Who Made the Lamb?

Let me begin by saying, I do not really understand why this book was called Who Made the Lamb? Ah, well. Maybe such things are not for me to know. The subtitle is "A Journal of Childbirth" and it was written in the 60's by Charlotte Painter. This book was given away by a fellow midwifery advocate at the recent Retreat, which is how I came to have and read it (I finished it on Monday). I'm also confused why the back of the book claims that the book is an "exploration of natural childbirth," when the author actually has a scheduled cesarean after only minimal and halfhearted attempts to learn about natural childbirth (such as a taking a hospital class in which she quickly realizes that the instructor is really only preparing them to be "good girls" and follow their doctors' orders--classes of the type that I refer to as "hospital obedience classes").

A thoroughly still true and unfortunate truth quoted therein: "Tom [her husband] laughed at this idealism. 'You don't understand,' he said, 'Pregnancy is not regarded as a process of creation. It's a disease of the uterus.'"

How true this is--a disease of the uterus. This is absolutely how the medical system continues to view pregnancy (and birth is the excavation of the disease. This reminds me of our "friendly" neighborhood doctor testifying at the Capitol against the midwifery bill that pregnancy can be viewed as a foreign object in the body and therefore "babies are like tumors that need to be removed").

Being Perfect

In about 10 minutes (or even less) last Saturday afternoon I read Being Perfect by Anna Quindlen. It was a tiny little book that really would have been better suited to be a chapter in another book instead of a whole book by itself. In an effort to make it longer (I think), it had two page photo spreads right in the middle of every other page (including breaking a sentence in the middle--so you would have to turn two pages of a picture before you got to the rest of the sentence you were reading. Hmm. Interesting choice). This is another book sale reject, which is why I was reading it. Despite my criticisms, I did mark three pages!

"Perhaps someday we will be able to read something over which a real person has not sweated and sworn; perhaps we will find out precisely what the thing lacks that only effort can confer. Is it soul? Passion? Vivid reality? If I had to guess, I would say it would be all three."

About young people thinking about parenthood:

"You will convince yourself that you will be a better parent than your parents and their parents have been. But being a good parent is not generational, it is deeply personal, and it comes down to this: If you can bring to your children the self that you truly are as opposed to some amalgam...you will be able to teach them by example not to be terrorized by the narrow and parsimonious expectations of the world, a world that often likes to color within the lines when a spray of paint, a scribble of crayon, would be much more satisfying."

After something bad has happened or some failure:

"Sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself. you will look for some core to sustain you. And if you have been perfect all your life and managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where that core ought to be."

Still Here

The afternoon of 9/22 I finally finished Still Here, by Ram Dass. My mom's book club read it and she passed it along to me. It was so-so. I had trouble getting into really and almost put it down without finishing it. It was very much a tale of his personal journey than about Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying as the subtitle purports. Parts were interesting, but I only marked one thing to quote, which is actually a quote of a quote (from Proust):

"Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it--our life--hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly. But let all this threaten to become impossible forever, how beautiful it would become again!...The cataclysm doesn't happen, we don't do any of it, because we find ourselves back in the heart of normal life, where negligence deadens desire. And yet we shouldn't need the cataclysm to love life today."

I think I'm actually pretty good at keeping this idea in sight--I think many people do not. I think being "unschooled" helped me develop this perspective and LIVE instead of vegging (like it seems so many do if no one is standing over them [teachers, bosses] cracking the whip to make them productive. I crack my own whip, thankyouverymuch ;-)

Back to Ram Dass. He is best known as the author of Be Here Now, which I have actually never read, though I repeat the title like a mantra when my brain is getting away with me and I'm becoming discouraged with whatever is going on in the moment (I repeat to myself "be here now" and it helps. It really helped during early days with new babies, which is where I first heard it. An LLL Leader suggested the phrase to me).

The Family Bed

A playgroup friend of mine lent me the 1975 edition of The Family Bed. It was a really quick read and I finished it this afternoon while nursing Z at naptime in the family bed. I know this book is an AP "classic" so it was fun to read if only for that reason. I'm struck by how much things have changed in terms of style of writing and book design in the last decade. the book isn't THAT old, but seems to "quaint"--it is something I can't quite put my finger on, but the style of sentences have this quaint edge to them (not to mention the type of type, etc.) Reminds me of seeing previews for movies made in the 80's (like the Princess Bride)--they seem so slow paced and old fashioned compared to the speeded up style of current films (which make you realize why people have ADHD, LOL!).

Anyway, I wasn't really an overall fan of the book (sort of like I am not of The Continuum Concept), though I enjoyed it and thought it was fun to finally read it. It had that syrupy or over-the-top edge that bothers me (and that makes me understand why AP parents are criticized as "self righteous" or "judgmental"). Also, as one of the Amazon reviewers noted: "makes you feel like a weirdo for co-sleeping!" The section about sex (or "marital relations" as she quaintly says) also really kind of squicked me out.

One of the closing thoughts in the book: "I used to feel greatly resentful toward those who told me, 'you'll change when you have children. Your life will change' I felt resentful because I felt threatened. Perhaps I felt threatened that another person was going to control me, change me. I liked the way things were. But children can be the greatest blessing that ever happened to an individual. When one has children one has a chance to grow in ways not otherwise possible. Let it not be said, therefore, 'You must grow. You must mature. You must not have children until you are ready.' For then we may wait forever. Rather, let it suffice to say, "Allow yourself to grow, to mature with your children."

I've said this before, but I do feel that whatever the hardships/difficulties/frustrations of having children, they have forced me to grow as a person in ways that I think I would never have done without them. I feel like mothering is part of my development as a person--without it, I would be somehow stunted (though maybe blissfully oblivious to that!), even though it is actually PAINFUL sometimes to grow and develop, it is so important and real.

The Dance of the Dissident Daughter

I didn't end up having much time to write about this book, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, when I read it on 9/22. So, suffice to say it was very, very good. Really interesting. It is by Sue Monk Kidd, who wrote Secret Life of Bees. I accidentally stumbled across this one at the Columbia book sale last month. The subtitle of this book is "From Christian Tradition to Sacred Feminine." Anyway, I marked two quotes to share and that will have to do for my comments about this one:

"As a formed my critique, I came face to face with a system of social governance, a vast complex of patterns and attitudes within culture, religion, and family. The name of the system is patriarchy. It's important to emphasize that patriarchy is neither men nor the masculine principle; it is rather a system in which that principle has become distorted." (emphasis mine--something I've always wanted to explain, but couldn't quite. Basically, explaining how it is that one can be a feminist and not "hate men.")

Later, when discussing her reluctance to embrace the Father-God image of her church with a minister:

"He thought we should forgo recovering Divine Feminine images and move directly toward abstract, androgynous images; we should neuter the language and symbol of the Divine. He said we should use only the word God, not Father or he or his. 'But the word God does not register in us as neuter,' I said. 'Technically it may not imply any particular gender, but registers and functions in the mind is male.' As McFague says, androgynous terms only 'conceal androcentric and male assumptions behind the abstraction.' How many times had I heard someone say, "God is not male. He is spirit.'?

Side note: I think my beloved Wayne Dyer does a good job of using gender neutral language for the Divine that does not make me have a knee-jerk "down with patriarchy!" reaction.

Random Reads

Friday was my oldest baby's birthday--I can barely believe he is FOUR! We had a really fun party at the park after having spent a sort of stressful morning at home trying to bake the cake, cookies to decorate, etc. I overplanned a bit and should have probably chosen one activity instead of having "decorate your own cookie," paint a plaster Halloween magnet (I made the plaster things earlier), make a foamie Halloween guy, have a pinata, eat cake, open presents. It was a little much. L loved his Darth Vader costume and looked really cute in it. The helmet I got is really cool.

Anyway, I didn't blog on his birthday, so I'm breaking my "post only on Fridays" schedule and posting today instead. I know it is kind of weird to have *nothing* posted and then suddenly a big rash of posts all on one day, so I'm considering saving a bunch of "drafts" each Friday and then releasing them throughout the week, so that content is new more than just on Fridays....

This past week I read a variety of random books, mostly courtesy of the recent book sale I went to (and these were some non-sellers, so I read 'em).

Most recently, I finished The Coffin Quilt, historical, young adult fiction about the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. I gobbled it down, but then after I stayed up way too late finishing it, I didn't actually like it very much. This is one reason why I don't read much fiction--I have no self control and gobble them up regardless of quality! The book is by Ann Rinaldi who also wrote Wolf by the Ears (historical fiction about the children of Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemmings). In a small bit of personal history, Wolf by the Ears was the first book I ever reviewed in my life. I was 15 and wrote a review of it for our short lived homeschooler publication "Prism."

Earlier, I also read The Power of a Penny. This was quick read of a short little inspirational book about the power of small things to make a real difference. I found a lot of it to be sort of trite or obvious and didn't learn anything new--it was not particularly creative or imaginative or fresh at all.

The Real Meaning of Life

I have no minutes to post today (but it's Friday!), so I decided to post about a "lightweight" topic like this, LOL! ;-) I got a little book at the Columbia book sale last weekend called The Real Meaning of Life. It is basically a compilation of responses to the question, "what is the meaning of life?" posted online by a college student in 2005 (his question garnered tons of responses and he ended up writing a little book). It was interesting--responses seemed to range from nihilistic (only a few) to spiritual, but with a lot concentrated around either "happiness" and/or "service."

I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about weighty issues and analyzing life in detail, so I was struck by the quote:

"It is true that the unexamined life is not worth living, but it is equally true that the overexamined life is also not worth living." (emphasis mine.)

Okay, I'm editing this post on 9/22 to add one more quote:

"...We avoid it prolong it, and in most cases fear it, yet could we live without it [death]? Death begets time's omnipresent importance. Without death, life is meaningless....Life without death is tragedy. It's like playing poker and getting a royal flush every hand...would you keep playing the game? Or, better yet, what would motivate others to keep anteing up?"

I thought this was an interesting way of looking at it--kind of like the, "if we were never sad, would/could we recognize or appreciate happy?" thing. One requires the other.

Celebrating Pregnancy through Art

I'm excited to be presenting a session about Celebrating Pregnancy through Art at a retreat this weekend. During the session, I let each participant paint a pregnant woman figurine to keep (I make batches of plain white plaster ones up in advance). Anyway, I thought I'd share one of them here. This one is painted in my signature "placenta red" ;-) She has a labyrinth on her belly as a metaphor for birth compared to traditional linear, medical models of birth (such as bell curves and plastic dilation charts).

Related reading: Pam England's wonderful "LabOrinth"
article.

Misconceptions

I finished reading Misconceptions for the second time before our trip to Chicago. I had lots of thoughts, but no time to share them when I finished the book, so I'm back now editing this post today. (It was originally posted in tiny form on 8/10.)

This book has deep meaning for me, because I read in in my first weeks postpartum after the birth of my first baby. though I had been very prepared for birth and *thought* I was prepared for having a newborn, I felt like postpartum was a huge slap in the face and my adjustment was very difficult. The giving up, the laying down of self, the realization that my life was no longer about me anymore and never would be again, the anxieties and uncertainties, the glimpse of how irrevocably my life had changed. It was a rough time for me and I cried a lot (I also had to recover from an unexpected birth injury that left me feeling very fragile, weak, permanently wounded, and like an invalid). Anyway, at one of my postpartum checkups I saw a doctor that I had never seen before and she suggested I read Misconceptions. This was my first introduction to the world of "momoirs" and I was hooked for good. I voraciously devoured up any and all related books at the local library and wished I had known to read some of them *before* having the baby. So, reading this book again brought all that back for me--it is inextricably linked to my early memories of life with my first little baby and as a new mother. (and, as such, this will be an extremely long post!)

Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, & the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood, is Naomi Wolf's account of her first pregnancy and birth experience, her early months postpartum, and her subsequent research and study about pregnancy, birth, and mothering in our culture. This is primarily her personal narrative of her experiences, thoughts, feelings, and theories. The author feels fragile, weak, insubstantial, and invalid as a pregnant woman. In contrast, during my pregnancies, I felt strong, mighty, powerful, present, full, magic, substantial. I also felt potent and magic, as well as supported, cherished and honored. During my births, I felt triumphant and powerful (she felt abused, ignored, weak, defective, assaulted, and ruined with pain, anger, frustration, anger, shame, confusion, and neglect. She also ends up with two cesareans). I have to wonder how our emotional states during pregnancy and the types of caregivers and birth settings we each chose, contributed to our birth experiences? (A LOT, I'd wager!) This is a reason why I hope to design my birth classes around emotional preparation for birth (and motherhood) and not only the physiology of pregnancy and birth.

Interestingly, in postpartum, despite our dramatically our differing experiences of pregnancy and birth, our reactions become similar. In postpartum, i did feel week, wounded, dissolved, invalid, and fragile.

One favorite quote of many: "A woman is not a mother just because she has had a baby, a mother is not born when a baby is born; a mother is forged, made."

I like this concept--I do feel forged in the fires of motherhood! :-)

Another good one, when reflecting on an ordinary street scene and suddenly understanding the web of life and the universality of motherhood (even the squirrels!) : "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."

"Babies...are sort of leaky little understudies for God. With each baby the human species gets the chance to break out of the self into the service of something so 'other' that the reasons for conditional love can give way to faith in unconditional love. ..with babies, we get the chance to take one manageable baby step on the long hard path of the saints...when I was pregnant I could suddenly see the good sense of worshiping God in the guise of a human baby...Like so many of the feelings of pregnancy and new motherhood, it was paradoxical: sometimes I felt the brightness and the darkness at the same time."

The author notes something that I was unaware of--apparently ACOG has recommended that routine continuous fetal monitoring be dropped from the standard of care for low-risk pregnant women and instead recommends intermittent FHT listening. (still, at least 85% of women giving birth in the US have continuous monitoring even though their own trade union [ACOG] does not recommend it? Weirdness!)

She also notes that no matter how it is perceived in society today, a cesarean is not a routine procedure, but is instead the equivalent of any other major organ surgery and suggested cesareans are more accurately termed "open uterine surgery" (most women don't know that their uterus is literally taken out of their body during repair).

Quoting a quote by Robbie Kahn, "the job market holds out an all-or-nothing prospect to new mothers: you can give your body and heart and lose much of your status, your money, your equality, and your income; or, you can keep your identity and your income--only if you abandon your baby all day long and try desperately to switch off the most powerful primal drive the human animal can feel."

Then, a classic quote (quoting another mother regarding taking care of little kids): "I sometimes feel I am getting pecked to death by ducks."

After some uncalled for digs at LLL, the author also makes a good point about the myth of "choice" regarding breastfeeding (specifically with regard to lack of supports for breastfeeding while working outside the home): "...it was unconscionable for our culture to insist that women 'choose' to leave their suckling babies abruptly at home in order simply to be available for paid work."

"We need to ask the question: what do mothers deserve if they are to mother well? We need to answer: Everything. Everything that is due them."

With regard to a Mother's Movement: "We also need this movement to create...new kinds of civic spaces and social structures, bringing children closer to the work place and the world of adults, and bringing the engagement and world of adult economic activity closer to the hermetically-sealed world of mothers and small children. women should not have to choose between two such starkly exclusive worlds as 'work' and 'home with kids' as they now must, and children would benefit from the better, happier parenting this change would bring about."

Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety

Last week I finished reading Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. I have lots and lots and lots to say about this book and started to write a post about it, but it got to be almost 1:30 a.m. and I went to bed instead. Now, this week I posted about the books I read since then and so again it goes unremarked. I need to get better about succinct summaries, because my pile of things to be blogged about is growing larger and larger and is starting to make me feel stressed instead of having fun! I will definitely edit this later to add my real comments about this book.

Okay, now it is 10/6 and this is still in my unblogged pile and I think I'm going to have to let go of writing about it. I'm mostly caught up otherwise and this is kind of hanging over my head, which is just plain silly! I will say that reading this book makes me feel like a "double agent" between the AP and non-AP worlds--while my heart lies in AP, my brain actually identifies with the author's criticisms and sometimes outright mockery of that style. I think my personality style and my tendency to be driven and ambitious might actually make me better suited to a work-out-of-the-home life, but my heart and biological connection compels me to be with my babies. The author articulates what I've felt, but haven't really been able to express--the need for something in between staying at home and working full time (basically, that working and mothering simultaneously is the most natural and fulfilling approach, but our society does not make that combination often feasible or comfortable):

"Which means that 'natural' motherhood today should know no conflict between providing for our children (i.e. 'working') and nurturing them (i.e. 'being a mom'). Both are part of our evolutionary heritage; both are equally 'child-centered' imperatives. What's 'unnatural' about motherhood today, if you follow Hrdy's line of thinking, is not that mothers work but rather that their 'striving for status' and their 'maternal emotions' have been compartmentalized. By putting the two in conflict--by insisting on the incompatibility of work and motherhood--our culture does violence to mothers, splitting them, unnaturally, within themselves...For they show that the so-called 'choices' most of us face in America--between more-than-full-time work or 24/7 on-duty motherhood--are, quite simply, unnatural. They amount to a kind of psychological castration: excessive work severs a mother from her need to be physically present in caring for her child, and excessive 'full-time' motherhood of the total-reality variety severs a mother not only from her ability to financially provide for her family but also from her adult sense of agency, as it sucks her so deeply down the infantile realm of her children."

This is what I'm talking about. There needs to be a third, realistic option (and not just for women. For men too. For families!). I have often expressed the desire to find a balance between mothering and "personing." I'm seeking a seamless integration of work and family life for both Mark and myself. An integration that makes true co-parenting possible, while still meeting the potent biological need of a baby for his mother and a mother's biological compulsion to be present with her baby. Why is the work world designed to ignore the existence of families?

Tao Te Ching

Stretched my horizons and flexed my philosophical/spiritual muscles this week by reading the Tao Te Ching. I read Stephen Mitchell's version, which is the one recommended by my beloved Wayne Dyer.

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about other people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.
---------------------------
He who stands on tiptoe
doesn't stand firm.
He who rushes ahead
doesn't go far.
He who tries to shine
dims his own light.
He who defines himself
can't know who he really is.
He who has power of others
can't empower himself.
He who clings to his work
will create nothing that endures.

If you want to accord with the Tao,
just do your job, then let go.
------------------------------

There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.

The Master sees things as they are,
without trying to control them.
She lets them go their own way,
and resides at the center of the circle.

MotherMysteries

This week I read MotherMysteries. It was a little too Jungian analyst, exploration of archetypes, mythological for my taste--that style doesn't "click" well with me and I find it hard to get into books that are too heavy with Jung. Anyway, it was still somewhat interesting because I love just about all books about women's experiences of motherhood.

The book follows snippets of the author's experience of her three pregnancies and the "mothermysteries" she discovered through each one. Her third birth takes place at home and one week old they take the baby in to be circumcised. The circumcision is botched in that an artery is nicked and the baby bleeds copiously and has to be taken to the ER, etc. After he has stitches put in the artery, the mother sinks down to the floor of the ER to nurse and comfort him and later reflects on how she is "fascinated and a bit awed to recall the woman I became when my baby's life was in danger...the love a mother has for her baby, and her quintessential desire to protect that baby, carry her far beyond the reaches of neurotic concerns about other people's liking her, approving of her, social reputation, manners, persona..." As she reflects on her experiences and considers her "defense" of her baby, I can't wrap my mind around how she neglects to address (or, indeed, to even realize) that this whole experience was totally avoidable--the parents directly *caused* their baby the pain and distress and the complication and suffering in the ER by arranging to have an unnecessary surgical procedure performs on his innocent little body. She seems to perceive her role in the situation as someone mythologically "heroic" as she "held him to my heart and my breast and loved him all night long" instead of experiencing any regrets or changed opinions about having had the circumcision performed in the first place.

Some good quotes/observations from the rest of the book:

"I am always stunned when I hear a man exclaim in frustration, 'Why must women take things so personally!" If I don't experience my life personally, then what is the point of being a person? I cannot imagine going through life not taking things personally."

With regard to adjusting to life with a baby outside the womb: "I don't know how to do this mother and baby thing with our bodies separated...Why should a baby all of a sudden become so separate from his mother? This strikes me as a peculiar custom. not all cultures do this...I expect my agitation about being separate from my baby is not only neurotic fear but that there is some instictive base to it. I suspect that nature wants me to feel agitated when I am not with my baby, wants me to still be touching, holding, body to body with my baby."

On reflecting on the surrender of self required when mothering a baby: "I wonder whether it's harder for a woman who has been independent and had years of feeling in charge of her own life to surrender when she has a baby...Many women of my generation are educated and professionally accomplished. Psychologically, we have had the time and the space to develop a conscious, differentiated ego. We are used to knowing what we want and directing our lives to achieve our goals. When a woman who has lived this way becomes pregnant, she gets dragged back into the unconscious depths of nature, into a dreamy and passive field of energy, where she is a vessel for the creative forces of life. This is a hard fall for the ego, a difficult psychological death."

To this, I say, and how! I have shared the same sort of thoughts/reflections myself on multiple occasions.

"Childbirth is a rite of passage so intense physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, that most other events in a woman's life pale next to it. In our modern lives, there are few remaining rituals of initiation, few events that challenge a person's mettle down to the very core. Childbirth remains a primary initiatory rite for a woman."

Okay, almost done...a section about working I identified with:

"Something inside me needs to be worked. Something or someone inside me has ideas, likes to think and communicate in adult ways. There are parts of me, alive and active, that simply are not addressed in being a mother. It's not merely the desire to escape the infinite wheel of mothering. There are genuine energies that rise in me that want to be heard, exercised, evolved. The woman inside me who is driven, has ambitions and ideas, is frustrated being a mother."

This section goes on in meaningful ways, but I've spent too much time on this post already and so must stop here. What I always struggle with is the desire to combine work with mothering--not leave my baby to work, but also not leave my work in order to mother. Does that make sense? I want to do both at at the same time darn it! So far, I'm managing a delicate balance between mothering deeply while also fulfilling some of my restless work energy with volunteer work that I can handle with children (as well as some very small paid work engagements, that again, I can do while also taking care of the kids). This is an issue I really struggle with--my desire to "work" as well as to mother well and fully (which is work in its own right, of course).

Birth Films

This week I watched portions of the DVD Birth as We Know It with some friends again. I figured it made sense to include some birth film reviews on this blog as well. I actually reviewed this film for CfM News, so I'm not going to share too much of my review here until the issue is published.
My conclusion is that this is a lovely film and though I have some reservations about showing the entire educational edition due to the "new agey" voiceover content, some of the birth footage has been a powerful addition to my work with birth.

We also watched Relaxation, Rhythm, & Ritual: The Three R's of Childbirth by Penny Simkin. I like to show this video for good examples of labor support & different coping strategies. I also like to show it because it shows a lot of labors and births in a very manageable length of video time (15 minutes) and because most of the births are in the hospital--much as I prefer homebirth, the reality is that most births in the US take place in the hospital and so this video speaks to the reality of most of the women viewing the video (does that make sense?). If I show videos that only focus on homebirth, they may think, "this doesn't apply to me" or, "must be nice, but I need to go to the hospital." This video shows what can actually be done in a hospital setting--coping techniques, using the shower even with a saline lock in your arm, etc. I highly recommend this film!

On 11/26/07, I posted more about the three R's on my birth blog.

Who Let the Blogs Out?

I also read Who Let the Blogs Out this week. I bought it at a book sale and it wasn't sellable. Since I'm still new to blogging, I decided to keep it and see if I'd learn anything. It was a really quick read. A little bit excessively self-referential. Things I learned from it were to try to keep my blog posts short (Hah! Mine are getting longer and longer!) and also that you should try to post at least once a day. I fail here also, because I only blog on Fridays (but sometimes copiously on Fridays, LOL!) Other interesting bits were about "the power of weak connections" (i.e. your friend's brother's boss is more likely to help you get a job than your actual friend is--because the pool of "new" people becomes so different the weaker your connection to the person grows, thus the weak link is actually really strong. I see this with LLL--you can make nationwide connections that may have little to nothing to do actually with LLL, but have at their root a connection as Leaders or LLL members). Also about "aggregate traffic animals" wherein cars on the interstate actually act as a unified organism or "worm" skirting around dangers, speeding up and slowing down in unison, etc.

The author also expressed the idea that when you write a blog you are creating a body of work, a life's work. That sure sounds nicer and more meaningful than "wasting time blogging," LOL! Gave me a new perspective on this new little hobby of mine, which I have considered dumping because it is just "wasting time."

Big Purple Mommy

This is my 100th post! I should have said in my "tagged" post about dolls--that this blog is another thing I do that is only for fun. I often wonder why I bother--I have so many things I need to do or want to do, why add blogging to my "to do" list, why "waste" time with it? I'm left to respond/realize--because it is fun. I like to do it. I want to do it. I only blog on Fridays now and that feels like a fully acceptable compromise (with the "be productive only!" part of me).

Okay, so this week I also finished re-reading Big Purple Mommy. The subtitle of this book is nurturing our creative work, our children, and ourselves. I sort of accidentally picked it up and flipped through it and before I knew it I was re-reading it. I really enjoyed it the first time as it was the first time I'd ever realized that being a writer is my means of creative expression and is my creative work. She talks about how painters "see" paintings as they go about their days, dancers choreograph, and musicians compose. I know my own very creatively gifted mother "sees" patterns in nature or life and imagines them as felted pictures or woven pieces (or whatever her current area of focus is at the time). Me--I write essays in my head. I'd say just about every day I compose some sort of essay or article in my head as I'm going about my day. Probably only about 10 percent of those actually make it onto the page even as notes and even less than that actually are fully born. As I start to own the identity of writer though and increase my confidence in it, I think more of my imaginary essays will actually be written (finding the time to actually write while the "muse" is with me is a trick, which is why much of my writing never makes it past my brain!)

Anyway, this is not a very AP or “alternative” minded book, sort of “pack ‘em off to school and enjoy 6 hours a day of bliss at home!” mentality, but still has a lot to offer anyway even if some of our parenting philosophies are different. I shared some quotes from the book with my playgroup because we were discussing blooming where you're planted and I read some sections in her book that made me re-think my rigid "just suck it up and like where you live, because the grass is likely always greener" attitude. Since I bothered typing it all up, I'm going to include them here even though that wasn't the direction I was planning to go with this entry. Towards the end of the book she is talking about finding the right, nurturing space in which to create and she shared the following quote from Csikszenthmihalyi (??!!):

"Certain environments have a greater density of interaction and provide more excitement and a greater effervescence of ideas; therefore, they prompt the person who is already inclined to break away from conventions to experiment with novelty more readily than if he or she had stayed in a more conservative, more repressive setting."

Then the author adds: "sometimes where we live isn't the most convenient place for truly thriving in our creative work"

Then later: "I also believe that being truly miserable in your soul over where you are living is a slow and painful kind of death that warrants some serious consideration. Sometimes pulling up damaged roots and moving on is the most positive and healthy plan of action....Get out of Dodge! Life is short and the world is big."

I also valued her section about competition between mothers and "mommy wars" type of stuff. Maybe I am in the minority, but I feel like I am pretty accepting of all mothers--I really believe that most of us are doing the best we can, we truly love our children and want what's best for them, independent of our various parenting choices/philosophies. I also don't think there is a "right" way to mother and getting dogmatic about mothering leads to discord instead of unity that mothers desperately need.

Anyway, some other good quotes:

"For me, the greatest difficulty about the Cappuccino and Company gatherings, especially when I was a first time mother, was the unspoken and collective agreement that we wouldn't speak the truth about what we were living...Pretending I was managing it all and loving it, too, was one of the hardest parts of being a new mother."

"I now look back and realize that I could have used those few unchained hours [while baby slept] to rest, read, take a walk, or for heaven's sake take a shower. I might have emerged more replenished and engaged. I didn't know then that a time of quietness in my creative life was a useful and necessary thing and would be followed, eventually, by a time of renewed energy and productivity."

I could learn something from this, probably--I am having difficulty assessing the balance between all of the writing I want to do and have tucked inside and the realization that I have time "later" to more fully pursue this (but without doing it all, my life will lack something that I deeply need and that in the end makes me a happier and better mother, while also sometimes adding to my stress level significantly...balance is the eternal issue!)

"You can do it all and have it all--don't let anyone tell you differently. but it's not possible to do it all and have it all, ALL of the time."

This next one relates to the whole mother competition thing I referenced above:

"We're all so hungry for validation about our choices, and for how we're raising our children and living our lives. And because we're afraid of the reaction we might get if we disclose honest feelings about our lives, we just don't risk it. It's about sizing yourself up against others--a kind of placement method within the group. And there is power in withholding validation and therefore seeming superior."

I feel fortunate in that I feel like I have reached a place of intimacy with my friends in playgroup that we can be honest about our lives and our feelings (and our shortcomings and failures and questions about our decisions) that we don't do this "status" thing with each other. I see it in other people though or in online settings.

Then a quoted quote from Emily Dickinson: "To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."

And one from Naomi Ruth Lowinsky" Women who become mothers find that it is often in the crucible of that experiences in what is in so many ways a sacrifice of self, that she touches the deepest experiences of the female self and wrestles with an angel that at once wounds and blesses her."

Nothing Special: Living Zen

Finally finished Nothing Special: Living Zen this week. This book took me longer to read than any other book I can remember (even longer than Buddhism for Mothers!). I think I've been reading it since April. Not to mention the fact that I picked it up to read before that and decided maybe I should sell it instead because I couldn't get into it. Then, when I re-picked it up (since it wasn't worth much on Amazon and I decided not to sell it after all), it suddenly clicked in a major way and I now feel it is one of the most important and valuable books I've read in my life. The reason it took me so long to read was because it was so important that I had to digest it slowly and in very small bites. There were actually times when I would put down the book after a brief session and realize that I had actually made negative progress in the book (i.e. I'd gone back to re-read and then not made it past the point where I'd had the bookmark when I picked it up!). This is not because the book was literally difficult to read or because the concepts were difficult to understand, but because it was difficult to read what feels like truth presented so cleanly and boldly. Hmm. I think it may also be difficult to explain adequately what felt so meaningful to me about it. The basic message was just life is as it is, it is your opinions about it that make you happy or sad (or whatever) or cause trouble. There were just lots of simple and profound insights--like how much each of actually enjoys our own little personal drama (because it is self-centered and secretly we like life being all about ME, instead of being all at one with the oneness).

I also appreciated her analogy about how we are always looking for and endlessly running faucet to try to quench our thirst and each faucet eventually becomes dry and we're disappointed--we want everything to finally be satisfied (or to have all promises kept).

I've been tagged!

My blog got tagged for the first time ever by the lovely Sherry of Homebirth Diaries. I have been reading her blog regularly for about a year and have had it linked from my blog for a while, so it was fun to have her discover my blog now too! She is a skillful writer and I've really enjoyed following her chronicles and insights :)

Okay, so the rules:

RULES - Post rules before giving the facts - Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves - People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules - At the end of the your blog you need to tag six people and list their names - Leave them a comment on their blog, telling them they have been tagged and not to forget to read your blog.


My facts:

1. I collect American Girl dolls. I have ten of the 18 inch dolls, two Bitty Babies, 8 of the Girls of Many Lands, and all of the mini dolls. I have spent a lot of money on these. I am very dedicated to voluntary simplicity and simple living and these dolls are my not-at-all simple hobby. However, I have a personal issue with having fun (fun is not "productive" enough for my Type A nature) and these dolls are the only thing in my life that is purely for fun for me. Everything else I do, even if it is also fun, is for a bigger reason.

2. I have never kissed a man other than my husband (of nine years). We were each other's first date, first kiss (after 8 dates...), everything. I like that :)

3. When I graduated from UMR with my BA in 1998, I was the youngest graduate in their history (13 days past my 19th birthday).

4. Sometimes I miss my previous workplace (Ronald McDonald House) so much that it feels actually painful.

5. I am 28, but I identify most with mid-life (or even later) as a developmental life stage--when I read books about the psychological crises people experience at mid-life, I'm so there (like doing a life review and trying to figure out the meaning of life, etc.).

6. I have a preoccupation with death--I think all of the time, "will this really matter after I'm dead?" or, "what really matters, since we're all going to die anyway" or, "would I regret this on my deathbed?" This is not a particularly uplifting way to think, but it can put things in perspective sometimes. It is very important to me that I not die without knowing why I lived (ala Thoreau's fronting of the essential facts of life...).

7. Even though I just trained as a doula, I don't think I actually ever want to really be one. I don't think I have the stomach to handle hospital births (even though that is where doulas are most needed). As a result of following a twisting blog trail after having been tagged, I read the post A Nurse's Guide to Managing Failure on Breast & Belly's blog and it reaffirmed for me that I cannot handle the hospital setting--too many human rights violations performed on normal, healthy birthing women.

8. I worry too much about what others think of me. I give the opinions of others too much weight--I try to remember Wayne Dyer's, "a self-actualized person is one who is independent of the good opinions of others."

Okay, I don't know if this is the right way to do it, but I'm tagging my friends Shauna, Summer, Nikki, Kolbi, Sarah K., and Chris.

Transformation Through Birth

This afternoon I finished reading Transformation Through Birth. It is by Claudia Panuthos, who also wrote the excellent Ended Beginnings (about miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, and healing all sorts of childbearing losses. Required reading for ALACE certification). I had never heard of this book until two weeks ago when another Leader recommended it to me. It was written in 1984, so you'd think I would have noticed it before now! Anyway, it was pretty good and barely "dated" at all (there were a few things, such as a section about the Age of Aquarius {??}). 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 points I particularly liked:

"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 signle goal and to act from the witness or higher mind within."

"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."

This 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. Someday soon I will be developing this analogy into a real essay, so wait for that!)

Okay, back to the actual book I read! A gem of a quote:

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

With regard to cesarean birth experiences (different section/context than quote above, but compatible when paired):

"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 also love 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! ;-)

Giving Birth with Confidence

While in Chicago, I did manage to read The Official Lamaze Guide: Giving Birth with Confidence.
I reviewed it for CfM News. Stay tuned for the full review when our fall issue comes out in late Sept. My short review is: Excellent! I think the Lamaze name gives this book widespread appeal and acceptability to the "mainstream." I wish it was in the hands of all the pregnant women in my town!

LLLI Conference + The Revolutionaries Wore Pearls

I returned from the LLLI conference in Chicago on July 24th (and it was our ninth wedding anniversary the next day :-). It was a wonderful, wonderful trip. I learned a lot and just had a great time. I felt rejuvenated and re-inspired as a Leader, a woman, and as a mother. I really needed a boost in all three areas and it was great to get it. I left the conference with a sense that LLL is of *vital* importance and I felt a new and profound sense of purpose about my work. I also finally had a sense that maybe I AM in this for the long haul--I see myself helping mothers and babies in some way or another for many, many more years to come. It was also great for me to see how old so many people were (LOL!). I get this frantic sense that I need to do everything and I need to do it RIGHT NOW and so it was an awesome reminder for me to see how many people that I respect and admire (like the Sears') are pretty "mature." It showed me that I have time to work on my purposes and accomplish my goals--I don't need to rush. There's time enough for me!

Anyway, while I was there I purchased their new book The Revolutionaries Wore Pearls.
It was interesting and good, but did have a note of finality to it that I also felt underscoring the International Conference. It also was very perky and, “Life was GREAT!” and Seven Voices, One Dream showed a more realistic picture, I think, of what the founders went through. They definitely had a revolutionary impact though, no matter how you look at it. As a side note, that was another perk of the conference for me, I felt like a revolutionary! The book is "scrapbook style" and has lots of images of newspaper clippings, etc. That was fun.

I was also interested to see the phrase several times, "the beginning of a dream to bring gentleness to giving birth and joy to the womanly art of breastfeeding" (emphasis mine). So, my overlapping interests in birth and breastfeeding mirror that of the Founders. The two are on a continuum and birth practices can have such a profound impact on breastfeeding.

Speaking of the Founders, I was delighted to see 6 of them at the conference and was even more delighted to speak with and get autographs from two of them--Mary White & Marian Tompson. I also got my picture taken with Mary White (as well as with Ina May Gaskin and with Peggy O'Mara! I was so starstruck--this conference had all of my "celebrities" in one place! It was so, so cool!)