ElementalMom

I think there’s no time like the present to teach your kids that bureaucracies are made for poking holes in. Like, when they’re three months old.

Aurora and I set off for downtown Oakland, to get her paper trail going. Ours is a documentation-crazy society, and it’s far easier to do all this when they’re little. We’d undergone the application process for the birth certificate two months ago. This involved showing up in the office with the baby, both parents, and the midwife, and everyone waving around little pieces of paper to prove that they were who they said they were and that in fact that precise baby had been made by precisely those parents and that we had not in fact stolen her from someone or somewhere else. La. Once the admin was satisfied, we submitted the form, and left to wait for a few weeks to let the computers in the system digest the information.

We arrived at the Vital Records office, to get the paper copies. I have to say, I think it’s a little cruel to have births, deaths, and marriages all in the same line. But it also gives one a great deal to think about while waiting. And wait we did. 45 minutes later, we were called back. I gave them her name and date of birth, and within two minutes and quite a ridiculous amount of money, they’d run three legal copies off on their printer. I find myself wondering why I had to pay $19 apiece for them; do I not pay taxes? I don’t know anyone who bills at the rate of $9.50/minute, nor do I know of any paper that costs that much per sheet, so I’m still a bit befuddled by the payment structure there. But I’m sure my government only wants what’s best for me and there’s a valid reason. Yeah.

From there, we headed up the hill to the Social Security Administration. These are the folks that crank out the nine digits that rule the rest of your life, if you’re American. It’s used as ID pretty much everywhere. And it’s also a must-have if you’re going to get a passport, which was the end-purpose of all this paper pushing. So off we go. If you have a hospital birth, they do this for you, but if you’re a homebirther, you have to do it yourself. I’d been super diligent and filled out the form online in advance, although I was confused by the part where they ask for another form of ID. Um, she’s three months old, there’s no other ID besides a birth certificate possible.

I got to the office, took a number, and was immediately called up. Score! I plopped down the application, the birth certificate (still slightly warm from Vital’s printer), and smiled.

“I’d like a social security number for my baby, please.”

The woman looked at me like I was a bug. “You haven’t completed the form, the prior social security number isn’t filled out.”

“Um… she doesn’t have a prior, this is a first card, she’s three months old.” At this point I leaned sideways, so she could see Aurora, who was at that point, sound asleep in my Beco sling.

And this is where it got goofy.

“You could have gotten that baby anywhere, who says it’s yours?”

Annoyed, I showed her my medical insurance card, which has my name, Jason’s name, and all the kids’s names. “I’m paying for her insurance, I am who I am, I have her birth certificate, her father and the midwife and I all had to be present to get that, so really, that’s about as identified as she’s going to get.”

“Well, you’ll have to have her medical records then.”

“But she’s not been to a doctor, she’s not sick.”

“Well what about her vaccination records?”

“She’s not vaccinated.”

At this point, the bureaucrat behind the desk literally gasped and pushed back from the window. Yeah, cause oh-so-many infectious disease epidemics are spread by three month olds.

“Well you will have to have her examined by a fully qualified medical doctor, NOT a midwife, and get her vaccinated, before she can be issued a card.”

This is, of course, an outright lie. I smiled tightly, said “thank you for your time” and was given the most self-satisfied, smug smile I’ve ever seen on the face of a bureaucrat. We left.

I walked back down to the car. I fumed for about two minutes, while I fed Aurora, and thought about my options.

I decided that the simplest resistance was best. I drove to the Berkeley Social Security office. Walked in. Took a number. Waited about fifteen minutes, and had several fabulous conversations with some wildly colorful and entertaining people. Got called to the screening window, where they verify that you have your forms filled out and everything ready to go.

“I’m here to get a Social Security Number for my baby.” (lean sideways to flash Aurora’s gorgeous smile)

“Oh! That is the cutest baby!” She then yelled over her shoulder to the woman running the next window “Don’t call anyone else! I’m pushing the lady with the baby to the front of the line!”

I get called up. I confidently, despite sweating inside, hand her my form, the birth certificate, the insurance card, my ID, and say “I’d like to get a number for my baby, please.”

To which the woman replies “Wow! You are so prepared! Thanks, that really helps us out!”. She typed, we chatted about babies and slings and governments and sleep deprivation. Her printer spit out a receipt, which she handed over, saying sunnily “you should get a receipt in the mail that says it’s in process, and the card should arrive in 4 to 6 weeks; faster if the Governor increases our budget!”

And that was that.

I am really conflicted about what to do next. Do I just spread the word with the local homebirth community that there’s someone at the Oakland Social Security office who is giving out inaccurate info and making life difficult for no good reason? Do I file a formal complaint? Do I do nothing?

It’s upsetting that a single paper pusher with an agenda can sit smugly behind their rolling window, and make your life easy, or difficult, at their whim, based on their own prejudices. I’m glad we are getting this all done way before we actually need it, while there’s still time to be calm and work it through. I can only imagine what that woman’s obstructionism does to people who are in a hurry to get a child’s passport and are balked by her power trip. And I am really grateful that I live in a metropolitan area where I have options of different offices to go to; I could not have pulled this off if I lived in a more rural location, with only one office in striking distance. And what’s more upsetting is this; I was trying to do the right thing, in terms of the government. I was getting Aurora’s information into the system, making her officially a citizen, and throwing stupid amounts of money at the government in the meantime. Were I really someone with a subversive agenda, I would not have been in there trying to get Aurora all documented; I’d have been flying as far under the radar as possible.

So at base, it was the bureaucrat’s prejudices versus my desire to play by the rules, and prejudice nearly won. Welcome to the land of the free.

Tags: bureaucrats, homebirth, paper pushers, paperwork, prejudice

I am teaching a series over at Conscious Woman, “Conscious Woman Online“, to help encourage people who have good messages to offer to get online and start communicating with the Digital Natives who are already there.

Yesterday’s class was disappointingly small; only two registrants. Wah, right? Those two registrants were none other than Gloria Lemay, and Ina May Gaskin! WHOOT! I got to soapbox them both with my message; that women need to be able to find good information on birth *before* the Machine gets them. And apparently, I got my message across! WHOOT!!!! Check these review comments out!

I just had my mind expanded this morning by Laureen Hudson’s hour long online session on how to use the internet to get a message out. Laureen’s session “Creating an Online Presence,” gave me a wealth of information in a short time and impressed me with how many people are out there who completely rely on the internet for their information. I needed that, and maybe you do, too.

- Ina May Gaskin

I just hung up the phone from doing the hour long session with Laureen Hudson on “Creating an Online Presence”. Laureen’s know-how and expertise were enough to wake up even the birth oldtimers like me and Ina May to the many unused opportunities of the internet. Laureen’s engaging and easygoing teaching style made even those scary (to me) terms like “hypertext, streaming, wordpress, technorati, feedreader and trackback” start to make sense. Her passion is to reach the generation of young women who have not yet given birth BEFORE they fall into the black hole of aggressive obstetrics. I came away from the class today with lots of ways to improve my website and make it more modern, usable and interesting for readers. This class will run again this coming Friday (August 22) and I heartily recommend it.

- Gloria Lemay

How incredibly spiffy is that?

I‘m teaching that class that they took one more time, and there are two more classes in the series, one on SEO and one on blogging, which I’m honestly more excited about than I was about the first two classes in the series. Hopefully I can drum up some more registrations… cause that means I’ve managed to convince more people to get out there and actually reach the folks who need the messages most.

Tags: birth-activism, Conscious-Woman, Geek, Gloria Lemay, Ina May Gaskin

http://consciouswoman.org/2008/08/04/conscious-woman-of-the-month-august-2008/

Want to have your blood pressure raised? Want to realize yet again how incredibly lucky you are to have been born as you were? Read this month’s Conscious Woman article, about Dalit activist Manjula Pradeep.

Tags: Conscious-Woman, Dalit, Pradeep

http://midwiferyworld.com/?p=232

WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 16, 2008)—Just in time for Father’s Day, at its annual meeting last weekend, the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a resolution to introduce legislation outlawing home birth, and potentially making criminals of the mothers who choose home birth with the help of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) for their families.

I think what kills me about this is that if home birth is outlawed… what are they planning to do with the babies of the women who do it?

More news as it appears, and as soon as I have some concrete action to take, I’ll let y’all know.

I was extremely honored to be asked to provide a guest post on Rixa’s wonderful “True Face of Birth” blog recently. The post was a response to a comment-storm, generated by some people who were not prepared to see some pretty typical homebirther stuff online (although what they thought they’d see on a blog subtitled “Raw, Powerful, Ecstatic” is beyond me…)

Anyway, here’s my contribution to the fray, “Judgment, Fear, and Focus“.

As usual, things are nutty in the birth advocacy world. It’s not worth going into the details, but recently, I was questioned by someone who basically said that because I was a mother of sons, not daughters, my birth advocacy work didn’t have the urgency that the work mothers of daughters had. You know, because my boys were never going to get subjected to what women here routinely do.

That part’s true. My sons will never be the direct physical victims of the physical, emotional, and mental abuse that passes for birth care in this country.

My sons, like their father before them, are likely to end up being helpless observers as the women they love are gutted like halibut. Woken up from a restless sleep in an uncomfortable chair to discover that other people have decided that it’s time to take your firstborn child by surgery. Completely discounted, completely marginalized, completely ignored. Here, put this surgical suit on; we’ll let you into the OR so you can see your wife’s intestines, smell her skin roasting when we do cautery, hold her hands when she starts convulsing, and have a moment of sheerest panic when we take the baby to the nursery; here, decide on a dime who needs your presence more, your helpless newborn or your helpless wife. Try really hard not to guilt yourself for either decision, but do so anyway.

My sons, like their father before them, will head home with a woman who underwent a surgery that everyone minimizes. Who is a shell of herself. Whose world was ripped apart and reassembled with vicodin and steri-strips. And they will be looking at between a year and as many years as the rest of her life, wondering when they get the woman they married back. And in the meantime, if she’s lucky, she’ll figure out that it’s the system, not her, and get her act together. If she’s not lucky, she’ll spend her days sitting in a rocker pulling on her hair, trying to figure out what’s wrong with her. Maybe she’ll get medicated, maybe she won’t. And my sons will be there, trying to deal with that and a newborn, and wondering where it all went wrong, and powerless to do a damn thing about it.

I have nothing to worry about. I’ll just be the mother in law, watching the impending train wreck, with no way to get in there and be useful to prevent … anything.

Friends… my urgency is huge. And there’s not nearly so much time as we think. In the time since advocacy groups began howling about the rate of cesareans, ours here in the US has skyrocketed from 5% to just over 31%. At that rate… by the time my sons are having children, my scenario is far more likely than the chance that the mother of their children will have a normal birth.

I could get lucky. They could hook up with women who know the score, who know how to fight, who are strong enough to have a normal birth. And of course I wish that for them with all my heart. But you know… *I* didn’t know any better. And in the years I’ve been doing this birth advocacy thing, I have met all kinds of women who are the sorts of women who could love, cherish, and honor my sons, who didn’t know any better. Not the first time, at any rate. Sometimes not even the second or third, and by that point, the fight to birth normally is insanely difficult, and uphill every step of the way, in the snow, both directions. I can’t assume my boys will hook up with women who are birth advocates. I have to assume they’ll be normal women, having normal lives, who are unaware of the monster of US obstetrics.

I can pray that I’ll have a relationship with them based on respect and support, and that maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll have earned the right to be involved in their process. It does happen; I myself have a wonderful MiL. But I can’t assume that.

Which means that I have serious work to do, on behalf of all women. And there simply isn’t much time.

Tags: birth-activism, Cesarean

This link, from the inestimable Raquel:

http://www.consciouswoman.org/2008/04/01/conscious-woman-of-the-month-april-2008/

I knew about Tatia; when cesarean activism is your thing, you start seeing a lot of maternal mortality. And in ICAN’s world, cytotec is considered to be nothing short of the most evil chemical in the world. All my admiration goes out to Maddy and the work she’s doing.

Tags: Conscious-Woman, cytotec, ICAN, Maddy-Oden, Raquel-Lazar-Paley, Tatia

The amazing and brilliant Jen on VBACfacts.com posts this winner:

A Letter From A Hospital Explaining Why They Banned VBAC

And I thought I was speechless about the UHC elective cesarean thing I posted about last. This just kicks it. I may calm down enough to respond to this in a measured and analytical way sometime before I have this baby, but I doubt it.

Friends, it was never more clearly stated why birth does not belong anywhere near a hospital. And from the horses’ mouth.

Whew. Did you read the last few entries? You’d figure that I’d fall into bed and sleep, sleep, sleep, right? Wrong. Good thing I habitually leave a notepad by the bed to collect those blinding 3:00 AM brainwaves. It’s been over a week since the Trust Birth Conference, and I’m still having them!

First, the pregnant chick reflections. Friends, even as much of a birth geek as I am, it was so incredibly cool to be able to walk around for four whole days and not have a single person ask me what gender my baby was. Everyone assumed I didn’t know. I didn’t have to choke back my lecture about the evils of ultrasound even once; and most of the folks I talked to probably would have given it better than I did anyway! Not one person asked me for a due date; they asked me how far along I was. It’s such a subtle difference, but makes such a HUGE difference in how we think of pregnancy, and how the mother feels. And you know, I am rock-solid about how I feel about this stuff, but when you’re out in the world, it gets soooooo tiring having to have the same sad conversations over, and over and over. Every single time I walked into the bathroom, I got ushered to the front of the line. How cool is that?

Second, the birth geek reflections. For all my talk, I am really pretty new to all of this. I was oblivious to the world of birth advocacy just six short years ago. Granted, the intervening years have been quite intense, and I’ve thrown myself into the reading, the researching, and the exploring with more than even my usual fervor. But even so, getting to hang out with people who have lived in this headspace for years, and just soaking up their vibe, was amazing. It’s one thing to read the words, it’s another thing entirely to be in their presence, really getting a feel for the emotion that the printed word just won’t convey. I feel so humbled, and so inspired, at the same time. “Life changing” is not too strong a term to use.

I am really running the risk of running out of superlatives. Bear with me if I get repetitive, OK?

• I‘d like to thank Carla Hartley. Not only did she trust me sight unseen, she was unfailingly graceful under pressure. I’m familiar with conferences, and I’m also familiar with the people running them spontaneously combusting. Carla was utterly unflappable, and I admire that hugely. I also just want to say that it takes a ton of courage for a midwife, let alone one running a school of midwifery, to stand up for unassisted birth, with the logic that “either birth works, or it doesn’t, you can’t say it only works with the right careprovider.” Having been attacked by a prominent midwifery advocate once in my life for daring to plan an unassisted birth, Carla’s trust of birth itself is hugely inspiring. Trust Birth? You betcha.
• I‘d like to thank everyone who supported Carla. It was obvious that a ton of time and work went into, well, everything. You guys must have put in the mega-hours, and it totally showed.
• I‘d like to thank the families of everyone who supported the folks running things. Behind every woman on a mission, is a partner and kids who believe in what she’s doing, and their sacrifice of her time is nothing short of remarkable.
• Along those lines, of course, thanks to Jason, Rowan, Kestrel, Marc, and my Inlaws Allen and Terri.
• I have this idea that there is something so uncontrollable and unpredictable about birth that it keeps the people who support it humble. I was not expecting the Birth Luminaries at this event to be so approachable, let alone so welcoming, encouraging, and positive. I’m still riding the high.
• Thank you, Melissa. It was all your fault for suggesting, prodding, encouraging, and connecting all the dots in order to make this happen for me. You rock. But you know that, and are probably sick to death of hearing it from me.
• Thanks, ICAN. I want you to know that I am going to use what I picked up here to make the world a slightly better place. How? I’m not quite sure yet, and you’re welcome to hold me accountable, pop in, and ask me from time to time.

Tags: ICAN, Trust_Birth, Trust_Birth_Conference

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

On Saturday March 8, despite being totally wiped out, mentally and emotionally, from Day 1 of the Trust Birth Conference, I hopped out of bed about 15 minutes before my alarm, bright and ready to tackle Day 2.

I was lucky enough to have breakfast with the outstanding Melissa Collins and her husband Kenneth, who’d managed to fly in from Texas the night before. What a guy; patiently endured Melissa and I babbling an odd mixture of birth and tech over waffles and yogurt. When 8:00 AM rolled around, we wandered over to the conference, ready to dive in to another day.

My first session was in the gorgeous Mezzanine room, which had an ocean view, and featured again the delightful Dr. Sarah Buckley, speaking on “Prenatal Testing and Ultrasound: The Whole Story for Mother and Baby”. Again, nothing I didn’t already know, but nice to know that if I ever am in the position of having to convince someone else, I know exactly where to look for a calm, rational, excellently-reasoned, and meticulously-researched argument. I think because I do get so whipped up, I value people who can stay calm and steady even more. Thank you, Dr. Buckley.

Track 4 was probably the most fun I had at the conference, other than my own talk. “Writing About Birth”, a panel discussion featuring Jody McLaughlin, Sheila Stubbs, Jan Tritten, and Laura Shanley (swoon!), again covered both my personal and my ICAN goals at once. And what an amazingly accomplished group of speakers! I sat there, basking in the combined glow, and just astonished by the amount of between-the-eyes wisdom represented in just those four people. I took notes furiously, and willed myself to memorize the session in its entirety. Futile, I know, but it was that amazing. I got a few minutes to schmooze with Jody at the end, which was great for both instigating ideas, and for pumping me up.

After lunch, another earthshatteringly cool panel session, “Don’t Push Me; Physiologic Pushing” with Karen Strange, Gloria Lemay, and Heather Brock. I’d attended Heather’s postpartum exercise session the day before, so I was pretty sure I knew what to expect from her part of the talk, but was surprised when Carla Hartley also showed up, and the two of them talked about what their births had been like. Fabulous to hear a mother-daughter team discussing their birth experiences with each other. And of course, I’d been a total fan of Gloria Lemay’s for years and years, so again, being in the Physical Presence of Greatness was a pump all by itself. I knew she was wise; I had no idea she was also hysterically funny. Pushing is normally such an un-funny topic, it was unexpectedly delightful to be sitting there laughing about it. Of course, I’d read her article about pushing, but hearing her deliver the information live, with anecdotes, was absolutely wonderful. And Karen Strange piped in with a discussion of pushing from the baby’s perspective, which again, rocked my world. Mainstream medicine tends to ignore that there’s a baby involved at all, but hearing details of how the baby assists the pushing process was really enlightening. And Rachel Correa attended the session, again rocking my entire world, when she said that, having had one still baby and three live ones, it was amazing to her that people would even question that of course, a baby participates in their own birth.

Track 6, pretty much like all the tracks, was maddening to have to make a choice in. Even figuring out my “ICAN vs my upcoming birth” priorities didn’t help; too many fabulous speakers to choose from. I ended up opting for Raquel Lazar-Paley’s “Cultivating the Conscious Woman“, mostly because she’d promised a relevant discussion of Plato’s Republic when I’d spoken to her in the halls. I wasn’t familiar with Raquel’s work like I had been with the presenters of other sessions I’d gone to, and found myself being pleasantly surprised at the amount of work she’s done in an area that still eludes me; the question of how to help a woman move along the consciousness spectrum, and possibly even avoid the first cut. Sadly, some of my fellow attendees, birth doulas, were pretty spectacularly unaware of some of the big issues facing women with regards to cesareans, so that kind of threw a cast over things. Raquel did a brilliant job of being gently enlightening, without blowing up in their faces. Well done, Raquel!

By the time dinner rolled around, I was pretty much a ravening beast (going long stretches so fascinated by talks that I forget to snack does that). Another lovely meal with Melissa and Kenneth, and we were ready to tackle the evening session…

Track 7 was one of the things I’d been looking forward to longest. “Why Women Stay Home Alone” with Laura Shanley, Melissa Collins, Heather Cushman-Dowdee, Jody McLaughlin, Rixa Freeze, Heather Brock and Emily Reeves was absolutely brilliant. Each of them told the short form of their own unassisted birth story, and then it was opened up for discussion. Laura says,

One of the MANY highlights for me was the panel discussion on “Why Women Stay Home…Alone!” Several of us on the panel had been a bit concerned that we might endure criticism from midwives, but I can honestly say that not one of the midwives in the audience had anything negative to say about UC! After my fellow panelists and I shared our reasons for choosing UC, the discussion turned to how we can build a bridge between UC and midwifery. I was thrilled to learn that there are many midwives who truly want to help women in their quest for a UC, whether that means being a back-up, doing prenatal care, offering knowledge and support during the pregnancy and/or checking on the mom and baby after the birth.

The conversation was so animated and so lively, that when I finally couldn’t focus any more, around 10:30, the breakout talks were still going on. I congratulated Melissa, and drug my very weary self back up to my room. You know, the room I took a photo of because I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be there much? Yeah. That room. Because tomorrow was another day, full of sessions, breakouts, hallway chats… and my presentation. Eeeeeeek!

Tags: ICAN, Trust_Birth, Trust_Birth_Conference

Bright and early Friday March 7, my alarm went off. This is far more traumatic than it sounds; in my day job, I’m a full time telecommuter, and have gotten very used to waking up when my body tells me to. So it was a little weird to be awoken by the beeping. Gah! But immediately my bad mood evaporated, because four floors below me, things were hopping for Day 1 of the Trust Birth Conference.

At first, I’m sure the photo to the right looks awful. This is the registration line. I used this photo because it captures three things; first, that the place was absolutely mobbed, which rocked, second, that I was nervous, and third, that the energy level just seemed to vibrate. I know that sounds really silly, but it’s true; the excitement was palpable.

The General Session started at 8:15. In the time between registration and then, I found Melissa, and also got to meet Laura Shanley. WOW! Can you say, total rampaging hero worship manifested? I have been a HUGE fan of Laura’s work for a while, and admired her unbelievable strength in standing up for what she believes in, in the face of ridicule, scorn, and condemnation. Laura’s writings went a long way towards rebuilding my strength when I was preparing for my VBAC, and getting to meet her live was even better than I’d imagined.

The first talk in the General Session was given by the amazing Rixa Freeze, who talked about Intuition as Authoritative Knowledge. If anyone is ever going to be able to make the case that what birthing mothers know is every bit as valid as the Machine That Goes Ping, it’s Rixa.

The second talk was Dr. Sarah Buckley, on “Birth is Safe: Interference is Risky”. Besides just delighting in her accent, it was so nice to hear someone “professional” say what I’ve strongly believed for ages.

The third talk is still rocking my world. I came very, very close to not going. Rachel Correa spoke on “Stella’s Life & Stillbirth at Home”. I decided to stay, and I am so so so grateful I did. Normally, stillbirth stories are more sad than anything, but Stella’s story was nothing short of the most inspirational thing I think I have ever seen. And honestly, who ever seriously considers stillbirth? It’s like the people (oh, like me) who skip the sections in the books about cesareans. Rachel gave me the opportunity to really explore what a stillbirth might mean, in the most empowering way I can imagine. It didn’t stop me (and Melissa, and honestly, everyone I could see) from sobbing openly at the video of the moment of Stella’s stillbirth, but I keep coming back to their story over, and over, and I feel so incredibly honored to have shared it. Thank you, Rachel and Scott, and also thank you Carla, for recognizing the incredible value of the presentation, and putting it in a general session, where there wasn’t anything competing with it that might have made it easier to look away.

After that (can you imagine? More! Past that!) the track sessions began. Choosing sessions had been done weeks earlier, and was really tough for me. On the one hand, I was going as an ICAN person, but on the other, I’m six months pregnant, so choosing between the intensely political and the thoroughly personal was sometimes pretty rough. For Track 1, I was lucky that I got to compromise on those two choices, and attend Sheila Stubbs‘ “The Womanly Art of Birthing; Secrets Doctors Don’t Know”. Because I’ve been reading Sheila for years, both her book and on the ICAN yahoo group, there wasn’t anything terribly new, but Sheila is so delightful in person, it was wonderful to sit there and replay her wisdom complete with real-time voiceover. Her slides were awesome, and I’m going to steal a few of them if I ever get a chance to speak on birth again.

Track 2, I indulged myself in a session that was personal, Heather Brock’s “Postpartum Fitness: More Than Getting Back into your Jeans”. Heather is Carla’s daughter, and therefore she’s about as “birthy” as they get. Her session was fabulous, and she even addressed the dreaded diastasis recti in a way that not only was new, but funny and accessable too. And you gotta love a session where everyone, even this new baby who I got to coo at, was on the floor.

That session, over at 5 PM, gave me just enough time to socialize a bit in the hallways, head upstairs, and get ready for the Awards Banquet that evening. (Yes! More! Egads! I’m tired just trying to summarize!)

The Awards Banquet was wonderful. Many worthy folks were honored for many worthy things, and honestly, fatigue and a spectacular meal (yes! probably the best banquet-style buffet I think I’ve ever seen in my life!) had dulled me into sort of a fog. And then, the highlight of the evening, a talk by Dr. Michel Odent. After a day of highs and lows and just amazing energy input and output, sitting there in a lovely hall with lovely people and lovely food listening to a lovely man speak in his lovely accent of, well, the hormones of love, was just . … well… OK, it was lovely. Heather Cushman-Dowdee summed it up well (she was at my table, and ended up moving to a different one once everyone was done shuffling to make room for partners) in her cartoon, “Oxytocin!“.

Absolutely reeling from the input, I got back to my room at around 10PM, and practically fell into bed. Because as amazing as today was… there were still two whole days, and my presentation at the very end, ahead of me. Sweet dreams!

Tags: Carla_Hartley, Dr._Michel_Odent, Dr._Sarah_Buckley, Hathor_the_Cowgoddess, ICAN, Laura_Shanley, Sheila_Stubbs, Trust_Birth, Trust_Birth_Conference

On Thursday March 6, I kissed my kids and my fabulous hubby, and headed out to catch my flight down south to attend the Trust Birth Conference.

Mixed emotions? You bet. I hate leaving the guys behind. And although I know they don’t really need me, it’s always weird to walk away. I try hard to keep two things in mind, when I have this sort of thing happen; first, I’m trying to make the world better for them. And second, it’s good for kids to see what passion about a cause looks like. Kids model what you do far more than what you say, and it’d be goofy to talk about making birth better without doing anything. So my boys, from their tiny ages, know that Mama may be leaving them, but she’s doing it to go help figure out how to help other mamas have their babies like we had Kestrel. And that’s something that Rowan both understands and supports. So while I miss them horribly, we all know why it’s happening.

I‘m also lucky enough to be married to the sort of man who not only gets it, but supports it, and has planned a fantastic visit up north with the Grandparents (hi Mom2!) to play in the snow and be loved and adored and generally have a great time not having a single thought about “Where’s Mama?” Thanks Jason; you really are amazing.

The flight was utterly uneventful. Flying midday on a commuter route is good stuff; we had a teeny, three-seats-across plane, and very experienced travelers, so boarding was super smooth, and everyone settled into their entertainment of choice really rapidly. I was working through a copy of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, which is intimidating, but excellent. Being more efficient and productive is gonna be neat. Once I close all my open loops, that is. Wheeeeeeee!

By a stroke of sheer luck, one of the conference assistants, Lennon, was able to come pick me up from LAX, so I ended up with personal curb-to-curb service. Fab! Thanks Lennon! And then up to my room, which I knew I’d be spending almost no time in, so I snapped a quick photo, just so I’d remember it.

Within 15 minutes of arriving, ICAN’s amazing Webmaster, Melissa Collins, was at my room. It is SO COOL to meet people in person, when you’ve been practically attached at the hip for months on end. We had just completed the initial phase of the redesign, revamp, and relaunch of ICAN’s website, which basically involved insane hours, all-nighters, and lightning-fast IMing fingers. So finally getting to kick back and hang out live and in person was just awesome, and worth the price of admission all by itself.

Right about the time my stomach started growling, Melissa pointed out the Cheesecake Factory across the street, so we headed out for a dinner/business meeting (who knew that Thai lettuce wraps could inspire so much creative geek thinking?). Two and a half hours and a very full tummy later, I got back to my room and passed out, knowing that that was the last solid sleep I was going to get for a few days. And I was so right…

Tags: ICAN, Trust_Birth, Trust_Birth_Conference

Over at The Cleaner Plate Club (sure as heck not by way of most mainstream media channels, sigh), I found this piece on the New York Times op-ed, My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables), by a farmer, Jack Hedin, who wanted to grow vegetables that could be sold at local farmers’ market. And was blocked by the government, who, you know, is here to protect you.

This led over to The Crunchy Chicken, who is so outraged she’s resorted to terms like “grinding my crackers”. Gotta love that. Also gotta love that she’s created clickable banners with which to encourage your readership to go do something about this. Here’s the code:

<a href=”http://crunchychicken.blogspot.com/2008/03/fix-farm-bill.html”> <img src=”http://bp0.blogger.com/_8ndgSYbdkZ0/R8ub_doK2GI/AAAAAAAABGk/Igsn3VHPWRA/S1600-R/FarmBill.jpg” alt=”Fix the Farm Bill”/></a>

…which will send people to her blog, where there’s a lovely sample letter to send to one’s Congresspeople, and links to several other letters as well.

So go out and do something good for your plate today.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-02/compassion-cure

Check it out. Not only can they screw with our births, not only can they damage our kids, but then they can freaking MAKE MONEY OFF IT LATER when they figure out that ARTIFICIALLY DOSING OUR KIDS with a hormone OUR BODIES PRODUCE AT BIRTH FOR OUR BABIES can help fix what should never have been broken in the first place.

I‘m thrilled for those for whom this is a cure, a help, an assistance. And utterly terrified at what this says for the growing number of women and babies whose natural process is being willfully tampered with.

Profit, profit, profit all around. And all the costs to us.

Fuckers.

UPDATE: Angela tells me this wasn’t clear enough, so let me expand on precisely why I’m upset. Oytocin is flooded into a woman’s system with the end of 2nd stage labor. So the mother and the baby are both just swimming in the stuff. That’s why bonding is such a big deal; there’s a chemical peak of oxytocin in both their systems at the moment of vaginal delivery. Dianne Wiessinger speaks and writes extensively about this, from her background as a biologist, if you want to go look it up.

That entire mechanism is nonexistent in a cesarean.

Neither the woman nor the baby get oxytocin in a cesarean. Jostling the mother, having lights on, pretty much EVERYTHING involved in cesarean delivery stops the mammalian brain from producing oxytocin. This is why if you mess with a birthing cat, for example, she will abandon the kittens. If the oxytocin isn’t there, bonding becomes an intellectual rather than emotional/biochemical exercise. It’s also a fact that the rise in autism completely parallels the rise in surgical/medically managed births (as does violence in a culture. Michel Odent is your source for this tidbit.) So the very idea that they can force women into (profitable for them) cesareans, that mess with the oxytocin delivery, and then make those same women pay for artificial oxytocin to help heal the babies they themselves damaged…infuriating.