Convert or Die!!!

Another observation on the Terri Irwin interview: The segment showed two snipets on the births of the Irwin's two children. During the first birth Dad delivered the baby, mom appeared upright on a normal bed. In the shot of the second birth, Dad was still delivering, but they were drapped, masked, artificially lit, stirruped, and a doctor (I suppose) was helping Steve catch the baby (he didn't seem to need any help with the first one). It made me wonder if they had their first baby in Australia and their second in the US, or perhaps a birth center, then a hospital. Anyway, I would have been deeply disappointed with that second birth after the first one was so untampered with.
I thought of this later yesterday when I was having a conversation with another business owner on my block. I stopped in to commiserate because we have so much in common: both nurses, both business owners, both pregnant and due soon. We were both moaning about the state of our accounts receivable, when the topic turned to our pregnancies. She asked where I was delivering (always a loaded question), and I told her at home. Of course she began her tirade about how she MUST have her epidural. I began my equally emphatic tirade about my preference for control and how easier it is to bounce back after a drug free delivery. Now I sit here kicking myself- I should have asked her for her views on how labor and delivery styles impact breastfeeding. She owns a breastfeeding store for god's sake, surely she's thought about the impact of birth practices. She is also a neonatal nurse, surely she's seen the fallout to babies of bad birth practices. After all these years I'm still shocked that nurses look at these things as NORMAL and even worse than that, they see them as benevolent. They really believe they are giving the best care possible to their patients. When I think about how many have never even SEEN a normal birth, it blows my mind, since they attend births for a living. How will my former compatriots view my book? I'll probably be branded a heritic, and burned in effigy. Or perhaps they won't be surprised at all, after all I've been preaching the same sermon for 20 years now. All I'm saying is, nurses are the hardest converts.

The British Are Coming!

Just spoke to my doula friend on the phone. The Brits had a baby girl early this morning!!!! She was their doula and I woke her out of a post-birth slumber because I had a feeling I should call and get an update. I knew they were due any day now. One of our concerns is that they were due to have their baby only a few weeks before me. Kinda hard to film a birth when you're in labor yourself! Seems her water broke a couple of days ago so it was a long labor (typical for a first birth) but the doula said she had a wonderful, natural, drug-free labor and birth with my favorite midwife practice. I'm so glad for them. I'll wait a couple of days and give them a call. I like to avoid that initial onslought of calls and visits that happens the first few days when mom and baby need their rest. The doula told me they named her Harper. What a great name.

Much Ado About Everything

I had a few Braxton-Hicks last night. Just a gentle reminder that time is short and this pregnancy will not last forever. I feel rather like a time-bomb waiting to explode. Will I get everything I need to do done in time? Now that I am 37 weeks (and often deliver at 38 weeks), I need to really focus on getting things ready for the birth. Today I move back home to office- a move facilitated by the fact that yesterday, I tripped over my laptop cord and sent it sailing to the floor where the screen cracked into a million slivers. It's en route back to the factory for repairs (thank God I purchased that warrenty!) To top yesterday off, my husband's car won't start so we may be down just to one vehicle again (damit, I was hoping that car would get us through the winter). When I got home from the office, my husband was grilling our dinner. I told him about my bounced check and broken computer. He told me about his car and the missed vet appointment (that damn cat disappears every time he has an appointment- its like he knows). We just sighed and held each other. This too shall pass, I suppose. We had a very nice dinner that my husband had prepared, took the girls out for ice cream and watched our favorite family shows; America's Next Top Model, and Lost. (Don't ask me how ANTM become a family favorite but we all watch it and root for our favorite girl.) Later I watched the interview with Steve Irwin's widow on 20/20. Of course I cried. Again, it made me remember how much I have to be grateful for. I can't imagine, the long stretch of years ahead, without my best friend and confidant. I also thought my life would be very well lived, if I left this earth having had at much influence in my chosen sphere as Steve Irwin had in his. What a legacy he has left. I want that for my own life as well- what will I leave behind when I go? One of the highlights of a mostly bleak day, was my appointment with my counselor. We continued to talk of my struggles with my feelings about my parents but I can feel things resolving- finally after weeks of agonizing. I told her how I wanted to write a letter to them, and she encourage me to go ahead and write it, but that I might find that I won't necessarily feel the need to actually send it. Fair enough. Of course, their letter will have to stand in line behind all the thank you notes I need to get out. I have to order my birth kit- like today! I'm still cleaning and organizing the house for the birth. My midwife will do a home visit next week so thats my deadline. We still have to go buy the crib and dresser, because until those are assembled and in place I can't unpack the huge pile of baby stuff still in boxes sitting in a corner of our bedroom waiting to be put away. So much to do, and if the Braxton-Hicks are any indication, so little time.

Will Work for Therapy

Yesterday was full of blessings. My Toastmaster group treated me to a rather unorthodox baby shower that was a modified TM meeting. We had a Table Topics meeting where everyone got to tell a birth story, or their favorite nursery rhyme, or a piece of parenting advice. It was very sweet and really fun. I was presented with a generous gift certificate to the store of my choosing. It was more than enough to get the crib I had pre-selected. I'll think I'll use the extra to get a porta-crib to keep at the office. My son called me mid-day (the 28 year old) to ask me to pick him up from work because he had a migraine. I just happened to be a few blocks a way when he called, so I picked him up and took him home. After dropping him off I had an urge to visit my parents, who live just down the street from my son. I've been feeling really weird about them lately, but my dad had a burst appendix last week and had to have emergency surgery. I left for LA without seeing him and hadn't visited since my return. I'm really glad I stopped by. My mother was out, but Dad was shuffling around in his pjs and robe and my grandmother was there as well (she's lives with them and is mostly bed ridden). My visit with my dad was very healing. We had a really good and honest talk, something we rarely do. He acknowledged that he had not been a good father (he was neglectful and laxidazical) and I accepted that. He also said he was very proud of me and the person I've become. (That was nice to hear since I'm not feeling so accomplished or responsible these days with two overdrawn bank accounts, a bounced check and bills piling up to my pregnant belly). I have forgiven my parents. I know we were poor, but I also know they partied a lot. I know I didn't have a bike, or ballet lessons, or dental visits. I think I could have had at least some of those things if they didn't party, drink, and drug away part of their limited financial resources. Its hard to stay mad at them especially since neither of them are those people anymore. Now my mother is in church 3-4 days a week. (Where was this person when I was growing up?) Now, my dad is a devoted family man, it seemed when I was growing up, he couldn't find enough reasons to be out the door and away from us. (My parents cared for my dad's mother for years until she passed away then immediately took in my mother's mother.) If I complain about my parents, my friends look at me like I'm nuts because they are such fine upstanding citizens, NOW. Well these people are not the people who raised me. When I was growing up my mother was a depressed drug addict, my dad the worst kind of womanizer. Oh well, it is what it is. I do look forward to talking more to my counselor about all this and hashing it out with her, (even though I can't really afford the visits- I feel like one of those panhandlers I see standing on street corners holding up cardboard signs- "will work for food- and or therapy") I want to be mad at them, but mostly I'm just sad about it all. I felt good about my visit with Dad though. I wanted to tell him, how disappointed I was in him as a father, but when he admitted it first, I didn't have the heart to bash him with my feelings. Especially with him sitting their recovering from a near fatal experience, gaunt from weight loss, and looking older and frailer than ever. We talked and hugged. I did feel redeemed, somewhat. I went in to visit with my grandmother and rubbed her feet as she told me stories of her own grandmother. I prompt her for family stories everytime I'm in her presence. My dad gave me the best compliment he's ever given me when he told me that I have my grandmother and mother's spirit. A light went on in my head. I do have their spirit- I am strong and courageous and stubborn as they are. It is why I will not only survive, but thrive. As I drove away, I thought, just because I didn't have a real father/daughter relationship with my dad when I was a kid, doesn't mean I can't have one now. I can invite him to things, involve him, and do things with him now. I'm so used to his being an outsider in our lives, this thought only just now occurs to me. I never invite him to anything, assuming he won't come. I invite my mother, and if she gets him to come along, fine. I'm shocked at how accustomed I've become to not having any expectations of him. But I love the thought- that at 44 years of age, I can begin to work on filling that father-daughter void.

Bringing Baby Along

Attended the world's longest board meeting last night- probably my last for a while. My life is winding down to fewer and fewer outside pursuits. I look forward to "coming home" next month as I transfer my office to my living room. Last night while at the meeting, I kept thinking, can I bring a baby to this meeting? I won't ask anyone's permission, but I do wonder how freaked out they'll be when I walk in with a baby, and then start to nurse him or her at the table. Part of my brain says that it would not be appropriate, the other part says, that if I don't have the courage to do it, who will? I'm in the perfect position to be a model for other women. I do believe my newborn should go where I go- and that actually worked fine before. Now I go to entirely different places, board and client meetings instead of playgroup, places of business instead of LLL meetings, educational lunches instead of homeschool field trips. Trust me, there are no babies at any of the places I now frequent. I probably shouldn't be, but I'm torn.

Small Pelvis, Big Baby Pandemic

Feeling quite pregnant these days. My hip joints have gone soft and I walk with an exaggerated waddle. I feel good but move slow, what I lack in agility, I make up in pulcritude (must be that pregnancy glow, my skin is glorious). I think about the birth and the baby a lot. There's still much to do to prepare. One more baby shower, tomorrow, from my Toastmaster group. Yesterday after church, I got caught up in a conversation with a pregnant newlywed, the daughter-in-law of a long time aquaintance. She sounded so typical as she talked about her family history of cesareans and how she would probably have to have one as well, because of her small pelvis and big baby. I looked at her and shook my head, small pelvis my ass. What fool doctor would tell this big hearty robust girl she has a small pelvis? And what's with the big baby talk- SHE'S NOT EVEN SHOWING YET! How does her doctor know she's going to have a "big baby" whatever the hell that is. And so the set up begins. This young girl's thinking is sabotaged from the outset. She told how her grandmother had had 21 children, at home, yet her mother had had all her babies by cesarean. Which legacy will win out? Another generation of cesarean born children, or will she reclaim her birth right? The battles are lost and won in these casual conversations. My voice gets drowned out by so many opposing messages. Women still assume that their doctors have their best interest at heart. Its my heart-breaking job to tell them, it ain't so. Caregivers can no longer afford to act solely in their patien'ts best interest- the world of healthcare can no longer sustain such benevolence. Why should they believe me when I say such outrageous things? I have to come up with some persuasive arguing in my book. I will tell what I saw and heard as an insider and hope folks will be as shocked and appalled as I was.

Attacking the "Bottle Model"

Yesterday I attended a day long conference that featured Jack Newman, a Toronto pediatrician, talking about breastfeeding. How refreshing to hear a physician really support breastfeeding. I was particularly enthralled with his talk on how birthing practices impact breastfeeding. Nothing radical or new, just refreshing to hear a physician saying those things (even if he is Canadian and not American). Makes me wonder why the American healthcare system can't figure some of this out. I left the conference empowered in my thinking, more convinced than ever that I need to birth my way. I felt very validated by what I heard. Things like: breastfeeding is the physiological norm, bottle feeding is an intervention. How could we have fallen so far, always comparing breast to bottle? It should be the other way around; how does bottle stack up to breast? He talked a lot about how formula companies market and their subtility in undermining breastfeeding. There was a moment of panic among the conference planners when they realized one of the vendors, a national baby store chain, had placed prenatal vitamins manufactured by a formula company, and a sample baby bottle in their goody bags that they were handing out to the attendees. Talk about a lulu of a boo boo. They had to quickly go through the bags and pull those items. My friend Charlene argued that the store should have known better than to give out bottles at a breastfeeding conference. I told her, of course they wouldn't know any better- this is the whole point of what the speaker was talking about- we live in a bottle feeding culture. Of course they wouldn't get it. After all breastfeeding mothers take vitamins right? Breastfeeding mothers supplement and use bottles, right? Only us lactivists would think twice about using vitamins made and marketed by formula companies. The whole point of this conference (I think) is to demonstrate how little awareness there is that breastfeeding is endangered and under attack precisely because we live in a "bottle-model" society where breastfeeding is constantly compared with bottle feeding instead of the other way around. The speaker gave excellent examples of how breastfeeding is routinely threatened, not just by formula companies, but by our own healthcare system and providers. I certainly saw breastfeeding underminded as a labor and delivery nurse. In most hospitals around the country, the cure to any breastfeeding problem is bottle feeding. The cure to any ailment or potential ailment is bottle feeding. Nobody gets that formula is ARTIFICIAL BREASTMILK. I just about decided to refer to formula as artificial breastmilk, after all, thats what it is. Who will join me? Lets call it what it really is- second best.