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.

Over the last extremely stressful year, I’ve been exploring my personal spirituality a lot. There are no atheists in foxholes, the saying goes, and I kinda roll with that. Frankly, I almost have to believe that, because of some of the things that I’ve seen happen to other moms, and that have happened to me.

Almost a year ago, the marvelous Dana gave me a mala bracelet made of bodhi seeds. It’s fabulous and I love how it feels in my hands, but it’s too big to wear and the elastic gave up pretty rapidly. So Dana bought me another bracelet, and brought it to me right before Aurora’s birth. At first I thought it was just a nice pattern on the beads, but on closer reflection, discovered that the carvings are tiny Madonnas.

As I’ve posted before, I’m not a Catholic. Not even close. I resent the idea that an institution thinks they can come between me and my personal relationship with the Divine. So la.

My aunt Marla, before she died, surrounded herself with latin images of the Madonna. I miss Marla hugely; I think we might have had a lot to talk about once we were both mothers. Sadly, she did not live to see my children. But I think of her all the time; when I see the film Dune, when I hear David Bowie, when I see Madonnas.

I refer to Mary a lot in my birth advocacy work. If you point out that Christ was born unassisted in a horse barn, suddenly modern home birthing looks pretty slick. And also classical. I’ve seen a lot of devout Christians do a 180 on their ideas about homebirth once this fact is mentioned. Mary is therefore my own personal patron of why homebirth works. When I see her, I think of women’s power in birthing.

To some degree, all mothers touch the Divine. You can’t be this much a part of the dance of birth, death, and everything in between and not be in touch with something bigger than yourself. Sometimes, it’s just because it’s all so overwhelming you have to have someone to hand it over to; the responsibility for it all is just too crushing otherwise. In that way, all mothers are to some degree the Madonna. I do recognize that some women reject that role entirely. But I also see women all around me who step up to the plate and embrace the sort of growth that motherhood can bestow upon you if you let it.

So on days where it’s too big, it’s too crazy, it’s too amazing, it’s too humbling, I wear my Mama Mala, I thumb through the beads, and I think of all the Madonnas I know.

La Leche League founder Edwina Froehlich died last Sunday. She was 93.
I am completely devastated. Edwina pretty much embodied everything I admire in an activist. And also proved that even if you come late to your passion, you can change the world.

My favorite article about her, so far, is the Chicago Tribune piece. Some tidbits:

In the 1940s, Mrs. Froehlich witnessed her older sister Pauline go through what were then standard hospital childbirth procedures: plenty of drugs, the use of forceps and no fathers allowed, said another son, state Rep. Paul Froehlich (D-Schaumburg). Her sister also was discouraged from breast-feeding.

“That experience led mom to seek a better way,” Paul Froehlich said.

Newspapers would not run stories or meeting notices that included the word “breast,” so the group used the Spanish word for milk, “leche,” for its name.

How fabulous is that? Smack into some stupid arbitrary rule, and work around it creatively. See what’s wrong with the world, and change it. Some other fun bits from the New York Times piece:

Edwina Froehlich,… was inspired to help found La Leche League to support breast-feeding after being told at the age of 35 that she was too old to make breast milk for her baby…

A pioneer on several fronts of motherhood, she worked for Young Christian Workers, a Roman Catholic lay organization, before marrying John Froehlich when she was in her early 30s. She had her first child a couple of years later, making her comparatively old to have a first child at the time, and she made the controversial decision to forgo giving birth in a hospital in favor of a more natural delivery in her Franklin Park, Ill., home, with an obstetrician attending.

“We used to tell the mothers the three main obstacles to successful breast-feeding were doctors, hospitals and social pressure,” Mrs. White said.

It is so hard to be an “older” mother. It’s so hard to stand up when the world wants to shame you for doing what’s biologically appropriate in birthing and feeding your offspring. Having had a cesarean with my first baby, and feeling that breastfeeding was at least something I could do right, it’s because of Edwina’s work that I was able, 2.5 weeks out from that cesarean, to participate in the Berkeley, CA Guinness World Record Breastfeeding event. It healed a lot of the “broken” feelings I was working through. Breastfeeding has also been a really good arena for me to use in my birth activism work, to show mothers how very wrong doctors can be about very basic things.

But at the time Edwina and her six cohorts (Marian Tompson, Mary White, Mary Ann Cahill, Mary Ann Kerwin, Viola Lennon, and Betty Wagner) got started with LLLI, breastfeeding in America was down to 20% of women. It’s not a whole lot better now, but without them to hold back the tide, who knows how much harder it might have been for me to get the support and encouragement I needed for this critical aspect of mothering?

So thank you, Edwina, for standing up for what you believed in, and making it that much easier for me to do so as well. You’ll be missed.

A while back, before I had her permission to post, I wrote “Triumph” about Shaye’s birth. On Brighton’s one-month birthday, she’s now published the full birth story. It doesn’t show up well in firefox, so use IE. And prepare to be amazed. A few of my personal fave bits:

• The look on her face after surgery, compared to the look after Brighton’s birth
• The fact that her husband went on the radio to ask for pilots to fly them to a birth place! What a guy! You go, Lee!
• Her discussion of fear-based living, at the end. Woah.

Way to go, Shaye. I am so so so proud of you, and of what you’ve accomplished. What a beacon of hope, what a trailblazer, to all the other women who are stuck where you were, and not sure how to get out. Because you did it, they’ll be able to see a path as well.

My friend S gave birth today. Her little boy came into this world surrounded by family, touched first by people who love him, quietly, smoothly, beautifully. The details of the story are hers to tell, and hopefully I’ll be honored enough to link to them sometime soon.

Four months ago, S believed she could not have this kind of birth. She’d had two cesareans. She lived in a state where midwifery is illegal. Her best option was to resign herself to planning the best cesarean possible.

But S is strong. And she asked questions. A lot of questions. And in three short months, pulled together a birth plan that involved things like respect, and privacy, and having her two other children present. It also involved driving across entire states, and finding midwives who viewed two prior cesareans as a failure of the system, not a failure of S’s body. And it involved S and her husband having the faith, and the strength, and the endurance, and the foresight, to question an entire paradigm that was pushing on them harder than it pushes on most people, throwing up barriers that stop most people from getting the birth they want.

So when I tell you that her birth was completely without incident, that it all went off without a hitch, and that today, S is not a recovering surgical patient, she’s a woman who claimed her power and changed everything by sheer determination, those of you who daily see what the birth machine does to women in this country will understand why I got off the phone with her, and cheered and danced around and cried a little and did it all again some more. Such a small thing, such a simple birth, such a miracle that it ever got the chance to happen like it did.

So here’s to S, her husband, and their family. Yours is the story that tells me there’s hope of being able to topple the birth machine. You had your normal, quiet birth against insane odds, despite stupid laws, around ridiculous constraints. But you did it. And nothing will ever stop you ever again.

UPDATE: Shaye’s birth story is now live, here.

So here I am, over halfway. In our culture, for the first baby, you spend all your time panicking about the unknown of it all. In my case, I spent my second pregnancy wholly focused on the event of the birth, which was a planned HBAC, and came with all the challenges inherent to that. But with this baby, I have achieved an odd sort of calm. People keep shaking their heads at me.

It’s uncool, apparently, to be pregnant and non-dramatic about it. Apparently, despite the fact that I feel great, that I’m gaining normally, that baby is kicking around in there, I’ve got my midwife and my birth plans (including a full emergency backup plan) all dialed in, I am supposed to be freaking out about something.

There’s plenty to freak out about, if I felt like it. Birth isn’t all that safe an event, no matter where it happens. I could worry about shoulder dystocia, I could worry about stillbirth, meconium in the water, aspiration, short cord, breech. Last time labor was 38 hours, this one might be longer. Or, it might be supershort! I could fret about the fact that I’m older, so birth defects of some kind are more likely than they were before (although according to the Powers That Be, I’ve been a geriatric mother for five years already, LOL!). It’s true; this baby could have autism, CP, spina bifida, or a whole host of other things that people are born with. We’ll face that if it becomes necessary.

But you know… there’s nothing wrong with a little hope, is there? Must it always be about impending disaster?

It makes me sad that the American Culture of Fear has so pervaded the American Culture of Birth, that the fact that my simple statements that I feel great, baby’s doing great, and the birth is gonna be great, have people thinking I’m somehow naive or oblivious.

I spent Kestrel’s pregnancy reading everything. I mean everything. I am under absolutely no illusions about what could happen. I know that babies die. I know that mothers die. I’ve faced it, internalized it, accepted it, and… here’s the kicker… I am now moving past it.

In 14 weeks or so, I’m having a baby. And like everything else in this life, there are factors I can control, and factors I cannot, and I am going to meet them with the most joy, and the most faith, and the most love, I possibly can. Everything else is a waste of my energy; energy I could put to use growing this baby. So that’s what I’m doing.

I haven’t had a good solid birth rant in a while. Sometimes, the Universe conspires to set me up for one, though.

Night before last, my fabulous pal Jessica invited me to a showing of The Business of Being Born, being hosted by UrbanCrunchyMama. I was really excited to be there, since other ICAN women had been seeing it, hosting screenings, and generally talking it over for a while, and I was looking forward to forming my own opinions.

More on those opinions in a bit.

We got back late, and while I was still reeling, the next day, working on this very blog post, the CDC released the preliminary statistics for cesareans in the US in 2006 (pdf).

Days like this, I wish alcohol was an option. Days like this, I wonder if the stress to the baby I’m gestating is worse than the impact of the glass of chardonnay I could hear calling to me.

31.1%, my friends. I can’t even type that without crying. 31.1% of babies in this country are ripped out of their mothers through an act of major abdominal surgery. More than one woman in three has this damned scar on her belly. And that’s an average. In some states (pdf) , it’s far higher. And you know what really sucks? Those numbers are still, even, low. In some states, cesareans for multiples (twins, triplets, etc.) are not included.

I am not even going to try to be balanced and rational about it at this point. If you want balanced and rational, stop reading.

Nothing has changed suddenly in the last 15 years about American womens’ pelvises. The only thing that has changed is malpractice insurance, and physician arrogance. Oh yeah, and women’s compliance. We just walk right in, when we find out we’re pregnant, we find an OB, and we let that person tell us what to do, because we have this blind, naive, stupid idea that they have our best interest in mind.

I just recently heard the story of a woman whose doctor told her that her baby was in distress, and not a few minutes later, overheard the nurses talking about how what was really happening was that the doctor had a new wife who demanded that he be home for dinner promptly at 6PM.

31.1 fucking percent. Women cut. Babies cut. Women and babies dying (pdf). Families disrupted. Biology disrupted. And oh, how the money rolls in to the pockets of the hospitals. I hope the shareholders are fucking happy, safely counting their earnings, drowning in blood and pain they never touch. How many Americans are enrolled in a 401(k) that includes shares in Kaiser or any of the other big “health” organizations? Go check your plan. Do it now.

So meanwhile, back to Business of Being Born…

I forget, sometimes, because I am so immersed in the politics of birth, how far I’ve come in the last five years. I was trying hard to keep my cynical mouth shut, with fairly limited success.

I found the portrayals of the births themselves to be fantastic. Women at home, moving, vocalizing, whining, complaining; doing all the things that real women really in labor do. The midwife had filmed her own birth, and she was the biggest whiner of the lot; a fact she admitted with no small degree of humor. I found myself indulging in some equally funny memories of my own homebirth, and chuckling.

It was really really nice to hear other people saying what we say in ICAN all the time, and get branded as being “bitter, hysterical, angry women” over; that American birth is dangerous, pathological, and all about the cash flow. That the lithotomy position is evil. That birth is a natural bodily function. That OBs are surgeons with no training in normal birth. That most medical professionals have never seen a normal birth. That when you start in with interventions, you are playing with mechanisms that are poorly understood, and that nothing good comes of it. A few times, I flat-out applauded.

I have to say though, that while the film is a great start, I am wildly disappointed by the end. And again, maybe that’s just because of where I am, and who I know, and how immersed I am in the whole birth thing. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, basically despite everything she’s seen in making the film, the director (Abby) opts for a classic American McPregnancy, early ultrasounds, OB care, the whole enchilada, and ends up with an emergency cesarean for a breech baby. Oh sure, there are some other complications, and I suspect that we’ll never know the whole story, nor should we necessarily have the right to. But what women are going to take away is that cesarean for breech is acceptable, and it isn’t.

Breech birth is a variation of normal. It has a few special techniques involved, that require some additional training to be able to manage correctly. But instead of simply acquiring that training, midwives who practice more in the medical model, and obstetricians, simply declare breech to be an automatic cesarean, and that’s that. I know a lot of very dedicated women (I’m talking about you, Christie!) who have dedicated themselves to fighting back the tide on this one, and Abby’s inclusion of this debacle in the film sets them all back, and hard.

One step forward, two steps back. Good news, a film about the insanity of American birth culture is getting attention. Bad news, it ends with an unnecessary cesarean. Good news, people are talking. Bad news, they’re talking about how great it is that Abby and her baby were saved. I could beat my head against the wall.

Abby was one of those 31.1 percent of women, cut in 2006. Face to the statistic. Just one out of so very many.

My pal Kimberly over at Trial of Labor just tagged me with a bunch of homebirth questions. So hey, whatever gets me back at the page and blogging, right? Thanks Kimberly!

Here are her questions:

1. Have you considered homebirth as an option for labor and delivery with a previous/upcoming birth?
2. Why did you (or did you not) consider homebirth?
3. What do you see as the major advantages for homebirth, and what are your justifications?
4. What do you see as the major obstacles for homebirth?
5. Is your (was your) partner “on board”?
6. If not, did discussions (and research on the part of your partner) help?

The story of Kestrel’s birth covers most of that.

It’s so so so strange to me that this discussion even needs to happen. Just three generations ago, homebirth was the norm, and now it’s this freakish thing. The first American president not born at home was Jimmy Carter. Hospital birth is a recent phenomenon, and I really want to know how The Machine managed to destroy thousands of years of wisdom in a few short generations. Chilling, isn’t it? I wrote a post, which was actuall a letter to the Midwifery Board of California, here. That also addresses a lot of how I feel about questions one, two, and three.

Oh, the doubters say, but women died back then. Hello, read the news? Women are dying now. America’s birth statistics are apalling.

As far as partners being on board; I had some pretty gnarly PPD after the cesarean, and Jason was far more terrified that he’d be stuck with that woman for the rest of his life than he was worried about a homebirth outcome. Wise man that he is, he saw the homebirth of our second baby as his last, best hope of reclaiming his pre-cesarean wife. Turns out, he was totally right, and is now a pretty staunch advocate for the rights of birthing women, and the rightness of birthing at home.

I also wrote a post over at Life Without School, about the impacts of homebirth on older siblings, and knowing what I know now, I find the whole idea of removing your older children from the birth environment pretty abhorrent. No wonder siblings have issues, when they’re removed from the primary bonding loop. Families are birthed, not just babies, and the older kids are part of that family.

I could babble on, but I’ll stop there. Birth belongs at home.

This is Teresa’s journey to HWBA3C. And while I like birthstories, and read them from time to time, this picture montage of her entire journey has had me sobbing in joy each and every time I watch it.

http://www.onetruemedia.com/otm_site/view_shared?p=2a4e81fbf0f66accb8afce

I showed it to one non-parent friend of mine, who said she was utterly unmoved. I find myself wondering if I’ve changed so much, that this impacts me so hard. Let me know what you all think.