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Blog Break Festival!

Oct19

Blog Festival Entries to date:

Guest Post: Mothers Matter–Creating a Postpartum Plan

Guest Post: Nine Reasons to Choose Independent Birth Eduation

Young Moms: Making Childbirth Education Relevant to Them

Guest Post: A Secular Sabbath

Guest Post: The Women’s Lounge

Guest Post: Motherful at Midlife

Guest Post: Don’t Touch Me… Don’t Even Look At Me

Blogaversary birth jewelry giveaway!

Call for your experiences – the impact of birth trauma and beyond

On recent mini-vacation.

In my family, we have a saying about being, “my own best friend.” We say it when we’re helped out by something we did, or something we plan to do—i.e. “I picked out my clothes in advance last night when I knew I had an early morning ahead of me. I’m my own best friend!”

So, I’m going to be my own best friend right now and host a blog festival as well as a blog break for myself!

I have a crazy October/November ahead of me. I’m teaching three classes—two in-seat and one online—and I’m feeling overwhelmed by that already and they don’t start until Monday. I’m also planning a Sagewoman ceremony for my women’s circle and really want it to be special. Alaina needs a lot from me lately and the boys are really busy with their classes and activities and so my usual opportunities to have alone time to work are becoming markedly diminished lately. And, like a genius, I decided to sign up for FIVE new classes in my doctoral program in addition to the three I’m currently in the progress of finishing! (Luckily, they’re all self-paced and so I don’t have to work on them all at once. If I did, I wouldn’t have been that crazy to sign up for five more.) As I look ahead at the next couple of months, I realize that I need to take a moderate blog break in order to free up my attention and energy for my other projects. I don’t want to totally put my blog on hold, but I do want to, finally, figure out how to write SHORTER posts for the time being and save the involved, insightful posts that I put a lot of thought into for my winter break. I also just really need to give myself permission to be “off” here and direct my attention towards other roles.

Blog Festival

So, for my blog festival, I’m seeking guest posts to publish during my blog break! Rather than a blog carnival, I want to host the posts here (with links back to your own blogs/sites of course). I hope this is a mutually beneficial idea and can showcase the work of other birth/women’s health bloggers! Your post does not have to be new content, it can be a personal favorite, or, related to the specific topic ideas for which I am soliciting content. My wishes are for…

I’m also collecting stories about labial/clitoral tearing for a future article or blog post on the subject. More specific follow-up post to follow about this.

Please email me your contributions for this Blog Festival experiment and I will merrily schedule them!

Permission & Radiance

So, once again I’ve found myself staring at The Mountain of Too Much and a familiar a crisis of abundance. This happens routinely. I should be used to it by now! But, I feel this creeping sense of overwhelm and dismay as I look at my calendar, my commitments, and my neverending to-do list. And, as I continue to try to be more and do better and yet always feel as if I’m not enough. I feel myself getting ragged and I don’t like it. I also have a feeling that I’m forgetting the self-care mantra, “the things that matter most should never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.” I keep getting distracted by little bits and bites and losing sight of what I most value. I’m also not taking care of myself—not eating enough, running out of time to exercise, being preoccupied rather than present, always doing the “should dos” instead of the “want tos.” I crave rest. I fantasize about just being able to rest. But, then I discover I’m not sure I know how.

So, I very much appreciated this extremely thought-provoking audio-blog Women in Cyberspace ~ Our Blind Spots – IndigoBacal.com. She makes a lot of important observations about how women use social media, including blogging, and she shared: “What I discovered was that sharing as much of myself as possible, as much of my inspiration as possible [online] was actually diminishing my radiance…”

I actually have quite a lot more to share about this and various navel-gazing meandering thoughts about me, me, me, but I think I’m going to keep my radiance to myself for a bit. And, practice this whole SHORTER posts goal…

As I listened however, I became aware that at some level almost all the time is the thought, I can’t stop/rest, because I might die. Meaning, what if I die before I “finish”—what if I run out of time for my dreams and plans, what if my life ends before I “get around to it”? And so, this compulsion to do it all now. In case this is my only opportunity. And, what if I don’t matter? Isn’t that stinky? I need to work on this in myself (or not, because I’m really sick and tired of my never-ending, relentless self-improvement project and never, never being enough). I also read/listened to this piece: You Have Permission (Right NOW!) and decided that I MUST give myself permission to rest without worrying about dying. I must! So, I am. And, you, lovely readers, can help me do that by sending me delicious blog posts to publish during my blog festival…

Thank you for reading! 🙂

Oh, and by the way, contributions about how you rest are also most welcomed…

What If…She’s Stronger than She Knows…

Oct10

“When I dare to be powerful–to use my strength in the service of my vision–then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

–Audre Lorde

As I was writing about shifting the “what if” dialogue of birth to “positive” anticipation rather than fear, another spin on the relationship between pregnancy, birth, womanhood, and what ifs began to emerge for me. I thought about the what ifs that crawl out of our dark places and lodge in our hearts. The what ifs that snake around the edges of our consciousness in the early hours of the morning. The what ifs we try to push down, down, down and away. The what ifs that stalk us. The what ifs so very awful that we fear in giving voice to them, we might give life to them as well.

We may feel guilty, ashamed, negative, and apologetic about our deepest “what ifs.” We worry that if we speak of them, they might come true. We worry that in voicing them, we might make homebirth or midwifery or whatever look bad. We don’t want to add any fuel to the fire of terror that already dominates the “mainstream” birth climate. And, we don’t want to lose “crunchy points.” We want to be blissfully empowered, confident, and courageous. And, guess what? We are. Sometimes that courage comes from looking the “what ifs” right in the eye. Sometimes it comes from living through them. My most powerful gift from my pregnancy with my daughter, my pregnancy-after-loss baby, was to watch myself feel the fear and do it anyway. I was brave. And, it changed me to learn that.

What if we can learn more from our shadows than we ever thought possible? There is power in thinking what if I can’t do this and then discovering that you CAN.

“It is so easy to close down to risk, to protect ourselves against change and growth. But no baby bird emerges without first destroying the perfect egg sheltering it. We must risk being raw and fresh and awkward. For without such openness, life will not penetrate us anew. Unless we are open, we will not be filled.”
–Patricia Monaghan

I also thought about an experience I had recently at a gathering of midwifery supporters. It was an interesting and insightful presentation about language and the impact on birth. The woman speaking urged us to talk in “positive” ways about birth, to use “positive” words and to avoid “negative” stories. As I listened to her, I thought of my own loss story and knew that my experience in giving birth to my little dead baby would likely have ranked way up there as a “negative” story. And, that bothered me. Giving birth via miscarriage to my third son was the most transformative, formative, and powerful experience of my life. He gave me many gifts, he taught me many lessons, and I am a better person than I was without that experience. So, what does it mean for women when we hide away the “negative” stories? What might we be missing by making sure we never hear about a bad outcome? I wondered what if by avoiding “negative stories,” we also miss out on powerful stories of courage, growth, and transformation…

What if she suffered and survived?
What if she danced with death and she’s still here?
What if she faced fear and held on?
What if she was scarred and broken, but she healed?
What if she hasn’t healed, but she’s working on it?
What if she grieved deeply and came out the other side?
What if she felt fear and did it anyway?
What if she was so scared and felt so weak and so helpless and yet she persevered?
What if she sacrificed her body for her baby?
What if she couldn’t keep going…and then she did?
What if she is stronger in her broken places?

In another woman’s strength, may we see our own. In another woman’s fear, our own becomes acceptable.

I have two personal experiences to share with the healing power of other women’s scars and fears. When I was in the middle of my first miscarriage and I was thinking, “how will I do this?!” the faces of other women I knew who had experienced babyloss came floating through my mind. I saw them all and I knew that if they could do it, so could I. After my own baby’s miscarriage-birth, I then made a list of these women. There were 27 names on the list. As I shared my experience and came to know other women’s stories and as multiple friends then experienced losses during that same year, the list grew to at least 40 names (personal connections, not “online only” friends).

The second story is an amalgamation of multiple encounters with in-person acquaintances. After I shared Alaina’s birth story online, in which, as part of the narrative, I mentioned various fears that went through my mind as I was in labor and then concluded with, I was still worried she was going to die until the moment I held her, I spoke with multiple women who thanked me deeply for having shared those “bad” thoughts.

When I read your story and I saw that Molly, Molly, who lives, breathes, and sleeps birth every day, still worried about those things, it healed something in me. I have been carrying around guilt about my own birth experiences. Feeling like I didn’t ‘trust birth’ enough, like I didn’t ‘believe’ strongly enough in homebirth. Reading your story helped me know that my thoughts and worries were okay after all and that I wasn’t a ‘bad mom’ for having fear…

What if I’d been careful to keep anything “negative” out of my story?

“When one woman puts her experiences into words, another woman who has kept silent, afraid of what others will think, can find validation. And when the second woman says aloud, ‘yes, that was my experience too,’ the first woman loses some of her fear.”

–Carol Christ

I first came across the phrase “worry is the work of pregnancy” in my most favorite of birthing books, Birthing from Within by Pam England. I’ve noticed that women often feel like they shouldn’t have worries during pregnancy and that talking about their fears is somehow “dangerous” (like it will make the fear come true). Bringing fear out into the open and “looking at it” instead of keeping it tucked away and bothering you is actually one of the best ways to work with it. Another common concern is that your worries are “silly” or unfounded. It is okay to have worries, even “silly” ones. The strategy Pam suggest for exploring your worries is as follows:

Explore each worry with questions:

° What would you do if this worry /fear actually came true?

° What do you imagine your partner and/or birth attendant would do/say?

° What would it mean about you as a mother if this happened?

° How have you faced crises in the past?

° What, if anything, can you do to prepare for, or even prevent, what you are worrying about? What is keeping you from doing it?

° If there is nothing you can do to prevent it, how would you like to handle the situation?

(For more see: Tracking your Tigers: Effects of Fear on Labor)

During my pregnancy with Alaina, I actually took some time one night to let myself mentally walk through the worst-possible-outcome scenario. I let myself see/feel it all. I’d become tired of stuffing it down and blocking it out and decided to get it out and look it right in the eye. It was amazing how letting the fear wash through me completely, lessened its power and influence.

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

And, also as previously shared, during Pam England’s presentation about birth stories at the ICAN conference, she said that the place “where you were the most wounded—the place where the meat was chewed off your bones, becomes the seat of your most powerful medicine and the place where you can reach someone where no one else can.”

What if we withhold our most powerful medicine?

“The purpose of life is not to maintain personal comfort; it’s to grow the soul.”

–Christina Baldwin

“The emerging woman..will be strong-minded, strong-hearted, strong-souled, and strong-bodied…strength and beauty must go together.”

~Louisa May Alcott

What if…she’s stronger than she knows?

The tensions and triumphs of work at home mothering

Sep17

Tree pose…

Most of the time I love and feel very grateful for the opportunity to work from home. The work is interesting, stimulating, and fulfilling. I feel like I have a real opportunity to have a positive impact of my students’ lives. I love not having to drive in bad weather and I love being able to work around the rest of my life/schedule and around the lives of my kids. I enjoy the income and the professional development. I like contributing the our family’s financial health and feel optimistic about my potential to eventually be able to release my husband from “wage slavery” so we can both enjoy a predominantly home-based life. I enjoy the relationships I create and I enjoy the (admittedly, fairly limited!) “status” of my role. I love gathering and sharing information in a field I care about.

I recently got home from spending four days at of town at a festival in Kansas. On the long car ride there, Birthing Beautiful Ideas posed the question on Facebook: what does working at home look like for you today? My response was: Leaning over the car seat nursing on the way to Kansas while checking in with my online students via iPad! (bless the iPad, possibly the greatest addition to my life this year. I don’t know what I’d do without that thing!) Mondays are always on the rough side for me because I have to enter my grades for the week and that “extra” duty tends to topple me from got-it-under-control-territory into slightly too much territory. This Monday, however, I now have my first batch of 25 papers to grade. As I’ve alluded to in the past, usually online teaching blends seamlessly into my day, often taking roughly the same amount of time and energy that checking in with Facebook would take. During the two weeks each session that papers are due (fifth and seventh weeks out of an 8 week session), the work suddenly feels unmanageable and incompatible with motherhood and I feel taut, tense, and drawn. The kids are need-factories and I’m distracted and impatient and consumed with the NEED to get these freaking things GRADED and OUT OF MY HEAD! So, imagine how I feel today when the getting home from being gone coincides with the first batch of papers! Whew. This morning I happily experienced the modern motherhood sweet spot in which I snuggled comfortably in bed with my nursling, smelling her sweet head and holding my iPad with the other hand while I entered my fairly simple weekly grades. Then the day devolved slightly with people wanting to go outside and me not eating enough and being inexorably pulled into the swirl of un-responded to email backlog from the weekend as well as those dang papers.

Luckily, past self had some advice for me that came to the rescue this morning. At the close of the last paper grading session I typed myself the following note in my trusty iPad of goodness and beneficence:

Reminders to self about grading papers:

This is temporary
You are guaranteed to finish them. It will happen.
Remember you’ve done it before and it is normal for you to feel stressed, overwhelmed, and unable.

You need:
Two days, part days (Monday and Tuesday) or one whole day to finish.
Write on calendar in advance so you can prepare and give advance warning to helpers.

Don’t schedule anything and/or cancel commitments on those days (including LLL if need be)
Don’t try to do them while Alaina is awake
Skip school with boys–it will be there later
Don’t do any blog posts, school assignments, FB, or any other “work” on those two grading days–don’t secretly plan to do some anyway.
Take breaks for self-renewal
*Ask for help*
*Be kind, but firm and assertive about needing time and space to work. Expect to have this available and “allowed.”*
*Ask clearly for what you need.*

Plan to get up early and stay up late as needed–trust that these times can be backup if naptime/grandparent-visit times get messed up.

Don’t cook real dinners on those two days.

Be nice to the people you love. If you are mean, increase self-care and respectful requests for aid and be compassionate with own feelings of tension and irritation–respect them as “normal,” even though they aren’t desirable. Remember that it will pass as it always does and equilibrium will be restored.

Say no.

Remember–again–this is temporary and you’ve done it many times before!
Still pray. Listen to music. Take time for spirit.

Have a reward when you finish.

Release your shoulders. Breathe.

—

Wasn’t I smart?! It really helped to read these things and among other things I called Mark and asked him to bring home Papa Murphy’s for dinner. I told the boys it was “school-off day,” but we still ended up walking on the road and finding cool rocks and having an impromptu geography learning time. I said no to some things even though I felt badly about doing so and tried to figure out some other way to make them work. And, I’m trying to be okay with leaving my bubbling brew of blog post idea/updates (I want to write about my trip!), jewelry ideas, birth art ideas/writing, and more, and more, and more for “later” and trusting that later will, indeed, come. I am trying to feel compassion rather than hatred for my ragged self.

Why post this here? Who cares? Well, I do. I often use my blog as a “storehouse” of things to remember. And, when the next batch of papers rolls around, I want to easily be able to read my reminder list again! I also thought it might be of interest to the other mothers out there who continually teeter on the edge of finding that elusive and possibly-not-actually necessary “balance” in their work tasks and mothering tasks. I have a friend who describes balance not as making things “equal,” but as being like tree pose in yoga—you want one leg to be firm underneath you so you can stay standing up, but your two sides do not have to actually be “equal” in order to be balanced. Today, my balance is weighted towards the work-at-home tasks, but it will shift again and I’ll still be standing. Find your center. That is the mental reminder that instantly pulls my own literal tree pose into balance for me during my (formerly daily, now erratic) morning yoga. Find your center. Perhaps those words should find a home on my reminder list above as well.

Today, I also resisted the temptation to blurt out a giant laundry list of to-dos in my Facebook status, even though the panicky urge to do so was potent. I was reminded of my own prior reminder post about this tendency: Busy is Boring. I shared the link on Facebook this morning in lieu of sharing my to-do list and a friend responded:

“Not sure I completely understand. You write ‘I’d rather talk about the things we’re doing that fuel us and excite us’, and I completely agree with that, but these are also the very things that keep us busy. If I look at a really busy day in our family…I am excited about every single thing on the list: I love working, I love it that my kids are involved in activities that are exciting and stimulating for them, I love being part of that… so, all this busy-ness serves to enrich our lives.”

So, I clarified. What I’m talking about is trading litanies of, “I have this and this to do…” and “well, I have this and this to do…”—essentially trading to-do lists without actually hearing or talking to each other, but just rattling off semi-stressful lists of places we have to be, things we have to remember, and things that are on our minds that we have to do.* Talking about busy plans that we’re excited about and care about and are looking forward to is something totally different than just sharing to-do lists without really listening to each other. It is HOW we talk about/share the busy-ness that makes the difference to me. And, I’m trying very hard to stay mindful of the difference and not share the exhausting list that just adds to the cortisol levels of all around me who are already dealing with their own busy schedules and lives.

—

(*this is a pet peeve about myself that I’m trying to adjust/remember/fix. I occasionally experience it with others in my life too and it bugs me, because it also bugs me in myself. ;-))

Conscious Agreement and Informed Consent

Jul28

This post is part 2 of my CAPPA Re-Cap series.

During their general sessions at the recent CAPPA conference, Laurel Wilson and Tracy Wilson Peters both advocated a process called “Conscious Agreement” in working with pregnant couples. The basic steps are as follows:

  • Separate yourself from external influences
  • Get quiet and pause
  • Listen in (including mentally checking in with your body and how it feels)
  • Choose and commit

I especially appreciated Tracy’s observations that this process of conscious agreement goes beyond informed consent and, as birth educators, we need to make sure to “marry the two every time,” rather than focusing solely on informed consent. Why? Because there are several things wrong with informed consent as it is practiced today:

  • It fails to address the importance of conscious decision-making
  • Informed consent is made with the mind or intellect (and ignores feeling and intuition)

And…

  • You can “consent” all day long and not feel good about it.

The last point is the crux of the issue to me. When I cover informed consent in my non-birth classes, I always emphasize that the corollary is informed refusal. If “consent” as it is practiced by your hospital means saying yes and there is no option of saying no, it does not qualify as consent! A choice without the option to refuse is NOT a choice at all (see The Illusion of Choice). My students have almost never heard of the notion of “informed refusal” and seem shocked to even consider the possibility! Since I’ve had a special interest in this topic for a long time, I really connected with the idea of conscious agreement, especially when paired, as Tracy suggests, with informed consent information.

Another handy tip offered by Tracy during her presentation was to use HALT before entering into any agreement (or confrontation). Check in to see if you are…

  • H–Hungry
  • A–Angry
  • L–Lonely
  • T–Tired

(Also, consider whether the person you are trying to communicate with is any of these things. This is especially good to remember with children.) And, she shared this little poster:

This little sign may have been made especially for me. I have a terrible problem with getting crabby and snappish and plain old hangry (hungry + angry)—and then having to apologize. You’d think I’d have it figured out by now! (though, I do think nursing exacerbates it)

Women’s Retreat Recipe

Jul12

Quarterly, I get together with some of my friends and we have a women’s retreat. We had our summer retreat this past Sunday and I thought I’d share the outline and our activities as a “retreat recipe” that others may use if they wish to do so. Since my friends do not necessarily share specific religious beliefs, the retreats are spiritual in a somewhat generic “womanspirit” sort of way and you can obviously customize your own retreat to best suit the spiritual beliefs/backgrounds of your own friendship group.

Circle up—we stand in a circle, place our hands on eachother’s backs and hum together three times to raise the energy of the circle.

Invocation to directions. This time we used an invocation by Judith Laura:

We honor the East
Home of air
March wind
Morning’s song
Eagle’s flight
Aurora’s breath
Welcome East

We honor the South
Home of fire
Noon sun
Flame of change
Heat of passion
Pele’s power
Welcome South

We honor the West
Home of water
River’s flow
Font of feelings
World’s womb
Kwan Yin’s love
Welcome West

We honor the North
Home of Earth
Root of life
Shaded mystery
Ground of being
Gaia’s growth
Welcome North.

Light candle/opening quote

“I see the wise woman. And she sees me. She smiles

from shrines in thousands of places. She is buried

in the ground of every country. She flows in every

river and pulses in the oceans. The wise woman’s

robe flows down your back, centering you in the

ever-changing, ever-spiraling mystery.

Everywhere I look, the wise woman looks back.

And she smiles.”

–Susun Weed quoted in Birthing Ourselves Into Being

Check-in–we take turns “passing the rattle” and each woman has about two minutes to share what’s been on her mind.

Since we are close to summer solstice, I then chose to do this solstice prayer of healing from the United Nations as a responsive reading as a group:

A Prayer of Healing
From the United Nations Environmental Sabbath

We join with the earth and with each other.
To celebrate the seas.
To rejoice the sunlight.
To sing the song of the stars.

We join with the earth and with each other.
To recall our destiny.
To renew our spirits.
To reinvigorate our bodies.

We join with the earth and with each other.
To create the human community.
To promote justice and peace.
To remember our children.

We join together as many and diverse expressions of one loving mystery: for the healing of the earth and the renewal of all life. We join with the earth and with each other.
To bring new life to the land.
To restore the waters.
To refresh the air.

We join with the earth and with each other.
To renew the forests.
To care for the plants.
To protect the creatures.

Guided visualization/meditation/relaxation (for this particular retreat, I used a nice full body relaxation from the book Birthing Ourselves into Being. This one isn’t available online that I can find, but you can find others online, like this one for example.)

We followed the relaxation with a muse questions and journaling using one of the questions from Shiloh Sophia’s Museletter:

Your Muse would like to show you something you haven’t been able to see.

She wants to invite you to have a thought you haven’t had yet…isn’t that an enticing thought in and of itself?

A thought that has lingered on the edge of your consciousness for maybe even a few years, or months….tell her…

I want to know what it is I am not seeing.

Then automatic write whatever comes up until you have to put the pen down.

Immediately following this question, it began to rain. Blissful, blessed, healing, glorious rain for which we were in so much need.

Discuss responses/experiences to relaxation/journaling.

Listen to songs/perhaps drum (this time, went outside together and stood in the rain)

Closing circle: Sing Woman Am I (recording of my friends singing it together is here).

Closing quote and extinguish candle

“A circle! No sharp edges, no hierarchy, just a circle of women…We are mothers. We are the portals. The next generation comes through our bodies.” –Annie Lennox

and one of my all-time favorites:

“I believe that these circles of women around us weave invisible nets of love that carry us when we’re weak and sing with us when we’re strong.” –SARK, Succulent Wild Woman

When reading a 1988 back issue of SageWoman magazine, I fell in love with Womanrunes by Shekhinah Mountainwater (originally in her book Ariadne’s Thread, which I then purchased) and so I made copies of the images to share with my friends. We are going to make some sets of runes at our next retreat. (And, after much scouring of the interwebz, I found a pronunciation guide for the runes here).

I also made a handout packet for them of various moon wheels/circular calendars for tracking your cycles, or simply for planning and thinking in circles rather than in lines. In the packets were:

And, then it was time for a craft, so as we snacked and chatted, I showed everyone how to make a small, hardbound pocket journal. You can find instructions for a simple book here, or, to make it even more simple, use this kit from Blick Art Supplies.

It was a delightful afternoon of connection and celebration—my original vision for holding these retreats was to bring some blessingway spirit into our regular lives, rather than only centered on being pregnant and I think that purpose was achieved.

—

This post is crossposted at Woodspriestess.

DVD Review: Expecting More

May25


DVD Review: Expecting More
Prenatal exercise program
Two disc set, 230 minutes
$39.95
Daily Sweat, 2011

http://sarahaley.com/about/expecting-more/

Reviewed by Molly Remer, Talk Birth

Fun, energetic, and challenging, Expecting More is a prenatal exercise program developed and hosted by prenatal fitness expert, Sara Haley. Developed and filmed during her own pregnancy, Sara created Expecting More out of her desire to offer a prenatal fitness experience that is vigorous and more fast-paced than the routines typically offered by prenatal exercise videos.  Offering lots of encouragement to stay “sexy and strong” during pregnancy, the DVD set of two discs includes six different workouts:

Synergy: Create SYNERGY within your body by alternating between Sara’s signature cardio and strength exercises.

Sweat Sport: Discover your inner athlete as you execute sports drills in a cardio session with modifications for all stages of pregnancy.

Sweat Funk: Embrace your sexy pregnant body as you get your FUNK on with hot dance cardio moves.Sweat Strong Down: Sculpt your body DOWN on the floor in a safe and effective way that supports your core and your baby.

Sweat Strong Up: Stand UP and sculpt your body in all the right places to keep you sexy and strong during your pregnancy.

Salutations: Designed to sooth and calm, you’ll breath, stretch, and move with this expression of good will to your baby and your body, your SALUTATION.

The Salutations portion is clearly inspired by both dance and yoga and is based on standing exercises that are less vigorous than the other workouts on the discs, but still very lively and movement oriented. Expecting More is led by a cute, contemporary fitness trainer with a pleasant voice. During some of the workouts, two additional women perform modified versions of the exercises in the background so that it is easy for women with different needs to follow along. I appreciated that the DVD contains lots of reminders about the importance of listening to your body. Expecting More presents exercise as a fun and engaged time to be close to your baby and to pay attention to your body and I feel like this approach contributes to a healthy, active attitude towards giving birth as well.

—

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

Book Review: Moon Time

May21

Book Review:  Moon Time: a guide to celebrating your menstrual cycle
by Lucy H. Pearce
Paperback, 145 pages, 2012
ISBN13 9781468056716
http://thehappywomb.com/

Reviewed by Molly Remer, Talk Birth

When I wrote my blog post about moontime’s return in April, I was delighted to get a comment from writer and womancraft wisewoman, Lucy Pearce the author of the book Moon Time. Lucy offered to send me a copy of her book and I received it last week and instantly devoured it. Subtitled “a guide to celebrating your menstrual cycle,” Moon Time is written in a friendly, conversational tone and is a quick read with a lot of insight into the texture and tone of our relationships with menstruation.

The book contains information about charting cycles and about the relationship to the phases of the  moon. I especially enjoyed the excellent section on  “Instant PMT [PMS] Busters” and planning time to nurture and nourish yourself during your monthly moon time. The book also includes planning information for Red Tents/Moon Lodges and for menarche rituals and it ends with an absolutely phenomenal list of resources—suggested reading and websites.

Towards the beginning of the book Lucy observes, “We live in a culture which demands that we are ‘turned on’ all the time. Always bright and happy. Always available for intercourse–both sexual and otherwise with people. Psychologist Peter Suedfeld observes that  we are all ‘chronically stimulated, socially and physically and we are probably operating at a stimulation level higher than that for which our species evolved.’ It is up to us to value rest and fallow time. We must demand it for ourselves to ensure our health “(p. 53). She also comments on something I’ve observed in my own life and have previously discussed with my friends:  “I strongly believe that a large amount of the anger and tearfulness we experience pre-menstrually, is our body’s way of expressing the deep truths which we try to stifle” (p. 56)

Since early spring, as I anticipated moontime’s return in my own life, I’ve been reflecting on how I have been such a devoted proponent of taking good care of yourself physically and emotionally during pregnancy, birth, and especially postpartum, so why have I not applied the same care during moontime? Why haven’t I included this monthly experience of being female as an experience worth respecting and as a sacred opportunity to treat my body and my emotions with loving care and self-renewal? Moon Time includes this great reminder with regard to creating retreat space, taking time out for self-care, and creating ritual each month: “Do what you can with what you have, where you are.” You don’t have create something extensive or elaborate or wait for the “perfect time,” but you can still do something with what you have and where you are. (This is a good reminder for many things in life, actually.)

I highly recommend Moon Time as an empowering resource for cycling women! It would also be a great resource for girls who are approaching menarche or for mothers seeking ways to honor their daughters’ entrance into the cycles of a woman’s life.

If you’d like to pick up a copy of Moon Time yourself, Lucy made this offer to my readers: “Would be delighted to offer your readers a discount on the paperback version of MoonTime: a guide to celebrating your menstrual cycle – they just need to enter MBLP20 at the checkout.”

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Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book.

Changing Visions

May18

I’ve been moving in this direction for quite some time— really probably since my miscarriage-birth experience in late 2009—but I’ve decided that it is officially time for me to take a break from actively teaching birth classes. When I first started teaching in 2005, I envisioned having classes with 5-6 couples at a time. I quickly realized that the area didn’t really support that client volume–at least not with clients with similar due dates and similar interests in natural birth. I never intended to teach general/generic childbirth education, but focused on designing my classes for women planning for physiological, low-intervention (“natural” or unmedicated) births. I never apologized for that emphasis and my focus is what distinguished me from the locally available hospital-based classes that were free of charge. It became clear to me that my niche was in personalized, private, one-on-one birth education and I spent years delighting in the close relationships formed by working privately with couples rather than in a group. During these years I did teach some group classes as the opportunity and occasion arose and they were not as fulfilling or enriching for me as the one-on-one sessions. I think the pregnant women really benefit from the camaraderie of interacting with other pregnant women, but my relationship with the fathers-to-be and with the couple as a unit is nothing like it is when the couple is on their own with me.

Losing my spark

I also realized that I felt most satisfied and like I was making a genuine contribution/difference if I had clients during every month of the year. I set this intention for myself in 2007 and was able to meet my goal for the subsequent years. After I started teaching college classes, however, I found that I used up a lot of my teaching energy in the college classroom and that birth classes started to feel like more of a drain on my resources than a joy. I also realized that they were not very economically sensible and I became frustrated with having to pack up all my supplies and haul them to town with me each time I needed to teach. Having a new baby fanned the flames of my spirit for birth education again and I found that the spark that had been wavering since Noah died had re-ignited somewhat. However, the damage as it were, was done, in that teaching privately no longer made sense to me from a financial standpoint nor did it make sense from a maternal standpoint—I didn’t want to leave my baby behind to go teach class and I also found that in taking her with me, my attention was splintered and my clients didn’t necessarily get the best from me. Now that she is big enough to leave with my husband while I teach, I find myself “maxed out” with my college teaching schedule (which is only one night a week—who knows how I’d feel if it was more!) and other interests and the thought of trying to work in a series of private birth classes seems like a hurdle that I do not wish to struggle with. I coped for a while by trying to host the classes in my home (which is out-of-town), but that presents its own set of challenges. And, when I am home, I want to be home, not preparing birth class handouts or trying to shuffle the kids off to my parents’ house so that clients can come in for class. I love to be at home. I love where I live. As I wrote on Facebook recently, it is my soul place here.

Give points

As I am wont to do, I once again find myself looking around my life and schedule trying to find “give points” that allow me the life-work-passion-rest balance that best nourishes me, my family, my spirit, and my home life. This time, I find the give point is teaching face-to-face classes. It is hard to let go. I’ve worked on building this for years. I love the work. I have fear that what if someone else “takes over.” I have fear that I’ve “wasted” all of this training and effort. I have fear that I won’t be able to start again if I quit. However, as I’ve noted before, I’m very black-and-white when it comes to my responsibilities. I can either do something or STOP doing something. It doesn’t work for me to wait for things or “come back to it later” or “take a break for now.” I’m either doing it or I’m quitting. And, I always feel the need to “officially” decree this—I can’t just let things slide, or neglect them, I need to officially make the break or split from the task or responsibility. I have accepted that this is how I work and how I feel about tasks and while it is not true of everyone it IS true of me and I need to work with what I know of myself in this way. So, as of today, I am not planning to accept any new clients for the remainder of the year and I’m updating my business side of this site accordingly. I find it so interesting that the blog side of my site is where I have really developed a following and created relationships, and reach women’s lives around the world, even though I originally started it just to provide information for my few little clients here in rural Missouri. Birth writing is my other niche, the one that I feel like continuing to develop. As I’ve written before, I realized several years ago that writing this blog and my other articles is a legitimate form of “doing” childbirth education as well and perhaps actually has more impact than in-person classes (though, in-person classes are not replaceable in terms of the relational aspect).

New directions

Since 2009, I’ve also felt “called” to develop my other birth interests such as birth art facilitation, prenatal yoga, prenatal fitness, childbirth educator trainings, writing books, and pregnancy/birth retreats as well as my interest in women’s spirituality, women’s retreats, and women’s rituals in general. I feel like my interests in helping other women are deepening, maturing, and evolving from these roots in birth work. I think making this official break with my former means of birth education opens up the space in my life and my heart to develop those other areas of my interest and perhaps what I return to offer will be “bigger” and of more value to women and to my community.

When I applied to my doctoral program I had to write an extensive application letter responding to a variety of questions about my interest in the program. To me, applying to (and now participating in) this program represents an integration of something I feel with my mind, heart, and spirit. My whole being. As I wrote in my application, in women’s spirituality I glimpse the multifaceted totality of women’s lives and I long to reach out and serve the whole woman.I wish to extend my range of passion to include the full woman’s life cycle, rather than focus on the maternal aspect of the wheel of life as I have done for some time. I want to create rituals that nourish, to plan ceremonies that honor, to facilitate workshops that uncover, to write articles that inform, and to teach classes that inspire the women in my personal life, my community, and the world.

I also responded to this question:

Who/what inspires you?

“I long to speak out the intense inspiration that comes to me from the lives of strong women.” –Ruth Benedict

“I believe that these circles of women around us weave invisible nets of love that carry us when we’re weak and sing with us when we’re strong.” –SARK, Succulent Wild Woman

I am most inspired by the everyday women surrounding me in this world. Brave, strong, vibrant, wild, intelligent, complicated women. Women who are also sometimes frightened, depressed, discouraged, hurt, angry, petty, or jealous. Real, multifaceted, dynamic women. Women who keep putting one foot in the front of the other and continue picking themselves back up again when the need arises.

I am also inspired by women from the past who worked for social justice and women’s rights—women who lived consciously and deliberately and with devoted intention to making the world a better place. Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton. Women who have studied and written about feminist spirituality—such as Carol Christ, Hallie Ingleheart, Patricia Mongahan, and Barbara Ardinger–are also a source of inspiration. As a mother, I find additional inspiration in the self-care encouraging writings of Jennifer Louden and Renée Trudeau.

My children have provided a powerful source of inspiration and motivation. I wish to model for them a life lived as a complete, fully developed human being. After birthing three sons, I gave birth to a daughter in January, 2011. I always envisioned having daughters and felt well-prepared to raise a “kick-ass” girl. Having sons first presented me with a different type of inspiration (and, to me, a deeper challenge)—to raise healthy men. Men who treat women well and who are balanced, confident, loving, compassionate people. I came to think of myself as a mother of sons exclusively and was very surprised to actually have a girl as my last child. When I found out she was a girl, my sense of “like carries like/like creates like” was very potent and my current need to participate in the creation of a world in which she can bloom to her fullest is very strong.

My own inner fire inspires me—my drive to make a difference and to live well and wisely my one wild and precious life. Good conversations, time alone with my journal, time alone outdoors sitting on a big rock, and simple time in the shower provides additional fuel for this inner fire.

I have both a scholar’s heart and a heart for service. I wish to live so that my life becomes a living, embodied prayer for social change and to do work that is both spiritually based and woman affirming.

It is time for me to move forward with this expanded vision for what I’d like to offer to the world…

Book Review & Giveaway: The Wisdom of the Healing Wound

May15

The Wisdom of the Healing Wound: A New View on Why We Hurt & How We Can Cure Even the Deepest Physical and Emotional Wounds
by David Knighton M.D.
Paperback:216 pages
Publisher: HCI; 1 edition (June 1, 2011)
ISBN-13:978-0757315619

www.wisdomofthehealingwound.com

Reviewed by Molly Remer, Talk Birth

Written by a vascular surgeon who specializes in working with and healing nonhealing wounds, The Wisdom of the Healing Wound is a book addressing the many types of wounds we all experience in our lives: physical wounds, psychological wounds, and spiritual wounds. After discussing the mechanisms of healing, types of wounds, and the value of wounds, David Knighton moves into an explanation of strategies to help yourself heal, caring for scars, getting help, and lifetime healing. I especially appreciated his explanation of how we have both physical and emotional “skin” and that in a relationship there is a “relationship skin” that envelops both people (i.e. a mother and her baby). In various ways that emotional skin can become damaged, rough, thick, or thin, just as our physical skin can be damaged.

Some of the stories/case studies of the wounds experienced and shared in the book are difficult and disturbing to read about (particularly sexual abuse), so be prepared for that.

From the press release:

Dr. David Knighton has some remarkable insights about wounds and our ability to heal ourselves. “We’ve all been wounded,” he writes. “But, paradoxically, wounding is probably our greatest stimulus for health. As we heal, we grow.”

A leading expert on wound healing, Dr. Knighton delves even deeper into the mystery of human nature with his new book The Wisdom of the Healing Wound: A New View on Why We Hurt and How We Can Cure Even the Deepest Physical and Emotional Wounds. (Health Communications, Inc.)

“The goal in working with wounds of any kind — from the physical to the emotional to the spiritual — is to restore structure and function,” Dr. Knighton says. “That is the healer’s role. Ultimately, The Wisdom of the Healing Wound is about being human — about living fully as body, mind, and spirit. More importantly, it is about the powerful, transformative, and often surprising ways we can heal and thrive in the face of our wounds.”

“Life is full of wounds–physical, emotional, and spiritual. The wounded psyche and spirit heal in much the same manner as physical wounds,” Dr. Knighton explains. “It’s what gives the book a universal appeal.” People in 12-step recovery groups, people facing surgery or who have physical wounds that are slow to heal, people with emotional trauma or PTSD, military and abuse victims and the healing professionals who work with all these types of wounds are sure to see the usefulness of The Wisdom of the Healing Wound.

While not specifically intended for birth professionals, I think those interested in helping women process birth trauma as well as anyone working in a helping profession would find nuggets of wisdom and healing in this book.

You can also listen to a talk from the author here.

***Giveaway is now closed. Shawna was the winner!****

I also have one extra copy of The Wisdom of the Healing Wound to give away! To enter, just leave a comment telling me what type of wound you’re interested in healing/learning more about! Giveaway will close one week from today (on May 22, 2012).

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

Polymer Clay Goddess Experiments

May13

A couple of months ago, I attempted to branch out from my usual style of polymer clay goddess figures (see past birth art posts). I’m not particularly satisfied with any of them, but I had this post saved in my drafts to share pictures of them anyway! I have some new translucent sculpey that I’ve been working with without very satisfactory results. It is stickier and meltier than regular sculpey, which makes it a challenge to work with. The figures don’t hold their shapes/poses as well while baking and the clay also folds into itself and sticks very firmly and it is hard to reposition/refigure things after having let it stick accidentally before you’re ready). Anyway, I tried to make this sort of “siren” (double-tailed mermaid) figure first and she’s all right:

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I also tried a figure using only the translucent sculpey. She turned out looking like she should glow in the dark!

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I also had a vision of making a sculpture with a small “offering bowl” in which you could place a crystal or something else. She kind of sagged over to one side in the oven though. She is my first figure with a face too!

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So, I tried again. This one sits on her own (leaning back very far), but I burned her by mistake!

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So, I tried one more time. This one I used gold pigment on and I don’t really like how she turned out either. Back to the drawing (sculpting) board, I guess. After this third attempt I kind of gave up on my vision and haven’t tried to make any more in this style again.

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At the same time that I was experimenting with these figures, I also experimented with using a rubber stamp and pigment to make a flat disk of sculpey with the embossed sort of impression of my Goddess of Willendorf stamp on it. I then used that disk when I took a class in making a stained glass panel:

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My panel is on the left and Mark’s is on the right:

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Then, this past weekend I became ordained as a priestess (more about this later) and after that ceremony I decided to make another figure to add to my series. I’ve never made a standing figure before and she needs some work. I’m lukewarm about her–she didn’t turn out the way I’d envisioned and I need to experiment some more before I really add her to my series of 3-D journaling sculptures.