Excerpt from Rediscovering Birth

It seems most people who know me well are less surprised than I am that I have stumbled onto this path of wanting to study midwifery. But here I am. It feels almost inevitable that I ended up here. It feels comfortable, like there was a hollow carved for me here already, and I’ve finally found it and agreed to settle down into it. I knew it when I was the doula for a remarkable ordinary woman who gave birth at home a few weeks ago. (I blogged about that birth in installments here, here, and here.) Since that birth, I’ve kept thinking about the things I saw there. I attended a hospital birth last week that was basically a failed induction ending up as a cesarean. I can’t help but contrast those two births.
Meanwhile, I’ve been reading a book called Rediscovering Birth, by the grand dame of childbirth studies, British anthropologist Sheila Kitzinger. (She wrote The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth, which I happened to read when I was pregnant with Jonathan, and it made such a difference!) Rediscovering Birth is a beautiful book you might keep on your coffee table just for its stunning photography and illustrations. But Kitzinger’s writing is substantive, too. She examines birth practices in traditional societies and compares them to those in industrialized societies.
The following excerpt (which I think would still come under “fair use”) encapsulates one aspect of the difference between traditional birth and industrialized birth, and between homebirth and hospital birth:

Shared Knowledge
When simple objects such as a hammock, ‘household artefacts. . . which are imbedded in the matrix of daily life’, are used in childbirth, the result is ‘hands on, collaborative birthing’, writes the anthropologist Brigitte Jordan. A Mayan in Yucatan is accustomed to using her hammock to get comfortable. She lies on her back, her side or even her front. Her movement is not restricted and as she feels the baby descending she adjusts her position easily. Her husband, mother, other women in the family and the midwife are equally familiar with hammocks and how they can be used, so they know exactly how to position themselves to give her the best support.
It is quite different for a woman lying on a hospital delivery table. She is no longer held in anyone’s arms. The narrowness of the table and the equipment around her prohibit it and mean that there is simply no space for them to get near her. The lower part of her body is draped and isolated from the upper part. [In the hospitals where I've attended births, I've never seen this draping; hopefully it is now just a memory.] She cannot touch it. She cannot see what is happening. And if she has had regional anaesthesia she cannot feel it.
When sophisticated technology is used in childbirth, power is in the hands of those who know how to control and interpret it. Interpreting the squiggles on a print-out from an electronic monitor is often difficult even for those who have been trained to do so. Setting up an intravenous drip, inserting a catheter, giving an epidural, even measuring blood pressure, all require professional skills. The birthing woman turns to her care-givers for information and they turn to the electronic equipment for information. They then decide whether or not to share this with the woman. They may withhold it, telling her not to worry, or give her partial information, or, depending on what they want her to do, give her information which, though inaccurate, is designed to get her to act in a certain way — to push harder or to agree to a Caesarean section, for example, which they consider is in her own and the baby’s best interest.
In contrast, when objects are used with which everyone is familiar and which everyone knows how to handle, knowledge is shared. And because knowledge is shared, there is no hierarchy. Though the midwife is respected for her special skills, all the other women present understand birth, too, and know how to handle the objects which come in useful in childbirth. Just as women work together in the kitchen or the dairy, so they work together in the birth room. Their activities appear automatic, unspectacular, smoothly co-ordinated. It is as though everyone present knows the steps of the dance and they are all in tune with the same music.

(Kitzinger, Rediscovering Birth, Pocket Books, 2000; p. 176)

In celebration of the pregnant body

A pregnant friend just posted some photos of her pregnant belly and her family. It was her way of celebrating her expectant body in the face of the messages she’s constantly hearing to the contrary. She is not alone in fighting this inner battle during pregnancy. While there are some women who feel positive about their bodies all throughout pregnancy, there are still way too many who struggle either until they give birth or until much later — whenever they reach their post-pregnancy fitness goal or just give up.
When I was pregnant, it was a severe struggle for me, too. I’ve always had body-image issues, and pregnancy took away any semblance of control I had over my own body. I resented that, grew depressed over it. I felt uncomfortably exposed in clothing that showed the actual shape of my pregnant belly or my fuller breasts, and I wanted to hide the fact that everything was fatter than “normal.” I confess that just to say I know what it’s like not to like your pregnant body, even while you relish the hope and expectations of carrying a life inside you.
In the meanwhile, though, I’ve come to see the physicality of pregnancy and birth in a whole new light. As a doula, I see a lot of pregnant bodies. I see a lot of the pregnant bodies, too. And I have come to view women’s pregnant bodies as just plain gorgeous. It would be hard for me to believe otherwise, now that I’ve had the privilege of watching many women meet the challenge of giving birth.
When I attend a birth, I don’t stand there and ogle the woman, but I am often floored by the astounding beauty of her working through the birth process.
Pregnant women are full and big.
They are powerful.
Their breasts are more than a handful,
round and ready to sustain life,
their nipples more than a mouthful,
earthy-dark and confident;
their openings soft and supple;
the lines of their bodies sensual,
dynamic,
and when they feel at home in their laboring skin,
they move in a dance
as beautiful as anything you might see on stage.

I’ve seen women
with long, slender legs
with thicker, muscular legs
feet and ankles swollen,
and feet and ankles where you could see every elegant tendon.

I’ve seen women
with lush tattoos on their backs,
leading down over their buttocks,
on their chests,
women with piercings
women with jewelry
and women totally nude,
natural and unaltered.

I’ve seen them with extra padding around their hips,
and some with hips as slender as a girl’s,
breasts firm and small,
and breasts soft and big as pillows,
arms willowy, and arms big and round.

Lots of painted toenails,
and some bare — like mine.
Hair twisted in knots,
tied in ponytails,
under a hat,
out of the face,
and some loose and flowing.

I’ve seen women labor with nothing on,
and some who hardly want to reveal an ankle
women in fluffy bathrobes, comfort objects,
and women in sexy chemises
and some who choose the hospital uniform.

You see, it’s pretty much all normal. We’re all different. Most of us don’t even have two breasts the same size, and our nipples point odd directions (in our opinion). Most of us have extra padding somewhere on our bodies, and not where we’d like it. We just think our bodies are odd or defective, because we don’t see the wide spectrum. The thing is, our bodies work. Pregnant women are all sustaining the life of a being within them.
And I get the extreme privilege of witnessing as they prove their strength in giving birth. I wish all women could witness that. It would do wonders for our body images, I think.
Our bodies have been created strong and able. I pray God helps us begin to marvel at our unique beauty.

Doula’s first homebirth: Labor, Part 2

Thanks for coming back to read the rest of my first homebirth story, or what happens when birth occurs undisturbed. We pick up the story at about midnight, with Rhiannon having labored for about 20 hours so far. Rhiannon’s tired. Her contractions have spaced out to every 5-6 minutes average, whereas a couple hours ago they looked like transition-level contractions. Arlene, the midwife, has decided to do her first internal exam, hoping to find out what is going on with Rhiannon’s labor. Rhiannon and James are sitting in their bed; the lights are on but pretty low, and it’s quiet in their house. The dogs have been picked up by Rhiannon’s parents a few hours ago.

After Arlene finished checking Rhiannon’s cervix, she sat quietly for a few seconds, composing her thoughts before speaking. She looked at me with an expression like “You don’t wanna hear this.” We were all steeling ourselves for the news. She said to Rhiannon, “You’re 3 to 5 centimeters, about 90 percent effaced, and the baby is a little lower.”
As that disappointing news settled in, Rhiannon stayed calm.
I can’t resist making my own confession. Here’s what I thought: “Oh, no. She’s not progressing. Something’s wrong. Her labor has stalled. We’re going to have to transfer to the hospital. Please, God, don’t let this turn out to be a cesarean.” My dread was nauseating. You see, all the births I’d done up to this point had been hospital births, and that’s probably where this would have gone, had she been at a hospital. Well, if she’d been lucky, the doctor would have sent her home from the hospital. But after 20 hours of labor, everyone would have assumed this was going nowhere and she needed some significant help to get the baby out, let’s start with pitocin. And the dominoes would have started to fall. They had already fallen, in my mind. I know that fearful route too well. I’m almost embarrassed to confess that’s what I thought.
I don’t know what Rhiannon was thinking at that point. But here’s where Arlene the midwife’s practice ran orthogonal to my thought process. (Remember skew lines from high-school geometry? They’re in two totally different planes; they cannot ever intersect. Medical model and midwifery model were skew lines here — two totally different worldviews.)
Arlene said quietly, “Let’s talk about labor a little bit.” And she (and I, when I’d recovered from my dread) proceeded to share what she knew about labor: that it is not a manageable process, and that you have to stop trying to manage it; that a woman has to just give up; that it’s always more than you can handle; that pretty much every woman laboring without pain meds gets to a point where she realizes, “Oh, crap, what am I gonna do now? I. Can. Not. Do. This.” (Actually, the words, if there were words for it, would be much more colorful and expressive than that.) And that you have to willingly enter that place of (yes) pain and let your body do its work. Arlene thought maybe Rhiannon was afraid to go to where labor became unmanageable. As tired as Rhiannon was, she needed to stop thinking about labor for now and try to get some sleep (yes, between the contractions) with James, and Arlene and I would go out to the living room and get some sleep, too. She thought Rhiannon’s labor would probably pick up again in an hour or two.
Arlene made an herbal potion (with tinctures of skullcap, hops, black haw, and something else) to help Rhiannon relax enough to sleep, and then we shut their bedroom door and left Rhiannon and James alone. We found ourselves some blankets and went to sleep, Arlene on the couch and I on the recliner. (My neck is still protesting that posture.) James came out after an hour or so, waking us up, to say that Rhiannon had thrown up (after taking the herbs), and Arlene said, “Oh, shoot!” and went back to sleep. So James went back to bed, too. I didn’t hear much the rest of the night from that end of the house, which was good, because that meant Rhiannon was getting some sleep. I drew my calm from Arlene. She certainly didn’t act worried, so I tried not to, either.
At 7:50 a.m., James sleepily stumbled out in his shorts and said, “Rhiannon’s pushing at the beginning of contractions.” Arlene desperately tried to wake herself up. I went to brush my teeth (I can’t imagine much worse than your doula having morning breath), and by the time I was back, Arlene was shuffling into the bedroom. Sure enough, there was Rhiannon on her side in bed making those “Nnnnnnn” sounds, her body curving involuntarily into a pushing posture. Arlene put a glove on and quickly checked her dilation, and sure enough, Rhiannon was completely dilated! (I know she had to be working hard during the night, but somehow turning off her brain and just trying to sleep instead of thinking about labor had done the magic, and here she was ready to push her baby out into the world! It was the most magnificent moment, from my point of view.)
Arlene placed a flat hand against Rhiannon’s bottom to give her a general idea of pushing direction, and then stood back to let Rhiannon do the pushing. That was all the instructing Arlene did. Rhiannon was never confused about pushing. She just listened to her body and followed her own cues. First she pushed on her side in bed for a few minutes. After a little bit, she needed to use the toilet, so she went into the bathroom, and sat there and pushed for a while, maybe 10 minutes. Her water broke while she was on the toilet, but we didn’t know that until later. It didn’t really matter. She said it felt good to sit there and push. Instinctively, she reached down and felt her baby’s head coming lower and lower, and she was worried the baby would come out while she was on the toilet, so Arlene suggested she sit on the forward edge of the seat. Rhiannon ended up squatting on the floor for one contraction, but it was too tiring, so she went forward on hands and knees in front of the toilet.
Things were still very quiet. Rhiannon never complained of pain while pushing until the baby crowned. All we could hear from her were grunting sounds as she worked with her body. No one counted or encouraged excessively. We just watched her do her work.
Arlene got her packet of birth instruments laid out on the floor and squeezed between the toilet and Rhiannon, ready to attend the baby’s emergence, and James squeezed between the wall and Rhiannon. Except for the top half of Rhiannon’s body, we were all packed into a space about three feet by three feet. It was cozy and comfortable.
And then there was baby hair (dark), and then there was more head, and Rhiannon whimpered and said it burned as her perineum stretched to accommodate the baby’s head, and and she didn’t try to force anything along, and then the baby’s head was out. Arlene asked me to give her the suction device, and she suctioned out a little mucus. The baby was a really healthy color. And Arlene had James get ready to receive the baby into his hands. And with a final push, out came a perfect baby girl into her daddy’s hands. The baby pooped as she came out. And there was this miraculous moment as this new family got a look at each other in the soft light of the warm bathroom.
The umbilical cord was shorter than usual, so Arlene and James carefully choreographed passing the baby up through Rhiannon’s legs, while Rhiannon went from hands and knees back to kneeling and holding her baby. The baby cried a little, but besides that, everything was quiet and almost sacred.
By the way, Rhiannon only had a teensy-weensy tear, about a quarter-inch, for this, her first birth, thanks to an unhurried pushing stage and that lovely hands-and-knees position. By the time the placenta came out, it was already healing itself up, no stitches needed.
Arlene had Rhiannon walk to the bed, which was quite the picture: brand-new mother, holding her baby, umbilical cord still disappearing into her vagina, walking to the bed and getting in. No problem. And then Rhiannon and James sat on their bed, cuddling and welcoming the new addition to their family. Within a few minutes, Rhiannon put the little girl to her breast, and she snuffled her way to a latch. This was Rhiannon’s first time, and obviously the baby’s first time, too, so there was some trial and error. Once she latched on, she nursed off and on for at least an hour. Arlene lightly held the umbilical cord to feel when it stopped pulsating, and at about four minutes after birth, she clamped it and handed the scissors to James so he could cut it. Arlene sat quietly, waiting for the placenta to come out — which it did within an hour, no urgency — and Arlene put it into a bowl. Arlene inspected the placenta to ensure it had all been expelled. It was in great condition, and Arlene congratulated Rhiannon on taking such good care of herself during pregnancy.
Meanwhile, I thought Rhiannon and James deserved a good breakfast, so I dug around in the kitchen, finding the fixin’s for pancakes and eggs. And when Rhiannon said she liked her pancakes with syrup and chocolate chips, by golly, she deserved every empty calorie on that plate. James fed her breakfast in bed, while she fed the baby.
By the time the placenta came out and the baby had suckled for an hour, Rhiannon needed to use the toilet, so she handed off the baby to James and walked to the bathroom. While there, she took a shower, sitting on the birth ball. Fresher than before, she returned to bed, and Arlene got ready to do the newborn exam, two hours after birth. So gently, so kindly, she took the baby and weighed her: 8 lbs. 2 oz. Arlene noticed the baby wincing away when Arlene touched the small caput on her head, so she rubbed some Traumeel on that. She examined the baby thoroughly, not in a hurry, speaking lovingly to the baby the whole time.
Arlene and I tidied up a bit more, doing dishes and laundry, and James treated himself to a shower, too. Rhiannon’s bleeding had been great ever since the birth — that is, very limited. Arlene and I were there a total of three hours after the baby was born. Rhiannon’s parents were coming to visit soon, so we left Rhiannon, James, and the baby alone, hoping they could get a little sleep before guests arrived.

So that’s the story of my first homebirth as a doula. I realize I lost all objectivity somewhere around the baby’s arrival in the world, but I don’t really care about that now. It’s sacred and miraculous. Objectivity doesn’t matter at that point. I cry every time.
In the first few days after birth, Arlene and I stayed in close contact with Rhiannon and each other. The first night with the baby was trying, as she cried practically all night long, and nursing didn’t seem to be easy at all. And when daylight arrived, she would barely wake up. I went to visit Rhiannon and James the day after she was born, and later that day, Arlene drove 1 1/2 hours back to check on them, too. A couple of days later, Rhiannon and I talked again. Rhiannon’s milk had come in, thanks to lots of nursing, and she was engorged. We talked about some ways to ease the bowling-ball pain. The next day, in an email to me, Rhiannon said breastfeeding was turning out to be much easier than she had thought it would be.
I could write a whole post highlighting the differences between this birth and the typical birth I attend, even the typical unmedicated hospital birth. Let me know if you want that. But I bet you can do your own comparison. You could even do some birth-story math: how many hours of labor, how many vaginal exams, how many stitches, how many needles, how many minutes the mother’s practitioner spent with her, how many minutes the baby spent out of her parents’ arms.

Thanks for hanging in there with me through such a long story. I hope you enjoyed it.

Doula’s first homebirth: Labor, Part 1

Finally, at 4 a.m. the morning of Jan. 11, Rhiannon woke up with some real contractions. They were very regular, about 30 seconds long, and about 4 minutes apart, and nothing she did — a shower, eating, trying to sleep — made them go away. She felt nauseated and had thrown up, but was trying to nourish and hydrate herself. She called me at 9 that morning to give me a heads-up, and I put my life in order so I could go support her and James whenever they needed me. They also let Arlene know what was happening, but of course Arlene was waiting for Rhiannon to get a little closer to birth before she came.
Doula aside: You know how, in your hospital’s childbirth class, they tell you to come to the hospital when your contractions are 5 min. apart for an hour (or something like that)? If Rhiannon and James had followed that advice, the story would be drastically different from here on out. At the end of the story, feel free to come back and choose a different adventure, and then try to figure out what would have happened.
When Rhiannon told me she thought she was in labor, I encouraged her to eat and sleep, which is almost always what I tell women in early labor, and we agreed to talk later. In fact, we started texting later about the goings-on, until her phone went on the fritz, at which point I talked to James. Rhiannon was working harder by then and was using her energy for labor rather than talking on the phone. I made arrangements for my kids, made my peanut-butter sandwiches, and headed over to their home around 1 p.m.
Except for the dogs’ excited barking, everything was quiet at Rhiannon and James’s house. Rhiannon was in their large, deep bathtub, relaxing on her side, with a Hypnobabies affirmations CD playing quietly. The lights were low. James joined her in the tub, and the two of them snuggled together in the water, Rhiannon half-sleeping. Cool washcloths felt refreshing to her, so I kept a few of them cold and ready for her to press to her face. I made sure she kept drinking water and getting some calories. And I handed her Preggie Pops drops to help with her nausea. Besides that, I didn’t say or do much. I almost felt out of place in such an intimate, almost romantic atmosphere.
Rhiannon felt it had already been a long day. She’d been having contractions for the past nine hours, and nothing much seemed to be changing. Although she was handling her labor beautifully, staying calm through each contraction, relaxing well, it was hard to say how much progress she had made. Of course I wasn’t able to check her cervix to know for sure. Given the fact she was laboring in the water, and she was at home in her own comfortable environment, I thought she might just be handling things extraordinarily well and making great progress. I would have guessed her dilation at 4-5 cm, taking all these factors into account, but I wanted to see some more labor before I encouraged them to call Arlene.
Rhiannon got out of the tub and padded off to the kitchen to hunt for a snack. She paced a little, but then sought the relaxation of the tub again. Eventually, Rhiannon asked me if I thought the tub was “doing any good.” Yes, it was helping her relax, but I hadn’t seen any increase in intensity, so we talked about possibly changing settings. Finally, Rhiannon and James decided to watch a movie, and James put on Ice Age. Rhiannon sat on the birth ball, breathing through her contractions, and James and I would sometimes try massaging her lower back. We made it through Ice Age and then through Pirates of the Caribbean, and Rhiannon ended up on her hands and knees, with her head draped over the ball during contractions. By this time, things seemed to be ramping up a little, and we talked to Arlene on the phone. Since none of us knew for sure how far along Rhiannon was, and since she was in active labor, Arlene decided to drive to Rhiannon and James’s home to be on hand for the birth.
By now it was about suppertime. James made himself a salad, and Rhiannon had been nourishing herself as well as possible with protein shakes, juice, and water. The hot tub was calling again as a place of relaxation and comfort, so James started filling it up. They got back in. They had me light some unscented candles for ambience. The Hypnobabies affirmations CD was playing again, the female voice slowly saying things like “I completely cooperate with my body” and “I make my own decisions about my baby’s birth.” Indeed, Rhiannon was making all the decisions about her birth, from choosing where and how to labor, to whom she wanted there and what she wanted to eat. She never lost control or concentration during contractions.
Rhiannon and James continued to labor together in the tub, what seemed a very intimate time to me.
Around 7 p.m., Arlene arrived. She came in quietly, without fanfare, and started getting the bathroom and the adjoining bedroom set up for birth, laying a new plastic tablecloth over the carpet and Chux pads on the bed and the bathroom floor. At some point, she greeted Rhiannon, but did not interrupt Rhiannon and James’s birth dance.
Arlene and I stayed nearby, watching the two of them cope with labor and occasionally expressing our admiration of Rhiannon. Honestly, it was just beautiful and mesmerizing to watch. Rhiannon moved like a dancer, her body graceful and curving in and out with the waves of labor. And James was infinitely gentle and patient, lightly stroking Rhiannon’s wet body through each contraction. They spoke to each other so softly Arlene and I rarely heard anything they said. They were in this dark, watery microcosm together, together bringing their baby out into the world. Some labors I attend are very intimate, and this one had a comfortable sensuality that could only be expressed in the privacy of their own bathroom.
I was timing contractions just to see what the data told us. They were more than a minute long and about 2 1/2 minutes apart usually, and were becoming more and more intense. Rhiannon’s sounds were changing to the kind that accompany transition. No one had checked her cervix yet, even though she had been in labor 15 or 16 hours by then. Rhiannon started complaining of a pain in her side, as though the baby was pushing on her ureter. Position changes and massage didn’t seem to help, so Arlene suggested rubbing Traumeel, a homeopathic analgesic, on the area. It worked, so James massaged some more of it in every time the pain returned. (I have to get me some of that Traumeel! It was magical!)
Arlene ran out to get some coffee and offered to bring some for James and me, too. Rhiannon kept laboring, handling each contraction beautifully, and some were very intense. Arlene and I exchanged happy looks that meant, “This is going great! We’re going to have a baby soon!” But after a while, the contractions started spacing out, some 6 or 8 minutes apart. Rhiannon asked if there was anything we could do to get things going, and after checking the baby’s heartbeat (which was great), Arlene explained her options to her: 1) Rhiannon could take some herbs that would intensify contractions; however, the herbs were unpleasant, and the baby and/or Rhiannon might react negatively to them. 2) Arlene could check Rhiannon’s cervix to know for sure how far Rhiannon had progressed. Or 3) We could all realize that toward the end of labor, there is often a period of slowed contractions, and be thankful for the rest. By not choosing any interventions, Rhiannon implied she wanted to wait and see.
So we waited some more. Rhiannon and James continued to labor beautifully together. Arlene predicted the baby would be born by 12:15 or 12:30. And then the contractions spaced out again, and Rhiannon wondered out loud why it was taking so long. Even though her total amount of labor (20 hours by now) was not unusual (Arlene said it was “dead average”), Rhiannon was discouraged and very tired. She got out of the tub and picked a new place to labor, for a refreshing change of pace. James put on an episode of That 70’s Show, and Rhiannon relaxed with that comforting distraction. (Watching TV is frequently what she does to get to sleep at night.) She draped herself over the birth ball and watched the show when she could.
Arlene went outside for a smoke break and a few minutes to check in with herself to think about what was going on with Rhiannon’s labor. When she came in, we turned off the TV and got quiet for a conversation. Arlene had decided she needed some information, so she needed to check Rhiannon’s cervix. She was fine with whatever position Rhiannon wanted to be in for the internal exam, even hands-and-knees or standing up. It turns out Rhiannon got onto the bed for the exam, and then Arlene checked her.
And we all held our breath — and you know that feeling if you’ve ever been intimately involved with a birth.

Sorry to end on a cliffhanger — I know you’ll have to check back to find out how much she was dilated! Coming soon!

Doula’s first homebirth: Prenatal

I had the great privilege last week of attending my first homebirth as a doula. Although I always write a timeline of my clients’ births to share with them, I never plan on publishing their stories. Don’t worry; Rhiannon gave me her blessing in sharing their story with my readers, and none of the names in the story are their real names. And I’m not going to try to make it overly flowery; what I describe is almost as objective as I can be. It’s gonna be long, so I guess I’ll post it in installments. Try as I might, I’ve never been able to write a short birth story, even if the birth happens in two hours. So. . .

Let me tell you what happens when birth occurs undisturbed.

During Rhiannon’s pregnancy, like most other pregnant women in this town, she went to see an OB at the local women’s clinic. Rhiannon and James read some books about pregnancy and birth, and they noticed that the care they were receiving at the clinic was less personal and more full of medical interventions than what they had read was healthy. So they started researching their other options for birth places. Their search led them to a midwife named Arlene, who lives 1 1/2 hours away. When they knew they would be switching to midwifery care, they talked to their OB about it, and the doctor’s reply was “Well, I hope you don’t regret it.” Their interactions with Arlene did not disappoint them. Once a month, they drove to Arlene’s home for prenatal appointments. Due to Rhiannon’s high blood pressure, Arlene had her take calcium and magnesium supplements, monitor and record her blood pressure daily, and keep her stress levels down. Soon, Rhiannon’s blood pressure was down to normal, and Arlene told her she could stop checking her blood pressure so frequently. Rhiannon had a low appetite, so Arlene had her increase her protein intake by drinking protein shakes. With the help of the midwife, Rhiannon took responsibility for her own health throughout the pregnancy.
Rhiannon and James contacted me a few months ago. Because of the distance between Manhattan and Arlene’s town, Arlene had asked them to hire a doula to help with labor support. From the first night we met, we got along well. For one of their prenatal meetings with Arlene, Arlene drove to Manhattan to make sure she knew the route and ensure that Rhiannon and James’s home was set up for birth. I got to meet Arlene that day, and we talked about my role at this birth. Basically, I would do all the labor support I normally do at hospital births, but Arlene also hoped I could estimate by observing Rhiannon when she was 4-5 cm dilated (doing internal exams is not in my scope of practice), so Arlene would know when to head this way. (Judging that as a doula is enough for a whole series of blog posts, so I’ll save comments about that for another day.)
While Rhiannon was getting prenatal care at the OB clinic, she had been told her due date was Jan. 8. As most women do, she was getting a little impatient as that day drew closer. It would have been better for her to have a “due month” so as to avoid the discouragement that occurred when that due date came and went. There was no reason to worry, though; Arlene palpated her belly at every visit (and probably listened to the baby’s heartbeat, although I don’t know for sure; I never asked), and Rhiannon and the baby were always doing fine.

Stay tuned for the next installment, in which labor begins!

A reply to the resolution-scrooges

Here at the turning of the year, I’ve heard multiple people grousing about the futility of New Year’s resolutions. They say no one ever keeps New Year’s resolutions, anyway. I ask: Where’s the hope, people? Where’s the faith? I admit I haven’t always made them, sure that I’d just be defeated anyway and fail yet again. I agree, it doesn’t make much sense to resolve something you aren’t prepared to act on. Can you even call that a resolution?
So go ahead and be scroogy about resolutions if you want, but I’ve been pretty happy about my New Year’s resolutions from last year. Maybe they worked for me because they were organic to my life; something compelled me to make them, and something (Someone) impelled me to keep them (for the most part).
Here are my resolutions from last year, and how I did with them:

1. No more overdue books at the library! I did have some overdue books, but not as many as before. However, through this resolution, I figured out something valuable: I only let books go overdue when I’m stressed out. The solution: No library when I’m stressed out? I don’t think so.

2. Close doors and drawers. I did this most of the time! It really helped the kitchen look neater.

3. Pray through the Operation World prayer handbook. Yes, I did this! It was a big commitment, a significant part of my thinking and my daily morning routine. It was very worthwhile. I wonder what my prayer practice will look like now.

4. Lose _____ lbs. I did lose some pounds, but not as many as I hoped to. But I figured out by May or June that I needed to revise the goal. I had been hoping to get down to my lowest adult weight — but that was from a time when I had no muscle. I was just basically bones and a little flab. In March, I started running. My weight plateaued 6 or 7 lbs. above my goal weight. But I was physically very healthy. I now have some serious running muscles and a strong core. And I don’t care about weighing that tiny number anymore.

5. Take better care of my skin and teeth. Yep, did that.

6. Work my way through a baking book. Nope, didn’t get very far on this goal. I baked a few things from King Arthur’s _Whole Grain Baking_. It wasn’t realistic to work hard on this goal, and I decided I didn’t care.

7. Get into a lasting exercise regimen. Yes!!! I did this! I estimate I ran 600-700 miles from March through December. I like running a lot. I haven’t run much this last week, but I’m starting back up tomorrow morning.

8. Break my internet addiction. Um, yeah. Addiction is not broken. But I did figure out I use Facebook and email as coping mechanisms when life gets hairy. They do not satisfy me. This resolution carries over to 2010.

9. Break my sweets addiction. Uhhhhh. . . . I still need to do this one. But I’m more serious about it this year. Honestly, running helps me make healthier choices in the rest of my life, so the sweets thing wasn’t as out of control as in the past. Still, there are good reasons to get it more under control.

So I didn’t accomplish them all, but they really did help me move toward living right! Thanks be to God!

So, for 2010, here are my resolutions/goals:

1. Stop using the computer as a coping mechanism in times of stress. (I need to figure out a plan for this, because I need my computer for business reasons.)
2. Greatly reduce my sweets consumption. (I need a plan for this, too, because I’m not going cold-turkey on it.)
3. Attend as many births as I can. I want a lot of experience.
4. Be more patient and value fun with my kids.
5. Run a lot of miles. I was sort of planning to run 1,000 miles this year, but that’s basically four miles five days a week, and I’ve already skipped the first two days. I don’t like being two days behind already.
6. Learn to be strong and fearless in the face of covert opposition. Another way of putting this is “Find confidence in God my rock.”

Life-changing reads from 2009

If you click on my What I’m Reading tab near the top of the page, you’ll be able to see a full list of the books I chewed through this year. Yes, I started the Twilight series, and it was a comforting and necessary season of fluff for me. However, it did not change my life. The following five books are the ones that had the deepest influence on me this year.

1. The Complete Book of Running for Women, by Claire Kowalchik

Ann Berg might not even know this, but when she mentioned this book in a Facebook status, my interest was piqued. I borrowed it from the library (and then bought my own copy), read every word, and then started running. Kowalchik made running seem attainable and desirable. The chapter on what to wear removed my weather-related excuses (it also helped that I invested a little money in comfortable, non-ugly running clothes). And the training schedules have been my daily companions for months now. Because of this book, I am stronger and more confident now than I have been before in my life. I am so thankful for this book!

2. Celebration of Discipline, by Richard J. Foster

It’s so easy to overlook the classics, because their titles become mundane, and then the spines become invisible on my bookshelf. I finally took this modern classic off the shelf because Maris had recommended it as instructive for learning to meditate. This is one book on spiritual disciplines that is never dogmatic or legalistic. It never makes you feel guilty for what you’re not doing, just reveals God himself as the ultimate good and the disciplines as aids to clear the path to God. The chapter on meditation was good, but so were all the rest. Celebration of Discipline is simple and elegant, practical and pointed. It has become a treasure to me.

3. Count It All Joy, by Judy Kay Jones

You’ll never see this midwife’s memoir on the shelves at your chain bookstore. You might even have a hard time finding one online. Jill loaned it to me; the author is her aunt. In it, Jones tells the stories of births she has attended and the story of her prosecution for practicing midwifery in a state where it was not legal; she also (somewhat artificially, it seems to me) turns every story into a devotional complete with Bible verses. I started reading this book the night after I attended a frustrating birth in the hospital. Reading about homebirths from the midwife’s point of view was balm to my frustrated doula soul. Although in my head I knew there were other options for birth, I needed to experience those other options. This book, even though it is not beautifully written, marked the turning point that led out of my denial about becoming a midwife.

4. Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ, by Jeanne Guyon

Christian mystic Madame Guyon lived in France in the 1700s. In this dense little book she describes how she connects spiritually with Jesus. There is nothing bizarre about her practices, although they are very intense, which could make some modern Christians uncomfortable. But imagine! She believes Jesus is a real person and that she can interact with him! She actually believes he inhabits her in a real way in the person of the Holy Spirit! This book whetted my appetite for God himself — not just the self-driven practices of reading the Bible, praying through a list of prayer requests, singing the familiar songs. To actually interact with the Person Jesus — now there is a depth of riches that can make me lovesick for all eternity!

5. Paths to Becoming a Midwife, published by Midwifery Today

After deciding to study midwifery, I needed some direction as to how to go about it, and this book gave me more than enough to chew on. It includes both factual information about the myriad educational paths, certifications, and abbreviations, and essays comparing the differing philosophies in the world of midwifery. It really helped clarify what was going on with me. And that, my friends, is a whole ‘nother story.

Questions? Comments? What books were most influential in your life this year?

Advent Calendar 2009

Last year, I really pulled out the stops, I thought, and made up an activity advent calendar for our family. I wanted to keep these priorities in mind:

1. Frugality
2. Not contributing to the holiday commercial machine
3. Not focusing on Santa
4. Making it fun
5. Brightening the lives of others, not just ourselves
6. Making the real Christmas story come alive

I tried to plan things ahead of time, but it turned out to be a lot of work. Worth it, but still kind of exhausting. My kids loved it. It brought the fun back to Christmas for me, and gave Dan and me many opportunities to focus on the incarnation of Jesus with our kids.
As Christmas approaches, our kids have been clamoring to do it again. Oof, I say. What a lot of work. But the fact that they loved it so much convinced me. So I revised the calendar from last year, trying to stick to my goals even more this year. I’m really going to have to be organized to make it work this year, because Ellie’s in school all day, and some stuff has been added to my plate.
In case you’re curious or want some ideas of your own, here’s the plan:

Tues., 12/1 – fancy hot chocolate, w/ whipped cream and sprinkles
Wed., 12/2 – pray for Christmas-box recipients
Thurs., 12/3 – make/decorate sugar cookies
Fri., 12/4 – holiday parade – 6 p.m., downtown
Sat., 12/5 – cut out snowflakes
Sun., 12/6 – Jesus film – family movie night
Mon., 12/7 – write Christmas cards to cousins
Tues., 12/8 – act out Christmas story
Wed., 12/9 – make herb/spice ornaments
Thurs., 12/10 – story of the candy cane
Fri., 12/11 – go grocery shopping and deliver the groceries to the Flint Hills Breadbasket
Sat., 12/12 – construct cookie houses
Sun., 12/13 – sing Christmas carols around the piano
Mon., 12/14 – make spool nativity set
Tues., 12/15 – make/decorate gingerbread people
Wed., 12/16 – 11 a.m. Christmas storytime at the library
Thurs., 12/17 – make buckeyes
Fri., 12/18 – deliver Christmas goodies to neighbors and friends
Sat., 12/19 – wrap gifts
Sun., 12/20 – “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” family movie night
Mon., 12/21 – candlelit dinner, then family gifts
Tues., 12/22 – Christmas treasure hunt w/ clues from the Christmas story
Wed., 12/23 – drive to Kansas City for Andresen Christmas
Thurs., 12/24 – read Christmas story from the Bible

Book review: Learn to Study the Bible

From the very beginning of my literate life, the Bible has been my favorite book. Growing up, we read a chapter of it daily, while the seven of us sat around the kitchen table. Either my dad would open up a chapter at random, or we girls would request one of our favorite stories. (My favorite was the story of Ehud, the left-handed judge of Israel who assassinated pagan King Eglon. Eglon was so fat that even the haft of the dagger disappeared in his belly, “and the dirt came out,” says the King James Version. It’s an intriguing story; you can read it for yourself in Judges 3.) My parents gave me my own King James copy when I was in elementary school, and I devoured it.
Reading the Bible alone in my room, I heard Jesus’ call to his disciples to follow him, and I responded with a wholehearted yes! I kept reading it, and over the years God has used it to transform my life. My hunger for it only grows. I now come to the Bible more open than before, hoping that God’s thoughts will rearrange my life, rather than fitting the text into my own framework. I’m always looking for ways to engage with scripture with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.
So when I received a copy of Learn to Study the Bible, by Andy Deane, giddy learner that I am, I eagerly read every word, with pen in hand. Deane has compiled forty different methods “to help you discover, apply, and enjoy God’s Word.” Most methods have a handwritten sample to show you how average Bible readers can transfer the idea to their own lives.
Most compelling to me about this book is the motivation and passion you can’t help but catch from Deane. He loves the Word, and his desire is to see other followers of Jesus have similar passion ignited. He pulls from numerous sources accessible quotes, rhymes, and most often verses from the Bible itself to help his reader comprehend its great riches, beginning with the verse on the front cover: “I rejoice at Your word / As one who finds great treasure” (Psalm 119:162). He openly shares with readers his own practices in Bible study, and his tone, while confident, is never condescending or pretentious. I don’t think even the newest Christian would be intimidated, one reason I recommend this book.
The other outstanding aspect of this book is its great practicality. For each of the forty methods, Deane breaks it down into step-by-step directions. They read a lot like an English teacher’s directions to a class of high-schoolers, and that’s OK. They’re easy to understand, and, just in case you don’t get exactly what he means, he includes a handwritten sample of the method. (All of those samples were lovingly written up by his wife; she must be quite the treasure, too.) The samples themselves are fun and motivating to read: Maybe I could go read the Bible right now and have some exciting or important truths revealed to me, too!
Some of these methods are fairly elementary, such as using the SPACEPETS acrostic to dig into a Bible passage:
S — Is there a sin to avoid, forsake, or confess?
P — Is there a promise to believe and conditions to meet?
A — Is there an attitude to change or an action to take?
C — Is there a command to keep?
E — Is there an example to follow?
P — Is there a prayer to pray or a priority to change?
E — Is there an error to mark?
T — Is there a truth to meditate upon?
S — Is there a specific thing to thank God for?
And some of the methods take more work, such as using reference materials or writing a paraphrase. There is also a useful section of Bible-study methods geared toward youth (those took me back to my English-teacher days!). Most importantly, each method ends with a final step of applying what you’ve learned to your life; the goal is transformation.
My English-teacher background helped make this book appealing to me, but it also made me a harsher judge. Honestly, I think the book’s most substantive weakness is its lack of good editing. Of course, punctuation and other mechanical errors annoy me when they make it into published books, and they embarrass me when those books have been written by Christians. Unfortunately, there were a lot of mechanical errors in this book. More importantly, though, shoddy editing led to a lack of information in this book. Chapter 46 is a list of recommended resources for building a Bible reference library, but it doesn’t include authors or publication information. The “Notes” section at the end, which is usually one of my favorite parts of nonfiction books, is also poorly edited. For example, a John MacArthur book is cited, but at least one word is left out of the title: “How To The Most From God’s Word.” Learn? Get? Glean? I’d be interested in checking out MacArthur’s book, but I’d first have to guess the missing word right.
In the delightful first section of the book, Deane explains why we should study the Bible and general methods for doing so, and cites a lot of Bible verses to back up his arguments. I looked up every verse he referred to but didn’t quote. Most of them are wonderful, but some seemed taken out of context. Just sayin’.
As with any methods book, some of the practical ideas might seem contrived or overly methodical, but I think that’s OK! Some students of the Bible will benefit from those things. There’s a method here for everybody who wants to digest more of the Bible, and with the Holy Spirit’s teaching, those times of study will be life-changing.
Even with its weaknesses, I love this book, and it has informed my Bible study since. It has reminded me of the beauty of the Scriptures and their power to transform my life. I recommend it to most readers. I would loan you mine, but, um, I kind of don’t want to share. Go check out your own copy of Andy Deane’s Learn to Study the Bible, and dig in!

Took my kid out of school for the week

Our little family of four just spent the last week at the ranch, the most peaceful place I can imagine being. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, with scenery out of a classic western. I go there with high hopes of interacting more personally with God than usual and sometimes getting answers from him to big questions I have. I expect to smile more with my kids as the stress of everyday living is left behind in Manhattan.
This time, once again, our trip fulfilled all my dreams. Dan’s teaching and research schedule is such that, with some discipline when he is home, he is able to take the time off without huge repercussions. There was, however, one complication that I had to deal with this time: Ellie had to be taken out of school to go on this vacation with us. I was nervous about this, especially because she had just missed four days due to H1N1, and she was going to miss five more on vacation. I emailed her wonderful teacher, and to my great relief, her teacher responded, saying, “Don’t worry about her falling behind. I know she is academically solid. . . . Family time is the best and I don’t have any worries about her being gone for a family trip. I know you’ll read and talk with her and make it an educational time.”
And of course we did! Our household is made up of compulsive learners. Here’s a partial list of the learning Ellie participated in while we were away from civilization:
– Grandma paraphrased the story of Jonah from the King James Version of the Bible.
– Ellie spontaneously composed about 20 different recipes, with invented spelling, some of it accurate. For example, “Fish. Chloklit, chedr, caritstis” (chocolate, cheddar, carrot sticks). The cheddar is for the body, and the chocolate chips are for the fish’s eyes, and you are supposed to make a fingerprint for the tail, and the carrot sticks for spiny spikes.
– She and Jonathan collaborated to prepare and serve these dishes to the rest of the family.
– Seriously, the girl spent hours every day writing without being prompted.
– She examined the layers in a wash in the pine forest to determine whether there were fossils there. (No, they were tree roots.)
– She discovered a fragmented coyote skull in the grass, collected all the pieces and tried to put it together corrrectly, while Dan and I demonstrated our superior knowledge about coyote skeletal structure and function.
– She played Uno for the first time and loved it. And she played it as many more times as we could. She also learned how to lose gracefully and cheer gladly for whoever won.
– She extended this knowledge of Uno by designing her own game called Uno-At, in which all the cards had different words that ended in “at.” And she made me play it with her. It needed some tweaking, but it sort of worked.
– She learned how to spell “poop.” She practiced writing it a million times and laughed a lot. And then she wrote and read a whole bunch more words that ended in “oop.”
– She read a silly song I composed, made up a melody for it, and performed it a million times on top of a chair, complete with bows and dramatic “thank you, thank you”s.
– She read the book Go Away, Big Green Monster to herself.
– She duplicated Go Away, Big Green Monster, pictures and words, with markers and paper (among other things, she wants to be a writer and illustrator when she grows up). She planned to copy Sheila Rae the Brave and Pinkalicious, but I think the first duplication job ended up being enough.
– And of course, she listened to countless stories, some made up on the spot by yours truly and many more read out of books.
And I didn’t make her do any of this! They were almost all her ideas, and she did them independently. Now, which educational experience do you think was more effective: a week at the ranch with the family, or a week in kindergarten? I love her kindergarten teacher, and I love hearing what she’s learning about, but to me, the week we just had offers the best case for homeschooling (or maybe even unschooling) that I can think of.