Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy & Birth

Last month I finished reading and reviewing the new book from Our Bodies, Ourselves. Focused exclusively on Pregnancy & Birth, this book is a fantastic new resource! I would particularly recommend it for a first time mother.

From my review:

"Many women view the original book Our Bodies, Ourselves as an essential women’s health resource and also as a radically transformative influence in their lives. New this year from The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective is a confident volume specifically about pregnancy and birth. I hope Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy & Birth will become to pregnant women what the original book has been to women’s health and empowerment."

The book opens with a discussion about the Climate of Confidence and Climate of Doubt, which I really connected with as a way to look at the messages swirling around pregnant women today.

In addition to being a basic pregnancy book, this book also goes beyond in that it acknowledges the reality of violence against women during pregnancy and offers resources for seeking help if you are living with a violent mate. This book is also willing to address some unpopular or largely ignored subjects such as depression during pregnancy, HIV, STDS, and sexual abuse. It also has two wonderful closing chapters about advocating for changes in maternity care and advocating for mothers and families.

Regarding parental leave: "The United States is one of only five countries out of the 173 surveyed in a recent study that does not guarantee some form of paid maternity leave; the other four countries are Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea." (emphasis mine, because these countries are not usually one that the US really considers "trend setters" or "peers"! The US often prides itself on being a leader and a model for other countries and I think we should be embarrassed not to be doing better by our country's mothers and babies!)

More Zen Quotes

Who knew that I'd find such wisdom in my $1 Shop Zen calendar? I really like it :-)

"Waking up this morning, I smile.
Twenty-four brand new hours are before.
I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at
all beings with eyes of compassion"

--Thich Nhat Hanh

This is more of a good reminder to me than it is an accurate description of how I spend my time! I guess I do so-so with this--I often wake with a sense of joyful anticipation about the unfolding of a brand, new, wonderful day. By the end of the day, I often have exhausted my "compassion" for all beings and usually feel like I didn't get "everything done." I swear, sometimes it seems like I am learning the same lessons over and over again. Maybe one day I'll finally GET it and can move on! LOL!

Okay, another one from my trusty calendar:

"Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
What you call 'salvation' belongs to the time before death.
If you don't break your ropes while you are alive,
do you think ghosts will do it after?"

--Kabir

And another in the same vein, about being fully alive:

"Well-being means to be fully born,
to become what one potentially is; it means
to have the full capacity for joy and sadness
or, to put it differently, to awake from the
half-slumber the average man lives in
and to be fully awake."

--Erich Fromm

Now this I feel I am nearly constantly aware of. I want to live an authentic life, always. Present, aware. Living my one wild and precious life fully and completely.

A final quote and another one that is a good reminder for me--one I try daily to implement (unfortunately, fail daily too, but I keep trying!):

"Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it.
If we're frantic, life will be frantic.
If we're peaceful, life will be peaceful.
And so our goal in any situation becomes inner peace."

--Marianne Williamson

Sounds simple enough, but is actually a daily struggle!

Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born

Two weeks ago I finished reading the very interesting and intriguing, Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born. I got this book from Bookins and was really excited because I've wanted to read it for quite some time. It did not disappoint--it was really engaging, fast paced, interesting, all of the good qualities of a novel in a nonfiction book (this is my favorite kind!). I love all the little-known facts I gleaned from it. The book is a historical overview of birth and includes some really fascinating content about the development and progress of cesareans. There is also lots of interesting content about how midwives were driven out of business in a calculated fashion (an attempt at eradication that is still going on, really!)

The only thing I took issue with in the book was that early on the author seems to make the suggestion that the rising cesarean rate is related to the fact that our babies are getting larger. I am not aware of any evidence indicating that this is actually true. (?) There are a number of factors contributing to increasing cesarean rates and biology has little to do with it! (Consider that the biggest "risk factors" that increase your chances of a cesarean are how old you are, how much insurance you have, and what your race is--white, well insured , women over 30 having the highest cesarean rates!)

I've been following author Tina Cassidy's blog for some time that chronicles her pregnancy and birth decisions with her second child. I had been reading it for a while before I got her actual book and it was really interesting to see how her attitudes have "evolved" since this book was published in 2006. In the closing section of this book she says, "I'm not brave enough to have a baby at home--although I respect those who do." Then, lo and behold, there she is in her birth pool at home with her lovely new home-VBAC baby on Dec. 8 2007. She has been posted her story in installments and has just gotten up to the birth part of her story. Her blog has been great reading! I wasn't sure until she got to the birth that she was really going to have a HBAC or not, so it kind of kept me on the edge of my seat too.

Back to the actual book, a quote I found amusing in the section about breastfeeding: "In Italy, early medical writers told mothers that if they let their baby drink from animals, the child would always look 'stupid and vacant and not right in the head.'"

Zen Quotes

"To the right, books; to the left, a teacup.
In front of me, the fireplace...
There is no greater happiness than this."

--Teiga

From my $1 Shop Zen calendar yesterday morning. Except for the fireplace bit, how right for me! (and, though I don't have a fireplace, I do have a lovely outdoor wood burning furnace installed by my dear husband in January that keeps our house toasty warm now, instead of barely tolerable. I'm so glad to have him!)

And from the day before, another good one:

"Live in love
And do your work;
Make amends of your sorrows;
For just as the jasmine
Releases and lets fall
Its withered flowers,
Let fall willfulness and hatred."

--The Dhammapada

I like this one too except for I think some willfulness in life isn't necessarily a bad thing!

Gnome Lady & Baby

We had a family wide gnome making project going on this week. Here's mine:

Isn't she a cutie? (the picture is kind of blurry.) Here is a close up (also blurry):


I have new project ideas brewing that are better than this (though she turned out pretty good despite all the shortcuts I took with her and my lack of proper materials) and have been poring over the books I already have: Feltcraft, The Nature Corner, and Making Dolls, while eagerly awaiting the arrival of two more from Amazon (as well as an expensive passel of doll making supplies winging their way here from Australia). I have visions of adorable dolls dancing in my head!

The Mother Dance

A couple of weeks ago I also finished reading The Mother Dance. The book is by Harriet Lerner a well known author, psychologist, lecturer, etc. about the psychology of women. (Probably best known for her The Dance of Anger.) I quoted this book a few weeks ago with her comments about perfectionism. She also addresses the ever present maternal guilt:

"Guilt keeps mothers narrowly focused on the question 'What's wrong with me?' and prevents us from becoming effective agents of personal and social change."

On a totally unrelated note, in another section she discusses research that was done on mothering practices in late 18th century Paris when using wet nurses was widespread. "In 1780 there were 21,000 babies born in Paris. Only 1,000 of these babies were breastfed by their mothers, and only 1,000 were wet-nursed in the city. The vast majority of these infants, 19,000 of them, were sent to wet nurses outside of Paris, sometimes as far as 125 miles away. It was ordinary practice for the children to remain there for as long as three to five years."

This was a cultural artifact--not of economic necessity--during this time women were encouraged to organize their lives around their husbands and breastfeeding was seen to interfere with a woman's modesty (as well as with her ability to provide for her husband's sexual needs).

I thought this was fascinating and also sad. It also made me chuckle a little to think about complaints about children being in day care--at least the baby isn't being farmed out 125 miles away for 5 years anymore! LOL!

Last week I also finished the book Tying Rocks to Clouds: Meetings and Conversations with Wise and Spiritual People. This book was so-so and I found myself frequently feeling depressed when I was reading it, so...

Anyway, a good quote regarding parenting (from the author's interview with Stephen Levine who has three children):

"Talk about a fierce teaching. It is easier to sit for three years in a cave than to raise a child from the time he is born to three years old." ;-) This was in response to a question about whether serious spiritual development is possible when having relationships with others (spouse, children, etc.) I firmly believe that without having children, I would be less "developed" than I am now--it is sort of like having kids is bad for the self (ego), but great for the soul!

Professionalizing Motherhood

From Bookins this week, I received and read Professionalizing Motherhood. This book has an evangelical Christian orientation that was much stronger than I anticipated when reading the description. While I do not mind books that include references to the author's faith perspective, this one was pretty heavy handed and was almost exclusively an evangelical Christian book. I felt like there was more to explore within the book's title concept than just focusing on one specific orientation. The idea behind the book was encouraging stay-at-homes moms to look at what they do as a "career" and "profession" and treat it with respect instead of "I'm just a mom" thinking.

As side notes, there were two good ideas of looking at things (paraphrasing):

People use the phrase "high cost of living" when they really mean "high cost of the way we choose to live.

When deciding what activities, responsibilities, etc. to take on, it isn't a matter of choosing between good and bad, but of choosing between good and best. (I'm working on this!)

One Woman Awake

One Woman Awake
Awakens another,
The second awakens her next door neighbor
And three awake can rouse the town,
And turn the whole place upside down.
And many awake
Can raise such a fuss
That it finally awakens the rest of us.
One woman up,
With dawn in her eyes,
Multiplies.

--Author Unknown

This poem was on the front of a card I received today from the National Association of Mother's Centers (I joined a couple of months ago). I had never read it before and I completely loved it and wanted to share.

Birth art again

My four year old draws the cutest birth art pictures ever! He draws constantly and occasionally pops up with a pregnant lady one and says, "I drew this for you Mama!" I posted scans of the two he drew for me on Valentine's Day to my birth art blog.

Living Simply with Children

I'm very behind in writing about the books I've read, but I guess who cares really?!?!

A week or so ago I finished reading Living Simply with Children. I was excited to read it, because many simple living books seem written by, or for, people without children or whose children are grown up. However, I didn't find that this book had much new to offer or much that was specifically helpful about simple living with children. It was interesting, but not particularly life changing or illuminating.

I also finally finished reading Wisdom of the Ages by my beloved Wayne Dyer. The subtitle was "60 Days to Enlightenment" and so I was very careful to read only one part each day for 60 days (I would read a section each day after my yoga practice). I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the rest of Wayne Dyer's books, perhaps because it was so slowly digested? My idea to read it carefully like that was an effort to get good things to soak in, instead of just rushing to the next book. However, I found myself feeling a little annoyed by him instead of feeling like all of his profound truths were becoming part of my life view! The book is 60 essays about 60 different "wise people" from history. Each section opened with a quote from their writings/teachings and then Dyer's exploration of the idea expressed in the paragraph he chose. He wrote the book in like 60 days too and there were many times when it felt like it showed to me--his writing seemed repetitive, redundant, sometimes surface, and hasty. The nice thing about this format was that I was exposed to and read works from well known great thinkers that I haven't necessarily read on my own. There were paragraphs from all sorts of people that it is good "cultural literacy" to have read something by.

Lots of good reminders too like:

"Men are disturbed not by things that happen,
but by their opinion of the things that happen."
--Epictetus
(55-135)

Oh, so true! I'm terrible about letting my own opinions about things that happen get me all worked up and in a tizzy, or stressed, or whatever and really what is bothering me is my OWN thinking, my own thoughts, and my own opinions, NOT anything that really happened or is happening!

Oh, and by the way, I don't seem to be enlightened after my 60 days of reading...;-)

Magic of Mothering

When I was reading Birth Book a couple of weeks ago, I read the section in it about "imprinting" (I think it has been fairly well established that there isn't really human "imprinting" after birth, but when this book was written it was still one of the ideas). Anyway, there was a section about research done with baby goats done to look at the ability of a mother to protect her offspring from environmental stress. They separated twin goats and put some in rooms alone and the others in rooms with their mothers. The only difference in the room was the presence of the mother. An artificial stress environment was created involving turning off the lights every two minutes and shocking the baby goats on the legs ( :( ). After the babies were conditioned like this, they were tested again two years later. This time all the babies (now adult goats) were in rooms alone and were again "treated" to the lights off and shock routine. The goats who had been with their mothers during the early experience showed no evidence of abnormal behavior in the stressful environment. The ones who had not been with their mothers did show "definite neurotic behavior." Somehow, the presence of the mother alone served to protect the baby goats from the traumatic influences and keep them from being "psychologically" disturbed in adulthood.

Except for feeling sorry for the baby goats, I thought this information was SO COOL. How magic are mothers that just by being there we can help our babies--even if there is still something stressful going on, our simple presence helps our babies not be stressed by it and continue to feel safe. Magic!

This was included in the book because of the idea that birth may be a stressful environment for a baby and if the continuity of motherbaby is maintained after birth (immediate skin-to-skin contact and opportunity for breastfeeding), the baby does not become stressed or "neurotic." But...if the continuity for mother and baby is broken by separation (baby whisked away for weighing or whatever), both mother and baby are stressed by this and it may have an impact on their future relationship and behavior. The book also talks about how the sound of the baby's first cry has a sort of "imprinting" effect on the mother in that her uterus immediately begins to contract and involute after hearing her baby's first cry, whereas mothers who are immediately separated from their babies and do not make contact with them have a higher likelihood of postpartum hemorrhage (I have no idea if this has been debunked or not since the book was written in 1972, but it was an interesting idea to read about).

In case anyone pays attention, I'm attempting to switch my schedule around and start blogging here on Saturdays instead of Fridays (and blog for CfM on Fridays instead of Saturdays).

Zen Meditations on Being a Mother

Another Bookins acquisition and unfortunately another sort of disappointing one (maybe I'm just in a bad mood lately or something?!). Zen Meditations on Being a Mother was a quickly forgettable book and wasn't very unique or helpful. It came with a free CD of meditation music, which was kind of fun (I put it on during my yoga practice). My plan for this book was to read a "meditation" a day following my yoga practice, but I quickly realized I wasn't gaining anything from the book, so I just read it all up in one sitting. It felt obvious & somewhat trite and also glib and greeting-card-ish. Kind of fast-food pseudo-Zen, not anything sustainable and meaty. I didn't actually recognize that much "Zen" in it--maybe it was just a good title.

On the recognizably Zen side of things, my little $1 Shop Zen-a-day calendar had the following meaningful quote for today:

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished"
--Lao-tzu

Calm Birth

I was excited to get a nice copy of Calm Birth from Bookins. The subtitle is "New Method for Conscious Childbirth." I was really excited about it, because I'd never heard of it before. I read SO many books and so many about birth, that I love the thrill of discovering something new and delving into a new level of birth information/ideas. I settled down to read it last week and quickly found that I could not get into it. At. All. I *rarely* meet a book that I can't read and unfortunately, this book was one of them :( I ended up skimming quickly to the end and nothing ever "hooked" me back into it to give it more of a chance. I just simply didn't like it and didn't find that it had anything to offer me. It was supposed to be about meditation, visualization, and energy medicine. It seems esoteric, impractical, and irrelevant. The book hardly talked about pregnancy and birth, but instead about your "life vase" and things like that. I'd be interested to know if anyone has "successfully" used the approach and found it helpful in labor and birth? Even the transcripts of interviews at the end were not interesting and made little sense.

Generally, I read an entire book literally cover-to-cover--I read all of the author acknowledgments, everything! So, it was weird of me to realize, "I don't want to keep reading this book."

I think this may be the first totally negative review I've posted here.

For whatever reason, the book DID make me think about hypnosis as a method of childbirth preparation and I feel interested in looking into those approaches more, since that isn't something I'm familiar with. There is Hypnobirthing (I have this book, but haven't ever read it yet), Hypbirth, and Hypnobabies (I'm interested by their homestudy option in particular for next time I have a baby--why not branch out and "test" new ideas?!).

New blog!

Yes, I started another blog! I noticed when looking on the hits on this blog that an often searched for term is "pregnancy art." I occasionally post about birth art here, but the posts are kind of lost amongst all the other posts and other topics. So, I started a dedicated blog where I can share photos from my birth art collection/presentations. I will add to it gradually, so as not to overload the reader/viewer all at once. Comments are welcome!

Sons & Mothers

Earlier this week I finished reading a collection of essays called Sons & Mothers that I picked up at the book sale in Columbia this fall. It was relatively unremarkable (odd cover image of a woman squatting--in profile--wearing only a bathing cap sort of thing on her head and a newborn baby on her back??). When I read the intro, I was expecting deeper, more thought provoking content than I actually found. There were 8 essays from mothers, 8 from sons (not pairs).

A good quote though: "I also believe that C-minus is the top mark for motherhood. Each generation strives to build faster, cleaner planes, trains, and automobiles and to be better parents than their own. Without this margin for error, there can be no growth, no development" [as a species].

This is hard for me to swallow as a quintessential 4.0 overachiever student type. I like A's dangit! LOL! ;-)

I've been sick with a nasty flu with a bad headache as the "centerpiece" so I also read the lightweight & semi-trashilicious book The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc. Southern belle shakes up small hometown when high school boyfriend shows back up after 14 years away. Set in 1956 in Louisiana and explores racism and sexism as sub-themes.

Knitting Under the Influence

My mom lent me another one of her knitting books and I gobbled it up today. I like a nice dose of fiction after a lot of nonfiction reads. Like dessert :) Knitting Under the Influence was lightweight and kind of trashy almost, but I had fun reading it. It was about three single women who have a knitting circle each Sunday morning wherein they share their love life woes, etc. In the end, they all end up happily paired off with their perfect matches, who are, of course, the guys who did NOT seem well suited to them in the beginning of the book and *surprise* they fell in love. Each was v. predictable, but still like, "yay! I knew she would love him eventually!" There wasn't as much knitting as I expected either, though each section of the book had a knitting title like, "Yarn Over" for the final section.

I also stumbled a bit on the therapist character's various "treatment" techniques for working with children with autism. They basically seemed to involved making the kids cry a lot and so I didn't think those parts of the book sounded genuine. Then, I read the author's note at the end and she has a son with autism and actually co-wrote a book called Overcoming Autism. So....methinks all the crying in order to "train" the kids to have "good behavior" was based in real life after all...

Birth Book

This week I also finished reading my brand new copy of the 1970's classic, Birth Book by Raven Lang. I've blogged about this book several times on the CfM blog, so I won't say too much more about it here. I also reviewed it for the spring issue of CfM News. Overall, I enjoyed it, though the slang terms for women's genitalia throughout made me uncomfortable--I'm a pretty "proper" type and linguistically conservative!

Birth Book was originally published in 1972--first book of the sort, even before the better known Spiritual Midwifery. It has recently been reprinted on a very limited basis and is being sold by Citizens for Midwifery. I wanted to share one quote from the introduction of the book that felt relevant to me when thinking about midwifery in Missouri:

“Birth has not only reached the absurdity of having to be relearned, it also has the absurdity of becoming a criminal offense if we are to go ahead with our ideals and do things the way we desire. And so, because of the system, midwifery as practiced in this book is against the law. It has become political. We didn’t make it that way. For us it is a beautiful, personal, spiritual, sexual experience. And for us to have that, we become criminals.”

The highlight of this book are the tons of beautiful black and white photos. Lots of photos of women birthing on their hands and knees which you don't see that often.

More Random Reads.. .

I'm pretty behind on entries about books I've read, so I'm going to do a quick catch up post. In the last two weeks or so, I've also read:

Amy's Answering Machine--I bought this at Goodwill yesterday for 20 cents and read it in about 20 minutes last night. Funny little book--totally lightweight, but made me laugh out loud! It is basically a series of transcripts from messages the author's mother has left on her answering machine.

The Highly Sensitive Person--I got this book from Bookins. I have read it before, but it has been several years. This book helps me understand why I'm so BUGGED by extraneous noises (ones that compete for space inside my brain. Not good at shutting them out) and also why I'm not a big fan of music (lots of HSP's are fans of music, but for me it is the competing for space issue). Also how it is possible that I feel like an extrovert and an introvert at the same time. I LOVE being with people, but I also get drained by it and HAVE to be alone and SILENT. The silent thing is hard to come by as a mother of little ones and this book helps me understand why I feel that need for silence and why I get frazzled without it.

The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide--Got this one from a friend at playgroup. Last year we started sporadically attending the local UU Fellowship. I've felt an instant kinship with the UU approach and philosophy and beliefs statements. I joked to M that UU should be the "official" religion of social work, since the "what we believe" statement from the UU church could practically have been lifted from the social work code of ethics (NASW). Then, reading this book I learned that one of the early UUs in the US was none other than Jane Addams, the "mother of social work." Hee hee! I KNEW it!

Secrets on 26th Street--This was another little AG "history mystery" that I got for Christmas (that I bought myself on clearance a long time ago). The mystery in this one was more engaging than in the other one I recently read, but no nursing of babies in this one!

Baby & Mom Prenatal Yoga--This is a DVD I bought at Goodwill. I read the reviews on Amazon before I watched it, which I shouldn't have, because it gave me preconceived notions. Anyway, the reviews were pretty evenly divided between "this video is WAY too new agey and I hated it" and "this video was so cool and made me feel so close to my baby." So, I was kind of excited to watch it because the negative reviews mentioned (and critiqued) things like "primal dancing" and "chanting" and I was like, cool! Then I watched it and was sad to agree with the bad reviews. This was too new agey for me. Plus, it barely resembled yoga at all. In small print on the box it says "simple and effective exercises for expectant moms." That was much more accurate. There was no recognizable prenatal yoga in the video at all. There was an interesting exercise where you alternately raised your arms in the air and back down (in rhythm) for 3 minutes without stopping. It sort of an example of coping with pain, I guess. It was HARD! I was surprised.

Ten Zen Seconds

One of the books I got for Christmas was Ten Zen Seconds. I finished this book last night and I LOVED it. I really recommend it. Unlike other self-help type books, it really only has one main suggestion/idea and it is super simple to immediately implement. The purpose of the technique being to "center" and to become mindful. The author suggests 12 short phrases (or, "incantations" as they are referred to on the cover). The technique is to take a 10 second long breath--5 in, 5 out and to use the breath as a "container" for a specific thought. You think the first half of the phrase on the in breath and the second half on the out breath. An example:

(I am) (open to joy)

or

(I embrace) (this moment)

The one I've been using a lot is (I expect) (nothing). I guess it sounds pretty sad in way when you read it typed out, but it very useful to me, because as Wayne Dyer would say "most suffering is the result of your attachment to how things should be" and this is very true for me. I'm always making little plans and then they get derailed and what is upsetting to me is really just because I planned it, I SHOULD be doing xyz. If I wasn't attached to how it should be, or expecting a particular result, I wouldn't end up disappointed or distressed or annoyed or whatever!

I started reading the book shortly after I got it and tried the technique that same day and have been using it in some form ever since. Really helpful and easy. Why a whole book for one technique? Because the book explores each of the 12 phrases on its own and how it can be applied, putting six phrases together for a "Centering Sequence," modifying the phrases, creating your own, etc. There are a lot of "testimonials" from people explaining how they used one phrase or another in their lives. I find almost all 12 to be very useful and I can remember almost all of them at any one time.

So, my enthusiastic recommendation of the month is Ten Zen Seconds. I'm a fan. As I read it I thought, this book is giving me a skill that I will use for the rest of my life. :) It is essentially a tiny meditation technique that is MUCH more readily incorporated into one's daily life (especially a life that includes small children) than traditional, dedicated, more elaborate meditation techniques (which would be great and beneficial to all of course, but very easy to fall off of the wagon from and/or difficult to begin incorporating in the first place!).

The Fruits of Labour

On Bookins recently I stumbled across a book I hadn't heard of before called The Fruits of Labour. I was attracted to it first because of its cool cover image and second because of the intriguing subtitle Creativity, Self-Expression, & Motherhood. I guess I read this at a vulnerable time for me or something, but for some reason I found it a very emotional read. There were several times in which my face sort of involuntarily contorted with pain (like a grimace almost), because of the power of the writing (or my own vulnerability. Not sure which). The book is collection of essays by female writers--most with children--primarily reflecting on their children and their art and the integration of the two (some of the writers were primarily dancers or artists, so the art was not always writing). It included excerpts from several books I've already read such as Of Woman Born and The Blue Jay's Dance. Another was an excerpt from the published diaries of sculptor Kathe Kollwitz who was a German sculptor writing during World War I. One of her sons was killed in the war and she is haunted by it and it was so difficult to read her story (she died in 1967, I believe. I'm fascinated by the timelessness of people's stories and how they can reach out from the past and touch you still. It is startling too how real their lives and experiences were and now they are gone and nearly forgotten. It is a poignant--or crushing--reminder of mortality and impermanence).

One sentence that pierced my heart and made my face crumple with pain was, "Other Mothers' Sons [a painting] was created out of fear and empathy for the mothers who had nurtured and protected young men through infancy and childhood, only to risk losing them in a battle that was not of their making." I'm not sure why this particular sentence touched me so--maybe just as a mother of young sons--or maybe I was feeling particularly emotional. Reading it now, it doesn't hit me quite the way it first did. There was something about this book that just really touched me in an emotional place.

Another quote: "Many mothers find times for themselves through sleeplessness or, when sleeping, have revealing dreams. That clever dreamlife works away helping the artist." Personally, while occasionally I "borrow" time from myself by staying up late to work, sleep usually takes priority for me. Mostly because I believe I will pay for it later if I borrow it now--like I'm only robbing myself of future health. So, I sleep usually for at least 8 hours a night. I identify with the comment about the dreamlife. After L was born, I stopped having any bad dreams and began to dream mostly about mundane things or stories, sort of, no nightmares any more (I think by no small coincidence because after his birth I found I had no stomach for the psychological thriller mysteries that used to be my favorite type of books to read. I stopped reading them completely and lo and behold, I haven't had a real nightmare for like the past four years!). I also dreamed frequently and vividly. When I was pregnant with Z I dreamed very vividly as well and after he was born started to have lucid dreaming experiences. Those kept developing up to a point and it was really cool. Now, I haven't had many recently and those I have had are much less cool--I had gotten to a point with the lucid dreams where in one I realized I was dreaming and said, "I'm lucid dreaming! I need to start talking to God while I have the chance!" On several occasions I also had the experience of being aware of being in the place between dreaming and waking--i.e. pure sleep without dreams, but knowing I was there.

And, back to the book, a closing quote: "What is true about giving birth is...that it is miraculous. It might even be the one genuine miracle in life...(Men have every right to be envious of the womb. i'm envious of it myself, and I have one.)"