Maybe GIRL Baby?

Sep12

I have had more ultrasounds during my current pregnancy than I ever imagined having before and I have struggled with some “cognitive dissonance” over my feeling about the overuse of ultrasound in our medical care system, coupled with the intense desire to “check in” with my baby and “make sure” it is okay, as well as to have as many opportunities to bond and develop a sense of connection as I can. During this pregnancy, it has been important to me to learn the baby’s gender. I really want to be able to name it this time and to not call it “it” through the whole pregnancy. I had an ultrasound this week at 21 weeks (this is the last u/s I plan to have), and as he also said at 18 weeks, the doctor said he thinks the new baby is a girl. While we had a good view and the images also looked very “girlish” to me and I think he is probably right, I don’t feel like he was committal enough for me to really name the baby and to start cleaning 7 years worth of boy clothes out of the closets! I need to have some confirmatory dreams or something! Part of the reason I don’t want to become too invested in a girl concept, is because in my heart I feel like I only grow boys and if the baby is really a boy after all, I do not want to have been overly attached to an imaginary girl. I’ve given birth to three boys already and long ago decided that I was “meant” to be a boymom.

I have two sisters and one brother and before I had any children of my own I always assumed, expected, and anticipated having daughters of my own. During my first pregnancy, I was pretty sure the baby was a girl. We had an ultrasound at 21 weeks during that pregnancy as well and the baby was very clearly a boy. I had to do some quick mental re-shifting and then was very excited about having a boy and have really loved the experience of mothering a son. During my second pregnancy, I had no ultrasounds, but I knew with a deep sense of certainly that my second baby was also a boy. I had 7 dreams that he was a boy and there was no space or reason for me to even consider having a girl. I did wonder if this very clear communication was to prevent any kind of “disappointment” about having a second boy—since I KNEW he was a boy, there was no room to “hope for girl.” I knew who I was having and THAT was the baby I wanted. While I know that the “ideal” family for many consists of a boy and girl, personally I actually prefer same-gender sibling pairs. Indeed, I literally feel grateful every single day that I have two boys and not one of each. They are fabulous buddies and I couldn’t imagine having anything else! I also hypothesized that since much of my life is focused around women and working with women, having boys is a necessary, balancing influence for me. I decided that sons are the children I can learn the most from the experience of mothering and that I was destined to be an exclusively boymom—that these boys were specifically intended gifts from the “universe” to properly balance the energies and influences in my life!

While we have planned for a long time to have three children, it took some time to come to the final decision to have a third—I felt like we had a pretty good thing going with our two and wasn’t sure any longer whether I really wanted to add anyone else to the mix. And, when we made the decision to have a third baby, it was intensely important for me to clarify whether we wanted to have a third baby or whether we were wanting to have a girl. I never wanted any of the possible sons to follow my first to feel as if they were the “wrong” gender or like we kept “trying for a girl.” So, my husband and I got crystal clear with each other that what we wanted was a third child in our family, not one of a specific gender. With my third pregnancy, I was sick for the first time ever, which made me think that the baby was possibly a girl, even though I was pretty sure another boy was in my cards (as I’ve noted previously, I had a lot of “you have three sons” dreams in the interim between my first and second babies). That third pregnancy ended unexpected at 14w5d and that baby was indeed my third son.

My current pregnancy is very much the same as my first two and I’ve had a feeling since the beginning that this baby too, was also another boy. I did wonder if this was a similar mental “trick” as with my second pregnancy—my observation is that if you know in your heart the baby is a boy, there is no room to “hope” for something else or to get attached to a “girl” image—but I also felt a sense of certainty that boys are simply the babies that I grow. Boys are the babies meant for me. After that 18 week ultrasound, when it was inconclusive but looked like a girl, I suddenly felt a small, secret spot in my heart that had been shut up a long time ago start to open up again. My original image as mother of a daughter. I thought she was long gone, but I discovered that she was hiding away very deeply and suddenly she came blooming up again. I was in Lowe’s with my husband after that ultrasound and suddenly I had a crystal clear image in my mind—my two boys were walking along holding hands dressed in matching vests (??!!) and behind them toddled a tiny girl wearing shiny pink shoes. While shiny pink shoes aren’t really my “thing,” after the 21 week ultrasound this last week, I went to the store and bought these:

Book Review: Understanding Pregnancy and Childbirth: Your Complete Guide

Sep6

Book Review: Understanding Pregnancy and Childbirth: Your Complete Guide

By Linda Ayertey, CCCE
Resolve Medical Services, 2008
ISBN 978-9988-1-2163-1
152 pages, softcover

http://www.resolvegh.com

Reviewed by Molly Remer, MSW, CCCE

Written in simple, straightforward language, Understanding Pregnancy and Childbirth is a basic guide intended primarily for first-time mothers. It would be appropriate for clients with low literacy levels. With sections covering each trimester of pregnancy, physical changes, labor, comfort measures, and postpartum, the book is a handy, portable size that makes it easy for reference.

Published in Ghana by a midwife working in a small maternity hospital that she founded with her husband (an OB), the book contains some country-specific phrases and suggestions that may be mildly confusing to readers based in the U.S. I noted a higher than average number of minor errors in the text as well as some incorrect information (such as calling all morning sickness “hyperemesis gravidarum” and the advice to shave your pubic hair regularly because otherwise it, “may cause you to have an unpleasant odour”).

Overall, the information provided by Understanding Pregnancy and Childbirth is very basic as well as conventional. There is a nice illustrated section of positions for labor. However, the only “delivery” position described is the standard semi-sitting position and episiotomies are discussed without criticism (as are other interventions like IVs). The illustrations in the book (aside from cover image) are all of women, couples, and babies of color, which is a welcome change from many similar books on the market.

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

Book Review: Birthing a Mother: The Surrogate Body and the Pregnant Self

Sep2

Book Review: Birthing a Mother: The Surrogate Body and the Pregnant Self

By Elly Teman
University of California Press, 2010
ISBN 978-0-520-25964-5
362 pages, softcover, $21.95

http://www.ucpress.edu

Reviewed by Molly Remer, MSW, CCCE

A scholarly work of passion and depth, Birthing a Mother is an in-depth look at the experience and feelings of Jewish surrogates and intended mothers in Israel. The book explores both perspectives—the unique experience of being a gestational surrogate and that of the intended mother. (The term “surrogate mother” is not considered a desirable one and this is clearly explained in the text, the surrogate is not the mother of the baby and this is reinforced over and over again by both surrogate and intended mother.)

Divided into four broad sections chronicling the surrogate journey, a special focus of Birthing a Mother is the intensive strategies employed by surrogates to dis-identify from the pregnant identity (the pregnant body) and focus the attention and bonding experiences on the intended mothers. Surrogates and intended parents both were very careful to identify the surrogate’s role as “container” for the baby, not as a maternal role. No surrogates in Israel use their own eggs and this was significantly emphasized—i.e. “maybe if it was my own egg, I would feel differently, but I know that this is not my baby.” I was very interested to read that this process actually leads some surrogates to choose elective cesareans (after having normal, vaginal births for their own biological children), feeling that to give birth to the baby vaginally might remove some of the containing elements and connect them physically to the baby in an undesirable way.

As the title would suggest, I was touched by the book’s passionate emphasis on the process of birthing a mother. The surrogacy experience was most often defined as this process—as giving birth to new parents by carrying their child and surrogacy is often seen as a profound gift (by both sets of people involved). And, indeed, most often the surrogates noted feelings of grief and dismay at having to give up the relationship with the intended mother following the birth, rather than “giving up” the baby. With the “container” identity firmly in place, most surrogates did not view the experience as a “relinquishment” of the baby at all, but as placing it into the arms of its rightful parents. As one intended mother stated, “You are not just giving birth to children; you are giving birth to new mothers and to new and happy families.”

A work of medical anthropology and women’s studies, rather than a book designed for birthworkers, Birthing a Mother has an academic feel and occasionally reads like a dissertation, but for the most part this style does not become overly cumbersome. The tight focus on the experiences of women in Israel made me wonder how stories and feelings would change cross-culturally. As someone who is admittedly not very informed about domestic surrogacy arrangements, I remain unclear how applicable the book’s observations and conclusions are to the U.S. population.

While not specifically directed at birthworkers, nor at surrogates or intended mothers, Birthing a Mother is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in exploring the intricacies and unique challenges of the surrogate experience.

—

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

Comparing Belly Pictures

Aug27

I’ve been looking at pix from my other pregnancies and felt like doing a belly comparison post:

Here at am at 19.5 weeks with baby #1:

I’m so young! And, I weighed 126 pounds in this picture! (those are regular, non-maternity jeans)

Here is my 20 week picture with baby #2 (we lived in our temporary shop/garage-house at this point, which is why the lovely backdrop):

I didn’t make it to 19 weeks with my third baby, but I don’t want to leave him out, so here is a 12 week picture from my third pregnancy:

And, finally, below is a 19 week picture from my fifth pregnancy. Yay us! (and, by the way, I definitely do not weigh 126 pounds!) Lann took this one:

And then, I stuck my belly out and took a self-portrait of myself:

🙂

Creating Needle Felted Birth Art Sculptures

Aug24

I wrote this article about birth art some time ago and it has appeared in some form or another in both the CAPPA Quarterly and in the Friends of Missouri Midwives newsletter. Since I posted yesterday about polymer clay birth art figures, I felt like sharing this article today!

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I learned about creating birth art during my first pregnancy in 2003 when I read Pam England’s amazing book, Birthing from Within. Seeing paintings creating by pregnant women, mothers, and fathers was inspirational for me. I was also moved by reading the accompanying explanations of how the art process had helped people on their birth journeys, or on paths to healing from traumatic experiences with past births. In the book, Ms. England primarily discusses the use of journaling, painting/drawing, or sculpting. Though I am an avid journal keeper, I did not find that medium vibrant or visual enough to express the hidden birth wisdom I sensed faintly at the edges of my consciousness, waiting to be given form. Birth art allows you to tap into your “right brain” consciousness and express unexplored gifts, primal wisdom, or release hidden fears. Creating birth art can help you explore your feelings, memories, beliefs, and perceptions surrounding birth outside of the confines of the spoken or written word.

During this time, I had also been experimenting with the craft of needle felting. Needle felting involves using 100% wool fiber, a single felting needle, and your imagination! Needle felting is a dry felting process in which washed and carded wool fleece is sculpted into shape using only a special barbed needle. I decided I had found the perfect medium to express my birth art. I had envisioned creating a Venus of Wilendorf style goddess sculpture. My first attempts left me feeling dissatisfied. I had created the form of a pregnant woman with white wool and then layered colors over it (the effect was cluttered and disorienting—not the inner wisdom I was seeking to explore). I also gave them faces that seemed unfortunately more haunting than wise.

Finally, I created a lushly full figured pregnant woman in white wool in a seated position (my previous efforts were standing) and decided to leave her white and without facial features. I gave her wild, colorful hair in colors representing the four elements. Finally, I felt my vision being manifest! My only concern was how the eye was drawn to her head/hair. One of my fears surrounding birth was that I would be too “in my head” to get into the rhythm of the birth process. I worried that this fear was given visual form in my goddess sculpture—her “energy” was concentrated in her wild, woolly hair, not in her ripe body where I thought it “should” be. Only after I gave birth to my son, did I fully realize what my exuberant goddess was trying to tell me. Her hair and the colors in it were symbolic of the elemental forces and intuitive knowledge that each birthing woman possesses. I had been concerned about being “in my head” with “book learning.” After giving birth, I recognized the intuitive, natural, wild wisdom that I do carry in both my mind and my body.

Polymer Clay Birth Goddess Sculptures

Aug23

In my recent post about “the tentative pregnancy,” I mentioned feeling the urge to make some birth art. Coincidentally, I have several blessingways/mother blessings coming up and also needed to make some gifts…so I put the two needs together and made some lovely (if I do say so myself) polymer clay birth goddess sculptures. I’ve made quite a few in the past, but this was the first time I’d tried using pigments to color them. I also boiled them instead of baking them, which works really well (and they are just as hard and plasticky as when baked—not rubbery or anything as you might expect—but there isn’t any weird fumes from the oven or a need to have an oven heating up the house on a hot day). I think the pigments turned out nice, though I was hoping for more color.

I hope that none of the pregnant mamas for whom these are intended will read this post and have the surprise ruined! (the blue one is actually for me, I thought as long as I was creating for others, I would like to create something for myself as well)

In my earlier post, I’d also mused about my feelings that my pregnancy loss experiences have impacted my ability to connect with the “pregnant identity” during my current pregnancy while at the same time still being constantly aware of being pregnant. Interestingly, I was skimming through my old pregnancy journal from my first pregnancy in 2003 and found the almost exact same sentiment expressed (6 years PRE-loss experiences). I wrote (reflecting on earlier in the pregnancy), “I felt almost constantly aware of being pregnant, but not fully connected to being PREGNANT. This feeling changed after I started feeling the baby move on a regular basis.” Ah ha. So, perhaps my current feelings have more to do with the normal developmental tasks of pregnancy than with having been wounded by loss? (it is probably a combination of both, really, but it was reassuring to me to see that this is not a completely “fresh” feeling!)

The Tentative Pregnancy

Aug20

I am going to try to switch much of my writing about my current pregnancy here, rather than keeping it on my miscarriage blog as I have been. My pregnancy experience is so entertwined with my loss experiences that I’ve been having trouble identifying the proper “home” for my posts on the subject. Barbara Katz Rothman used the phrase “the tentative pregnancy” when referring to the impact of amniocnetisis on pregnancy. I feel like I am experiencing that phenomenon with regard to pregnancy after loss (PAL). I just wrote about some of these feelings in depth on my other blog in this post: No “Safe” Point. I feel like I am constantly aware of being pregnant and yet somehow disconnected from it—like one level (body, mind, or emotions) is very aware and another level (mind, or is it emotions?) hasn’t taken on the pregnant identity. I guess I am experiencing the embodied experience of being pregnant—so, physical awareness—and yet psychologically and emotionally I have not taken “pregnant woman” into my identity again yet. Not sure if this is making sense, but it kind of does to me…

For someone who places such high value on pregnancy and birth as well as for someone whose professional work is centered around, “encouraging joy and confidence in childbearing,” this is an odd as well as kind of sad place to be in. We do not plan to have any more children and I really hope to find plenty of moments to celebrate and revel in this pregnancy—I told my friends already that I’m expecting to have the biggest blessingway EVER this time around! I really enjoy being pregnant. Feels like a state of health to me and I feel physically good while pregnant—strong, pretty, etc. This pregnancy has been a very physically smooth one just like my first two were—no nausea, no troublesome or painful pregnancy complications/symptoms, just feeling like I’m getting rounder and full of life and promise. However, there is a component of personal identification missing for me this time that I can’t quite pin down. Maybe it will

come with time. I think I’m going to do some more birth art and see what happens!

I am 18 weeks pregnant now and I haven’t shared any pictures in a while! The first of these was taken at 16 weeks (at a craft workshop we attended. The attentive among you will notice my lovely Cherokee basket in the background—I am inordinately proud of making this basket!) and the second was taken yesterday at 17w5d.

We had another ultrasound today (another changed feature of the pregnant landscape for me is that this is my most ultrasound-exposed baby EVER. I feel like I benefit more from the reassurance, than I fear risk from the u/s itself). We hoped to find out the baby’s gender—it is very important for me to know in advance this time around. The doctor first said boy, which is what I was feeling in my gut, but then he looked around some more and said he was definitely “flipping” his opinion to “girl.” So, essentially, I know as much as I did yesterday ;-D I really want to name this baby and to have a non “it” identity for it. I do not feel like trying to analyze or explain or justify this feeling. I just feel it.

So, this post is my first effort at bringing the “pregnant woman” identity back into my life. I haven’t started a baby book/pregnancy journal for this pregnancy yet and may not do so this time around. I then worry about the baby feeling unequally treated, etc., so I figure that this can be the baby I blog about. That will be its special something different—I’ve never blogged during a pregnancy before. With my first pregnancy, I participated extensively in a newsgroup and kept all of my postings from that in a big binder for my pregnancy memoir. I also had a specific pregnancy journal and a prenatal/baby book. With my second pregnancy, we did special things we hadn’t before like make a belly cast and have professional pregnancy pictures taken. And, I kept a special pregnancy journal and a prenatal/baby book (same exact one as with my first to be equal! I also did baby calendars for the first year of each of their lives—I wrote something in the calendar blank every single day for each of them! Yay me! No “maternal failure alert” light flashing here!). With my third pregnancy, I had started a special pregnancy journal and also a prenatal/baby book (again, the same one as with the previous children to be equal!). Then, when that pregnancy ended at 14w5d, I had to put those journals away and it hurt so much that I can’t quite manage to start one this time. I just write in my regular journal about it and I do have one of those same identical prenatal/baby books (I’m so equal!) waiting. I think I will use it to write in after the baby is born (more than half of it is a baby book, the first section is the prenatal care record, which perhaps I will fill in retroactively). I also have one of those exact same baby calendars in my drawer (obtained when my first baby was still a baby—I plan ahead!) so that I can do the one-entry-every-day-of-first-year thing for this baby too. While I have blogged extensively about my loss experiences, I have not yet ever blogged during a pregnancy. So, maybe this can be this new baby’s special thing. 🙂

Ecstatic Birth

Aug12

The beautifully organized hormonal symphony of labor was mentioned by several speakers at the CAPPA conference in North Carolina.

Here are two lovely quotes from Sarah Buckley about ecstatic birth and the role of birthing hormones:

“Giving birth in ecstasy: This is our birthright and our body’s intent. Mother Nature, in her wisdom, prescribes birthing hormones that take us outside (ec) our usual state (stasis), so that we can be transformed on every level as we enter motherhood.” –Sarah Buckley

“This exquisite hormonal orchestration unfolds optimally when birth is undisturbed, enhancing safety for both mother and baby. Science is also increasingly discovering what we realise as mothers – that our way of birth affects us life-long, both mother and baby, and that an ecstatic birth —
a birth that takes us beyond our self — is the gift of a life-time.” –Sarah Buckle

While I definitely do not feel like “orgasmic” is an accurate descriptor of my own birth experiences, I really like the term “ecstatic birth.” According to Sarah’s descriptions/definitions of ecstatic birth, I feel like I’ve had three ecstatic births (including a second-tri miscarriage-birth—the hormonal “symphony” was the same as with full-term labor and my sense of exhilaration and accomplishment and almost “pride” was the same as with my other babies, except then I also had the accompanying overwhelming grief at not having a living baby to exalt over).

When I think about the term “ecstatic birth” and recall my own feelings and experiences, I think I’m thinking of the immediate post-birth ecstasy/euphoria I experienced and still remember so profoundly. The I DID IT moments. And too, the other-plane-of-existence feelings/consciousness of being in labor and working in harmony with my body. The Laborland stuff—which is that indescribable, surrendered, sort of “hypnotized” state of truly embodied experience.

Childbirth Education Curriculum Preparation Resources

Aug10

Recently, I received a question from a new childbirth educator seeking resources for developing her class curriculum. I emailed her back with a couple of ideas and thought I would also share them here. Here are several of the most useful tools I’ve discovered for birth class curriculum development:

Prepared Childbirth, The Family Way: Educator’s Guide (from www.thefamilyway.com)
The teaching manuals sold (very affordably) by ICEA are EXTREMELY useful: Family-Centered Education: The Process of Teaching Birth is one of my favorites as is Teaching Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting. If you can get the ICEA Educator’s Guide, it is quite useful too (they used to sell it for around $7, but I don’t see it on their site right now).
Empowering Women: Teaching Active Birth, by Andrea Robertson is a class resource for developing birth classes—can be hard to find lately though.
I love The Pink Kit for all kinds of strategies and information about the pelvis and working with pelvic mobility.
Transition to Parenthood has a full curriculum outline available online as well as several great handouts and activities.

The ICEA resources have been my overall favorite, though I’ve added things from all kinds of other sources, as no single resource everything I want to share in a class-—I add information from all kinds of books, videos, reading, journal articles, etc. Every class I teach is a little bit different because I add and subtract things all the time! I only have one page outline for each week of class and it is PLENTY. I do not use power points or anything like that. Just me, lots of hands-on activities, a few visual aids, and the rapport established with my clients.

Good luck with your journey and enjoy making these classes your own!

And What’s This? More Birth Quotes!

Aug9

I decided to split my most recent Facebook quote sharing into two posts, because it was becoming overwhelmingly long. These are the quotes I’ve shared on the Citizens for Midwifery Facebook page since April. While I realize that I don’t “own” these quotes—other people said them, not me!—I do have quite a bit of legwork invested in seeking and sharing these quotes (I mostly get them from my own reading) and if you re-post one or more of them on your own Facebook page, blog post, or book, I really appreciate acknowledgement and/or link back to this site or to my FB page, that this is where you originally got the quote!

‎”When a woman births without drugs…she learns that she is strong and powerful…She learns to trust herself, even in the face of powerful authority figures. Once she realizes her own strength and power, she will have a different attitude for the rest of her life, about pain, illness, disease, fatigue, and difficult situations.” –Polly Perez

“It is a curious commentary on our society that we tolerate all degrees of explicitness in our literature and mass media as regards sex and violence, but the normal act of breastfeeding is taboo.” – American Academy of Pediatrics (via Baby Bloom Doula Service)

“The way a society views a pregnant and birthing woman, reflects how that society views women as a whole. If women are considered weak in their most powerful moments, what does that mean?” –Marcie Macari

“Attempting to fulfill an idea of the ‘perfect’ mother can only prove soul-destroying, as no such person exists.” –Adela Stockton

“In the sheltered simplicity of the first days after a baby is born, one sees again the magical closed circle, the miraculous sense of two people existing only for each other.” –Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Giving birth is an experience carried not only into the first days of motherhood but also throughout life, having far-reaching effects on the mother’s self-esteem and confidence.” –Gayle Peterson

‎”I think one of the best things we could do would be to help women/parents/families discover their own birth power, from within themselves. And to let them know it’s always been there, they just needed to tap into it.” –John H. Kennell, MD

“As doulas, midwives, nurses, and doctors, it’s important to never underestimate how deeply entrusted we are with someone’s most vulnerable, raw, authentic self. We witness their heroic journeys, see them emerge with their babies, hearts wide open…” –Lesley Everest (MotherWit Doula)

“…advocates of home birth have never suggested that all women should give birth at home, only that it is a reasonable choice for some women. Given that rather modest claim, the force and vehemence with which home birth is opposed by ACOG seems out of all proportion.” –Elizabeth Armstrong (Princeton University)

“Few healthy, low-risk mothers require technology-intensive care…Yet…the typical childbirth experience has been transformed into a morass of wires, tubes, machines and medications that leave healthy women immobilized, vulnerable to high levels of surgery and burdened with physical and emotional health concerns…” –Maureen Corry (quoted in Lamaze International‘s journal)

“At a time when Mother Nature prescribes awe and ecstasy, we have injections, examinations, and [cord] clamping… Instead of body heat and skin to skin contact, we have separation…Where time should stand still for those eternal moments of first contact as mother and baby fall deeply in love, we have haste to deliver the placenta and clean up for the next ‘case.'” –Sarah Buckley

“Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?” – Marianne Williamson

“…celebrate ourselves for our courage to birth. The real question becomes not, ‘Have you done your breathing exercises?’ but rather, ‘Can you love yourself no matter how you birth, where you birth, or what the outcome?'” –Claudia Panuthos

“Whenever a woman has a problem, I believe that she herself can find the answer, provided she is given adequate information and support. I firmly believe in women’s strength and resourcefulness; I’ve witnessed these time and again. Women care about the continuation and continuity of life; they are intrigued by relationships, how things fit together.” –Elizabeth Davis

“Deep relaxation, surrender, letting go: when midwives are asked to disclose the secret of giving birth with relative ease, these are the words we choose. More than metaphors for coping, these responses are based on physiological imperatives…” –Elizabeth Davis

“The greatest joy is to become a mother; the second greatest is to be a midwife.” –Norwegian Proverb

‎”Brick walls eventually crumble precisely because people keep busting their heads against them.” –Barbara Wilson-Clay (IBCLC)

“Some midwives pull women up the hill and say I will get you through this. Other midwives walk behind quietly and gently say, ‘I believe in you.'” -Patricia M. Couch (via Wellpregnancy Childbirth Educator Trainings and Childbirth Classes)

‎”In our own world today, motherhood is rarely sufficiently honored. One day each year, there are brunches and corsages and little gifts of love. But the rest of the time? As a culture, we do not respect the great gift of mothering. Women’s work in raising the next generation is taken for granted. Yet it is a vital service to humanity, one that deserves to be acknowledged continually.” –Patricia Monaghan

‎”Becoming a mother does not need to rob you of your selfhood. Stay away from martyrdom. Martyrs never make good mothers; what is gained in giving is taken away in guilt.” –Gayle Peterson

“The midwife cannot be skilled without being caring. She cannot be truly caring without being skilled.” –Sheila Kitzinger

“The two most beautiful sights I have witnessed in my life are a full blown ship at sail and the round-bellied pregnant female.” –Benjamin Franklin

“When you have a baby, your own creative training begins. Because of your child, you are now finding new powers and performing amazing feats.” –Elaine Martin

“…in a time lacking in truth and uncertainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart.” –Louise Bogan

“If the baby’s body is a joy and a delight in the mother’s arms, that same body will become a joy and a delight to its owner later on.” –English & Pearson

“Even if I am simply one more woman laying one more brick in the foundation of a new and more humane world, it is enough to make me rise eagerly from my bed each morning and face the challenge of breaking the historic silence that has held women captive for so long.” –Judy Chicago

“Children are the power and the beauty of the future. Like tiny falcons we can release their hearts and minds, and send them soaring, gathering the air to their wings…” –Skip Berry

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.”- Zora Neale Hurston (via Literary Mama)

“That they can strengthen through the empowerment of others is essential wisdom often gathered by women. “—Mary Field Belenky (via Applaud Women)

“Since beliefs affect physiologic functions, how women and men discuss the process of pregnancy and birth can have a negative or positive effect on the women that are involved in the discussion. Our words are powerful and either reinforce or undermine the power of women and their bodies.” –Debra Bingham (I was inspired to share this quote today by a conversation with Kerry Tuschhoff 🙂

“Learn to respect this sacred moment of birth, as fragile, as fleeting, as elusive as dawn.” ~ Frederick Leboyer (via From Womb to Cradle Doula Services)

‎”It takes force, mighty force, to restrain an instinctual animal in the moment of performing a bodily function, especially birth. Have we successfully used intellectual fear to overpower the instinctual fear of a birthing human, so she will now submit to actions that otherwise would make her bite and kick and run for the hills?” –Sister Morningstar (in Midwifery Today)

“Birth is women’s business; it is the business of our bodies. And our bodies are indeed wondrous, from our monthly cycles to the awesome power inherent in the act of giving birth.” –Sarah Buckley

“When a man is truly ‘present’ for the birth of his child and allows himself to be touched by the mystery unfolding before his eyes, he will have an unquestionable experience that can catapult him into the next phase of his development as a mature human being. His encounter with the power of birth…can connect him to his partner and his child in ways that sustain him for the rest of his life.” –John Franklin

“When he becomes a father, a man leaves behind his life as a single individual and expands into a more inclusive role. He becomes a link in an unbroken chain. And in doing so, he himself undergoes a birth process–the birth of himself as a father.” –John Franklin (FatherBirth)

‎”We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains. That’s what I want to hear–to hear you erupting. You Mount St. Helenses who don’t know the power in you–I want to hear you…If we don’t tell our truth, who will?” –Ursula K. Le Guin

“For most people, modern life meanders along a path of ups and downs, by and large devoid of high-voltage experiences that have the power to alter our lives in significant ways…The birth of a child is one of those significant experiences.” –John & Cher Franklin (FatherBirth)

“Pregnancy and labor are periods of vulnerability. This vulnerability is not weakness, but softness, which later contributes to adjustment to motherhood. Feeling dependent may open you to your need for help, and the ability to accept help from others can increase your strength and endurance for labor. Each of us must come to terms with our own feminine strength and our need for protection.” –Gayle Peterson (An Easier Childbirth)

“Labor is also teamwork. It is a mother and baby learning together how to push and how to be born, how to yield and separate from the union of pregnancy. You are not in control nor are you out of control during labor. The best way to approach labor is with an attitude of learning rather than controlling.” –Gayle Peterson (An Easier Childbirth)

“Midwifery calls upon you to be the best you can be: the best advocate, guide, healer, counselor, mother, comrade, and confidant of the women seeking your care.”— Anne Frye

“The birth of a baby is the birth of family. Myriad births take place at once: Women become mothers, husbands become fathers, daughters become sisters, and sons become brothers. One birth ripples through generations, creating subtle shifts and rearrangements in the family web.” –Gayle Peterson

“The family’s trust in the midwife and the midwife’s trust in the competence of the family members are the basis of caring that has the power of magic.” ~ Mary C. Howell (from Midwifery Today e-news)

“Birth is not a cerebral event; it is a visceral-holistic process which requires all of your self–body, heart, emotion, mind, spirit.” –Baraka Bethany Elihu (Birthing Ourselves into Being)

“Fear is completely intertwined with what we experience as labor pain…And it is the fear in our physicians and nurses as much as the fear within ourselves.” –Suzanne Arms (Immaculate Deception II)

“There is no place for ideology in birthing. Each birth has its own story and we must respond to what the baby tells us.” –Spinning Babies.com (via Kelly Caldwell)

I do think there is a place for ideologies/philosophies about birth and as guides for humane care/practice and as guides for making prenatal care and birth care decisions (before the birth), but in the actual moment, release of attachment is often necessary.

“To be pregnant is to be vitally alive, thoroughly woman, and undoubtedly inhabited.” ~Anne Buchanan (via CAPPA)

“Your doc/friend/mother-in-law may be saying, ‘Don’t be a hero, get the epidural!’ But this isn’t about heroics, this is about protecting your body…” –Jennifer Block (via @Spirited Doula Services)

“Giving birth in ecstasy: This is our birthright and our body’s intent. Mother Nature, in her wisdom, prescribes birthing hormones that take us outside (ec) our usual state (stasis), so that we can be transformed on every level as we enter motherhood.” –Sarah Buckley

“The mystery of life and birth is a profound invitation to be authentic as you trust and tremble your way through labor’s Gates of doubt and fear. It is possible that you will become more intuitive during labor than at any other time…Allow your body to guide you in your breathing, in your unique movement, in knowing …what to do…even when you don’t know what to do.” –Pam England (The Labyrinth of Birth)

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” ~ Harriet Tubman (via Midwifery Today e-news)

“Midwives can create a spirit of beauty at a birth or they can desecrate it. They can create a sacred space around a birthing woman that drives out fear & inspires the mother’s belief in herself, which ultimately determines the outcome of the birth. Midwives can be a channel of Grace in ways they never imagined & in doing so they create a spirit of reverence. Reverence in these days and times is not a common thing.” Caroline Wise, Birthing with Reverence (Midwifery Today)

Re: “advice” for someone who is pregnant: “…if you know that you are pregnant and if you know when you conceived your baby and you think that everything’s okay, doctors can probably do nothing for you. Women need to realize that the role of medicine in pregnancy is very limited…What’s important is for a mom-to-be to be happy, to eat well, to adapt her lifestyle to her pregnancy, to do whatever she likes to do…I think that’s what we have to explain to women. They have to realize that doctors have very limited power.” –Michel Odent (in Optimal Birth)