A lot of people have asked me recently why on earth I would want to be a doula. (A doula is a childbirth assistant, there to support the laboring woman and her family.) So naturally, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on this question the last few days. The answer isn't merely because I love babies. Because most of my job as a doula would have nothing to do with the baby itself, and everything to do with being in tune with the emotional, physical and mental well-being of the mother. When being asked why I feel a pull towards this profession an image comes to mind. It is of my own labor and birth of my daughter. I am laying on the hospital bed and about to start pushing, looking into the faces of my mother and partner of the time, both stone white and scared shitless. I often wonder how things would have been different if I had a calm and reassuring face to gaze into as I started to push. I had an ideal labor and delivery, despite the fact that I was screaming so loud that I thought I was listening to someone else scream. So I don't look back on the experience with regret or a desire to change something that happened, I am very happy with the way things went. But the underlying stress and worry I could see in the faces of those I care about have obviously stuck with me.

The other memory that comes to mind is the poor high school girl I had to share my recovery room with, who had the desire to try breastfeeding and no one to help her through it. No one to tell her to trust her instinct in the matter and feed her baby when it felt right. No one to tell her what she was feeling was normal. NO ONE there to just listen to what she was dealing with. Through my time in this room with her I learned that not only was she having trouble with breastfeeding, but she was rushed into having an epidural, which stopped her labor, therefore leading to her being rushed into having a cesarean section, and was confused about the extra pain and the healing process. No one was with this woman who was objective enough to explain all the options to her, to listen to what she wanted, and to advocate for that. Not that her family did not have the best of intentions, but when you are watching someone you love go through the most painful and transformational process of their young life, it is hard to think about what is going through their mind when the loved ones can only think as far as the safety of the mother. When you have a corporatized birthing industry with doctors that just want to babies out by the time they are supposed to leave, who is left to be the voice of the mothers who are concerned about their birthing experiences and the well-being of their children?

I suppose the answer is me. No, I know it is. And others like me. It upsets me to look around and see the intricate systems, institutions and processes that "help" women through pregnancy, along with helping them learn to ignore their bodies, and forget what they are naturally capable of acheiving on their own. Think about it, our anatomy is constructed in a way that spells out childbirth. It is what our bodies are meant to do. How many women gave birth with only the assistance of a midwife and other women to support them? No hospitals, no forceps, no cesareans. While I feel like these technologies are very useful in situations of high risk, I do not think that every time they are leaned upon is high risk, rather convenience.

I want to help women regain some of the power that our bodies naturally hand us. I want to be there to speak for them when they are breathing through contractions, and focusing inward on the beautiful task at hand. I want to be there to listen, to support, to ease the fear, and help women trust themselves.

It also isn't just about laboring woman. I think back to the days following the birth of my daughter and of her father, whom had never handled such a small and precious package. The dance of getting to know one another as a family, and of falling into a rhythm with all three of us was delicate. My daughter would not sleep if she was not, at the very least, right next to a warm body. About ten hours after she had been born, I still hadn't slept much due to the crowded recovery room, and that fact, and I had to pee. If you have ever given birth before, you know how awesomely akward this little task is. I had set her down in her little hospital cradle, without breathing so as not to wake her, jut praying that I could go and return fast enough before she woke up. Of course as soon as I got into the bathroom and sat down she started wailing. Two seconds later, knock at the door. "Just a minute" Do my business. Another knock at the door. "Almost done!" (Getting frustrated at this point and my boobs are now rock hard from having to listen to my screaming baby for so long, ahhhh milk let down.) I open the door and there is my childs clueless and terrified father leaning over the cradle just watching her cry, not knowing how in the hell to even pick her up. (I could go on for days about my frustrations with him and the situation, or ones like these, but I am going to move on...) How many new fathers, or even mothers, grandparents, families, have gone through this? The clumsy dance of learning to parent a newborn. How awesome would it be if everyone had a calm assured and experienced person there to help them find that balance, that comfort with ones own child?

This is what I want to do.

craving family

I value my friendships. All of them. But it is truly wonderful to spend the weekend with those that completely understand ALL of my life. As a young parent, I am the first among most of my social circles to have children. Generally, at least now (five years after becoming a mom) it's not a big deal. Most of my friends understand or have accepted that my daughter comes first. But there is a certain comfort that comes in being able to have a conversation over the span of four hours due to breaking to pay REAL attention to our children. Being around people who you are comfortable enough with to parent together. Someone to tell my daughter to remember that other kids need turns too, someone who doesn't mind when I step in to remind them to use gentle hands. Another family that feels like home. I think that all children need circles like this that exist outside of the immediate family. A support network to fall back on when guiding hands or hugs are needed away from parents. I think it is equally important for parents to have fellow parents and adults like this in their life to support the path they have chosen, reaffirm that they are awesome parents with awesome kids and everything they do for their children is worth it, and also, ever changing, growing, passing. To provide perspective.

I crave this. As I said above, my friends are wonderful, all of them, and I love them dearly. But to sit in a living room with old friends and watch our children grow up together would be divine. Something closer than a two hour drive.

There could be more coherent words to put here, but they aren't coming yet...

Letting go? Now why would I want to do a silly thing like that?

Ok people. My baby is no longer a baby. Well, she hasn't been for quite some time but arg! I spent the day scoping potential schools that will have a large hand in shaping my childs enthusiasm (and hopefully not a lack thereof) of learning for the nexts six years of her life. Oh gee, no pressure.

What ever happened to childhood? Maybe it is me, but when I read on one schools website that kindergarteners only get two twenty minute recess's I was automatically turned off. As someone who used to work in child development with the age group just younger than kindergarten, I would rather eat a brick of salt than expect to only give the little darlings twenty minutes to run around and play before expecting them to come in, settle down, and pay attention. Has it always been this way? I feel old when I start the next part of this sentence, but back in my day, recess was so much more than that!

Anyhow, that school had no music program, a crappy library and a poor excuse for an art curriculum. One thing I noticed though, that makes me truly sad, is that all the good schools are in the upper middle class to rich neighborhoods. And by good schools I mean strong community aspect, strong music/art, lots of awesome extracurricular, an emphasis on the joy of learning and how each individual child will find that differently, and other awesome things such as gardening, composting, field trips and community service. I have always known the disproportions (is that a word? it is now...) existed, but I never really took the time to examine them. Or, as much as I hate to admit this, maybe I wasn't looking that hard before becuase it didn't affect me or my family? So what are the familes that aren't in the "right" neighborhoods supposed to do? I mean, I lucked out in that I have friends who live in the areas I need an address in and are willing to help me cheat the system, but not everyone does or can do that. Are they just supposed to accept a mediocre education for their children that will continue to have lasting affects on the way they learn, the way they view themselves and school? That's bullshit. But how does one equal it out?

This quiet rage that has sprung up about this has been a distraction from the fact that more than ever before I am realizing how fast children grow up and battling the urge to just squeeze her. I never anticipated just how difficult I would find it to share the responsibility of her education with other people. There was a time when unschooling or homeschooling sounded so awesome and pleasant until I tried that whole stay at home mom thing. (I would like to think it would have turned out differently with a more supportive and stable spouse.) And I think there is incredible value in the lessons that happen in a public school outside the lesson plan. But Oy. Letting go, who knew, right?

My daughter has now been at her dad's house for four nights. I get to pick her up tomorrow. For some background, she goes back and forth every five days, and it kills me. It's not that I don't want her to have an equal chance at a relationship with her father, because I truly do. It is painful being away from her for such long periods of time. By the fourth day I find myself at a loss of what to do to distract myself. After spending most of the past five years with her tied to my body, asleep in my arms, or working to support her, I find myself a little lost in all this. As a full time student (who is on spring break right now which is quite possibly the reason it is hitting me so hard) I no longer have a job to distract me in my down time. (Not that I am complaining. School is an opportunity I love and craved before I went back.) I can smell her in the house, and at night, when I am sitting at the computer, or trying to be an artist, I swear that I hear her stirring in bed, or calling out for me to come cuddle with her. This is it. I think I finally found a downside to attachment parenting. I am only half serious there. But really. When I found out that I was pregnant, I threw myself into the role of mother. I love being a mom and feel that it is one of the things I was absolutely meant to do with my life. But after living my life for my child, this new found spare time to be an adult, be my own person, it's a little scary. What do I do with myself? This is all compounded by the fact that my mother is still living with me and my home doesn't feel as much like a home when I have no space of my own anymore. Maybe that is a little extreme. I have made home where my little one is, so where is my home when she is at her other home? Ideally, it would still be the same home that exists when Em is home. But my mom makes personal space a hard thing to find. But I digress. Mom is a subject for another blog entry.

When I left my child's father he was not ready to be a single parent that held actual parenting responsibility. And no, it wasn't for lack of trying. He refused to take her overnight, much to my anxiety ridden relief. So we worked up to it gradually. There have been several times in the past few years that I have had second thoughts about pushing him to step into that role so persistently, but I don't regret it. However, what I do wish I had done better is built up to splitting her time between us in a smarter and healthier way. Because he was not ready to take her we ended up starting with one night a week once he thought he could manage. Then two. Then every other weekend. This resulted in two nights here, one night there, one night here, two nights there. A very chaotic schedule for a child to adapt to. So right around Christmas time we started the five days plan. Eventually we will work up to a full week, but right now I don't think anyone is ready for it. I'm not. She isn't, and as much as I would like to have faith in him, I don't think he is ready to have her that long. Maybe he is and I only pick up what a neurotic and nervous mother would be looking for. Although, for my sake and my therapists reputation, I hope I am getting better at that.

So the plan for day four of my time away with her...buy books for next term, go to yoga, and catch a movie at the new cheap theater in town. Wish me luck. It would be really nice to find a group of parents that are experiencing, dealing, or figuring out similar situations.

Generosity that astounds.

The blessings in my life astound me, as does the generosity of others. A friends little box on facebook reads that her greatest challenge in life is going to be returning all the love she receives and I feel that way lately. Someone lent me the money to pay for some doula stuff in the blink of an eye. I am constantly blessed on the crowded bus home with people willing to give up their seat for Em and I. I have wonderful friends who are willing to swoop in and help me when I need it, the book I needed for my doula training next appears out of nowhere, the rain quit just long enough to get my under the weather child home, the list goes on.

The latest in the string of "Oh my god, what did I do to deserve this?" took place today. I received a call from the DRE (Director of Religious Education) at church. Someone, some random couple of UU's, from Alaska (?) decided to get rid of their car and live out of their RV. Upon discovering that when you donate a car to Goodwill, they auction them and only make about $50 they drove their car to the church, signed over the title and said "We really want this to go to a family that needs it." We are that family. A car in really nice condition. No strings attached. Just yesterday I was wondering how I was going to navigate the narrow strech of time between when I will be getting out of class and when I will need to pick Emily up from school when she starts kindergarten in the fall, and how I was going to get home in time to tuck her in after my evening classes that I have to take the next few terms and what I am going to do if my mom's health doesn't improve and I need to take her to the ER in the middle of the night. (She is really sick right now.) And then this.

Life is truly blessed. I want you all to know how thankful I am for the gifts you have given me.

In addition to being a full time credit student fighting to get into the nursing program at the local community college, I am training to be a doula, which is a childbirth assistant. At this stage, it involves a lot of reading, and attending a childbirth education course and a breastfeeding course. Most people hear this and think "Oh god, why would you want to do that?" but I really feel passionate about helping women regain power and taking control of their birthing experience. Someday I will do this as a midwife, but for now, I am excited about being there to support women and help them have the delivery they want. In the course of all this learning you are going to hear several rants about how corporate I think the labor and delivery industry is and how there is a serious lack of respect for the natural abilities of the female body when it comes to this area. For now though, you just get really interesting facts that I learned today....

Results from 10 different randomized trials of continuous doula support (through meta-analysis) were calculated together and found that the presence of a doula throughout a womans labor and delivery reduced:
- cesarean rates by 45%
-oxytocin use by 50%
-length of labor by 25%
-pain medication use by 31%
-need for forceps by 34%
-requests for epidurals were reduced by 10-60% (I know, that is a ridiculously wide range.) This illustrates that while not all women would choose a doula in place of an epidural analgesia, all laboring women shoudl provided with the continuous support of a doula.

Please keep in mind that the participants of these studies had "normal" pregnancies with no complications for mother, and none anticapted for the baby either. One of the wonderful things about a doula is that they are there to support the mother through any decisions or needs that she has during labor and delivery. Whether that means lots of massage, encouragment, support, pain medication, medical intervention, cesarean. I had what would be called a normal and easy labor and delivery, and it was incredibly hard. The hardest moment was looking into my mother and partners eyes, in need of the encouragement it was going to take to get me through this, and seeing that they were even more anxious and scared than I was. Having an objective and experienced woman who understood what was normal and knew how to coach someone through it would have made a world of difference.


That is just one reason why I want to be one...

yum, and oh! my green thumb!

I love food. I love to eat. I love to cook. Operation Eat Better is just so damn fun. This morning I had oatmeal with blueberries, flax, sunflower seeds and cherry yogurt. And mandarin ginseng green tea. Then I got to study with Sara (yay!) and had a honey wheat bagel with cream cheese and a thin mint cookie that Sara gave me.

Then! Joyous day! I got my kiddo back from visiting her dads house and we had Mac and Cheese (not so good but waaaaay good), cucumber and apple slices. And another girl scout cookie, damn them and their tastiness.

And for dinner I made a tasty white bean and bacon soup with leaks and celery, and we had artichokes.

Also, I got my garden started today. Well some of it. Em and I planted some broccoli and mesclun salad mix starts, and planted some decorative sweet peas for flowers on our front porch. In addition to the vegetable garden on the porch, we are doing an herb garden in the kitchen and we started it off today with chamomile and mint starts in cute little pots. Have I mentioned I somehow have acquired an abundance of pots? Its awesome. Next week I will be starting (from seed) peas, beans and chard inside the house to await transplant when the weather makes up it's damn mind about what the hell it is doing. And I cannot wait till it is warm enough to start tomatoes and carrots.