by MotherWit | Feb 11, 2010 | Uncategorized
I am so happy to finally announce the official launching of the MotherWit website! http://www.motherwit.ca/
It has been a long process, gathering together the right people, finding the right words, getting good photographs, etc. It would not have been possible without my husband’s friend Daeman, who is an obvious genius, and my husband, who is not so shabby himself. So, thank you, Gentlemen, for using your skills of troubleshooting, perfecting, fine tuning, exacting, task mastering, and patience on a site that is so totally chick oriented, geared towards relaxing, opening, accepting, allowing, and going with the flow! A standing ovation to you both!
What a gorgeous picture of the woman on the home page, eh? I put it there not only because it is so hauntingly beautiful, full of what I can only describe as the pure Glory (notice with a capital G) of birth, but because I had the honour of attending her labour. I don’t think I have ever witnessed someone so profoundly transformed by her own birth experience. I get tears in my eyes every time I remember it. Sometimes giving birth teaches you what your most authentic power looks like, and when you can meet your terror with courage and be vulnerable enough to allow that power to transform it into a level of strength you never anticipated, you get to carry that with you for life. For yourself. For your child. For everyone you meet. You contribute to a healing, knowing in your heart that if only every woman could experience birth that way, no matter how it unfolds, the world would most certainly be a better place. My part in that birth was so simple…it was just to let her know I had absolute faith in her. The calm, steadfast love of her husband surrounded us all, and created the protective circle into which this woman triumphantly birthed their daughter, shouting her baby’s name in the ecstasy of welcome.
I am deeply honoured to have this photo on my site, along with all the others who contributed their amazing images. Thank you for sharing of yourselves so willingly. You are all beautiful! We will be adding more pictures as we go along, so keep checking back.
We had a great “Meet the Doulas” soiree last night. It is so much fun meeting new pregnant couples, and creating an environment of sharing. It was attended by pregnant ladies and prospective doula students. I have a great team! I always leave these meetings feeling really high.
by MotherWit | Feb 10, 2010 | Uncategorized
Sometimes it’s really hard for me to believe that what I do is a job. Yes, there are aspects of doula work I find challenging, but for the most part, it is SO MUCH FUN!
What I find challenging is the administrative, phone calling/emailing to set up meetings, paperwork aspects. I manage a lot of clients, as well as keep on top of the other MotherWit doulas’ clients, so it’s not easy. I am not blessed with great organizational skills. Yes, I know, as a Virgo, this is a slap in the face. You’d think I’d have everything colour coded, neatly filed, cross referenced, and easy to read. Sadly, no. I’m the “write-it-on-a-scrap-of-napkin” kind of gal. As to whether or not I actually enter that napkin info into my files is, admittedly, a toss up. Yet I do remember everyone, and have amazing recall for birth details, even years later. I’m always trying to improve my systems, and thank God, I have a husband who is blessed with more managerial skills than I am. He keeps my head above water, reminding me of who I need to call, who needs to be interviewed for the doula trainings, how to program things into BlackBerry, etc.
Obviously, getting called out in the middle of the night, having to brave the chill air and grab a cab to a birth, or having to change plans or drop what I’m doing to accommodate a baby-having leaves life feeling unpredictable. There are challenging aspects to that. But you know, if I always had a strict schedule and too much routine, I would not thrive. I would grow cobwebby with boredom. Once I’m in that cab, or entering into the hospital or a woman’s home, I’m ON. My Spidy senses start tingling, and I get truly excited to be about to behold the beginning of another human’s life. These are, after all, people I’m really connected to, and care for deeply. And when I am on my way home, I wear a secret little smirk. I want to ask the guy on the metro sitting next do me, “What did YOU do all night? Sleep? Boring, guess what I saw!” or the woman on the bus, “Where are you going? Oh, you’re going to discover a cure for Lupus today? Yawn. I just saw a BABY come out!”
Aside from the births, I just really like forging relationships with people. People from all walks of life and religions and beliefs. It is truly enriching to me as a human being to be part of this very special time in a woman’s or couple’s life, learning how people feel, how they approach their births, what worries them, what feeds them. I kid you not, that in one day I may go from the home of a Hasidic Jewish family with six children, chatting with the mother and her mother-in-law about all their births and the special requests she has to make her seventh birth as wonderful as possible, to the home of a Lesbian couple planning a home birth who are hoping not to give birth until the’ve moved into their new apartment, to the home of a woman hoping for a VBAC after 2 C-sections, discussing concerns about her teenaged children and their joy about welcoming a baby into an almost grown family.
I enjoy forging deep connections and feel very honoured to be asked to hold a healing space for a couple to grow into parenthood within. I love the richness of everyones’ stories. When I go off to work, and I usually have a couple pre or post natal meetings per day, 4 or 5 days per week, it’s like going out visiting. It is never burdensome. Bringing up the same information about childbirth is never boring, because everyone has different reactions, different questions, and I get to creatively tailor that information and how we deal with it with each unique couple. It is always fascinating.
I feel very maternal towards my new born parents. Not in a condescening way, but in a way that makes me just want so much for them to feel loved, empowered, and amazing for the hard work they did to bring that new life in, no matter how the birth happened. I love to see their eyes shine as they talk about giving birth, having taken the journey and sipped from the Holy Grail. There is nothing more satisfying for me than to see them proud of themselves.
As years pass, the love of my work deepens, and my commitment to providing the best care I can grows stronger. It’s easy, because my clients inspire that kind of love. I am crazy blessed to have found myself on this path.
by MotherWit | Feb 9, 2010 | Uncategorized
As the smell of gingerbread wafts from my kitchen, I wait for my younger daughter to arrive home from school so we can have our snack and a cup of hot chocolate. I have a little time to sit back and get really excited about our Meet the Doula Soiree tomorrow evening.
As a team, we MotherWitties are working out the presentation and flow of the meetings, and things are going along well. I hope to see many new faces come for information and support.
I am preparing the upcoming Birth Essentials Prenatal classes, and am SO excited about these. I love the idea of my colleagues tag teaming each other for teaching, so that all our clients get a chance to build more rapport with each of us. While we all make the vast majority of our births, I feel it so important to make sure clients are well connected with other members of the team, just in case we are not available for a birth.
I am also preparing the postpartum doula training coming up in spring, and am busy putting together a manual for the MotherWit Birth Doula Training. Also, the book is being slowly written, a few pages at a time.
It is a busy time, this hunkering down in preparation. How appropriate we are in the depths of winter, where ideas germinate until the riotous explosion of blossoming in the spring. This has been a year so rich in boundless creativity. It is time for the preparation to soon move into action. I am very much looking forward to getting away at the end of the month to my Women’s Teachings gathering in New York, where I know I will find the focus and spiritual support I need to put out my most authentic voice.
My daughter and her friend are home. The kettle is on and the gingerbread is ready. Have a wonderful afternoon.
by MotherWit | Feb 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
I have no qualms about telling women that childbirth can be very intense and painful. I in no way, shape, or form believe, provided I am not speaking about it as if it’s a horrible, frightening thing they should never try to attempt, think that to believe it CAN be painful, necessarily makes it so.
I have seen a few people have reasonably painless births. They were flukes, even according to the women themselves. There were no Vulcan mind tricks. I myself have had varying degrees of pain in my four birth experiences, ranging from almost none, to “where’s the window, I wanna jump!” I don’t think, “hmmmm, I must have been afraid or distracted, and this is what caused more pain,” because, except for one, I have had phenomenally beautiful, unfettered, physiologic birth experiences. I am aware of yoga breathing, unfocused awareness, vocalization, visualization, affirmation, yada yada. I have practised all of them. They have been very useful tools in keeping me calm. But they didn’t make me not feel pain. Would you like to tell me I did something wrong?
It gets my knickers in a twist when I hear women told they are “losing control” or “not breathing correctly” or “not relaxing enough”, the implication being they are feeling pain because they’re doing something wrong. I also HATE the simplistic, condescending, paternalistic phrase, “pain is a signal something is wrong in the body…because childbirth is good and natural, it shouldn’t hurt.” Can you imagine someone buying this crap, forking out money for methods to change “beliefs” about the hype of pain, practising for months, and then, upon experiencing pain (which, not to pick on any particular method, but MOST women WILL feel regardless), feeling like a total failure because their “sensations” were painful? Self blame? Unworthiness? Cliche? Not part of the club anymore? Not a healthy start to motherhood, I’d say.
I DO believe that undue fear and tension will increase the sensations of normal birth in a way a woman may perceive as negative. This is a physiological reality. We know that bad stress hormones will not allow for the free flowing of the lovely hormones we need to birth as pleasantly as possible. I DO believe the more we relax the more enjoyable the sensations can be regarded as, even if they hurt like hell. Pain doesn’t have to be negative, and this is the point I think people are missing when they seek to “control” and “manage” the pain of labour, as if perceiving labour as painful were a pathology in our warped thinking.
I am not a masochist at all. I’m not a glutton for punishment. But aren’t there some painful sensations that are rather nice too? Having a good massage which can hurt like crazy in some ways but feel oh so delicious at the same time is an example. So is engaging in much wanted sexual relations for the first few times in one’s life, or trying out something a little kinky, which may bring on some intense sensations the body can interpret as painful, but profoundly exciting at the same time. And even though it’s natural and good, giving birth isn’t the only rite of passage that is painful. Being born probably causes you some pretty spectacular sensations, no matter where and how you’re birthed. And, as I mentioned, sex for the first time can too. For many, the deep ache of menstruation isn’t particularly distressful. It’s a signal that the body is working hard to achieve something, and experiencing a process that requires attention to care for oneself physically and emotionally as much as possible. Some actually like that pain. Personally, I quite enjoy that pain, and I don’t believe my experience of some achiness in menstruation is a sign of misalignment, malnutrition, or emotional distress, because I know what it feels like when those things ARE present, and then it’s not fun anymore. Finally, exiting one’s body probably involves some pain too, as the cells die and the system lets go of functions it’s done for an entire life time. We all have to die, and many die in peace, even if there are some really interesting sensations involved.
I have worked with quite a few people who have thought if they just believed it hard enough, and worked their “program” hard enough, they’d come through labour able to say they had orgasms instead of pain. The ones who were orgasmic were not the ones who “tried” to be so, and the ones who worked particularly hard to get there are often the ones who end up perceiving the pain and feeling badly about it. Dude, there’s a BABY coming through your CERVIX…and VAGINA! Do you really think you can just “ohm” or “visulize” that discomfort away? It’s true, to some, like with the birth of my third child who was born in the caul, I don’t remember much pain upon transitioning and crowning. But I certainly didn’t do anything special to make that happen. The baby after that really really hurt, though I felt the same confidence and embracing of the sensations of birth. I certainly didn’t feel cheated, though, because it was a gorgeous birth all the same.
No, childbirth doesn’t always hurt, but don’t think that just because you invest a lot of time, money, and effort into a method that professes it can make it so, makes it so. In fact, some of my experiences with those who have used methods such as these have ended up with exceedingly long labours. My thought is that perhaps they are working so hard to be Zen and controlled, they stave off the inevitable sensations that are needed to get those big waves crashing and a baby born.
I just love being with a woman when she is experiencing the last leg of dilation, especially if she’s never done it before. Even if she’s not experiencing it as overwhelmingly painful (because I have seen lots of ladies come to the end of birth and say, “Thank God! I thought it would be so much worse than that!”), the sheer INTENSITY of that pull of Baby moving down and the uterus squeezing with shocking force, is POWERFUL. It is fierce, and awesome to behold. I call a spade a spade. For me, that sensation HURTS. Like nothing else in the world. Yet, I would still rather have that pain than have to endure a night of food poisoning, because as far as I’m concerned, that intense birthing, life-giving, purposeful pain is normal. Food poisoning is not.
I believe it is far more effective for a woman to learn ways that appeal to her to cope with the sensations of birth without reacting with fear, like using breathing, vocalization, etc. And I think it’s helpful if she does this without holding the expectation of painless birth. Preparing for the reality that MOST women find birth painful to some degree with tools to help reduce tension will, in my humble opinion, make birth seem far more pleasant and do-able than going into it with an “arsenal” of tools “against” pain, or of a mindset that attempts to deny it. Because then, if pain hits and your expectations are blown, you are going to lose your sense of humour. You risk not looking back upon the experience as thrilling, marvellous, and YES painful, but so so so worth it given how high those sensations made you during and after. Instead, you’re going to be wondering what you did wrong. And if you did do something fancy that resulted in the birth you wanted, with no pain, then I am truly happy for you. That’s GREAT! I, personally, would not trade a moment of my experiences, painful or not so much. Having felt pain makes me feel like I was strong and capable, not a failure for not having been evolved enough or disciplined enough to know the right tricks. And having experienced intense sensation without pain was awesome too, but not the thing that defined the labour.
by MotherWit | Feb 7, 2010 | Uncategorized
A beautiful, sunny, winter day stretches before me. I am shutting down my computer, and living in the real world today. I am going to clean my house, walk in the woods with my family and doggie, and make a nice Sunday dinner. Days such as these are precious. May you savour today, and cherish your blessings.
by MotherWit | Feb 6, 2010 | Uncategorized
I am just home from a lovely VBAC, which couldn’t have happened to a nicer family. I believe it is going to generate a lot of healing.
I get a perverse thrill when I have lady have a VBAC that defies medical expectation. Her primary care doctor was a family physician who is a huge supporter of VBAC, and was very much on her side. But the Obstetric team needs to be involved with a VBAC as well in this hospital, and while it provides a safety net, it also creates some tension. The team came into the room and laid out the stats and the way they wanted things to progress in order to avoid a repeat section. Now, I know they were just doing their jobs responsibly, and the way in which the information was relayed was kind, positive, and supportive. But there was also a pressure to perform. Birth doesn’t always respond well to performance anxiety. I worry that when something is held with an expectation to fail, the energy can have a tendency to follow that thought, and I have to work hard to buffer that vibe and keep a reasonable amount of faith going.
One thing doctors are very concerned about is obstructed labour. Of COURSE they are, when they are responsible for a woman and baby’s health. It is true that an obstructed labour can increase the risk of uterine rupture during a VBAC attempt. But what this translates as is this: “If you don’t follow the curve in a timely manner, we will diagnose obstructed labour, and you will be sectioned to circumvent disaster.” As we’ve already discussed in past blogs, Friedman’s Curve drives me bonkers for a variety of reasons. Is a VBAC labour which doesn’t go along with the curve TRULY and ALWAYS obstructed?
I ask this because one thing I have witnessed with VBAC, and I have attended MANY VBACs, is that it is actually normal for there to be “stalls” here and there, even more so than in regular labours. Just to throw out a number, but I find it is not uncommon for a woman to hang out at 5cm or so for awhile (though this number is arbitrary..I’ve seen it at 2cm, as well as at 9cm). Sometimes for quite a long time. Instead of this being automatically construed as a pathology, could this not possibly be Nature’s way of helping the uterus gently adjust and adapt to its surgical incision? I’m just thinking out loud.
Obviously I am not making a medical opinion, as I’m not in the position to give one. Obstructed labour is said to lead to uterine rupture in childbirth, but the one rupture I have seen seemed quite directly caused by Synto augmentation to ensure things “hurried” along to “fit” the curve. This one incident obviously doesn’t prove anything at all, and my experience and statistics cannot even scratch the surface of those of a doctor’s. But it does make me go hmmmmm. I guess I am luckier than most doctors to have seen several out of hospital VBACs, and the gentle, trusting way in which they’re held by midwives. We encourage the woman to rest and gather her strength during the ebbs, without trying to stimulate things with aggression. I’m not saying that all VBAC attempts stalled for a long time should just be ignored because it’s always normal…I wouldn’t want anyone to come away with this message. But I would like to take a closer look at the commonality of ebbs in VBAC labour, and reconsider whether or not venturing outside the curve necessarily smacks of potential rupture. Just a thought.
Anyhoo, today’s VBAC was awesome, because it was one of those births the medical establishment was not super comfortable with, but it was a success and it made everyone happy. The mother had been sectioned her first labour after many hours of active pushing (however, according to her, she was made to push for a lot of that when she doesn’t even think she was having contractions), which “reduces” the chance of subsequent vaginal birth. Also, that baby was over nine pounds (doctors don’t love babies being that big…and second ones are potentially bigger, so VBAC attempts with a big baby birther are looked upon with a wary eye). The mother, coming jjuuuuust under the curve by an hour or two was starting to get the hairy eyeball. So we took off into the jacuzzi room to avoid too much outside influence. To make a long story short, the baby came down really fast and was born vaginally at 9 pounds, even though they were expecting a smaller kid. In the end, we were grateful for a little technical help for some fetal distress and sticky shoulders, but a triumph all around.
One of my favourite VBAC stories is of a client of mine who was sectioned with her first birth (at which I was not in attendance) after pushing for many hours, and just not able to move the baby out (she had an epidural). Well, not only did she have a VBAC for her second baby, but she had it unassisted over her toilet after an extremely quick labour. The baby was bigger than the one who was sectioned for being “too big” for her to pass. I am blessed to have lots of stories like this..more stories which shatter this myth that about every second woman has a pelvis too small and too inadequate to pass a baby (oh if I had a dollar every time I heard this statement), than ones of true CPD.
An immature, rebellious little part of me wants to thumb my nose at those who were naysayers and do a happy dance when I see these “miraculous” births… but when I look around at the doctors, they’re usually doing happy dances too, because it makes them feel good to have their patients feel triumphant about their births. When all ends well and the mother is thrilled and grateful, these stories plant seeds for change, and everyone celebrates.
