feelings this time around—though I still had the “I did it!” moment, I felt less euphoric and triumphant and more relief and the feeling that, “we survived!” Blog posts about this will eventually follow…

And, did I mention that I caught her myself?! 🙂

Shortly post-birth

  • My "40 weeks" picture--due date was Jan. 22nd, so took a picture on that day to show how she could (theoretically) still fit! (though she wasn't breech!)

    • Birth Lessons from a Chicken

    Jan11

    Birth Lessons from a Chicken

    by Molly Remer, MSW, ICCE, CCCE

    Originally published in Midwifery Today, 2009 Spring;(89):49

    “Should we just let her sit on them?” my husband asked. He had been struggling to keep a broody hen off her nest for almost two weeks.

    “I always vote in favor of the mother,” I told him. So, we stopped trying to oust her. My husband gathered up six random eggs from the coop and put them under her and we let her sit.

    We consulted our book on raising chickens. The chicken book had very little encouraging advice about “natural incubation.” After reading it, we learned that she was likely to let the eggs get too cold causing them to die, or perhaps just chill a part of them causing the chicks to have deformed feet. If she did manage to hatch them, they will probably get bacteria in them from the “unsanitary” nest site and get “mushy chick disease.” This is, of course, if the eggs happen to be viable at all, which is improbable. It is recommended not to let her sit and if she persists to either cull her (kill her), or to just let her sit there until she dies of starvation trying to hatch infertile eggs (and therefore culls herself). The book also informed us that if she has feathery feet (she does), she will probably knock the eggs out of the nest by accident and break them. Also, she should definitely be sitting in the spring and not the dead of winter. After studying the book, we are left with a clear sense that incubating eggs artificially is the preferred way to go and that “natural incubation” is fraught with difficulty and dangers.

    However, there our chicken sat in the unheated, but well built and insulated chicken coop as the January temperatures outdoors reached -2F. We concluded that she probably had a 5% chance of actually hatching anything and I felt sad for her.

    Then, one morning when my husband went to feed the chickens, he heard a funny noise. He looked at the broody hen and from beneath her, a fuzzy head appeared. Then two. Eventually, four. In this cold, cold weather at the wrong time of year with the wrong

    The mama hen and two of her chicks

    kind of feet and the wrong kind of eggs, she did it! We didn’t trust her, or believe in her. Our book and the experts didn’t either. However, her inherent mothering wisdom won out—it trumped us. At the risk of excessive personification, it truly seemed that she had believed in herself and trusted her instincts (or perhaps, that Nature believed in itself).

    Perhaps we could have had the same result with an artificial incubator—a tray that rotates the eggs, instead of “clumsy” feathered feet; a properly temperature controlled unit instead of the heat of her own breast; a sterilized box instead of a wooden coop with an unscientific amount of possibly “germy” feathers plucked from her own body.

    My husband ran to get the rest of the family and as we watched that first small fuzzy baby with its eyes bright with life, I was awash with the parallels—the book tells her that her pelvis will be too small, labor will be too painful, her skin won’t stretch, she might have GD, there might be any manner of complications, maybe she should elect to have the baby surgically. Why all the fuss about doing it “naturally” anyway?

    Then, as we continued to stare in amazement, the mama hen clucked to her baby softly and fluffed her wings around it until it disappeared beneath her with the others. Isn’t this the birthright of every new baby of any species? To be snuggled immediately after birth into the warm embrace and near the breast of the female body that has given it life? The body that has cared for and nurtured it so lovingly so that its head may finally peek out into the world?

    If our chicken were to write a book about hatching babies—or about giving birth—perhaps her section about natural incubation would read:

    Maybe she knows what she’s doing.

    Maybe you should trust her.

    Maybe she can do a better job with her own body and her own babies than you can.

    Maybe she can do this all by herself.

    —

    Molly Remer, MSW, ICCE, CCCE is a certified birth educator and activist. She is editor of the Friends of Missouri Midwives newsletter, a breastfeeding counselor, and the mother of two young sons and a baby girl on the way. She loves to write and blogs about birth at https://talkbirth.wordpress.com, midwifery at http://cfmidwifery.blogspot.com, and miscarriage at http://tinyfootprintsonmyheart.wordpress.com.

    —

    This is a preprint of Birth Lessons from a Chicken, an article published in Midwifery Today, 2009 Spring;(89):49. Copyright © 2009 Midwifery Today. Midwifery Today’s website is located at: http://www.midwiferytoday.com

    Book Review: The Power of Women

    Dec22

    Tonight I realized I apparently never posted my review of The Power of Women to this blog, but instead had it only on the CfM blog. Since I love the book, I decided to remedy the situation immediately!

    The Power of Women
    By Sister MorningStar
    Motherbaby Press, 2009
    ISBN 978-1-890446-43-7
    201 pages, paperback, $29.95
    http://motherbabypress.com/

    Reviewed by Molly Remer, MSW, ICCE
    https://talkbirth.wordpress.com

    Occasionally, a book comes into my life that touches me so deeply that I am at a loss for words. The new book, The Power of Women, by Sister MorningStar, is one of those rare books. A treasure. A gem. A rare jewel. A delight. These are the words that do come to mind. However, superlatives—though true—do little justice to describing the actual book.

    The Power of Women is a book of “instinctual” birth stories told through the eyes of a gifted and sensitive midwife. The stories are from her perspective, not the mother’s. Each story has either a lesson to share or is a glimpse into that deep inner wisdom and strength found in birthing women that is so easily ignored or dismissed in our modern birth culture. This book is good “word medicine” and the empowering stories within it shine a light to help other women trust their instincts. This light also helps other birth professionals rediscover the magic and mystery and wonder of birth and women.

    The Power of Women also touched me in a special way because the author divides her time between my own native Missouri and a birth center in Mexico. Some of the stories shared take place in each location (more from Mexico). I found it delightful to discover the power of my own Missouri midwifery activist friends represented throughout the book. Familiar names and faces graced the pages for me and it was a treat to experience that connection.

    The book consists of twelve chapters, each containing 5-9 different stories each. The stories themselves are not long, narrative birth accounts, but are moments captured brilliantly for the glimpse of powerful truth they share. Some are only 1/2 page in length–but the depth in each is great. The chapters are titled things like “Stories of Power” or “Stories of Courage” or “Stories of Community and the tales shared therein are loosely bound together with that common thread.

    To be clear, not all of the stories are “happy” or are necessarily “good” birth stories, some are even fairly scary and even depressing. All are powerful.

    My only critique of the book, which I hesitate to share because it seems petty in light of such a beautiful and wise book, is that the formatting of the text is odd. The font size is small and the text tightly spaced with very small indents.

    If you find yourself in a place where you feel trapped alone in a world where the birth you love so much is becoming a “mythological story,” read this book. If you are an aspiring or current midwife, doula, or childbirth educator and wish to deepen your understanding of birth, read this book. If you are a pregnant woman hungering to dig deeply into instinctual birth and the wisdom and power of story, read this book. The Power of Women is a powerful, touching, and magical journey.

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

    Birth Quotes of the Week

    Dec11

    Trying a new, manageable plan in which I collect my birth quotes from CfM and Talk Birth on Facebook and share them on a weekly basis, rather than trying to copy and paste months worth into a giant post the way I usually do! As always, I do appreciate a linkback if you re-share 🙂

    “Childbirth calls into question our very existence, requiring an expectant couple to confront not only new life but death, pain, fear and, most of all, change.”~ Elizabeth Noble, quoting a new mother (via Midwifery Today e-news)

    “I love and respect birth. The body is a temple, it creates its own rites, its own prayers…all we must do is listen. With the labor and birth of my daughter I went so deep down, so far into the underworld that I had to crawl my way out. I did this only by surrendering. I did this by trusting the goddess in my bones. She moved through me and has left her power in me.” ~Lea B., Fairfax, CA via Mama Birth)

    This one is so powerful that it gives me chills to read it!

    “Birth completely transforms a woman whether she considers her birth ecstatic or traumatic. Let us do everything in our power to help her make it ecstatic…” ~ Jan Tritten

    “We women are the fact and flesh of connectedness.” –Grace Pauley & Ynestra King

    “Whatever way birth happens, it is your rite of passage into motherhood, and that passage is to be celebrated. Natural childbirth is a passage, cesarean birth is a passage, and birth with an epidural is a passage to be celebrated. That passage cannot be taken away from you. Every mother’s birth experience is valid, and an act of courage.” –Ananda Lowe (The Doula Guide to Birth)

    (Shared in honor of a special friend 🙂

    “It is not only that we want to bring about an easy labor, without risking injury to the mother or the child; we must go further. We must understand that childbirth is fundamentally a spiritual, as well as a physical, achievement. The birth of a child is the ultimate perfection of human love.” ~Dr. Grantly Dick-Read, 1953

    “We can make a woman have contractions, but we don’t always succeed in forcing her body to release the baby and give birth. If we start a labor with chemicals, we may very well have to finish it with a surgeon’s scalpel.” – Gail Hart, Midwife (via Dalai Mama Professional Placenta Escapsulation)

    “When you change the way you view birth, the way you birth will change.” ~Marie Mongan, Hypnobirthing

    Book Review: Memoirs of a Singing Birth

    Dec4

    Book Review: Memoirs of a Singing Birth
    By Elena Skoko
    Smashwords, 2010
    94 pages, ebook, $9.99
    http://www.sugarbabe.org

    Reviewed by Molly Remer, MSW, ICCE, CCCE
    https://talkbirth.wordpress.com

    Spanning the author’s experiences in several countries, Memoirs of a Singing Birth is an international tale of one woman’s journey through gentle pregnancy and birth. Elena Skoko was born in Croatia and lived in Italy before settling down in Bali (Indonesia) to give birth to her first daughter. There, Elena connects with Ibu Robin Lim, the well-known midwife who wrote After the Baby’s Birth and who manages the Bumi Sehat birth center in Bali. Elena and her partner are blues singers and they sing a special song to their baby prior to and during her birth.

    Primarily a personal account with occasional observations about the larger maternity care system and its drawbacks, Memoirs of a Singing Birth is a gentle read that anyone interested in holistic pregnancy and birth care will find enjoyable.

    English is not the author’s first language and this contributes to some odd or awkwardly phrased segments. In general, the book’s format, style, presentation, and writing is a little rough around the edges, but the author’s graceful story carries a melodious strain of beauty, empowerment, and wonder throughout.

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