Milk, Money, & Madness

This week I finished reading Milk, Money, and Madness. Dia Michels is one of the co-authors and I've actually heard her speak twice--once in 2003 when I was pregnant with L and then last fall at the LLL of MO conference. Anyway, it seemed like it was well past time to finally actually read her book! It was quite good. I'm surprised at how riveting a book about the "culture and politics of breastfeeding" can be! (It did remind me a lot of The Politics of Breastfeeding that I read a while ago.)

I only have time to share quotes today, not much evaluation:

"Babies need holding, stroking, dressing, bathing, comforting, burping, and, within a short time, feeding solids. Dad can do every one of these. The desire to participate should not be confused with the need to give the baby the best of what each partner has to offer."

I liked this one because I hear from people SO often that they want Daddy to be able to participate in baby care by giving the baby a bottle. There are LOTS of things that fathers can do for their babies, other than feeding.

A good one with regard to public breastfeeding/breasts as sexual objects:

"When the attitude is taken that a woman’s breasts belong to her and no job is more important than caring for one’s young, the confusion between breastfeeding and obscenity goes away."

With regard to the argument that bottle feeding "liberates" women from the tyranny/restrictiveness of breastfeeding:

"The liberation women need is to breastfeed free of social, medical, and employer constraints. Instead, they have been presented with the notion that liberation comes with being able to abandon breastfeeding without guilt. This 'liberation,' though, is an illusion representing a distorted view of what breastfeeding is, what breastfeeding does, and what both mothers and babies need after birth."


With regard to how women are treated pp in other cultures, etc…

"An entirely different situation exists in societies where technology is emphasized. The birth process is seen from a clinical viewpoint, with obstetricians emphasizing technology. A battery of defensive practices are employed, some of which are totally irrelevant to the health of either mother or infant. Skilled technicians spend their time and the family’s money on identifying the baby’s gender and performing various stress tests. All the focus is geared toward the actual birth. After the birth, mother and baby become medically separated. The infant is relegated to the care of the pediatrician, the uterus to the obstetrician, the breast abscess to the surgeon. While the various anatomical parts are given the required care, the person who is the new mother is often left to fend for herself...All the tender loving care goes flows to the infant; the mother becomes and unpaid nursemaid."

The quote continues:

"This may appear to be a harsh evaluation, but it is realistic. In western society, the baby gets attention while the mother is given lectures. Pregnancy is considered an illness; once the 'illness' is over, interest in her wanes. Mothers in 'civilized' countries often have no or very little help with a new baby. Women tend to be home alone to fend for themselves and the children. They are typically isolated socially and expected to complete their usual chores, including keeping the house clean and doing the cooking and shopping, while being the sole person to care for the infant..."

"According to the U.S. rules and regulations governing the federal worker, the pregnancy and postdelivery period is referred to as 'the period of incapacitation.' This reflects the reality of the a situation that should be called 'the period of joy.' Historically, mothering was a group process shared by the available adults. This provided not only needed relief but also readily available advice and experience. Of the 'traditional' and 'modern' child-rearing situations, it is the modern isolated western mom who is much more likely to find herself experiencing lactation failure." (emphasis mine)

I think these quotes are important because I think there is a tendency for women to look inward and blame themselves for "failing" at breastfeeding. There is also an unfortunate tendency for other mothers to also blame the mother for "failing"--she was "too lazy" or "just made an excuse," etc. We live in a bottle feeding culture; The cards are stacked against breastfeeding from many angles--economically, socially, medically etc. When I hear women discussing why they couldn't breastfeed, I don't hear "excuses," I hear "broken systems of support" (whether it be the epidural in the hospital that caused fluid retention and the accompanying flat nipples, the employer who won't provide a pumping location, the husband who doesn't want to share "his breasts," or the mother-in-law who thinks breastfeeding is perverted). Of course, there can actually be true "excuses" and "bad reasons" and women theoretically always have the power to choose for themselves rather than be swayed by those around them, but there is a whole lot that goes into not-breastfeeding, besides the quickest answer or what is initially apparent on the surface. Breastfeeding occurs in a context and that context is often one that DOES NOT reinforce it. I often think it is more of miracle that a mother manages to breastfeed, than wonder why she doesn't!

And, a final quote:

"...infant formula sales comprise up to 50% of the total profits of Abbott Labs, an enormous pharmaceutical concern."

And the U.S. government is the largest buyer of formula, providing it for something like 37% of babies. I should have written that quote down too!

Mindful Mama essay

I entered an essay content at Mindful Mama Magazine (the subject was "what it means to be a mindful mama"). My entry is titled Pain & Presence in Parenting.

Anyway, the essays that are the most "popular" in terms of discussion/views/ratings will move on, sooooo....if anyone is interested in helping with that, please check it out! (and/or submit your own essay)

Here are the directions:

1. Create a Mindful Mama account. http://mindfulmamamagazine.com/user/CreateUser.aspx?ReturnUrl=

2. Post comments in the Ani DiFranco Contest Forum. (You must be a registered user to view this forum).

http://mindfulmamamagazine.com/forums/318.aspx

3. Increase the popularity of favorite submission by forwarding this e-mail to other friends.

Zen Calendar Quotes

I don't have time for a real post today (I made up for it by posting twice earlier in the week which I don't usually do), so I thought I'd share some of the $1 Shop Zen calendar quotes that have been piling up by my computer (I probably have 40 little slips here to transcribe! Is that Zen of me?! ;-)

From yesterday:

"When we are mired in the relative world, never lifting our gaze to the mystery, our life is stunted, incomplete; we are filled with yearning for that paradise that is lost when, as young children, we replace it with words and ideas and abstractions--such as merit, such as past, present, and future--our direct, spontaneous experience of the thing itself, in the beauty and precision of this present moment."

--Peter Matthiessen

And from the day before:

"The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order."

--Henry Miller

And from the day before that:

"...The sacred is in the ordinary...it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's own backyard...travel may be a flight from confronting the sacred--this lesson can be easily lost. To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous."

--Abraham Maslow

And, finally for now, from earlier this month:

"You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it just as you cannot walk off with the river in a bucket. If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run. To 'have' running water, you must let go of it and let it run."

--Alan Watts

Trees Make the Best Mobiles

This week I finished reading a little book from the library called Trees Make the Best Mobiles. The book is primarily geared towards first time parents of infants and didn't cover a lot of new ground for me, but there were a couple of good reminders in it about present, mindful parenting.

Regarding time with our children: "They offer us a chance, not only to quell past demons, but to leave behind the pressures of the day. With them, we can be our best selves: alert, vibrant, and generous--and fully alive in the present tense."

And, with regard to children learning your behaviors: "Make sure that what your child is absorbing isn't your ragged, frustrated, or furious self, but your best self. And when it's not, let him know that you know, and that you'll try harder next time."

Unfortunately, I think I often do show my "ragged" self and am NOT necessarily my best, alert and vibrant self. When I think about it, I feel like I was my best and most vibrant self when I worked for the Ronald McD House. Part of me genuinely feels that my personality is not well-suited for stay-at-home-mothering and that my mind/personality is better matched to being really deeply invested in a purposeful job/career outside the home. However, my HEART will not allow me to invest that deepness outside of my family while my kids are little and so clearly need to be with me. I am compelled to be with them and care for them myself and that seems irreconcilable with outside employment for me. The push-pull is big though and sometimes my sense of loss over work that I loved and in which I was my best and most vibrant self is really strong. The best balance I can manage is do birth work in my "spare" time--my passion for that and my purpose in that, brings back my feeling of being my "best and most vibrant self." I actually feel more deeply connected--mission and purpose and passion wise--to birth work than I did at RMHC, but I have to squeeze it into some very small cracks in my life at this point in time. I have long struggled with what I feel like is a conflict between parenting and "personing." I'll keep working on it, because I do want my boys to see my vibrant self! (and, I think, part of them seeing my vibrant, full self, is my giving myself permission to pursue some outside-of-mothering stuff like teaching birth classes and also giving myself permission to get into the moment with mothering and let the other stuff fall away, while I invest in truly being there with them instead of thinking about my "to-do list" or my other goals).

A relevant quote:

"Each time you say, 'I need another minute to finish this...,' you squander a moment with your child, never to be reclaimed."

I confess, though this is another good reminder, it annoyed me. There is a little too much "romanticizing" of parenting implicit within it. I thought of all the times when I've said "I just need another minute to..." Hmmm. Go to the BATHROOM! Finish fixing breakfast, put the baby to sleep, help someone else go to the bathroom, talk to my husband--the love of my life... I guess each could be seen as "squandering" and I have an inner monitor in my head that lets me know that! But, get real, sometimes you really DO need another minute to "finish this" and there is no reason to get all blamey about it! (I also confess that my defensiveness here is also about the times I do say "just a minute" when it really ISN'T that important and I could drop what I'm doing to meet their needs--but is it always actual needs, or sometimes just a nonstop desire for parental entertainment?)

And along those lines, another quote:

"Keep in mind, too, that life isn't all entertainment--even when you're only three...Allowing them to become bored means letting them draw on their own resources. It means trusting them to make their own fun. A child who can reach inside herself for amusement or consolation is a child who is truly plugged in."

And a final reminder:

"What we all crave is to be seen, really seen, and through that seeing, know ourselves. We spend much of our life--in work, love, friendship, and sometimes even in therapy--trying to achieve this."

So, look when they call "watch me!"

Yesterday, I also finished reading a tiny little book called The Best of Oprah's What I Know for Sure (this was one of my little daily, post-yoga inspirational reads). I liked this quote immensely:

"The world can only value mothering to the extent that women everywhere stand and declare that it must be so."

Giving Birth

Early this week I also finished reading Giving Birth, by Sheila Kitzinger. I posted quotes from it on my other two blogs, so I'm not going to share any quotes here. The book was an interesting read--after a great opening chapter about "Birth as Experience," that I enjoyed very much and another about the couples relationship, there was a series of birth stories. The stories represented a range of experiences (including triplets) and degrees of intervention (some of the births were very medicalized). Each birth story was fairly short and was preceded with an introduction by the author explaining sort of the main "point" of each story. The book then closed with a chapter about what birth is like for the baby.

One of the things I liked about the opening section of the book is how she looked at childbirth education and whether it is effective in preparing women for birth. I find that as I "evolve" as an educator, I become more and more interested in the process of educating, principles of adult education, how people really learn, etc., so I really enjoy reading about, and thinking about, how to share birth information in a way that really works.

Labor of Love

Last week I finished a review copy of Cara Muhlhahn's brand new midwifery memoir, Labor of Love. Cara is the CNM who was featured in The Business of Being Born. I'm not going to write a whole lot about the book here, because I'm reviewing it for CfM News. It was a fast-paced read and very different than Lady's Hands, Lion's Heart, the other midwife's memoir I recently finished. It was interesting to read this one on the heels of the other one and I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more as a "stand alone" rather as an immediately-following read.

This book was different in that it was much more autobiographical than most other books in this genre--there were lots of details about her personal life and family (details which were nearly absent in books like Baby Catcher) and much less birth stories than you'd expect (the birth stories were not very detailed). In general, it was more a well-rounded picture of her life, her path to midwifery, her thoughts about her career, her work experiences, and so forth than I expected, but less "birthy" than I expected. Overall, it was an interesting and engaging read and I recommend it--especially to aspiring midwives. I think it is more relevant to them than to childbirth educators or other general birth activists.

Quite a few years ago, I was doing a lot of soul-searching about my life purpose. One of the things that bothered me was wanting my role in life/my life purpose to be transcendent of time and space (i.e. not "I'm meant to be a Really Specific Title only relevant in the 21st century"--like an ipod programmer or something like that!). So, a quote jumped out at me from this book:

"But something deep within me insisted on finding some kind of work that would be relevant throughout time, from life in caves through life in outer space. I didn't know yet that I wanted to be a midwife. I just knew that one of the criteria for my career was that it did not permit built-in obsolescence."

I thought I was the only one who thought of careers in these terms! I swear, I used to lament to my husband, "But, what would my purpose in life have been if I was a cavewoman?!" (This was before I had any children--mothering is certainly relevant across time and space and cavewomen!)

Tenth Anniversary

Well, a couple of months have passed since M and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. I've been meaning to post about it since July! To honor this big anniversary we built a 3-circuit labyrinth in the woods in front of our house. We walked in to it separately to symbolize our separate paths and then met in the middle.I had chosen two passages from the UU Hymnal Singing the Living Tradition to use as a vows renewal of sorts and we read them in unison in the middle.

We come together this morning to
remind one another
To rest for a moment on the
forming edge of our lives,
To resist the headlong tumble
into the next moment,
Until we claim for ourselves
Awareness and gratitude,
Taking time to look into one
another’s faces
And see there communion: the
reflection of our own eyes.

This place of laughter and
silence, memory and hope,
is hallowed by our presence
together.

-------------------------------

May the light around us guide our
footsteps,
and hold us fast to the best and
most righteous that we seek.

May the darkness around us
nurture our dreams,
and give us rest so that we may
give ourselves to the work of
our world.

Let us seek to remember the
wholeness of our lives,
the weaving of light and shadow
in this great and astonishing
dance in which we move.

--Kathleen McTigue

I cried! Then, the kids each walked in separately to join us, just as they joined our marriage during the second five years of it and we all walked out together as a family. I'd made a flower wreath for myself to wear in my hair and I'm glad I did, because it made me feel special :)

LabOrinth

This week I was super excited to get my pre-ordered copy of Pam England's new booklet, "LabOrinth" in the mail ("when the labyrinth becomes a labOrinth: metaphor, map, meditations, & rituals for labor and postpartum"). It was an interesting little book. I really connect with the labyrinth as a metaphor for birthing (I've posted about this here before) and I use it as a teaching tool in my birth classes as well. Most couples seem to connect with it as well though I think on the surface it feels a little "New Agey" to some of them. Labyrinths are actually ancient (oldest found is 3500 years old!) and have been found in many cultures and places. According to the booklet, they were used by midwives in England 500 years ago as tools for healing. And, centuries ago, mosaic labyrinths inlaid in the floors of churches were walked by pilgrims on their knees (those who could not actually make pilgrimages to the Holy Land in person, would crawl through the labyrinth in the church on their knees as their pilgrimage). I use the crawling example in class to explain that in the "labyrinth" of birth, you can go at your own pace and speed and you can even crawl if you need to! Anyway, it is a cool little book and I recommend it. I love Birthing from Within's materials and ideas.

Based on reading this booklet and on the cover of the Birthing from Within book that I'm re-reading, I drew a little sketch of "kiva woman" and a womb labyrinth that I wanted to share. Though I'm crafty and creative, *drawing* is not really a talent or skill of mine, but I liked my little picture anyway, even if it isn't polished!

Life After Death

Several weeks ago I finished a library book by Deepak Chopra called Life After Death: The Burden of Proof. There were a lot of interesting ideas in this book, but I've finally accepted that I'm not going to end up having the time to do a big blog post about them. I did want to share one of the ideas from it that really stuck with me (I'm actually paraphrasing here): "Saying the mind is in the brain, is like saying the music is in the radio." (or that the footprint in the sand is the same as the foot.)

This book really explored all kinds of things about consciousness, the nature of reality, the nature of the mind/brain/soul, physics, quantum physics, cognition, neurobiology, neurology, Indian mysticism/religions, etc., etc. It was kind of heavy read and took me a while to get through it, but it was very interesting. One of the ideas was that the universe and its patterns/fields of energy could be looked at as the mind/consciousness of God. (Another effective analogy he used in the book was of someone studying a TV screen at an extreme close up (like atomic level) and how you would only see random photons firing randomly, but as you move out and out and out, you start to form a theory that perhaps the photons *aren't* firing randomly, but perhaps there is a pattern. Then, you start to discern colors, and then images, and then realize is video of people performing a story, and so on. The analogy being that perhaps as little humans we can't get far enough away from "the picture" to see the whole of reality and the patterns of the universe/God/consciousness...)

Around the Circle Gently

Last week I finished reading a neat little book called Around the Circle Gently. It is a book of quotes about birth, families, and life. I enjoyed it and found lots of food for thought therein, as well as some good quotes to use in mother blessing or "welcome new baby" cards in the future.

I'm leaving shortly for a retreat. One of my sessions is about postpartum planning (I wrote more about this on the CfM blog), and so I wanted to share a related quote from this book about it:

“In any society the way a woman gives birth and the kind of care given to her and the baby point as sharply as an arrowhead to the key values in the culture.”

--Sheila Kitzinger

I have more thoughts about this quote as it relates to birth that I hope to write up more completely someday. However, for now it is reminding me of the importance of nurturing postpartum care and "cocooning" for mother and new baby.

Last week I also read the novel The Jane Austen Book Club, which then prompted me to rent the newer Pride and Prejudice movie.

Recent Activities

I've had a nice and busy week and wanted to post a quick update about what I've been up to. My article Satisfaction with Birth, just came out in the fall issue of the International Journal of Childbirth Education (ICEA). At four pages, it is the longest professional article I've had published and I'm proud of it. :) The Journal has been redesigned and has a fresh, glossy new look for this issue and it is fun to be in the first edition with this new style! The whole publication looks really great. It also has some great content and I read the whole thing cover-to-cover right away. Particularly good was an article by Sheila Kitzinger about PTSD called "Screaming Inside: A Normal Response to Abnormal Stress" that was pretty powerful. (Also, I am excited to have my own article in the same issue with an article by such a talented woman!)

Yesterday, I finished making a mei tai baby carrier with my Mindful Mothers group. We had SO much fun!I shared a while ago about how making things for yourself is so empowering and this was another example of that--I did this myself! Yay me! :-D Of course Z is rather too big for carrier like this anymore, so now I'll have to have another baby to put in it...

Mindful Mothers originally started as a chapter of a national organization and I was a co-leader for it. As I've been faced recently with making hard choices about what to keep doing and what to let go of, I handed over the group to two wonderful and talented women who have reworked it into an independent group called Mindful Mothers. It is now going strong under its new leadership and new independence and I feel I made the right decision in stepping down. They've been doing awesome things like this mei tai party! (We all brought our sewing machines and worked together on two separate evenings making the mei tais--as well as eating delicious potluck dinner and doing lots of chatting!)

Finally, last night I finished reading an excellent book called Lady's Hands, Lion's Heart. It is a midwife's memoir and covers 13 years of devoted practice. Lots of great birth stories, as well as being an interesting personal journey and the journey of midwifery as a profession in NH. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in birth, particularly aspiring midwives. I reviewed it for the forthcoming issue of CfM News and posted a little more about it on the CfM blog.

The Mother's Guide to Self-Renewal

My mother-in-law bought me The Mother's Guide to Self-Renewal for Christmas and I've been gradually working through it for the last couple of months. I finished it at the end of July, but haven't had time to post about it really until now. When I got this book, I made a commitment to myself that I was really going to DO the book, instead of just reading it, tossing it aside, and gobbling down the next one on my stack. So, I did. It took me about 4 months or so to work through it. It is actually laid out in a 12-month format. The subtitle is "How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate, and Re-Balance Your Life," which is just what I felt like I needed! As a funny little side note, when I first started reading the book, I had a lovely little leather bound fancy notebook to do the journaling/reflective exercises in. I discovered I was never doing them--it never felt like the right time. Then, I bought a Pirates of the Caribbean notebook at Wal-Mart featuring a large photo of Orlando Bloom on the cover and lo and behold, I started doing the journaling exercises in it and finished the book right up! I had to laugh at myself--Hark! I have found thee, my muse, and thy name is Orlando Bloom (especially in rakish, unbuttoned-pirate-shirt attire!)

The author of this book also has a blog that I enjoy reading.

Working through this book coupled with then working through another book I hope to post about soon (The Life Organizer), did actually help me to make some hard decisions about the various roles in my life. I have this long standing tendency to read really great self-help books, nodding along in agreement the whole time and thinking, "this book changed my life!", but then, as I noted earlier, immediately hopping along to the next book without necessarily integrating the wisdom, ideas, or approach of the prior "life changing" book. So...I decided in January after reading Practically Perfect in Every Way (a book I STILL have not yet managed to blog about even though I finished in in JANUARY, because I have a lot to say about it--I took pages and pages of notes for a blog post, but have never transcribed them...), to read less self-help books, but also to use more of what I read in them when I read them. I have lots of reflections on this subject, but they are languishing with good old Orlando at the moment, waiting for me to type them all up!

On a separate note, my best friend welcomed her family's sixth child into the family last weekend! It sounds like it was a beautiful unassisted birth and I'm so happy for their beautiful family! The weekend he was born, I was sorting through some folders of papers and came across a poem I'd copied from Mothering magazine that brought a tear to my eye. It is called "Take Pictures" and is a poignant look at how fast it all goes. Here is a link to it on the Mothering site, conveniently. The end gets me in my heart every time I read it,

"Holding tight to my neck, my son
trusts - he knows no other way - my touch lightly
dries his tears. I am his queen, his goddess, handily
his slave. Blink, it's a photo again, a trick of the eye,

a frozen captive of time, paper, light and silver: my son
is a grown man: he drinks from his own hand. Reader, I
urge you, spin slowly, take pictures, remember to laugh."(emphasis mine).

Anyway, reading this poem felt like a tribute of sorts to the birth of this fresh, new little guy. I think I'm going to post it somewhere where I can see it regularly.

Puzzling

From the Zen calendar:

"It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth,' and so it goes away. Puzzling."

--Robert M. Pirsig

"Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm."

--Robert Louis Stevenson

This week I finished reading Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, which was very funny. Memoir series of essays about the crazy family and sometimes horrible life of David Sedaris. Reads like a novel (a funny one).

I also read the super quick The Meaning of Life, which is like a little picture book.

Quick catch up

It has been super busy around here lately, but I wanted to go ahead and try for a quick catch-up.

A couple of weeks ago I finished a great book. It had intrigue, suspense, dirty double-crossers, backstabbing, plots, conspiracies, and more. Was it a new mystery novel? No! It was The Politics of Breastfeeding! Seriously, this was a phenomenal book. I bought it over two years ago and it took me a long time to get to it on my to-read shelf, because I was kind of thinking, "how interesting could this be?" It was great. I really recommend it. It will make you outraged and shocked though! This was my surprise hit of the year. Someday I might get around to sharing some great quotes from this book, but probably not because there are so many more books to read...

Speaking of my to-read shelf, you may be surprised--or throughly NOT surprised--to know that I have probably 80 books on my to-read shelf. I also have about 30 on my Amazon wishlist, 10 on my Bookins want list, and about 30 more on my library wish list (as in, books I want to read, but don't want to buy).

Quite some time ago, I also finished reading Creating a Charmed Life. This was one of those inspirational/motivational books that I read a little snippet of at a time after my morning yoga. In one of the sections--"Choose Actual Over Virtual Reality"-- it s aid,"There's a saying that goes, 'Some people make things happen. Others watch things happen. The rest wonder what happened.' The watchers are rapidly outnumbering both other groups, but real life is participatory. It balances consumption with production. And when you leave it there's less regret, because you know without any doubt that you were here."

I also read the book Living in Balance. Lots of good quotes, but kind of slow reading. The content was right up my alley, but the pace and style of the book was unengaging and actually kind of boring to get through. Quote of a quote I really liked:

"I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible, to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit."

--Dawna Markova

Today, I also finished reading my brand new copy of Prepared Childbirth: The Educator's Guide. I'd heard this was a "must have" for CBEs. I did find several things I could use right away and I'm incorporating them into the next series I have (starts next week). However, I didn't find that much that was new or fresh to me. It actually just reinforced that I've put together a pretty good and complete "curriculum" for my birth classes and maybe I need to stop trying to find even more and more curriculums to draw from--my own program is good how it is!

Playful Parenting

Last week I finished reading a really good book from the library called Playful Parenting. I don't have time right now to write much about it, but I really recommend it! A quote I liked from it: "That's why I recommend that parents not send their children to their rooms to cry alone, or leave them alone to cry themselves to sleep. It is more time-consuming to stay with them, to help them let out their feelings of loneliness and sadness, but those feelings don't go away just because we shut the door on them. In fact, I am starting to see eight-, nine-, and ten-year-olds in my practice whose parents followed the advice to 'let them cry it out' when the children were babies. These infants were seen as manipulating parents into cuddling with them or lying down with them to sleep. These children are now having trouble sleeping through the night because of fears, nightmares, and worries. In my less mature moments, I feel like saying, 'I told you so!'"

There was also a section about children feeling powerless (or isolated) and the author talked about attitudes in our society towards power: "Where is the true power? Why is it so rare? The answer starts with our society, which is ambivalent about power. We seek it and admire it, but we mistrust it...At the same time, empowerment is a buzzword in psychology, and all efforts are supposed to be made to empower children. We use the same word--power--to apply to vastly different things...I generally use the word confidence to refer to the positive side of power--the power to stand up for what is right, the power to be adventurous (within safe limits), the power to know your own inner strength, the power to achieve a goal, the power of happy play. On the other side is powerlessness, which often looks like passivity, inhibition, timidity, fearfulness, and whining..."

This section made me think about birth (of course) because "empowerment" is a commonly used word when talking about giving birth/preparing women to give birth. I liked his re-framing of "positive power" as "confidence" because that is truly what I think women need in order to give birth--they need confidence, a sense of personal power and inner strength. Also, I think the end result of meeting your own needs in some way is empowerment--in a variety of situations. For example, I recently sewed something for a gift for a friend of mine. I don't use the sewing machine much and after I cut out the garment, I thought about calling my mom and asking her to just sew it for me--that would have been easier. However, I didn't, and I sewed it all myself, plus then another one for myself ;-) As I did it and remembered how to thread the machine, refill the bobbin, etc. I thought, "this is empowering!"--sure I could have asked for help, but it feels really good to do it myself. I think birth is like that too--it feels good to do it yourself and doing it yourself, makes you feel good about yourself. That is not to say that asking for help when you need is not a strength in its own way--it is--but just that accomplishing something under your own power has motional/psychological rewards. It feels good. It is empowering.

Also from the library I had Voluntary Simplicity. This book has been on my to-read list since 2002!! LOL! I had it on hold at the Columbia library for about a year and it never came in because it was lost. So, I had it on my Amazon wishlist for ages and no one ever bought it for me. So...what do you know, I found it at the library in which I hold a newly-re-beloved library card. And, after all this time, I took it back half read. I simply did not enjoy it or connect with it well at all. What a letdown! I almost NEVER quit reading something in the middle. This was the first book I've done that with all year, I think.

Quick update

A post to say that I'm not really going to be posting today (LOL!). I've been in St. Louis all day at a cool training workshop and then tomorrow is computer-off day at our house, so no catch up then.

Yesterday was our tenth wedding anniversary. We had a really nice little ceremony that I hope to post about at some point soon.

Yesterday I also finished reading the e-book version of The Power of Pleasurable Childbirth. It was a good, short book about unassisted birth. I'm not sure if is the same as the print version, so now I'm curious to look at a copy of that too!

Uh oh!

From my Zen calendar this week...

"Those who have strong passions are never able to perceive the Way. It is like stirring up clear water with your hands; you may come wishing to find a reflection of your face, but you'll never see clearly in disturbed waters. A mind troubled and vexed with passions is never able to see the Way."

--Sutra of Forty-two Chapters

If this is true, my chances of enlightenment are slim to none, LOL! I have many passions and many fires burning.

I have always been very passionate about my "causes." M said to me a couple of weeks ago that he didn't know what it was like to be so very into something for so long (birth, for me). I told him that perhaps it is a personality style to be really committed to causes, because I've had a "cause" that I've felt devoted to since 1997, when I started working at the first battered women's shelter I worked in. That was the first time I felt that fire, that passion, that aliveness, that sense of "rightness," the attachment to the cause--the thing that is bigger than myself. I've had other work settings where I felt it and others where I haven't and I use that feeling as my guidepost to gauge whether I'm in the right place--if I'm working somewhere that does not make me feel "alive," I've GOT to get out of there or it feels like my spirit will be crushed. I have a physical sense of being squelched, when in a non-passion workplace.

I have more to say on this, but our chicken pen has just been finished and I'm being called to the grand unveiling and "release" of the chickens into their little yard for the first time!

Husband-Coached Childbirth

With my renewed library enthusiasm, I checked out and read Husband-Coached Childbirth this week. I was interested in the book for "historical value" primarily, because Dr. Bradley made so many contributions to the natural childbirth movement and was really a pioneer in natural childbirth and birth education. I didn't particularly like his paternalistic attitude throughout the book and there was something offputting about his tone as well as many of the things he said (the whole "properly trained women" who know how to "conduct themselves" during labor and referring to women as "she was a good obstetrical athlete," as well as a weird section about the "chapped and brittle" vaginas of American women being the cause of tears and episiotomies...). Most of the book is written towards the husband and preparing him to be a good "coach." I recognize that this approach works well for some families. However, as I've referenced in this blog before when mentioning Bradley, it seems that this approach to birth has a very rigid set of "correct" birth behaviors and techniques (very specific side-lying position to labor in, etc.) and my own philosophy centers much more around trusting your inner wisdom, doing what feels good, and listening to your instincts (not your "training" and your "coach.")

There were a couple of things I really liked in this book though too. One was his recurrent use of the word "motherlike." He'd say, "XYZ might not be ladylike, but it IS motherlike...." Another was his reference to the "birth climax." We've been discussing the new birth film Orgasmic Birth on several email lists recently and I have reservations about the choice of title for the film (especially because apparently only one birth in the film is actually "orgasmic" the others are more like "ecstatic" or "joyful," not literally orgasmic). In this Bradley book he references "Helen Wessel's new [1974] term 'birth climax'...subjectively comparing the feeling of birth with the emotional climax in lovemaking." On the email list I'm on, I wrote: Personally, I think birth is such an encompassing and tremendous experience in and of itself, it doesn’t really need orgasm mixed in with it to be powerful and exhilarating (though, its not like I’m opposed to orgasm. It just seems like separate types of happenings, though still on the sexual lifecycle continuum). I think the closest I could come (no pun intended, LOL!) is to “pleasurable” birth, but even though it involves the same body parts, it is a completely different type of experience to me than sex/orgasm.

Then another CBE who had seen the film wrote about it (and the appropriateness of the title) as follows: "If you are not literal but figurative certainly orgasmic could be applied to each of these births....Orgasmic should be applied to something ultimately enjoyable, physiologically intimate and rewarding and I think these births fall in that category. Doesn't a wonderful orgasm make you feel good about yourself? Your body? The mom who says there aren't many times in your life when you can say you are proud of yourself ... and her eyes are welling up .... and enjoying birth isn't something we talk about just like orgasms aren't talked about in public .... that's an orgasmic birth."

So, after pondering these thoughts and then reading the term "birth climax" and thinking about the powerful wave of emotions and euphoria after giving birth, I'm starting to "get" the Orgasmic Birth title. Heck, I guess my "powerful and exhilarating" might actually be talking about "orgasmic birth" after all!

The Childbirth Kit

Yesterday, I read The Childbirth Kit. This had been on my wishlist at Amazon for literally years, so I finally went ahead and bought it for myself (my husband bought a mini-amp for his guitar at the same time and we decided they were sort of like anniversary presents. Our tenth wedding anniversary is coming up in less than two weeks!) Anyway, The Childbirth Kit consists of a short book (interesting and concise. Some pieces felt "outdated" because it was written in 1994) and a set of 17 image cards. The cards are the reason I wanted the set. Each one has a colorful image on the front designed for a particular stage of labor (so like water drops on a leaf for early labor or a bright red-orange piece of intricate glass for pushing) and the back has a short visualization exercise to do, ideas of things for the woman to try during labor, ideas for the birth partner to help her, and a series of inspiring/contemplative words that are related to the image on the front. So, for example, one card has the words "Pathways. Mother. Growth. Fertile. Powerful" printed along the bottom (the image on the front is titled "Earth," but it looks more like a woven rug/tapestry). There is even a card titled "Knit." My mom would approve! It is a pretty cool set. The idea is that you practice with the cards, images, visualizations prior to labor and then continue using them IN labor as well (so, pinning on the on the wall to look at, or holding them, or whatever).

This week I also read The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood. This was actually the third time I've read it. I didn't really set out to read it again, I was looking up some stats for an article I was writing and got lured back in to reading the whole thing. It is a good book. We have it in our LLL library (the first time I read it, it was the previous edition and I got it from the LLL Group I used to go to when L was a baby).

Libraries

I spent many years of my life loving the library and making good use of all it had to offer. When I was in graduate school, I lost touch with the joy of the library and only set foot in the University library TWICE (funny that that is possible, but such is the miracle of the internet and University computer access to all kinds of journal article online, instead of dusty stack-searching for them). While an undergrad, I practically lived at the library--either the college one or the public one, I spent a lot of time in both. Not necessarily checking out books or doing research, but as my "base" between classes, to study, write papers etc. After graduate school, I rediscovered the joy of reading for pleasure. I had library cards at the two cities we lived in prior to where we live now. I went to the library at least once a week and had a fabulous time. Then, we moved back to our hometown, and since we're out of the city limits a library card costs $20. I didn't get one. I've lived here for three years now and have only set foot in the library a handful of times, mostly to give them updated LLL posters for their windows. I haven't consciously missed it, because I get so many books from book sales, yard sales, friends, Bookins, and Amazon (who needs the library, I began to feel!)

Then, I went to a special children's program at the library about an hour away from us a couple of weeks ago, and was suddenly struck by how fabulous libraries are and how much I love them. It didn't hurt that this little library had some rockin' cool books for sale for only 25 cents each! (Excuse me while I swoon, but they had multiple copies of the brand new Our Bodies, Ourselves Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth. Hardback, library bound copies. A QUARTER! I almost collapsed with joy).

So, this week, I decided that I should shell out the $20 for a library card at my local public library. I actually planned to do so only so my kids could check out books, videos, and participate in the summer reading program (side note: I asked L if he'd like to do the summer reading program and I told him that they had prizes for it. He, like most kids, love prizes and surprises, but he gave me a really funny look and said, "Why would I need to win prizes for reading books?! That doesn't make any sense." Aww. That's my guy. Reading books is its own reward! ;-) However, as soon as I stepped into the stacks I was in LOVE again. OMG. Libraries are fabulous. I found two books on my Amazon wish list as well as an interesting book-on-CD to listen to while I fold laundry. I've been twice this week alone and see many more trips in my future. The kids love it too and I feel guilty that I've been depriving them for so long (especially because I KNOW how much I loved the library when I was a kid. I literally had read every single book in the teenager section of the libraries in both towns near me. Every single one. I used to check out 20 "young adult" books at a time and read two each day. That was my mom's limit for me, because otherwise I'd be all weird-acting from having been buried in a book all day long).

Okay, so I already finished reading one of the books I checked out (not one that was on my wish list, but one that caught my eye). It was The Busy Mom's Guide to Simple Living. It was extremely religious. More so than I anticipated from my initial glance at it. While I didn't really get much out of it specifically, I did start to ponder all of the simple living/homesteading things I've lost touch with in recent months as the busy-ness of life has started to get away from me.