Mother Stories Are Their Stories, Too.

I just started a perfectly innocuous post, but deleted the draft immediately. My head filled with the blogger worries I know trouble so many parenting writers. It's not necessarily the safety issues that are weighing on me, although these are of concern, but I'm thinking of respect and self-determination and privacy. As the Bird grows, what will she feel about my writing about her life as if those stories are my own? Will it devalue her experiences for her if I share them so publicly? I've always written- first in notebooks and now online- that writing is my only way to process my experiences. It makes them more real, more valuable, more deeply mine to frame them in words, to craft exactly the language that reflects my experience of the memory. In doing that with Molly's babyhood, I'm documenting for her as much as I am reaching out desperately to other moms for support and community. As she grows, though, and is capable of making her own story-memories, what is the impact of my simultaneously broadcasting these stories? At what age is it appropriate and necessary to ask her permission and blessing to write about her?

I was pining for BlogHer this year more than the last two years since I'd first heard of the conference. I'm tackling blogging issues in a few different ways, and I'd love to meld minds with other writers in this still-strange new world. The conference this year featured a panel called Public Parenting and Privacy. (Links to good notes from an attendee's blog.)

It looks like some interesting topics were raised and debated, but I don't know if the philosophical nature of my worries came up. I haven't really seen this addressed in mothering or fathering blogs. It's probably an issue I'll revisit in the near future as I work through this.

Thoughts?

Meditation on Meaning and Mothering

I had an insight this morning. Or a couple. Yes. I had two poignant insights that might be important only to the mind of a mom who was awake no fewer than six times to nurse her toddler then had to go to work.

My first insight was a little diagram image of my priorities that popped up all visual and organized in my head. It went Tiny Her, Him, Work, Art, Housework, Money.... on downward in increasingly small fonts until the tiny, squeaky-meek little 'me' box at the bottom of the pile was microscopic. Oh, I thought. The "oh" of the dawning realization variety. Mentally I tried to imagine a pretty graph of overlapping circles where the ME section was a warm pale color- possibly peach- that gently blended in perfect graph harmony with all the other neat little divisions of life. It fell apart a little bit because immediately the next epiphany slapped me and was more grounded and more describable. (It came with a blog post fully written and edited, and almost hit the publish button for me.)

Weary Hippie Mother in Appalachia Insight the Second:

Here's what bugs about my own little parenting zeitgeist: it's the lack of value given to my choices. I've never encountered hostility directly in my family, neighbors, or out in my town. No one has asked me to cover my nursing child or reprimanded me about the dangers of co-sleeping. Instead I get these amused little reactions like I am the most adorable little eccentric- just about completely harmless- when people find out the barely-touched crib was Freecycled before the baby was walking, or see us nursing, or ask me if my handmade sling is safe. I'm thrilled that I've had a comfortable time of it- I was braced (after too many hours of web-based mamadrama) to be assaulted with judgmental people.

My complaint, now that my new insight has helped me articulate it, is that my parenting choices are seen as indulgent. (Also, I can hear people scoffing: 'parenting choices' is a phrase full of pretentious over-thinking.) It's in the way doctors presume that breast milk is of no nutritive importance after six months or a year. It's the way people just warn sleep sharers that the kids will never leave the bed. It's the convenient loss of the history of midwives. and ignoring C-section rates.

I won't pretend for politics or good press that night nursing isn't exhausting me, or that my husband isn't dying to have me back in our bed full-time. I just want to own my reasons. I want to say, yes my mother-milk is important to my small picky-eating baby. I want to acknowledge my belief that small children need a warm, comforting body next to theirs at night. Now that I'm moving toward a new phase with weaning I need to express that nursing for two years has been a gift to Molly. My waiting to wean at an age that's radical in my neighborhood isn't a sentimental avoidance of choice- it's a real decision. It's all so complex with ideas of sacrifice (and motherhood culturally is far too tangled up in that for me to even scratch the surface) but my reasons, and my choices, are expressions of love and of careful thought, and of intention.

Sleep Article Reaction: Hear Mama Bear Growl

Hmm. My husband just linked me to this Time/CNN article about "how not to get your baby to sleep," in light of a bad night. (The Bird woke at 2:00 a.m., demanded/announced, "Up!" and was awake until 3:30.)

I predict Hathor will have a field day with this... I read it knowing I was going to ignore it or possibly rankle at it: Bu said it cautions against co-sleeping. It does so with some sneaky faulty logic. There are studies that show that kids who don't get enough sleep overall in a 24 hour period have such and such problems. Then it says that co-sleeping can contribute to frequent waking and uses the previous study to show that co-sleeping is undesirable. However, the study didn't address continuous sleep versus sleep with wakings.

In the article's defense, I'm totally on board with the TV restrictions.

In crunchy parenting's defense, don't you fucking call mamas who sleep with their babies "maladaptive." Is the entire mammal class of animals maladaptive? I find that ridiculous.

Why I really nurse my toddler

Here is a conversation from earlier this evening with another nursing mama:

Me: So, is MK still nursing?

Other mama: Yeah, just at night though.

Me: Aww... awesome! *proceeds to tell long story about nursing Molly in public*

Other mama: Yeah... they'll just pull your shirt right off, huh? It's annoying. I hate that part... it's different with toddlers, I mean... I see why people are annoyed about it. It is a little bit different than an infant, when it's their only source of nutrition.

Me: Yeah, but sometimes it's their only source of Shut The Fuck Up;)

(I do feel compelled to note, and hopefully it's painfully obvious, that actually telling my baby to STFU is not something I do. Because I have the boobs.)

Can I rename it Demeter Day?

If I actually allow myself to think about the history of Thanksgiving, I get pissy and cranky and I do things like write a ranty post and then delete it immediately because I'm not really as negative and hateful as I sound. The whole sordid weight of American history and the clash between the oppression that's happened and the patriotic shiny sweetness makes me queasy and annoyed so I kind of just don't think of myself as celebrating Thanksgiving. I just focus on my family and great food and visiting and the baby and whatever.

I've evolved as a cook over the past few years. The year Shane and I announced our engagement over Thanksgiving dinner, I took frozen shrimp cocktail and champagne to my Grandma's. This year I'm doing something with broccoli (was going to be a casserole but I'm daydreaming now about a puffy baked appetizer thing of some sort) and baking fresh bread and I have a potato salad assignment from my mother-in-law for the first time, which tickles me.

So I'm grooving on the vibe of the harvest feast- adamantly neverminding the fact that none of this food was harvested by any of our hands on any of our land. I'm thrilled to be immersed in kitchen goddessery and the simple pleasures of baking and gathering at a table full of love. I'm musing a little bit about how I can teach Molly this as she grows, and how in general to impart the Real Truths I feel in my soul to her when they conflict with the utter bullshit she'll encounter in school. I'll bury until later the worries about all the cultural everything and turn my mind toward the food and the cool air and the brilliant red bush raining tiny yoni shaped leaves at my front door.

Processing My Birth Experience and The Business of Being Born

Edit: Read my review of the movie here.

My church showed the new film The Business of Being Born this past Saturday as a fundraiser for the West Virginia Chapter of the American College of Nurse Midwives. I feel blessed and hip and excited that I was able to see this new documentary, and have a big warm fuzzy that my congregation that is so supportive of midwifery and natural birth. (We also had a great discussion afterward- although I had to duck out early- that I'll talk about below.)

I was braced for an emotional trip going into the movie, because my birthing experience was disappointing. My plans for a water birth at a birth center were smashed to itty bits by complications- genuine ones, I feel pressed to qualify: Molly passed meconium in utero, and my birth defects created problems- I have a tough, scarred cervix and scarred uterine walls from surgery to remove a wall that divided my vagina and uterus into two compartments each. My cervix would not open until I was swimming in Pitocin, and then my placenta wouldn't budge and the doctor on call had to come in and just yank it out of me. (This was Hell, evil pain. No epidural, and the dose of Nubain I'd taken during the rending of my cervix was long gone then. So that part taints the whole memory for me along with the shock of my bright, sterile environment and the tangle of IV tubing and monitoring wires.)

So I’d known watching it would make me re-examine my birthing experience, but it felt different than I’d expected. One of my midwives was there- the one who took my “water broke and it has green poo” phone call and checked me into the hospital. She switched shifts before my active labor and my favorite midwife D took over. That’s one of my regrets- choosing the practice that rotates prenatal care and, apparently, labor attendance between several women. I missed that, the experience of the women on screen who bonded with their caregivers through the pregnancy and then had a deeper connection with her during labor.

But L was great. The film and seeing her there made me want to communicate with her about my experience. I wanted to thank her for being so gentle and so supportive the way she guided me through all the scary changes to my birth plan. She was amazing at respecting my dream of birth even as she helped me understand that it couldn’t happen the way I’d wanted. She worked hard to try to get me to the birth center, checking me in the hospital hoping the meconium was thin enough to not be a worry, then explaining very sweetly the steps that followed. It’s hard to describe but she and D both validated my wishes by emphasizing that my birth was not really “normal,” that my conviction that I could deliver without medication was correct in a typical situation but there was going to be intervention that was beyond normal birth pain.

So I wanted to thank her for all of that, and articulate it, but I left before the rest of the group. (Amusingly, I had to excuse myself to get home to pump- the grandies had Molly.) Leaving in the middle, I felt such a lack of closure. I should have hugged L, at least, on the way out, or been warmer when I recognized her- new pretty hair do, street clothes instead of scrubs. I alluded to her being my midwife during the discussion and then worried all night that my saying that she missed the actual delivery came across as a slight.
I left feeling such a weird mix of stuff, anyway, that I wanted Molly’s presence to help ground me in my motherhood, in my present. I’ve folded the birthing into myself, and my motherness and the beautiful connection I feel with Molly. I wasn’t upset per se, just off balance. I decided I’d call to see if she was awake still and fetch her back if she was up. She was awake, so I picked her up and bundled her into a snuggly cocoon of bedtime with Bu and me, and nursed her and felt myself calm.

Now, I feel like I’ve processed the memories better maybe. I may send L a postcard and articulate some of the things I need to tell her. Just thank yous… For doing the best anyone could to acknowledge the loss I felt delivering in the hospital, and the way she was very apologetic about having to order all the interventions. And for rubbing my crazy balloon feet with scented lotion.

Movie Review: The Business of Being Born

My church screened the new documentary The Business of Being Born Saturday. From an art/critical/analytical stance, the movie is not wonderful; it’s firmly in the realm of Pretty OK. The animated sequence near the beginning didn’t fit for me and bothered the continuity a little. The content is great, though, and it’s empowering to see this information in a film that’s getting some attention, but I doubt that the AMA is going to watch it and think, “Oh, wow. Our whole profession has fucked up royally. Let’s start telling women to give birth at home.” And, incedentally, that's pretty much what would happen if the birth industry actually prioritized women's and children's health.

It’s infuriating to see some of the doctors’ arrogant contentment with being completely ignorant of the natural process of birth. Many had never witnessed a non-medicated birth. I really think, based on my acquaintances’ birth stories, that most doctors haven’t. There is a lot of talk about the “cascade of interventions” and a little bit of exposition explaining exactly how interfering in labor creates distress for mom and babies. I would have liked to see more explanation of how a natural birth progresses and why it works juxtaposed with exactly how the interventions create problems that require furthur interventions. (See Henci Goer's book The Thinking Woman's Guide to Better Birth, for great detail about each common intervention and why it can help and hurt specific processes in labor.)

There are several interviews with doctors who advocate for natural and home birth. I’m skipping the rant about our tendency to deify doctors here, but they do lend credibility to the filmmakers’ assertions. The statistics and historical information presented also provide good back up. There’s less spiritual flavor than I’d expected, and what is included is mostly from the mothers whose births are shown- and I'm comfortable with that. I half-expected more new age vibes that would turn off some mainstream viewers. "Being Born" actually shows pretty well that the need for more natural births isn't because women are missing a primal initiation experience that will enrich them spiritually and psychologically- which is a deep truth. The crisis isn't about that, though. American birth is in a state of emergency because we have an absurdly high infant mortality rate in comparison with other industrialized nations, and our C-section rate is as high as one in three in some regions. The ramifications of medicine and law appropriating the whole of our pregnancies are creating serious health problems and deaths. The technologies used aren't always well-researched or tested, and are used by default when they aren't needed. This isn't a matter of just being ridiculously over-cautious; these disruptions to labor and delivery cause actual, measurable harm.

For the crunchy contingent, I thought we'd hear a passing mention of unassisted birth. There were at least two scenes video of women catching their own babies (the image that brings me to tears immediately, along with the first breastfeeding:) I didn't see any mention of women who don't have birth attendants, but the midwives do mention that their role is guide and witness. My own discomfort with UC comes from a feeling that I do lack something in my role as a mother- the midwives help fill in gaps in experiential knowledge for women who have never attended a natural birth and seen first hand what our bodies can do.

I’m really moved that Ricki Lake (who is the executive producer) let director Abby Epstein include footage of Ricki’s homebirth. It's incredibly beautiful. Her being a public figure and knowing that people gawk and gossip and judge, but being vulnerable and showing her body in its most intimate, intense moment is a kind of a little gift to women as a whole. An offering to try to help bring back our ownership of our bodies. And with adorable serendipity, Abby gets pregnant during filming and we get to see her exploring the process from a perspective that's probably closer to most American women. (She actually does end up in the hospital with a baby in distress- who is just fine, other anxious moms.)


The Business of Being Born is powerful in reframing medicalized births as unneccesarily dangerous. The statistics and history speak for themselves, but the footage of midwive's visits and the births help create the stories of authentic births that are the real focus. Several women I watched with are planning to get the DVD as gifts for mamas-to-be. I expect many birth classes will include it, too. Sadly, a nurse from a hospital here in WV told us that her department would never allow her to show it.

The frustrating thing at the core of the whole issue is that the information readily accessible to women- what their caregiver and peers relate to them from their experience- does not include normal birth. To find out what our bodies do when left to perform without anything to impede or dull the intricacies involved in labor, we have to dig a little bit. It's easy to find, but you have to know to look. I hope this documentary will earn some attention-it looks like Ricki's promoting it well.

LINKS:

For the film geeks:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0995061/
http://thebusinessofbeingborn.com/

Interviews with Ricki:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ricki-lake/ricki-lake-on-the-bus_b_46002.html
http://babble.com/content/articles/features/interviews/rickilake/
More reviews:
http://www.mothering.com/sections/news_bulletins/business-of-being-born.html
http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/30378/30385