Sunday, August 29, 2010

Family Healings in Birth at Home

I am privileged to have seen babies born into quiet safe places in their homes that are safe for both babies and their families. I have witnessed healing in moms, dads, and extended families.

At home people don't feel like they have to have permission to act. One mom was very sad that in her previous hospital birth her family had been on the other side of the room from her. She felt alone and didn't know how to reach out to them in her need. During her homebirth these same family members were right at her side getting her what she needed helping her to overcome a previous traumatic experience as she birthed her baby.

One young lady didn't know how interested her father was in birth and her baby until when the baby was born, in the home with him there, he was the first to hold his grandbaby and to sit with his daughter. She had a special moment alone with her dad in the space he felt safe in and she was amazed.

Another waited for 14 hours until her mother who she had a troubled relationship with until her mom made the long drive to arrive at birth. The mother of the woman's idea of birth was completely changed by the experience and new respect grew.

I have read that mother's are "selfish" because they want a "good experience" . There is more to women that is understood by many. Moms are the barometer of the home. When they are saying that birth needs be gentler and things need to be safe and at home they are saying much more than just that they want to be comfortable. They are saying that they want their husbands to feel safe to be who they are with them. They are saying that they want their extended families to feel safe to be themselves and be able do what they need to. When these things happen everyone is affected. Relationships are reordered. Ones that have not had trust may have an opening for trust to begin. With all that free-flowing oxytocin in the room people fall in love again. In-laws see value in each other.

Nothing is picture perfect in birth or in living life and there are no guarantees but time after time I have seen birth be one of those doors that opens in a person's life that allows changes to happen. These  doors are not open all that often and to not take the opportunity to let that change happen to moms , dads and the families that love them is sad.

Where is a woman and her family safest to be who they are and act the way they know they need to? This is question that affects the entire family long term. The healthy family grows healthy children.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Right to privacy

 As a culture we have been trained to let the professionals  tell us what is best for us. They interpret the data and summarize it for us. We trust that their own bias will not get in the way of that interpretation. We have been led to believe that they will not follow the $$. This idea has been schooled into us. This idea is not serving us well as birthing women.

So it is with midwifery. People want to see the government give authority to midwives so that woman can have  woman centered care or birth somewhere besides a hospital. This sounds all well and good until you take it apart.

We have a right to be in our bodies. We didn't need to get any permission from anybody on this planet to get here. We do not have to get permission to remain in our bodies. If a person does not know that they have this as a right or are too weak to claim this right  (controlling)  people may try to take this away.

Pregnancy and birth happen inside a woman's body that she has a right to be in. Where to give birth is an issue of rights. Not for midwives as a group or profession but for women as pregnant and birthing women."

With rights come responsibilities. If a group of people gives up their responsibility they give up there rights along with it. Responsibility can be a scary thing. It requires us to make decisions and accept the consequences of them.

Control and fear. Have you ever watched George Orwells 1984 or read it? It shows a society where people are kept in constant fear in order that the government can control them. Everything is uncertain and free thought is a crime. Whenever anyone tries to make you afraid  it is to gain control of you. To have you turn over that right to your body to them. To give them responsibility for you.

There are certain times in life where we have to give over this right. Before the age of maturity and when we are very sick in some way that we are not able to use the part of the body (brain) that guides in out decisions.

Pregnancy and birth are not sickness. If you give into this thinking what you are saying is that when, as a woman, I am pregnant or giving birth I am sick and unable to make decisions for myself I am giving up my rights to whomever. This has been imposed on women by laws. So what the law is saying is you are sick when you are in the "condition" of being pregnant or giving birth.

Are you getting mad yet. I did 20 some odd years ago. I don't think this was right and so exercised my right with whom I wanted when it was not legal. My body and my brain function just fine while I am pregnant and while I am giving birth. I choose to have people around me that when "in the moment"when I am less than strong my support ,that I have chosen, to have around me will help uphold that right. If in fact I am in danger I choose to let these people who love me make a decision for me.

"Birth is a human rights issue" is something I have seen around recently. It is true. It is. Women this is your issue. As women we have to be understand that in this country at this time you have rights. It is being taken away in other countries and in some it doesn't exist. Do you know that if you do not claim rights in our country that it is assumed that you have waived them. And do you understand that as a group that if we continue to waive out rights at some point they are forgotten?

 "I believe there is clearly a privacy issue involved in the right to offer and receive one's choice of services in health care, education, psychology and legal matters." Legal Guidelines for Unlicensed Practitioners. " Dr. Lawrence Wilson.

 Use it or lose it. We have to understand as moms and birthing parents that there is not anyone who has the right to make decisions for us unless we give them that privilege. We have the right to choose where and with whom we have our babies. We must use that right in order that we and others do not lose this right. This means on every procedure that is offered to us. We have the right of acceptance and refusal.

Our right to our person is too important to let slip away by slowly letting people we pay to take over our responsibility to choose what we will do with our  own body. We have a grassroot movement of women that are not afraid to take the responsibility and birth free of legislation.

A shout out to you women , those that have come before, those yet to come and the men that love ans support them. Let's keep pressing forward.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Prenatals

I love having the chance to talk with first time moms that are just beginning to learn about their bodies and birth. It is wonderful to speak to the fears that have been placed about birth in our society and show them
 for the empty bags that they are.

Prenatals are really my personal favorite part of the process of birth.  Being able to open up a box of awe and wonder with so many thing to discover and learn about is such a wonderful process. Knowing that as a young woman/ couple will be forever changed not only by a pregnancy, labor and birth but also by the process and discovery about it. The tools that they acquire won't just be for this time or this baby but will serve them throughout there lives. Principles such as trust, hope, vision, choices, connection and many others will be theirs as they begin practicing them.

Birth can be a foundational time in our lives. All births have the power to be this for us. They are a time of newness. We don't have to hold onto all that we thought we knew but can search and find out more and better way to do things this time around because it is all new again. We can grow from all the experiences that we have had before and lay them to rest that nothing will be the same at it was.

With each new piece of information that a woman receives, applies and sees new results there is a strength building that she can receive, apply and see new results in other areas of life as well. When we grow babies inside of our bodies we are a part of understanding new life. The spiritual quality of this gives us an open time in life to let life grow in all areas as they open.

I love prenatals. So full of newness and change.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Woman to woman relationships

Having a baby is one of those times when we really need other women. We need their support, love,  kindness and courage. What we don't need is their shame, guilt, worry and criticisms. In my faith it is said that the older women should teach younger women. This is the reachable ideal.

But for a few times in life my own  experience with women in my life has been anything but good and rarely kind. Frankly women still are a bit frightening and I am pushing 50. My mother and I were rivals and not close until I had my own children. My sister and I have spend years not speaking until we have gotten older and maybe wiser. I have had friends that when I made mistakes or changed we were no longer friends. This has all been painful and often I have wanted to build a strong wall of defense so it would never happen again.

Inspite of this I have an wonderful relationships with my daughters and are embarking on one with a grand daughter. I have the privilege of helping many women in that most open of places in a woman's life, pregnancy and birth.  I have had to evaluate and change myself at every step of the way in order for this to happen.

The woman that served in my births drove hours to get to my house in an illegal atmosphere and charged very little to sit with me through pre-labors and hours of labor. She didn't complain when she had to go home when the labor stopped and came whenever I called. She was a woman there for me in my time of need. There were things in my labors, knowing what I know now, maybe I would change and leave alone but I hesitate to bring them up because I was not left alone.

There are many reasons that women help women. Not all of them are nobel, kind or wanted. There are those that control, abuse, take over, stifle growth and all sorts of nastiness in the name of help.  There is a kind of woman that helps a woman to death. Takes over decisions, hovers and treats one like a fool. There is a kind of women that shares, encourages, empowers and loves to help other women with a desire to see a woman grow beyond her help.

Midwifery and motherhood holds a kind of power to bring women into right relationship with each other. It also has the ability to stifle growth and hurt women so badly that it can take them years, if ever, to recover and be able to reach out again.

Our bonds of being women with women have been almost thread bare in the lives of many of us. Many have given up and don't even try anymore. We are wary of each other often with good reason as we have been attacked when we were most vulnerable we needed the hands of those other strong women and it wasn't there.

How we are is how we are. If we are not kind we are not kind. If we help we help. We cannot pick and choose the who of it only the what. What this means is that if we are not kind to that woman, any woman, we aren't going to have the ability to be truly kind to the woman in labor. It is not going to happen. We aren't tigers one day and bunnies the next.

Back to the ideal. Women being there for each other in order that we can teach, learn, share, cry, birth, yell, have a fit, love without shame in front of each other in all walks of our lives.

Relationships with women is not going to be easy we are seasonal creatures and we change often through the month, the seasons and our lives. This is beautiful. There can be stability in change. The strong spirit that was put within us, this is the nurturer that is needed for life.

Women nurturing each other in pregnancy
The other day I had an amazing thing happen. I was driving with another midwife and I received a call that a dear friend had died. I was in shock. This friend reached out a touched my arm and told me how sorry she was.  I was undone. In that moment I realized how little of that I have received in my life and how much I needed it. A few days before I was at a birth and had helped a mom reposition, her hip was killing her. You know the spot if you have had a baby. I began rubbing it as she sighed in relief. Then she looked at me and said "how did you know where to rub, that was just the right spot" a few minutes later she let me catch her baby. I touched a woman in her need and I needed that too.


Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Why I do what I do... history

When I started homebirthing 25 years ago there were few people around who knew what a midwife. I lived in a state that midwives were illegal. I had the book Spiritual Midwifery by Ina Mae Gaskin and another book that was a beautiful book full of pictures that somewhere in my travels I have lost. Those two books gave me strength to see what I had know already  knew inside, that there was another way to give birth. It did not have to be controlled by someone else.

A year early I had a hospital experience where my  twin sons were born too early and died at 28 weeks. I had not been listened to when I called the doctor and told him I thought something was wrong. I was 8 cm when I arrived at the hospital, they drugged me, gave me a huge gash and left me with nothing. I didn't get to see my son that was born alive nor the one that was stillborn. I was alone and the back up that I was sure was ultimate fix, fixed nothing. It began me on a new path. One of the things on that path is what I now trust and what I know is fallible.

When it came time and I was pregnant again I embarked on a new journey and decided to have my baby, my way, with my husband and I.  As I trusted Life and I was led  to a midwife.
I had four births at home. All were wonderful. I did things the way I wanted. I took baths when I wanted. I ate when I wanted. I took my time. I made bread. I gave birth.

Every woman should have the chance to do what she was made to do. When we do what we are made to do we know deep inside that the other things that we were made to do can happen too. I healed through giving birth. My sons,though I lost them, brought me to understand where to put my faith. They forced me to seek for answers. They made me strong. Every birth and every child has a purpose.

I am now seeing and being with my own daughters as they have their babies. I have often been quiet in groups of my peers about my births because I didn't want people to feel bad. No longer do I do this. I understand that I know something that isn't meant to be a secret and that like many of the amazing things that surround birth I can give it to others. So as I begin to roar and speak what I know I hope that many fears will be shattered and women will know who and what they are called to be. Awesome powerful birthers , mothers and amazing partners. Lovers of Life and Truth in every part of their beings.

I love being a midwife to give this message to women and to be with them when they need extra strength or a laugh or two.
Labor with my fourth baby. A baby girl who is now married!