Birth Symbol

At the very end of August, I went to see Birth, the play in St. Louis. I was about 5 weeks pregnant at the time. Following the play and “talkback” event, there was a BOLD Red Tent (birth stories sharing circle). Right before the birth stories portion of the Red Tent, we did a [...]

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Adding More Birth Quotes…

To my ongoing collection (previously posted to my Facebook fan page, but sharing here as well. There are some grief/miscarriage quotes mixed in as well):
“Birth is valuable. It gives rise to our entire future. There is power in our ability to give birth to the future of our planet. We need to reclaim that power.” [...]

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Simply Give Birth: A Mini-Review

Only about a week following my miscarriage, I got copy of a new book by Heather Cushman-Dowdee (also known as Hathor the Cowgoddess) to review. I have a pile of birth-related books waiting for me to review. However, I found that this soon post-miscarriage when I go to read them, my heart just isn’t in [...]

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Lavender & Letting Go (Warning: Miscarriage/Baby Loss)

My life has taken a sad and unexpected turn. I was 14 weeks pregnant with my third baby and we found out on Friday afternoon that the baby had died. Very early Saturday morning, he was born at home. Though it was different in some ways than a full-term birth, my experience of miscarriage was [...]

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And Even More Birth Quotes

Continuing my semi-regular addition of birth quotes I’ve used on the Talk Birth Facebook page recently.
“When women understand what’s available to us at birth, then we won’t ever give that over to an ‘expert’ the birth power, the orgasmic power that’s in our bodies” –Christiane Northrup
“Women have the inner power and the inner knowledge of [...]

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Moving During Labor

The second Healthy Birth Blog carnival is up on Lamaze’s Science & Sensibility blog. It is a great collection of links to posts about the importance of Healthy Birth Practice #2: Walk, Move Around, and Change Positions During Labor. For the blog carnival I contributed a post/handout I made last year called How to Use [...]

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The most important event shaping my life as a mother?

Recently, this quote from a Midwifery Today blog post came to my attention: “your birth is the most important event in shaping your life as a mother.” It has generated some pretty heated discussion and negative feelings amongst some writers in the blogosphere. Despite my intense commitment to birthwork, I stumble over the quote a [...]

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Birth Talk

As I have referenced several times before I have a special interest in the language of birth. That is part of the reason my blog/business is so-named—because is it is a blog that “talks birth” (as in, “let’s get together and talk birth!”), but also because the way you talk about birth matters. I have [...]

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Birth as a Rite of Passage & ‘Digging Deeper’

I’ve posted about the idea of birth as a rite of passage before and want to share some additional quotes from The Pink Kit:
Whatever the culture, when a woman surrenders to the process, accepts the intense sensations, works through each contraction, and digs deep within herself to achieve the end goal–giving birth–she is touched by [...]

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Let labor begin on its own…

One of my blog posts that gets the most hits and is a consistently searched for topic is one that I wrote called “how do I know I’m really in labor?” I revised it recently for participation in a blog carnival at Science and Sensibility about letting labor begin on its own. Let Labor Begin [...]

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