Birth News

Robin laboring with Owen 2007

I love being a birth doula! I love my clients! I love being on-call! I even feel out of sorts when I am not on-call.  I think my revised schedule of taking one or two families every month is perfect for me. This allows me to look forward to my prenatal and postpartum meetings, still see my grandchildren and my large extended family and attend some doula circles and some continuing education (Rebozo, Spinningbabies, Neonatal Resuscitation).

I would love to share with you the last few birth stories and some photos of the amazing, inspirational families I meet! But the premise of doula work is that it's private. "It's Your Body, Your Baby, Your Birth" is not just a empty quote. It is her birth. Her's to process, grieve, celebrate, revel in, share intimately or with the world! It's the new Mommy's story. She made a baby, a whole new world, she made herstory!

If I attended your birth please let me know if you would like to share your birth story here (with my two readers) or share the birth story I wrote here. Or if I can link your webpage and your story ~ that would be nice too.

I will share just a bit, scattering the details so these stories could be anyone's.  Labor Day is a good day to labour in childbirth, rightly so don't you think? Last year and again this year I attended Labor Day births.  This year a first time mom had her baby in 6 hrs. 20 minutes. Her grace, her delicately selected, sweet, soft words were magical. At one point I was across the Birth Center suite as she labored in the warm tub, encouraging her baby, urging him with loving words to come into her arms. Only the midwife, who was by moms side, heard her words. I could see this midwife was moved. I only wished I'd been within earshot.

I attended a homebirth the next day. I got the call at like 4AM, arrived at  4:30AM and baby was born at 4:44AM. I am so glad that I had spent a day the week before listening to mom's fears and doing some prodromal, prelabor contractions with her. When her contractions did not change and it was getting late, mom took a hot shower, we did some side lying release and I tucked her in bed with a hot water bottle on her back. She slept through the night and I went home in the morning. A week later I barely had time to say a few words of encouragement and BABY WAS HERE!

I especially enjoyed interacting with the older sibling at this homebirth. The 3 year old big sister was such a delightful, sweet and busy birth attendant as the sun rose on her baby sisters birth day!

A few days ago I attended another first time Mommy. She gave birth in a Birth Center that does not do water births. The midwives do not have permission to catch babies in the water. They have nice labor tubs that women can use to labor in (Moms LOVE the warm water!). Then they move the woman to the bed for the birth. The birth should not happen in the water. Last night this FANTASTICALLY laboring woman surprised the midwife when her baby almost slipped out in the water - Oops. The midwife had stepped out of the room, thinking the mom would be pushing a little longer. I noticed a good size caput of baby slip out during the next contraction and called the midwife back. The mom stood up and the midwife caught the baby. The midwife handed the baby back to the new Mommy and  Mommy sat back down in the warm water with her baby, cord still attached. Kind of tickles me that it was virtually a water birth. 

Sometimes when I meet with prospective clients in the interview time or meet prenatally with families, I ask them to give some thought to the question, "if you could be born again how would you like to be born?" Some may think I'm silly to ask. Some go on a hunt for their original birth story and then their new birth story (imaginary of course) of choice. It's good to put the question out there. Then now, do you know for yourself how you would like to be born (where, when, with who, etc)?  Ask your unborn baby how he or she would like to be born. Spend evenings, days, weeks asking and see if you don't get a sense of what baby is telling you. These three moms listened...listened to their own story and to their baby's story. It seems as clear as a clear crisp day that all happened just as it was supposed to. ♥

It Ain't Right!

Today I read Childbirth Videos: Helpful or Hard to Watch? , another good article on the dilemma I've been thinking about for some time. I think it is valuable for women of all ages, men too, to know how babies are born. It is too bad that many movies present birth as a dramatic event, when often times birth is down right boring. Oops! Did I just say that? Did no one ever tell you that? Boring. Birth is boring. Heck, not to the mom who is giving birth, not to the daddy waiting to catch his baby and not to me who is a birth nut (and you if you are reading this). But if one is not aware that there is a very holy thing happening when a new person is born, if a birth attendant is not in love with this family then they should not be in the room. They will be bored. If you are just looking at the mechanics of birth and not the LOVE quotient then birth is boring. It's like watching people make love. Do you look the other way or stare at Public Displays of Affection? I don't know many people that stare. That's how birth should be. Janet Isaacs Ashford wrote Natural Love: A Parody. It's a fictional account of newlyweds Kate and Sam, who take a class in "prepared love," and are admitted to the hospital's "natural love room." But many intrusions by staff and the use of monitoring devices cause things to go awry and their love must be mechanically resolved.

Recently I viewed Shiloh's quick and peaceful water birth. I realized my favorite births and birth videos and teaching tools involve births where you never see the baby's head crowning. I like to think that this baby was conceived in private, grew in mommy's belly in private and will be mothered the rest of his life in private (for the most part). Why should this baby be born into strangers hands with mom in an uncomfortable position, spread eagle, splayed out, for the convenience of this stranger, doctor, catcher????

In my town there is a television news commentator and investigative reporter, named Turko. Everyone in Southern California knows about The Turko Files. The slogan and quip this commentator uses is, "It Ain't Right". He goes on to right wrongs, seeking justice for the everyday citizen. "It Ain't Right!" keeps ringing in my head when I watch women birthing on their backs. Call me a Turko want-to-be but these women are made to look like turkeys; on their back, feet in stirrups, sometimes with strangers hands up all the way up the birth canal, vagina, baby slide, whatever you want to call it, not unlike a turkey. It's not right! I got angry the other night and my boyfriend joined in the list of funny and not-so-funny reasons that this supine positioning for birth is so WRONG. He said something hilarious (side note: he's the funniest man on the planet!), I laughed so hard I started crying and then I did cry. When will hospitals let women birth intuitively, in whatever position is good for the mom (which usually means it's the position baby needs too)? Get off your back! How many of us have only had sex on our back? Okay sometimes maybe, but always???? Nope.

Last week I had the honor of attending a woman's homebirth. She gave birth to her baby in a small deep warm pool of water. During her labor she always made great progress when we left her alone, in the privacy of her bedroom, with her man. During the birth she stayed in the middle of the pool (in her kitchen) providing herself an isolated space, where no one could interfere with her work. It was even hard for the midwife to reach her belly to take fetal heart tones (but of course the midwife did get FHT, looking like a trapeze artist, balancing on the pools edge!). We (the midwife, father, doula) never saw this Mama's bottom, perineum, vagina, as baby was born. Mom was in a sqatting position in the middle of the pool, with HER hand on her yoni. Mom felt her baby crown and only after baby's head was born did the dad and midwife help by supporting baby's head (not pulling on it). We saw baby's cute face through the water but we did not see Mama's vagina. Nope, there was no need to be staring at this birthing woman's vagina! Then mom pushed out the body and then received her baby.

Side Note: after mom got out of water, she went to bed to birth the placenta. After a while the midwife checked her perineum for lacerations. No repair was needed. I was not present, it was very private. No extra people staring at this angelic Mommy's vagina! She just had a beautiful, hard but beautiful, Home Birth After Cesarean.

Since we no longer live in small towns where neighbors look out for each other like in early settler days, days when women cared for each other in childbirth, strong brave women rolled up their sleeves, came in from the fields and birthed their young or helped a neighbor give birth (they were not delivered), it is almost impossible for most of us to know that women don't birth on their backs. If left to your own instincts where would you birth? Who knows? I had two hospital births and one homebirth, all on my back. I was conditioned. I was compliant. I was fortunate back then, 25 years ago, to have vaginal births. Some women that have cesareans may have avoided them by having the freedom to move around in labor. Many cesarean sections could be prevented if women could push in her good time, with her body's urgings, in the position that feels right for her. I know many brave strong women. Some have birthed by cesarean section, some on their backs in hospital, some standing in birth centers, and some how ever they want at home.

I am very amazed at my fortune, I am rich to know these women, I am truly blessed to be a Birth Doula. I would like to be a good Turko and report that today we went from "It Ain't Right" to "It's All Right! Let this Mama birth how she sees fit"...in my lifetime? In my childrens life time? I pray it's so.

Love you madly, Rosie