Blessingway Readings & Chants

Mar14

I’m looking through my files to choose a reading for a mother blessing this weekend as well as choosing readings for a women’s retreat this weekend. Anyway, I felt like sharing some of them here for people who might be googling around looking for something to share at a blessingway:

From the book Joyful Birth: A Spiritual Path to Motherhood by Susan Piver

The path of motherhood has a beginning, but no end. It’s constantly changing and constantly challenging. Along the way, we encounter our personal limits over and over. We fall in love over and over. We ride the sharp edge of hope and fear. On this path of discovery, as on any spiritual path, our pretensions are shattered, our minds are blown, and our hearts are opened. We cry, we laugh, we bumble around and make countless mistakes. Through it all, we are gently—or abruptly—poked into greater honesty, lovingkindness, and understanding. It is a truly joyful path.

The memory of [my child’s] birth has become a talisman that I hold in my heart as I journey deeper and deeper into motherhood. For these moments come again in every mother’s life—the times when we are asked to walk straight into our pain and fear, and in doing so, open up to a love that is greater than anything we ever could have imagined: all life’s beauty and wonder, as well as all the ways that things can break and go wrong…Again and again, motherhood demands that we break through our limitations, that we split our hearts open to make room for something that may be more than we thought we could bear. In that sense, the labor with which we give birth is simply a rehearsal for something we mothers must do over and over: turn ourselves inside out, and then let go.

This is the reading we often use for symbolically summoning the four directions. It is from the book Mother Rising: The Blessingway Journey into Motherhood:

Blessed be this gathering with the gifts of the East: communication of the heart, mind, and body; fresh beginnings with each rising of the sun; the knowledge of the growth found in sharing silences.

Blessed be this gathering with the gifts of the South: warmth of hearth and home; the heat of the heart’s passion; the light to illuminate the darkest of times.

Blessed be this gathering with the gifts of the West: the lake’s deep commitments; the river’s swift excitement; the sea’s breadth of knowing.

Blessed be this gathering with the gifts of the North: firm foundation on which to build; fertile fields to enrich our lives; a stable home to which we may always return.

From previous posts here is:

After my blessingway with baby girl, January 2011

A birth blessing

Full moon poem

Courage reading

Fear release for birth

Birth warrior affirmation

Two birth poems

Birthing poem

And, finally, here is a handout of the chants we often use. It is formatted with the chants in two columns so it can be cut in half to distribute.

Birth & Breastfeeding in Unexpected Places

Mar9

No, I’m not talking about giving birth in the car, or breastfeeding in the rotunda at the Capitol, I’m talking about birth and breastfeeding showing up in unexpectedly positive ways in books and movies. I had two such occasions last week.

In the animated children’s movie Ponyo, which we watched on Netflix, the two main character children encounter a father, mother, and baby floating in a small boat in the flooded town. Ponyo attempts to give the baby a drink from her thermos and the mother says, “no, he gets his milk from me. I can drink it and make milk for the baby and he can get it that way.” The little boy then says, “when I was little my mom made milk for me too.” Ponyo then tries to give the mother big stacks of sandwiches saying, “for milk! For milk! Here, you can have this for milk!” It was really cute 🙂

Then, I finished reading a novel called Medicus on my Kindle. It was a “novel of the Roman Empire” about a military doctor in Britannia during the Roman occupation. It was a mystery book, but definitely not a traditional sort of mystery. The doctor ends up buying an enslaved girl to stop her from being abused and investigates the suspicious deaths of several prostitutes/slaves. It is noted several times that the girl has “some skill in midwifery” and that she used to attend births with her mother. Towards the very end of the book, the doctor is called to attend a complicated birth in which the baby is transverse and everyone is pretty sure both mother and baby will die. She has been pushing for a long time and is all worn out. The doctor enters the room and has no idea what to do. He says, “I’m only a medic. A surgeon. Where’s a midwife?” And, with a few dramatic twists, the slave girl with some midwifery knowledge is convinced to come help, turns the transverse baby, and saves the lives of both mother and baby who are later described as nursing happily (the mother “pale, but alive”). Birth often makes a dramatic appearance in books and films, but the drama usually involves the baby, mother, or both then dying. So, this was a refreshing change as well as a nice plug for midwifery 🙂

International Women’s Day, Birth Activism, and Feminism

Mar7

“The minute my child was born, I was reborn as a feminist. It’s so incredible what women can do…Birthing naturally, as most women do around the globe, is a superhuman act. You leave behind the comforts of being human and plunge back into being an animal. My friend’s partner said, ‘Birth is like going for a swim in the ocean. Will there be a riptide? A big storm? Or will it just be a beautiful, sunny little dip?’ Its indeterminate length, the mystery of its process, is so much a part of the nature of birth. The regimentation of a hospital birth that wants to make it happen and use their gizmos to maximum effect is counter to birth in general.” –Ani DiFranco interviewed in Mothering magazine, May/June 2008

“We were all held, touched, interrelated, in an invisible net of incarnation. I would scarcely think of it ordinarily; yet for each creature I saw, someone, a mother, had given birth….Motherhood was the gate. It was something that had always been invisible to me before, or so unvalued as to be beneath noticing: the motheredness of the world.” –Naomi Wolf, Misconceptions

Since tomorrow is International Women’s Day, I felt moved to share the above quotes. I also wanted to touch briefly on birth as a feminist issue, spurred by this thought-provoking post by my friend Summer (I have TONS more ideas about this topic, but limited time in which to share them!). Personally, I’ve identified as a feminist since I was a child—long before I became a birth activist. Identifying in this way was my first taste of the activist spirit that has fueled me for the rest of my life. For me, my birth activism is intimately and inextricably entwined with my larger interest in women’s rights. I have always been somewhat confused to hear any woman say she is not a feminist, it grieves me because when you dig a little deeper, it is usually because they are defining feminism according to a very skewed, simplified, inaccurate, media misportrayal of feminism (i.e. a man-hating caricature). I also like the term “womanist.” To me, being a feminist most simply means believing and acting as if women have value. All too often, those who mischaracterize feminism in the above ways believe EXACTLY the opposite.

In one of my many books about women’s issues, I found these awesome explanations of what feminism is—the source being of some surprise to me, the Roman Catholic Order of Sisters of Loretto:

Feminism: a world-wide social change movement which critically but lovingly rejects relationships and structures based on stereotyped roles of dominance (male) and submission (female).

Feminism: a life-affirming movement reorganizing institutions and relationships, so that women will have equal access to society’s goods, services, status, and power.

Feminism: the bonding of women discovering the joy of woman-identity.

Feminism: a process freeing women to work toward liberation for themselves and other oppressed persons.

And here is another definition: “Feminism is a conscious and continuous effort to improve the lives of all women, an effort which requires changing the system that defines success as making a lot of money.” –Jane O’Reilly

To me it also means defining all women’s work, paid or unpaid, as having real value (this includes the “invisible” work of mothering reflected in the second quote I chose to open this post).

I think all of these definitions can be well applied to our work with birth!

I also think some women who do not self-identify as feminist do not because they feel like, “feminists want women to be like men.” So, here is a feminist quote about that too 🙂 “A woman should not be a mirror image of man’s universe. A woman should not try to emulate men, thus taking on masculine traits, she should develop herself, realize herself, gain direct vision into her own being.” —Anais Nin

I love the final point especially—gain direct vision into her own being. I think empowered birth often triggers this for women.

Net of love in action!

And, then finally, bringing us back to International Women’s Day I have a final quote:

“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

As I noted in my post for CfM this week, in honor of International Women’s Day—and every day—let us celebrate our bodies, honor our mothers, and trust in the nets of love woven around us by a multitude of remarkable, powerful, everyday women.

Return to the Mother

Mar4

In my recent blog post about waters breaking, I mentioned a chant/song with a refrain of “the waters are breaaaaking! All over the world…” A doula commented on that post and was curious to know the rest of the words to the song. The chant is called “Return to the Mother” and is on the CD Chants by Reclaiming. As I read over the words it actually feels kind of like a neat birth song (and like I said in the other post, I wish I would have remembered it in labor!):

Return to the Mother

(song)

All over the world,
The waters are breaking.
Everywhere, everywhere
The waters are breaking.

(chant)

And so return,
Return, return,
Return to the Mother…

—

Perhaps if it was a birth song, the word “return” could be changed to something else—representing “come out and meet your mother!” 🙂

I’m a Birth Warrior!

Mar4

Earlier this week, I was surprised and pleased to get a small package in the mail from my Birthing from Within mentor friend. In it was a sweet little “My Mama is a Birth Warrior” t-shirt. The words surround a labyrinth image, which of course, I love.

Modeling new t-shirt 🙂

In the enclosed card was the following:

Imagine a tribe in which a woman is prepared for childbirth in the same way warriors are prepared for battle. Imagine a Ceremony for this woman before she gives birth, a grand send-off with holy songs and fire. Imagine a feast, prepared just for her.

Her tribe tells her, they say to her “Go to your journey, you have prepared. We have prepared you. If you fall from your horse once or a hundred times, it does not matter. All that matters is that you come back to us, that you come home.

Throughout your journey–your labyrinth of Great Love, Great Determination, Great Faith and Great Doubt—you rode on!

The Great Tribe of Mothers welcomes you back from your birth journey with honor.

Imagine, indeed. I have a partially prepared blog post about my own labyrinth of pregnancy and birth. I hope to eventually publish it, but for now, just know that I do feel I embarked on a mighty journey during this last pregnancy, I did pass through those Gates, and I did ride on. I AM a birth warrior! 🙂

Standing up so big!

The Waters are Breaking…

Feb28

I recently bought a very discounted copy of Penny Simkin’s Comfort Measures for Childbirth video. In the explanatory booklet that comes with it, she mentions the following: “You may also notice the woman’s bag of waters break during a bearing-down effort. This is normal, though quite rare, as the bag of waters is usually broken before this time…” She doesn’t specify whether it is quite rare because the bag of waters is artificially broken before that time for many women, or whether it is just quite rare, period. Regardless, I found it an interesting comment because my personal experiences have all been of this same “rare” type—my water breaks right as I’m pushing out my babies. With my first son, I arrived at the birth center ten centimeters dilated and was told I could push whenever I felt the urge. After about 30 minutes or so, I began pushing sort of experimentally. My water exploded across the room after a few of these mini-pushes. He was then born about an hour after that. With my second son, I was on my hands and knees on the floor feeling the first intense pushes and on the second push, my water broke with a soft, warm gush and ran down my leg. He was born about 5 minutes after that. After these two experiences, my conclusion was that it was kind of a nice benefit to have my water intact until pushing—it created sort of cushion for the baby’s head and (I felt) perhaps lessened the intensity of contractions (I have yet to experience a “freaking out,” identifiable transition stage in any of my births).

Waves breaking at Montana De Oro on CA trip, July 2009.

When my daughter was born last month, it was a slightly different story. As usual, the water stayed intact, but as I began to feel the pressure of her approaching head, I felt like my water really needed to break and wasn’t. It felt distinctly in the way and it was really bothering me. I felt like I could feel it in my “birth path” and it felt like an obstruction rather than a cushion and I was completely annoyed by it. I got on hands and knees on the futon and could feel her head moving down and almost crowning, when the water finally broke and a small trickle of it came out before she did (approximately 12 seconds before!). As I’ve written before, I moved up into a kneeling position then and my entire baby was born all at once along with…a big sploosh of water. Most of it came out after the baby—she was particularly nice and clean after birth too. My sons were very bloody. My daughter had a couple of tiny spots of blood on her head, but the rest of her was pink and vernixy.

I titled my post as I did because during this last pregnancy, I often listened to a CD of chants. One of the songs on the CD has sort of a wailing refrain of, “the waters are breaaaaaaking…all over the world….the waters are breaking!” and I could NOT listen to that song while pregnant (even though it has nothing to do with pregnancy—I’m not sure exactly what it is supposed to mean, but I surmise it is about change in the world). I always ran to skip over it, feeling like to listen to it would be to send some kind of message to my body/baby that I wanted my water to break, when really, I definitely didn’t want it to break early! I wish I would have thought to turn the song on during labor though 😉

Transformation Through Birth

Feb25

One of my favorite birth books is Transformation Through Birth. Written in 1984 by Claudia Panuthos, who also wrote the excellent book Ended Beginnings (about miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, and healing all sorts of childbearing losses), it is one of the books I recommend as “going beyond” typical pregnancy/birth book material. I enjoy books that are designed to help women with the emotional work of pregnancy instead of just the physical work, with a quick dabble into the psyche. I find they are few and far between.

Some quotes and ideas from this book that I particular like:

“In some sense, childbirth is much like a marathon. Once given some general guidelines, marathon runners know how to breathe, to run, and to complete their race according to their own body signals. Similarly, women know how to breathe, to birth, and to complete the delivery according to their own body signals. Marathon runners who are true champions are free to stop the fast pace, and even quit the race without loss of integrity.”

She then makes the point that birth is really more like a “Zen marathon” in that “the focus is to become centered and one with the body, to remain on purpose and directed toward a single goal and to act from the witness or higher mind within” and goes on to say, “Because we view marathon running as an expression of ultimate physical health, a similar attitude toward childbearing may greatly aid in the altering of present attitudes that respond to childbearing as an abnormal condition requiring medical treatment.”

I use the marathon example in my birth classes usually—particularly when talking about “pain” and what birth feels like. I use the marathon analogy to illustrate how the sensations of birth are not like the sensations of accident, illness, or injury, which send us pain signals indicating something is wrong. There is nothing wrong with birth! (well, usually) The sensations of birthing are more similar to the feeling of healthy muscles working hard and working for a long time, but doing something of which they are fully capable.

I’ve posted about this before, but the marathon talk reminds me of something one of the doctors in the Business of Being Born film said that made me really outraged. He said something to the effect of: “in three months you’re just going to be pushing a baby in a stroller, so what difference does it make how you gave birth?” What difference does it make?! Would anyone even THINK to say something like that to a marathon runner or Olympian—“in three months, you’ll just be pushing a baby in a stroller, who cares that you won a gold medal?” (analogy side note, feeling good that you won a gold medal [gave birth in a triumphant and empowering way] does not invalidate or cause guilt in those who did not run the marathon, or had to quit early, or needed help finishing. There is no shame in not running, but there is also rightful PRIDE and “glory” in finishing the “race” you set out on.

Okay, back to the actual book! Another good quote, but one I have a mixed reaction to:

“Women who birth joyfully do so because of who they are, what they believe, and how they live.”

While I like the sentiment, there is an unintended subtext of—if you did NOT birth joyfully, it must be because you have a sucky life in general and does not take into consideration the millions of factors that go into any one birth (it isn’t JUST about what the individual believes and how she lives, it is also about what those around her believe and how they live, and also what our culture believes about birth).

That said, the book is very compassionate with regard to cesarean birth experiences, stating:

“For the woman who delivered surgically, her task is to see that she was attempting to save her baby’s life through an act of personal courage.”

I love this re-framing—it isn’t a failure to have a cesarean birth, it is often an act of personal courage.

The final element I love from Transformation Through Birth is the author’s concept of encouraging and preparing for postpartum EXPRESSION instead of postpartum depression (the theory being that stuffed down, unexpressed feelings, moods, conflicts, emotions contribute to depression by repression of expression. That’s my own bit of alliteration there–I’m so catchy! 😉

Pushed Thoughts

Feb23

If you are looking to get fired up about about birth activism, I recommend reading the book Pushed by Jennifer Block. This book is seriously GOOD! Lots of weighty, meaty information, scathing critiques, astute observations, and clever commentary. She has plenty of scientific backup for her claims and the book is written in an engaging, fast paced style that skillfully weaves facts into descriptive commentary and personal, illuminating interviews. I originally checked this book out of the library, but after seeing all of the data contained within—she pulls together vast quantities of data about effectiveness of “routine” practices, etc. and makes it accessible to the average reader—I quickly ended up acquiring two copies (one hardback and one soft cover, both autographed from when Jennifer was our featured speaker at FoMM‘s annual Cookie Day event!).

Yes, I was a geeky fangirl in the Capitol rotunda in 2009 when Jennifer Block spoke at the annual Friends of Missouri Midwives Cookie Day event.

Pushed is a thorough critique of obstetrics as an industry and how women and babies are being HURT by the systems ostensibly in place to “protect” them. Especially thought provoking is Block’s descriptive exploration of the cesarean epidemic. She points out on one occasion when discussing the whole uterine rupture straw man used to deny women VBACs, that people must prefer “controlled uterine rupture” (i.e. cesarean) than the small chance of natural uterine rupture. Later, in a separate section regarding blood loss during birth, she mentions that average loss is 300-500 mil and over 500 is considered a hemorrhage. She then notes that during a cesarean the average loss is 1000 mil. Reading that, I thought so essentially with a cesarean you have a 100% chance of a uterine rupture AND a 100% chance of a hemorrhage. ::sob:: 😦

The information about blood loss wasn’t new to me, but I did learn something I hadn’t known at the time–300-500 mil of blood is approximately 8-9 menstrual periods worth. Isn’t the female body thoroughly awesome?!

—

Some assorted random thoughts and quotes from Pushed:

Re: EFM (external fetal monitoring): “For the natural childbirth movement, the emergence of the monitor was unfortunate timing. Just as activists were urging women to get up and birth, hospitals reined them back down in bed and strapped them, both physically & psychologically, to a machine that falsely promised a safe birth.”

—

While my feelings about unassisted birth have been “refined” and tempered somewhat since first reading Pushed in 2008, I did find the sections about UC to be frustrating and annoying. Quoting a midwife re: unassisted birth: “‘That’s not why you’re hiring a midwife. You’re hiring a midwife because you want her there for complications’ Some of Linda’s clients are such believers in birth that they toy with the idea of going unassisted. To this, Linda is fond of telling the story of a birth she attended where the baby had its umbilical cord wrapped around its neck three times and need resuscitation. ‘You never know when you’re going to have a problem,’ she says. ‘It’s like playing Russian roulette.'”

This makes me frustrated because those kinds of scare-tactic comments and implied “you must not really love your baby” subtext is EXACTLY the same as the conventional medical system’s attitude toward homebirth. The midwife quoted seemed totally oblivious that her remarks are virtually identical to the things OBs say say about homebirth and, regardless of any other personal opinions, I think they are just as demeaning and restrictive to women as the anti-homebirth sentiments are.

Okay, brief rant aside for another quote, this one while the author was observing a home water birth:

“It is at this point that I begin to fathom what supporting normal birth really entails. Linda is on her knees, sleeves pushed up, gloved hand in a soiled kiddy pool up to her bare elbow, gleaning diarrhea wisps with a spaghetti strainer by flashlight. I try to imagine a doctor doing this work and have great difficulty. This is not medicine. This is birth. It is messy, backbreaking, humble work.” [emphasis mine]

—

During the conclusion of the book after a discussion about the NAPW and whether childbirth is a reproductive right or not:

To her [a doctor who thinks it is not], it is a medical issue, one that may need reform, but one that belongs under the purview of physicians. ‘To my mind, I’m all for people having a pleasant and safe birth experience,’ she says. ‘But my highest priority would be for them to have a safe birth experience.’ But what’s considered safe is political. What’s safe changes. Thirty years ago obstetricians said VBAC was dangerous. Then they said it was safe. Now they’ve gone back to saying it’s dangerous. ACOG says out-of-hospital birth isn’t safe, but the research has consistently suggested that for women with normal, uncomplicated pregnancies it is not just safe, but safer, because those women are far more likely to have a normal, spontaneous vaginal birth and far less likely to experience harmful, unnecessary interventions….”

“…The goal is to have a healthy baby. ‘This phrase is used over and over and over to shut down women’s requests,’ she [Erica Lyon] says. ‘The context needs to be that the goal is a healthy mom. Because mothers never make decisions without thinking about that healthy baby. And to suggest otherwise is insulting and degrading and disrespectful’…What’s best for women is best for babies. and what’s best for women and babies is minimally invasive births that are physically, emotionally, and socially supported. This is not the kind of experience that most women have. In the age of evidence based medicine, women need to know that standard American maternity care is not primarily driven by their health and well-being or by the health and well-being of their babies. Care is constrained and determined by liability and financial considerations, by a provider’s licensing regulations and malpractice insurer. The evidence often has nothing to do with it.

This the TRUTH and I hope women hear it.

The only critique I have of this book is one I echo from several other reviews. The book fires you up and has a lot of passion and energy, but provides no outlet or ideas for where to channel that energy. There is no “resources” section, no suggestion to join Citizens for Midwifery or your state midwifery advocates, no list of birth-positive organizations who are working diligently for birth change in our culture, etc.

For some ideas that address the above, read my small-stone birth activism article 🙂

OBs and Normal

Feb20

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

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

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

Time Round

Feb18

I connect to the circle now

and see my life and death

in the child before me–

the glorious whole that spins so fast

it seems not to move

as the sun stands still in the heavens

until we glance again at dusk.

Where did it go and when

did we forget to look?

No matter, just turn.

The circle: our map

The heart: our book.

–Karen Engelmann

I copied this poem onto the first page of my journal when my second son was a newborn. I’m not totally sure what the meaning is intended to be, but I take it as a reminder to slow down and remember to look 🙂 My new baby is already one month old (tomorrow). How is that possible? I still look at her with surprise and amazement almost daily—sort of a, “where did you come from?!” feeling. There is something magic about her.

I have surprised myself by not having much urge to write in the last couple of weeks—usually I am consumed with blog post and article ideas. Something switched this week and the topics are flooding in again, as well as the sense of frustration of not having “enough time” to write them all. It may be because of Mark going back to work and now I feel like I am no longer “off” either and have to get caught back up with real life again. So, I remembered that poem and got it back out again. I also want to remember that my conditions of enoughness for the foreseeable future are:

1. take care of my baby.

2. take care of the boys–including doing some school every day.

3. eat enough food.

3. teach my online class.

That’s it. Write scintillating blog posts is not on the list. Nor is write books, which has suddenly popped back into my consciousness as a “want to do RIGHT NOW!” Nor is laundry really, though it has been haunting me this week. Even birth activism efforts are not really on my list, though there is a lot going on right now that I could/should contribute to. I’ve had a familiar sort of pressure this week to get back to “normal” and to prove to myself that I can handle everything I need to handle (without help).

But look…

This is where my heart is right now.