ElementalMom

Trust Birth Conference — Day 3

Oh my gosh. Not only was it the day we lost an hour to “Daylight Savings”, but Sunday, March 9 was gonna be packed solid, and I did not wake up my sunshiny best. Luckily, I got to start with another lovely breakfast with Melissa and Kenneth. Day 3 was not going to be easy, but I knew if I could keep my energy going, it was going to be a great day at the Trust Birth Conference.

I haven’t said a thing about the ICAN table. Manned by local ICANers, I hear the table got good traffic (if you’ve read my other posts, you know I didn’t spend a lot of time there, but did swing by and say hey when I could). Birgit, Christy, April, Kmom, and probably others I didn’t see… THANK YOU! I am hugely grateful. And, as you can see from the photo, I am also fairly huge. =)

I started my sessions with Laura Shanley’s “Believe Your Way To A Better Birth”. Nothing I hadn’t heard, but it was interesting for me, considering my mother had always talked about her five-hour birth with me, so that’s what I expected, and ended up with 30+ hour marathons. I’m not entirely sure it’s all in my head; I think some might be in my pelvis and posture, but that’s a whole other discussion. We saw some clips from “A Clear Road to Birth” that were fantastic, and I was really interested to see the theme of baby being a participant in their own birth being shown there.

For Track 9, I decided to go check out something with no relevance to me whatsoever. I had REALLY wanted to see Gail Hart talk, so I attended her “Keeping Pregnancy Normal; Preventing Prematurity”, which was far more valuable than I was expecting. I’d gone just because I wanted to bask in Gail’s presence for a while; she’s one of those between-the-eyes birth advocate midwives who just radiates wisdom all around her. There were enough folks in the group that I never got a chance to ask what percentage of prematurity is iatrogenic (through fear, coercion, and all the other things us ICANers know about firsthand). Ah well.

I spent lunch freaking out. Thank goodness Christy Fiscer, Melissa, and Kenneth were all on hand to talk me down over my caesar salad (anyone else get the irony there?). I went into the general session hall early, to get everything all hooked up and tested and functioning. There is nothing in the entire world more embarrassing than giving a talk on how fabulous multimedia is, if your own multimedia is not functioning as planned. So I harassed Brian the Trust Birth Tech Guy to distraction. Tested everything. Tested it again. Fiddled with the microphone. Fiddled with the remote control. Stressed out. Paced.

On the one hand, it’s fabulously reassuring when the hall begins to fill up prior to your talk. On the other hand, it’s just a titch nervewracking, being a person of no particular import or stature, when you realize that Dr. Sarah Buckley and Sheila Stubbs are sitting directly behind you. You know, cause they’re going to listen to your talk. The one you’re about to give. EEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

Again, Melissa and Christy were there to keep me from vibrating right off my chair. And as they’re being soothing and rational, Carla Hartley slides up next to me, shows me how to alternate-nostril breathe to calm jitters, and asks me if I could cut my talk back to around 45 minutes from the original 60. Did I mention, eeeeek?

Rixa Freeze went ahead of me, and I’m so incredibly glad that Brian the Tech Guy had transferred a copy of her presentation onto my machine during setup, because I think I only actually heard one word in four of what she said. But I’ve been able to review the presentation again, and it was fabulous. For as sick as she clearly was, Rixa gives a mean presentation, and man, she knows her stuff. It is so cool to hear someone talk who has such encyclopedic knowledge of the research and the writings! I could listen to her for hours. You know, when I’m listening and not just freaking out…

So this is me, at the podium. I had my cute little maternity power-suit on, and I was ready to go. Luckily, I’d rehearsed my talk enough that I could pretty much do it on autopilot. I started off with my introduction, and moved onto why I think multimedia advocacy is so important, and why pitching birth advocacy to Digital Natives is so critical to preventing the first cut. I showed the “Question CPD” video first, and was rewarded with hoots, hollers, whoops, and applause as each mama’s numbers played on the screen. From there, I hacked a bunch of stuff out for Carla (grin), and moved onto the publication of Cesarean Voices, and how hard it is to get non-birthies to read the thing, yet, people could watch Elaine’s awesomely moving movie, “Empty“. I was a little startled, honestly, when I looked out at the audience and realized that there were tears all over the entire room. From there, I moved rapidly onto Teresa’s HBA3C video, which Gloria Lemay started cheering for before I could even finish introducing it. Thanks Gloria!

Watching the clock move faster and faster, the rest of my presentation is kind of a blur. I explained a bit more about Web 2.0 with “The Machine is Us/ing Us” from Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University. Because I was in a hurry at that point, I didn’t get to make the point that multimedia from tech to birthie was as effective as multimedia from birth to techie, so I’m bummed about that. Like lightning, I whizzed past discussions of search engine optimization (SEO), prominent birth blogs, and getting the word out through educating birth advocates not to do anything differently but to optimize the brilliant things they’re already saying.

Whew. It was over. I was done, I sat down, and Carla got up to say her closing remarks. Then I was out to the lobby, met a few well-wishers (thank you all!) and bam, like that, my shuttle was waiting and I was gone. But of course, I have more to say. Stay tuned for closing thoughts…

Tags: ICAN, Trust_Birth, Trust_Birth_Conference