Rally on Labor Day to Improve Birth - Monday, September 2, 2013

Join us! Come Rally with me on Labor Day! Find a Improving Birth Rally near you at the Improving Birth link below and help improve birth outcomes for your future children, for your grandchildren, your neighbors, your sister, your best friend. If you don't think you can change the world, think again. I have! We are! You can! I believe we can change earth by changing birth.

I have a lot of burning questions today. How can we have a peaceful world when drama is happening in birth, specifically in hospital birth? How can we give up on nature, our natural ability to birth, and still believe in saving the forest and the whales? Can we save birth? How can we be passionate about our garden, our sustainable life style and not practice sustainable birthing and not plant the seeds of conception, conscious conception, with intention? How can we give birth to a new generation in ignorance, fear, pretending to be helpless victims of natures power, when in our heads we know our ancestors brought our species this far by being good birthers, our grandmothers gave birth to our parents and we have been given all the necessary tools to be good birthing examples to the generations going forward? Are some afraid to find out the depths of their own power? What power to discover a wild birthing warrior resides in her! Is it undignified to birth free and wild? Are we above doing something that all animals do? Is modern man above birthing like man has birthed throughout time, is it too primitive a task? Isn't love making primitive? Have you heard the phrase, "To posh to push"? It refers to women who prefer to give birth via Cesarean Section because they think it's undignified to push (out a baby). Do they think it's undignified when their eyes are rolling back in their head when they orgasm? Will they also prefer not to have wild, wet, and sometimes loud sex and opt for a tidy clean conception in a test tube? Sans the touchy feely stuff? Do we really want to evolve that much? Okay for some I suppose, but why does the medical world respect her wishes and not mine? I'm rallying for the unfairness of that.

My heart hears our unborn children rallying to be represented, respected, to have their birth day honored.  Maybe they don't want to wait for that once a year birthday party (like having a party will heal all the damage done to them in utero and during the birth process), and want to celebrate birth on their actual birth day! I only want for us to help women find their way through today's maze of options and give birth in a way that will not leave her, or her and baby, depressed, injured, defeated, confused, and  questioning. Don't we want the prenatal time, the birthing time and the babymoon time to be all it can be, all God intended it to be? Some describe their birthing time as ecstatic. If mom is ecstatic how do you think baby feels? Today we have come to understand that science and medicine is not the end all be all that it was once thought to be.  We also know that new studies are proving that nature is better (think breast milk). 

“When you know better you do better.” 

― Maya Angelou

Improving Birth Rally Information

Improving Birth Main Web Page for evidence, facts, rights related to pregnancy and birth

Sometimes we cannot choose. Nature sends storms, the earth quakes, our bodies fail. But when we can choose, while we have choices and voices, let us not be silent, let us celebrate our bodies with our bodies. One thing we can do with our body is rally, carry a sign and speak about issues that will improve birth. We rally to celebrate the beginnings of life, the freshness of babies, the fresh hope they bring, the huge love, enormous love, that sweet new baby's bring! I've noticed that this tiny baby changes not only our family but also our neighborhood, our workplace, our world! Let's rally for our freedom to choose our baby's birthplace (where this new person will be most welcome), our birth attendants (who will be present to witness this woman's power, this man and woman be transformed into a mommy and daddy, this baby breath under her own power and the sacred bonding that follows), our birthing time (Let God and baby decide). I rally to make this earth(heart) moving(expanding) event all it can be. It's our Human Right to make choices for our bodies and to make choices for the bodies that we grow in our bellies and give birth to! I rally for the woman I doula for, for these women's rights. I rally for human rights. I rally for babies rights. For baby's right to be born without being hurried, poked, prodded, suctioned out, yelled out, questioned, tortured.

"Beautiful Day For A Baby!"

Stay tuned, a great movie is coming out! If you loved reading Spiritual Midwifery, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, or Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta, you will love this movie. Here is the Trailer.






Two filmmaking mothers have given birth to this beautiful film.  Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore were inspired by the important work of world-famous midwife Ina May Gaskin and her incredible colleagues. They spent the last two and a half years juggling cameras, microphones, hard drives, preschool drop offs, nursing infants, pregnancy, editing schedules, babysitting schedules, American express bills, and vomiting four-year-olds, and as they say, "We are now ready, we are finally pushing this baby out!"
 
At the Los Angeles Film Fest Premire this movie won the AUDIENCE AWARD




If you haven't read Ina May's work go here.

If you want to purchase the movie donate $25 towards it's completion and circulation by clicking  here.

After watching this movie, if you think to yourself, like I did years ago, "Oh I wish I could have my baby on The Farm" (this is where the movie takes place and Ina May catches babies), I hope you know that there is a lovely, many lovely, qualified home birth midwives in your neighborhood. I believe you have the power to create the type of birth you desire. Heck when your baby was just a twinkle in your eye you had enough energy to create her, conceive her! With God's help you can keep that good woman power flowing. I found my Farm birth and so can you. Believe. 


God bless you, Rosie

Transformation

What does that word mean to you? Today the word transformation reminds me of my birth. Do you have a minute? Curl up in the foetal position with me. Yes travel backwards with me, way back, back, back…back to when I was floating in warm water, muffled voices and muffled light all around me…My reality is love and peace…I know those words only from what my heart tells me. My ticking, beating, singing heart! It speaks the truth. Swoosh swoosh, swoosh swoosh, love peace, love peace… my existence came only out of pure love and peace. Oh there were hard days back then, growing limbs, hair follicles, etc., but I enjoyed it like play. Fascination was a big word for me but I knew it intimately. Even making the physical transitions to breathing with my lungs instead of my umbilical cord and nourishing myself by suckling on my mother’s breast was doable, the physical work was natural. It was the emotional work that took its toll. I was not listened to or respected for my human form. It has taken years of relearning to trust myself, trust in love and trust the God that designed and invented love and trust… and all these words that I am writing here – every single word here I love and trust. Now I have peace.

The respect and gentle kindness that we show babies is important! It is understated. It is vital. I cannot find the perfect word. Well in one sense, the word I am looking for is vital to the completion of this essay and the message that I am trying to communicate. But ‘vital’ still seems too weak a word. The respect and gentle kindness that we show to babies, before they are born, during their birth time, and after they are earth side, is relative to the health of the planet. The harm we, either unknowingly or knowingly, inflict on babies during this early transformation, their birth, can cause more harm than we imagine. Volumes of medical text would go away if we valued our bodies and our babies more. I do not mean we should throw more money at it or overindulge ourselves, becoming narcissist or fearful about birth. I mean to honor birth, its power, its pain, its time, its vessel. In my old crone years, this much I know. I like what Suzanne Arms poem says, “If we hope to create a non-violent world where respect and kindness replace fear and hatred we must begin with how we treat each other at the beginning of life. For that is where our deepest patterns are set. From these roots grow fear and alienation ~ or love and trust”.

The way we are born has creation power of its own, not unlike the miracle of conception. It is not just a physical event. It is more. It is a spiritual event. Birth should not become something of an unpleasant experience like the “generation gap” has become. Oh yes, we celebrate our children’s 16th birthday with a drivers license and their 18th with voter privileges, just like we celebrate baby’s with baby showers and cute things. Celebrate these life transitions with time. Love takes time. There, my words found the way to the truth, it was simple, and birth is simple, unless you do not have time. Hurried love? Who really feels loved when it’s hurried? Simply take time with yourself. Take time with your baby in utero. And take the time your baby needs during labor and in your early postpartum days. These are transformation tips from my heart.

I birthed three babies. I didn’t do it with a doula or any of the knowledge that has come to me since then (attending 250 plus births as a doula). I did my best when I gave birth. I learned along the way and I walked my path. I birthed my first baby in wonder, my second baby euphorically and my third baby at home (almost heaven), instead of a hospital. Each time I was transformed. With time I realized that this was my moment in time. My time to heal. During these birthing times, unlike my own birth, I was the protector of the unnamed, the unborn. I was able to choose to listen to and respect myself and my baby. I selected people that did the same. I was transformed.

If you are still in your birthing years please consider what some loving folks shared with me thirty plus years ago when I opened my heart to heal myself through the birthing of my babies. In 1976 I read Suzanne Arms, Immaculate Deception, Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery, and Childbirth without fear by Grantly Dick-Read. Today’s guiding lights are named differently, but are still many. Ina May Gaskin’s message is still the same today but her book, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, is in today’s language, it is current and it is very good. Can you imagine having a baby and not having a cell phone, television or microwave? Back in 1979-84 I didn’t even have one ultrasound! Birth hasn’t changed. Birth is just the same today. Advancement in technology has not changed the tides, the sunrise, the sunset or the birth process. Technology has not improved the infant mortality rate in our country (The US is ranked 46 in the world). Sorting through the information age, finding the information that will assist you in your transformation into motherhood and finding a community that will provide a loving and gentle transition for your baby is your truest challenge today. How will I do it you ask yourself? The same way I did…we do the best we can.

I believe the world was formed by my Father God. I believe My Father God has lead me along my path. His lovingkindness has been the true source of my healing. He has called me to be with women during birth and He has used birth to show me more about Himself and His truely loving nature. He is an awesome God. If you don't yet know this, you can. Ask him for guidance and He will lead you into exciting transformation!

For you oh God created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:13-16

As a birth doula I do the best I can. I continue to be transformed by every birth I attend. This year, in the late summer, I will become a new born grandmother. I know that my grandbaby is swimming a perfect swim stroke today. His swim stroke is going swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh, love-peace, love-peace.

– Rosie, woman, mother and doula…but first I was a baby girl.

(Musing that I wrote and filed away in the Spring of 2010)

Do la-la!

To Doula or not to Doula? That is the question.

Meet the Doula on Saturday, August 15. I will be at Babies-in-Bloom answering questions about what a doula is and how a doula can be an asset to you on the your baby's birth day and gently, lovingly, join birth support circle. All pregnant families are welcome!

2:00-3:00

1988 Hacienda Drive

Vista, CA 92081

760-940-2229

ICAN San Diego Event July 30th

There are many good events coming up in San Diego for pregnant families, birth professionals and open to anyone in the community that is interested.

On July 26 The Natural Birth Project will host Birth Stories (see previous post). Then ICAN (International Cesarean Awareness Network) of San Diego will host this event on July 30.

"Save the Date" - On September 13 the San Diego Birth Network will host a RED TENT EVENT...look for more details to follow.

"Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead

Film Screening & Book Signing

I am thrilled to announce the screening of two important films! It's My Body, My Baby, My Birth and Orgasmic Birth will be shown and a panel discussion will follow. Tickets are $10 and will be sold on-site or are available at brownpapertickets.com

Date: Friday, March 6th

Place: The Handlery Hotel & Resort, 950 Hotel Circle North, San Diego, CA 92108

(619) 298-0511.

Time: 7PM-10PM

This is a fundraiser for CIMS Conference (Coalition for Improving Maternity Services) also known as the motherfriendly organization. Let's continue to work together to make mother friendly care a reality!

Book signing (see bottom on page linked) featuring Pam England, author of Birthing From Within, Robbie Davis-Floyd, author of Birth Models That Work, Phyllis Klaus, co-author of When Survivors Give Birth and others will be will be available to meet with you on Saturday, March 7th right after the last conference session. This event is open to the public.

Time: 1:30-2:45 at the The Handlery Hotel & Resort.