by MotherWit | Jan 21, 2010 | Uncategorized
MotherWit had a wonderful meeting tonight. Though we didn’t have a huge turnout (not unusual in mid January), the feeling was great, and the parents who had come for information left feeling informed, nurtured, and calmed. But what made them feel this way was not just the presence of 5 great doulas, but the presence of the new parents. We had the pleasure of having a few couples come with their older babies, and it was they who provided answers to the questions, and they who gave the basic message “hey, we were where you are, clueless and scared, and here we are now, confident and happy.” There was a particular moment when a mother with her six month old baby said to the terrified, expecting mother “I was petrified when I got pregnant with Emily. I even asked Lesley if labour was going to feel like torture. And you know what? I ended up giving birth naturally!” Now what could possibly be more reassuring than that? Nothing I could say as a professional could resonate so deeply as this message.
I’m seeing part of my mission as a doula in healing a wounded birth culture is not just going to the births and helping to create good outcomes, but bringing people together so the ones who come out of it feeling like the rock stars they SHOULD feel like, can tell the ones sitting scared, “you know what? No matter what, you’re gonna be a rock star too! If I can do it, so can YOU.”
Our birth culture is hungry for new stories. No more should women who are contemplating a natural birth be met with the voices of resistance, “are you CRAZY? Why would you not go into the hospital as soon as it hurts and get ‘your’ epidural?” Can you imagine instead the impact upon a woman with a fledgling hope for a natural birth in a hospital hearing from a new mother, “Honey, of course you can give birth naturally. I did!”? We don’t get these stories very often out of hospital birthing moms. But we are starting to more and more as doulas help to contribute to better birth outcomes, simply by honouring the mother’s space and reducing distractions, providing encouragement, reinforcing that all the mother is doing to help her body open is great. Messages from new mothers help to deepen that impact, and community grows. Healing spreads. Our stories reflect the healing. As a doula, I am a story keeper, and the more stories I have of beautiful births to share, the more women will believe, “hey, I can do this too!”
Here is how you can contribute to the healing…it’s not hard, and I encourage you and all your friends to share this message. When an expecting parent tells you they want to have a natural birth in a hospital, don’t fill them up with anything negative. Don’t say, “oh, it’s impossible to have a natural birth in a hospital!” Because you’d be dishonouring their choice to birth where they feel safest. Don’t tell them any horror stories about natural birth. I don’t think any of my readers here would do that, but if you are in the presence of someone else doing so, intervene with something healing and positive. Instead, fill them with stories of success. You will not be misleading them. Assume they are intelligent and know the benefits vs. the risks of their choices. Allow no horrific stories in the presence of a pregnant woman. It is not necessary as part of her education. Instead, reinforce the great design of her body. Tell her her round belly is beautiful!
Let’s let the expecting father know we trust he will know how to come through for his partner, that he will not be the dufus he thinks he’s going to be. When I hear my new daddies telling the daddies-to-be, “don’t be afraid. You are going to be amazed at how strong she is,” this gives them permission to embrace this process as a journey the couple will go through together. So many fathers feel like they’re going to be annoying sidekicks, and our culture really doesn’t give enough praise to the amazing job the vast majority of fathers do to support their women in labour. My husband was a 22 year old boy when we had our first baby, and there is no way I could have birthed without him, his intuition and trust in me keeping my path alight. Let us change the story that men don’t know how to handle birth. Even the ones who think it’s icky still can have a profoundly positive emotional impact. So let’s build them up instead of scaring them into thinking they’re going to barf and faint when they look between their spouses’ legs when the baby crowns.
I am tired now, and given to rambling when exhausted, so i will say good night, and go to bed happy, knowing there are a few more people in the world who have reclaimed a little of their motherwit about birthing.
by MotherWit | Jan 18, 2010 | Uncategorized
What a treat I received in the mail today! Maha Al Musa, creator and teacher of BellydanceBirth, and author of Dance of the Womb, contacted me a few weeks ago, telling me she enjoyed reading my blog on “Control”. She asked if she could possibly quote part of it in her classes. After chatting by email a few times, we realized we shared many of the same views about birth. She was so kind in sending me a copy of her dvd, Dance of the Womb. I had the pleasure of being able to take a couple of hours to sit and enjoy it in total.
I have always naturally gravitated towards belly dancing, embracing it as a magic we women can use to create with our sacred hips patterns that help us connect to our ancestral memories and process things in our lives. Maha uses this ancient art of belly dancing to help women create flexibility and strength in pregnancy,to provide a wonderful, effective tool to work through the intensity of labour contractions, and as a valuable way of facilitating easier dilation and birth.
It is a very thorough dvd, so either you can study it as if you were doing a workshop with Maha, following it all in one go, or by chapter, perhaps studying one chapter per day. If you choose to study it in spurts, definitely do the warm up exercises before each time, as they feel SO good!
Dance of the Womb is a JOY to follow. As you learn how to emulate with your hips the sacred patterns of the circle, the spiral, the figure eight, the “cervix dance” (which is subtle, but very powerful), the chest movements and dances of the hands and arms, you connect to a beautiful fluidity. There is one point where Maha, gloriously pregnant at the age of 46, demonstrates the wide hip circle while leaning against a chair. If you have witnessed birth, you will resonate with how universal this dance is, as so many women, if you leave them to their own devices, will feel their thought processes slow and their bodies release, naturally swaying their hips to the timeless rhythm that is Birth. While we cannot control our births, Maha helps us to tune into our innermost selves and use our bodies and breath to help manage the intensity of labour.
There was a small part of me which wished, for a little moment, that I could give birth again just to be able to consciously and joyfully bellydance throughout labour! That won’t be happening any time soon, but I did actually receive a great benefit…my mid back, which has been bothering me for days, felt a lot better after doing the chest circles. As she freely caresses her pregnant belly with her hands and massages her baby with her dancing hips, Maha is a vision of fullness and beauty. But the movements come from such a natural, intuitive place, that she makes every woman feel like they can do it too, regardless of how much “technique” they are worried about lacking. Perfection is not important here..what is emphasized is feeling good while doing it..and it does feel good!
Maha narrates the dvd and gives the instructions in a very soothing voice with her cute Australian accent and allows viewers ample time to play with the movements, allowing us to go more deeply into the hypnotic music that reflects her Middle Eastern roots. Her words are nourishing. They heal us of our doubts about our abilities to give birth. Our hips, bellies, and wombs, designed with perfection, can bring our babies down and out without much help from our minds. By practising Bellydance for Birth, you can get a glimpse of what that magical endorphin/oxytocin suffused labour trance feels like, which transports us to a place where anything, even bringing forth life, is possible.
Maha treats us at the end of the dvd to an interview with the two midwives who attended the homebirth of her baby girl, interspersed with images and video clips of her labouring and giving birth. What I appreciate about these clips is that it is clear there is no promise that Belly Dancing for Birth makes labour “easy” or “painless”. Maha and the midwives do not shy away from discussing the reality of pain in childbirth, speaking of it as normal and life giving. We get to see Maha challenged by contractions, and using the Bellydance to help manage the intense energy of the contractions, and releasing tension through movement and breath. We see her allow herself to freely release emotions to help keep the progression of labour going smoothly, and even get to witness as one of her midwives bellydances close to her, as if to share some of the burden, in a beautiful display of purely feminine commiseration.
If you are pregnant and searching for a way to prepare for childbirth, creating space and fluidity in the body and mind is essential, through the practice of BellyDanceBirth and/or Prenatal Yoga. These tools are FAR more important than learning how to look at a clock to “diagnose” your labour progress. Learning how to let go of our big think-y brains and breathe, moan, and dance away our labour tensions are valuable lessons. If you are a professional who works with pregnant and birthing women, Maha Al Musa will be giving trainings in instruction on BellydanceBirth, the Al Musa method, in the near future. I am happy to report that Maha and I are discussing a potential workshop in Montreal next year. So please visit Maha at http://www.bellydanceforbirth.com/ to keep abreast of trainings and goings on.
Thanks, Maha!
Lesley
by MotherWit | Jan 16, 2010 | Uncategorized
Today is my daughter Oona’s 12th birthday. I am reposting this blog in honour of her exhilarating and magical birth. Enjoy.
On the eve of my third child’s birthday, I feel moved to write out her birth story. Oona is my second daughter, and in the wee hours of the morning, she will be 11 years old.
Oona’s pregnancy felt different from the others. My first trimester nausea was quite intense, and I had a lot of food cravings. I used to HATE cilantro with a passion. If it was in anything that arrived in a restaurant, I’d be unable to eat it. With Oona’s pregnancy, I craved it, and it now remains one of my favourite tastes. I wanted lots of bitter greens with apple cider vinegar dressing. Green apples were appreciated too. And bacon. Oh, sweet bacon. The only time I didn’t feel nauseated was when I ate bacon. Boy, did that ever make my family happy, because it’s not a food we eat a lot of! I also craved the occasional sour peach candy, which, to this day, is Oona’s favourite sweet. I had an aversion to clothing, so in the morning my kids would laugh because they’d see a heap of all my clothes beside my favourite chair and thought it was hilarious I’d sit there bare naked at night. I had a lot of fatigue…a really deep feeling of tired in my bones. It was hard to get things done. But otherwise, everything went well. My son weaned at 3.5 years, claiming the milk tasted yucky, on condition that I knew he was planning to start up again once the “real” milk came in when the baby was born. He let go of that idea a week before she was born, which made me relieved, because I spent a couple years tandem nursing, and it’s not easy.
I am so grateful for this birth, as it healed so much for me as a woman. My first birth was lovely. a homebirth that went beautifully, though the second stage was extremely challenging, my daughter deciding to come out star gazing. I had to squat for 3 hours, intermingled with belly dancing, to get her down and out. My second child, my first boy, was even more challenging. Also occiput posterior, I experienced back labour I didn’t have with my first. Back labour, for lack of a better word, sucks. The labour was a couple days long, far harder to cope with in terms of pain, discouraging because I was stuck at 5 cm for over 12 hours (which I know is not that long compared to some I’ve seen, but for me it is one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life) and I ended up being asked by my midwife to transfer to the hospital, where I birthed naturally a few hours later. That birth left me feeling discombobulated, like there were some physical and emotional issues I needed to explore, saddened at how profoundly those things, in my case, affected the birth of my beautiful son.
Oona is six and a half years younger than my first child, and 4 years younger than my second. The choice to birth at home was a no brainer. Homebirth was not legal at this time in Quebec, but I knew a very skilled and experienced midwife who was committed to providing this service to those who wanted it, and for her, I am deeply grateful. I had no ultrasounds, ate a supremely healthy diet to correct some blood sugar fluctuations I had, which were discovered by my midwife, as I did no glucose tolerance testing. I was in a great space emotionally, and felt well surrounded by a loving community of women friends. I had become aware of the principles of optimal fetal positioning, and made sure I didn’t slump backwards while sitting, as was my usual habit. I was also reading and doing the yoga exercises in the late Jeanine Parvati Baker’s book on prenatal yoga. In late pregnancy, it felt great to squat, so I did this a lot when my baby felt well positioned. I was studying psychosynthesis psychotherapy at the time, and was doing a lot of guided imagery work, as well as working hard on old emotional patterns I wanted to transform.
I did this work because I wanted to prepare for the potential for another long hard birth. I wanted to know that if it was as hard as the one before, I’d have the tools to get through it as gracefully as possible. I also received some osteopathic bodywork, which I feel really helped contribute to aligning my body to make contractions more efficient.
One thing I felt was crucial to my birthing was embracing it as a spiritual, as well as a physical/emotional process. I wanted to make that expression more intentional, so I asked my women friends to have a ceremony for me, a Blessingway, in which we sat in a circle, sang songs,and attached ourselves together with yarn to symbolize our sisterhood of birthing women(which was cut so each of us wore a yarn bracelet…the ladies wore them in support of me, and were to cut them off when the baby was born). We shared the most precious moments of our births with each other to create really positive energy, and I was massaged and given gifts of power objects to put around the house to help me remember my strength and power as a birthing woman, knowing I was connected in love to my sisters. I received things I still have today, and am so grateful for them all. Melissa gave me a poem about birth which still moves me to tears when I read it. Vanessa gave me a pair of big smiling lips on a little pedestal she fashioned out of fimo clay, and told me to remember, “loose lips means loose bottom.” Brigitte gave me some worry beads, Rachel, a mother of twins she didn’t know were twins until the second baby came out, gave me a beautiful drinking glass to remind me we all symbolically drink from the same cup as we are called to the dance of Birth. Heather gave me the thing I think I used the most in Oona’s birth, which was a note card on which she had written birth affirmations, given to her by her midwife Gloria Lemay. The one that resonated most with me was “contractions are healthy for me and my baby.” Because, as many of you know, it can be easy to forget when the going gets tough. I received other things too, all of them carefully placed around my home.
About a week before Oona was born, I had a very strong aversion to leaving the house much. I felt a little fearful going too far. I was obsessed with keeping things clean, so I spend a lot of time keeping on top of the mess a family of 4 and a big dog can make. I also had a home job doing data entry for a newspaper, as I wasn’t going to be able to attend births for awhile. The day before Oona was born, my husband had plans to see a band play at Barfly, a bar/venue not far from where we lived. I really didn’t want him to go, because I just had this feeling I wanted him home. I normally never have any problems with him going out for a few hours with a friend, but I really hadn’t wanted him to leave. He reassured me, though, saying he had his pager, he was literally a 5 minute walk away, he wouldn’t be going until the kids were already asleep, and would not be drinking alcohol. Except for a sink full of dishes, the house was cleaned to within an inch of its life, and I still had a bunch of data entry work to do anyway. So, even though I was grumpy about it, he went.
From about 11pm until 3am, I spent most of my time squatting on a chair in front of the computer, trying to finish up my work. We were a family of night owls. Our kids were home schooled, and both of us had jobs that were flexible with time, so we didn’t need to get up early. I was having some intermittent waves of cramping, nothing that made me feel like the baby was coming then, though it made me think I would probably be having a baby in a few days. The weirdest thing was that I was having hot flashes every few minutes. They were intense sensations, but I rather enjoyed them, because they were different. I figured my hormone levels were getting quite ready to have a baby soon. After I finished working, I left my perch on the chair, and went to have a bath with some nice oils. I completely relaxed in there, and practised some deep breathing. All the hot flashes and cramping were gone, and I felt wonderful, ready for bed. Because I took an oily bath and was a nest-y pregnant woman, I scrubbed out the oil residue in the bath with baking soda to make sure nobody would slip in it the next day. Then I went to bed. While I turned back the covers (because when I’m pregnant and ONLY when I’m pregnant, my bed is perfectly made when I’m not in it), I had a strange flash on an image of a really happy little nine month old baby crawling on the kitchen floor. I figured I was really tired.
As I relaxed into a doze, my husband came home. I heard him go to the computer to check his email. Then I had a contraction. A BIG contraction. I looked at the bedside clock: 3:45am. Phew, I thought. I put it out of my mind and tried to get back to sleep. A couple minutes later, the same thing, and then it happened again. I got up and announced to my husband I was in labour. “oh, so you think the baby will be here by tomorrow night?” I thought, given my birthing history, he was jumping the gun a little, but I said, “yeah, possibly.” I had another contraction which made me need to focus and breathe and I said, “oh, I am so NOT in the mood to be in labour! I’m so tired, and just want to go to bed!” My husband, who is really good at distracting me with humour if I’m annoyed, got me into a better space. We were in bed, me on my hands and knees, he sitting beside me, giggling. I would have contractions that made me need to stop, rock my hips, and follow my breath, but nothing I would call painful. He did point out that he was surprised how close together the waves were coming.
I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom, as my body was trying to create maximum space for the baby, and on the way started shaking uncontrollably, feeing really cold. I noticed I was bleeding a little, which assured me that I was definitely in labour. Up until then, I still wasn’t sure. The contraction on the toilet made me emit a sound that alerted my husband…a mixture of a whimper and a yell. He came running in. “I KNOW that sound!” he said. “I’m calling Vanessa!” Vanessa was a dear friend I had chosen to help support me in labour. But Vanessa was not answering. The next day we discovered that even though she had been sleeping by the phone, she had not gotten the repeated calls because of a wire problem. Mitchell started getting stressed, because he was worrying about the kids waking up with nobody there to hang out with them while I laboured. He tried our next door neighbour and good friend Rachel. No reply! It turned out later that as he was trying to call her, she was receiving a fax from France. I could hear him running around muttering curses under his breath at the fact that nobody was answering their phones.
I went into our office where he was sitting and said, “Call the midwife.” He asked, “REALLY? Are you sure you want her to come now?” I said that she absolutely should come, because it was feeling hard to cope, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle such a long labour without some support. Given we couldn’t get touch with my appointed doulas, I just wanted her there. Mitchell dialled and handed the phone to me, but there was no way I could talk to her. I just said, “tell her I feel the baby really low.” He hung up and said she was on her way, and I had a huge contraction that made me almost drop to my knees except that Mitchell was behind me and held me up so I was in a supported squat. I felt like I had to push, which was ridiculous, because I was having a long birth. I told Mitchell everything was just far too heavy, and that I was going to hop in the shower to get a handle on myself. It wasn’t that I was in a lot of pain. The contractions were totally manageable. It’s just that they were really STRONG, and fast. It was hard to catch my breath, and I was afraid I was going to burn out, given that I was going to be having a long birth and all.
In the shower, I felt fantastic. I just allowed the massive waves to roll over me. They made me bellow, “Oh…my…GGGOOOOOOOOOODDD!!!!!!!” with a growly grunt at the end of them. I was not suffering, just thinking this was awfully strong pretty quick, and that I was being a bit dramatic considering I was just beginning labour. I was chanting to myself, “Labour is healthy for me and my baby, labour is healthy for me and my baby.” and laughing, because it was so crazy. I started to feel a little faint from the heat, so I hopped out. As I walked towards the bed, I had one contraction I will remember for the rest of my life. It was huge, and painful. It filled me with a vision in my mind of wanting an ambulance to come and run over me to knock me out in a way that wouldn’t do any harm to my baby and me, so we could wake up and the birth would all be over, Baby safe in my arms. Just one contraction of abject desperation. I got onto the bed on my hands and knees, and the next contraction alerted me to the fact that I was indeed having the baby. Not hours later at supper time, but NOW.
I saw a little naked child run past my vision into the bathroom, and then she came out. I begged her, “Kayleigh, Mummy is going to push out the baby, and I’m SO thirsty! Please get me some water.” So she did. She assured me that my son Misha was okay. He had heard me yelling and had been scared, but Kayleigh, big six year old she was, assured him that it was just Mom having the baby and that everything was okay (Kayleigh had witnessed a couple labours before). He was apparently hiding with his head under the covers. Mitchell had gone out of the room, still trying to call people. I told him to start warming the baby blankets in the oven. The next contraction, I was clearly pushing uncontrollably, no pain anymore whatsoever. I got a teensy bit afraid for a moment, thinking, “the baby is coming with no midwife here. What if something happens?” But I have a guide who seems to come to me when things are chaotic birth-wise in my life, usually professionally. But the voice was here just for me. In my right ear it whispered, “you know, if the baby is coming this quickly, everything is fine.” I calmed right down. No fear, and no pain. I called my husband back in the room, and told him to forget the blankets and just to crank the heat in the bedroom, as it was mid January. I pushed, and my daughter went, “oh, here it is! Wait, it’s a big bubble!” My waters had not broken, and I was pushing out a big water filled balloon. The image of a giant bullfrog filled my mind. I also looked at the dishes in the kitchen through the bedroom door and thought, “ha, those ain’t never gonna get done now!” The next contraction I wanted the head out. There was no pain as she crowned into her water bag. By this point, I intuitively was just lying back against some pillows, which was most comfortable. I pushed a little to move the head out and it felt GREAT when she emerged. We watched a well positioned little baby fill the water bag. My husband looked into my eyes and said, “Lesley, you know about these things. What do I do?” I said, “oh, just catch her,” and then as her shoulder came out the water bag broke away in a bug rush of fluid, and there she was, pink and yelling. Healthy. Safe. Born into her father’s hands, and put right onto my belly, where we covered her up with lots of blankets. I looked at the clock. 4:28am. 43 minutes from the first labour contraction. We were over the moon. I was in shock. It’s over?! But it hardly even started! My husband was so excited, and so happy, “Oh my God, Les, you DID it..you DID it!”
The doorbell rang not long after and Mitchell ran to get it. While he was telling the midwife the baby was already born, Kayleigh asked me if it was a boy or a girl. Because it was so cold, I was in no hurry to unwrap the blankets and discover the baby’s sex. I was just enjoying the moment. I figured we’d wait until the midwife came in. She looked shocked to see us all there, and I started babbling in French about how fast it was, even though I usually struggle in French. She took a peek at the baby, and we discovered she was indeed a girl. The placenta was born, and after she had nursed for awhile, we cut the cord. I had not torn. My son Misha stomped into the room and said, “I didn’t want her to be born today, I didn’t want it to be a girl, and I didn’t want it to have brown hair!” and then he stomped out. We couldn’t help giggling. He came back in soon, though, drawing pictures for his new sister. We called our nephew Jeremy to tell him he had a new baby cousin, as we had promised he’d be the first to know. Then we called my mom, who was shocked at how fast it was.
When the midwife left, Mitchell went to crawl in with Misha to comfort him, and Kayleigh, the baby, and I tried to sleep, but we couldn’t. I told Kayleigh she could lie by the baby and love her all she wanted, that there would be plenty of time to sleep later.
The next morning, I had a dream, and awoke with the name “Oona” echoing in my mind. It was not a name we had considered, but in the dream I had flashed on a young woman I had met at party once. She was sitting crossed legged in the middle of a busy room, just serenely looking around. My friend asked her her name and she looked up at him with a sweet, beautiful Pixie face and said, “Oona.” My friend said, “indeed.” You know that feeling you feel when you’ve met an aptly named person? Well, my baby had this same fairy energy, and I announced her name to everyone. My husband said, “really? You want to call her that? We never talked about that name.” And I said, because I knew it would sway him, “it rhymes with Baboona.” That sold him. He snuggled her and called her his little Baboona, and we’ve never looked back. Oona is orginally “Oonagh”,and from the sources I looked at, it means “fair” as in beautiful, and “healer”. I learned later on that Oona is also Queen of the Fairies. I did not know that when I named her, though a more Fae child you would be hard pressed to find.
I buried Oona’s placenta by a tree in our back yard in the summer. She grew into a laughing, sweet, easy going brown eyed baby. She nursed well, but was always slow to gain weight. But she always thrived, and has always been healthy, so I just attribute it to her Fairy roots.
Our first year together was an intense love affair. We got off to such a beautiful start, and I swear my Babymoon didn’t wear off for months and months. My first baby was about my becoming a woman and a mother, about inspiring me to find my path. My second baby was about discovering incredible intuition, and bringing through a soul who was so familiar, I’ve known him forever. Oona, my third, showed me what my love looks like, and what the power of intention has the potential to create.
I made Oona a hazelnut torte with coffee buttercream filling and purple whipped cream surrounding the whole thing for her party. She has 4 friends over now for a sleepover. For a present, she wanted purple streaks in her hair. They look quite nice. She is a tiny little girl, a good head smaller than all her friends, who, at 11, are mostly taller than I am. She still loves to snuggle and spend time doing things with me. She loves to just hang out. And she is fierce. She can score four goals in a soccer game, and doesn’t let herself get walked over. I am a thoroughly blessed and happy mother. I am enjoying these last few years of precious childhood, because in the next couple of years, she will be transitioning into teenagehood, and I will probably not be as important in her world. And that is well and good. I know our foundation will bring us through anything.
Happy Birthday, Boo! I love you.
by MotherWit | Jan 15, 2010 | Uncategorized
Not to be controversial, but this is an issue that is brought to me all the time. Many sites, when talking about doulas, have listed as one of our jobs “aiding in creating a birth plan”. To be honest, I’m not such a big fan of birth plans. I have never found a great birth plan contributed to a great birth. I prefer to focus energy on helping a woman stay home, if appropriate, until she is in ACTIVE labour (which often doesn’t have everything to do with how far apart contractions are). A simple “thanks or no thanks” with a smile from her partner when options are presented by the hospital can suffice. That a woman wants to “go natural” is pretty obvious after a time.
Let me tell you my experience of birth plans. Occasionally, the staff will take the time it takes to read it, agree with what you are asking for, and do their best to respect it. Lots of times, they take it, read it, and then go to the nurses’ station and roll their eyeballs, saying, “Oh, great, she’s here with a BIRTH PLAN!”, and I don’t mean in a particularly friendly tone. I have even seen on more than one occasion a mother hand a birth plan to a doctor only to be told, “no, I don’t have time to read it. We treat everyone the same here.”
I think it’s important not to expect that all staff members will be happy you were a good consumer and made a birth plan in order to assist them in helping you how you want to be helped. I tell you this, because the importance of writing a plan is strongly emphasised in books and websites. Parents-to-be are often really hurt when their efforts, which they were encouraged to make by books and classes, are not met with enthusiasm. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having an outline telling people what you would like for your birth, and often even hospitals claim to encourage this. In theory. But in practice, I have seen a lot of strong reactions against them. Alas, more negative than positive. This is a surprising reality, but there you go.
I think these are some of the reasons:
1) When people download birth plan templates from the ‘net, they are sometimes quite long. And detailed. Given how incredibly busy Montreal nurses are, often taking care of 4 patients at a time, any other detail they’re asked to take care of is just another burden. While they’re not against having you be happy, the truth is that many of them feel a lot safer with you on epidural, constant monitoring, and synto, to control your contractions. Your ideas, though they will usually try to respect what you want, are contrary to their own beliefs about birth, as some truly can’t understand why you may not WANT to be monitored all the time, or not receive an epidural when you start getting louder than normal. A birth plan doesn’t change this belief, PLUS gives them more to do in reading it. It may be in your best interest to not risk making a nurse feel, without your intent, more overworked, as well as a bit defensive about the “list of demands”. True, we shouldn’t have to be responsible for others’ reactions when we are presenting something reasonably and with good intentions, but this is your birth….a potential environment of tension may not be a battle you want to fight in this instance.
2)Most of the things you mention are things most reasonably informed people want anyway, so the details of “I prefer to be mobile during labour” or “I don’t want an episiotomy unless necessary” become boring for them to read after awhile.
3)Some birth plans are so specific and long, that you may not be thought of as an informed consumer wanting to create the potential for the best outcome possible, but as potentially inflexible, which worries the staff. While the vast majority of couples would not argue with a serious medical decision, sometimes the staff get nervous that if you made this kind of “insurance” against interventions, you may object if they really have to jump in and do something to help you. Part of writing a birth plan may be about the element of fearing potential victimization. Some doctors and nurses get a little defensive wondering that you may be thinking you will be a potential “victim” of theirs, and it could make the room tense. The truth is, you are going in as a strong birthing woman, and worrying you are going to potentially be subjected to a bunch of procedures you don’t want is based upon fear. Fear makes you tighten up and doesn’t help labour. Okay, neither does plying you with intervention requests, but the former you actually have control over, the latter you don’t, birth plan or not. It just could be that going in calm, with the trust that even though there are many different ideas, all want the same: a healthy mom and baby, and that most human beings try to be basically respectful of each other, you may exude an energy that attracts dignified, and conscientious behaviour.
Now, I know some you anti-hospital people out there are shaking your heads at me, wanting to eradicate the “naivete” right out of me, but hear me out, remembering too that I am myself a home birther who attends mostly hospital births. I KNOW unwanted interventions are often done, and that we need to be aware of protecting our experience by refusing many interventions unless they’re truly medically called for, without being able to control negative reactions. I KNOW victimization happens. This is, sadly, a price women sometimes pay when they choose to birth where they want technology and medical people available in the instance of an emergency. Even knowing there may be challenges, women still DO choose to give birth in hospitals, and need real, practical advice. There are ways to try to create the friendliest environment possible. From what I’ve seen, putting the effort into a birth plan creates a risk of tension, and the less tension, the better. Not having one does not create automatic permission to be the recipient of every intervention under the sun.
4)The term “birth plan” is pretty close to oxymoronic (is that a word?), perhaps similar to “ordered chaos” or “friendly fire”. Writing a plan, obviously, in no way, shape, or form makes what you want or don’t want happen or not happen. Sometimes making sure you have support to make decisions you want, and going with the flow of your labour is better than worrying too much about potential resistance. We simply cannot control those who enter our space in a hospital, or our birth outcome, and I have not seen a birth plan create a better outcome or attitude because it existed. Coming to the hospital in such active labour that there’s no space to really discuss things is a better option (providing that is appropriate for your situation) because there is little time for more than a routine once over,never mind a big dialogue about preferences.
Hospital staff members have seen MANY birth plans, and there are mixed reactions when
you present them, from appreciation, to downright annoyance. So if you’re going to make one, know in advance that they won’t always be met with friendliness. I have even worked at a hospital which has you check off options you want for your care as a form of birth plan, and I swear they never look at them, because they always want to hook you up on a routine IV even if on their plan it requests you check off “IV” as an “option”. It is surprising how many things are paid lip service to in order to appear progressive ,even though when push comes to shove, they are not truly presented as “options”, but a part of a routine. So you create tension by refusing too. I’m not saying not making a birth plan will render everything fine and dandy, it just doesn’t seem to make a huge difference. If someone is really into making one, I support them in doing so.
If you do not make a birth plan, chances are, you’re going to be okay, as long as you know your options and make your choice when they’re presented. Remembering that you are the consumer, and that you are allowed to refuse interventions that are suggested to “speed things up” or “slow things down” or “lie this way” or “make pushing more efficient”, if those challenges come up. If you are feeling extremely mistrustful of the hospital environment, and feel like you are going to be terrified and fighting the whole time, then you should definitely explore the option of not giving birth there. There are alternatives to hospital birth, and tons of resources to help you with that decision. I personally felt like that, if I may share. I walked into the hospital where my doctor caught babies, and while I really liked her because she had let me grill her even with a load of pregnant ladies in her office and agreed to listening to my baby with a fetoscope instead Doppler, I had a deep, visceral reaction to the idea of being in labour there. I researched, and found home birth to be the best option for me. I did give birth in a hospital once, just near the end of the labour, and it was fine. My husband and midwife buffered any attitude that was presented, and besides, I was too far into labour land to notice. People may have told me how to push or in what position, I don’t remember. I just, in good confidence, lay on my side and gave birth, pushing in my own way. I have no particularly bad memories. I did not have a birth plan because being in the hospital was totally unplanned.
While I don’t think a detailed birth plan is necessary for a good birth, I do think having a couple of really special requests that you have spoken to your doctor about in advance is important, just in case your doctor isn’t at your birth (which is entirely possible). To get this in writing simply as something you and your doctor have agreed on may cut through any arguments. They may be things that are not regularly requested at all. For example, delaying the cutting of the umbilical cord, or requesting that your baby remains on you skin to skin for at least an hour after birth. Also, special circumstances should be mentioned. I had a client who had tragically lost her husband during her pregnancy. We made absolutely sure that with every changing shift, she would not be asked, “where is the baby’s father?”. Another mother who had had a double mastectomy asked in writing for people to not constantly ask her why she was not breastfeeding her baby. I would consider this more a “wish list”, which is friendly, as opposed to “birth plan”, which may be perceived as rigid, even IF it’s qualified by “providing all is well with my baby and me”.
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by MotherWit | Jan 13, 2010 | Uncategorized
I have a lot of gratitude today. Things are rough in the world. As Haiti is devastated by such tragedy, let us remember to hold a space in our hearts to direct healing and comfort to all those affected. I think of the mothers without their children, the babies without their parents, husbands without their wives…the sorrow is immeasurable.
Our own troubles often seem trivial in light of such disaster. Things have been a little sad here, as I process the passing of my friend, and discover that an important teacher in my life is very ill. As we get older, these things come to pass more and more. I am choosing to stay present and relish the joys.
I am obviously so grateful for my husband. I am grateful for being able to love and be loved by healthy, wonderful children, for my mother, my stepfather, my dad, sisters, my in-laws, nieces, nephews, friends, and teachers.
I was thinking today of how truly blessed I feel to be a doula. It’s not just about seeing a life unfurl and begin to thrive in the afterglow of a sacred birthing, but about the people I get to connect with. I am SO lucky to have the best clients in the world. I truly mean that from the bottom of my heart. I feel I have grown so much as a person by having had the privilege of hanging out with a wide array of human beings. I am honoured to have served people of all races and most nationalities. I have worked with Christians, Pagans, Muslims, Orthodox Jews and whatever else you can think of. I have attended straight women, Lesbians, single moms, women of size (or lack thereof), women with different physical and mental challenges, surrogate mothers, teenagers, ladies in their late 40’s, women having twins, couples having VBACS (several of them after more than one C-section), Women having their first babies to one having her 12th…I have worked with several women who themselves are doctors who catch babies, to women who I get to educate about the very basics of labour and birth. I have attended extremely wealthy folks, to refugees who have hardly anything to call their own and little support. I have seen breeches, twins, most of the challenges that arise in birth, teeny babies, indescribably huge babies, face up babies, and angel babies. I have seen babies born in homes, hospitals, birthing centres, and one almost in a parking lot (never in a car, funnily enough, though VERY close several times). They’ve been born in tubs, beds, on carpets, stairwells,operating tables, and over toilets. And all of them have been beautiful.
All of these wonderful beings have graciously welcomed me into their homes and into their lives to support them with their transitions into parenthood. I have witnessed such beauty, heard such stories and have felt so much love and appreciation for my work…but it is I who today am grateful for having the opportunity to love and support all of these people. For truly, I have loved the vast majority of them, and to get to love that much makes one rich indeed!
So thank you all, Gentle Parents and babies, for letting me get to love you up for awhile. Thank you to my beloved students who have let me teach them, to my doula sisters whose support makes me a better doula. Thanks also for the hard stuff which helps to make me grow in compassion.
Peace,
Lesley
