the woman speaks of birthing
After Langston Hughes’s The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I’ve known birthing
Before creation
And older than the labor of mankind
My womb is the mother of life
I carried Adam when seeds
In the garden were gestating
I pushed the head of Cronos from
Between my legs and swaddled
Him in the sands of time
I was midwife to the moon and
Made her crib in my lodge
I wailed with Demeter’s chorus
When armies stole children
Killed the land
And I’ve seen her barren lap
Turn poppy red with birth
In the spring
I’ve known birthing
Before god became a man

by Margaret Arabella Kenney

From Mothering Magazine (pg. 58, Sept-Oct 2008). I love to read this poem aloud at Blessingways. I thnk it is very powerful.

This has been quite a month for me for publications!

My short article Centering for Birth was published in the International Journal of Childbirth Education (page 20)

My book review of Fathers at Birth was published in The CAPPA Quarterly (page 14).

My film review of Birth as We Know It was in The CAPPA Quarterly (page 15).

And, my piece of creative nonfiction Nursing Johnny Depp was published in Literary Mama.

I’m excited about all of these!

Lamaze and Injoy videos have teamed up on a nice new website called Mother’s Advocate. The site has a variety of handouts and a booklet to download based on “6 Healthy Birth Practices” (which, in and of themselves form a nice little birth plan for a normal, healthy birth!). I especially enjoyed their video on active birth: “get upright and follow urges to push.” The video urges upright birthing positions and avoidance of directed/forceful pushing (the kind with counting that you see so often on tv!).

Before birth and birth education became my primary passions in life, I was deeply connected to several other causes and wrote three booklets based on different areas (non-birth related, though one does have a section in it for doulas). I have decided to make the booklets available for download as FREE print-ready PDF files, (The booklets are also available at Amazon.com.) Please note that the pdfs are already laid out to print as a booklet—choose the double sided print option on your printer and it should fold up correctly into a booklet. If you just look at it on the screen, the pages will be out of order (because it is prepared to be printed four pages to a sheet). At some point, I will also make them available in a non-booklet-laid out format.

If you appreciate the booklets and would like to make a donation, you may do so using the button below. I also have a limited number of professionally printed hard copies of all three of them available that I am happy to mail out for a $2.50 donation per booklet to cover my shipping cost (make sure to leave a note on the donation via Paypal so that I know which booklets to send).

Talking to a Battered Woman

A helpful guide intended for people working with battered women on a short-term basis: volunteers in crisis hotline or residential settings, crisis workers, hospital personnel, and informal helpers such as friends. Provides useful sections about: Domestic Violence Dynamics; Active Listening Skills & Empathy; Boundaries; Interaction Tips–Do’s & Don’ts; Sharing Pain; Self-Care; Resources; Sample Safety Plan. This 32 page booklet is perfect for use in training sessions and as an ongoing quick reference. It is also a convenient primer on general interaction skills.
* Publisher: Stonehaven Place LLC; 1st edition (2004)
* Pages: 32
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 097442661X
* ISBN-13: 978-0974426617

Talking to Someone Whose Child is Dying

Includes a special section with ideas for doulas and other birth professionals. This guide is intended for use as a general guideline for interacting with families of terminally or critically ill children on a short-term basis. Volunteers in residential or hospital settings, hospital or crisis workers, and informal helpers such as friends will find this guide helpful. Includes a resource section as well as sections about: Developing Rapport, Active Listening Skills, Boundaries, Do’s & Don’ts, Sharing Pain, Self-care, When a Baby Dies. This 28 page booklet is perfect for training sessions, for ongoing use as a quick reference, and can be viewed as a small primer in appropriate interaction skills.
* Publisher: Stonehaven Place LLC; 1st edition (2004)
* Language: English
* Pages: 28
* ISBN-10: 0974426601
* ISBN-13: 978-0974426600

A Quick Guide to Successful Volunteering

This helpful guide will help you explore what it means to be a successful volunteer. From choosing the best position for you, to tips from the field, this book presents a realistic overview off how you can help and how to define your role. Includes sections about: Choosing a position; Rewards & Benefits; Cautions; Rights & Responsibilities; Tips & Notes. This 28 page guide is intended primarily for long-term, human service volunteers working in formal non-profit agencies with both paid & volunteer staff members.
* Publisher: Stonehaven Place LLC; 1st edition (2003)
* Pages: 28
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0974426628
* ISBN-13: 978-0974426624

“Birth is a time of deep transformation. We enter labor with excitement, trepidation and sometimes fear. We emerge with power, confidence and love.”

–Toni Lee Rakestraw, Organic Birth

“Ideally, giving birth is a natural and joyful experience, a holy event in which the energies of creation and transformation can be shared by all who are present.”

–Rahima Baldwin, Special Delivery

I was feeling a little nostalgic this evening going through my childbirth education training manual. My original certifying organization, ALACE, is undergoing some reorganization and a “rebirth” into two new organizations. So, I was thinking back to my beginnings with the program and how excited I was about it and what an absolutely perfect match it was for me philosophically. I came across this section in the beginning part of the manual and thought about how perfectly it sums up why I do what I do. It also sums up the attitude and perspective that drew me so strongly to ALACE in the first place:

“Do you ever wonder why you are drawn to childbirth education when there are so many other pressing environmental/social/political causes clamoring for your devoted service? Perhaps you already see how our work is related to many other forms of activism. Cultivating respect for the mother and the process of birth is part of the larger process of understanding the interdependent patterns of nature…Giving birth, knowing you have done it yourself, your way, is a rebellious act in our technocratic society. In an age that promises to fix technology’s side effects with more technology, it is an act of faith in nature, and in oneself. The people who choose this route are often the same people whose hope for the future inspires them to work for a better world, not just for themselves, but for everyone.”

“A self-determined birth is a potent symbol of womanly power, of human courage, of loving compassion, even of ecological holism. It may look like childbirth educators are just showing charts and teaching relaxation, but we are also helping to create a gentle atmosphere in which personal and cultural transformation can take place.” (emphasis mine)

Empowering Women, Transforming Birth

Some time ago I was talking to a mother whose birth hadn’t gone as planned. She said that she knew that she needed a cesarean, but that she also knew she had missed out on a “very cool experience in life.” I think it is definitely possible to accept the need for a cesarean, while still honoring/recognizing the profound experience of giving birth vaginally. I also think it is possible to acknowledge the magnitude of becoming a mother, regardless of the what happened with the birth–having a baby is a big deal no matter what! Though I’m obviously a huge advocate of natural childbirth, I truly believe that cesareans are often an act of personal courage. I also think that all births are rites of passage and are profound transformations and initiations into motherhood. So, though while some women may have missed out on the sense of personal power that often accompanies a natural birth, they’ve all taken significant and meaningful journeys of their own.

Then, I came across a poem by an anonymous writer in the book Open Season. It reminded me in part of my thoughts above.

For Those of Us Who “Failed”

And what about us who “failed”?

The ones whose birthings were not the finest hour

of their womanhood?

The ones who did not defy all medical intervention?

Those who have no heroic defiant story to tell?

Where do we fit in?

We can’t all be the ones that change the system,

but are we less a part of the sisterhood of those

who have given birth?

To those that have shone at the hours of birth

remember those of us who have not.

Will we, like the Vietnam vets, be recognized

too little and too late?

We experienced giving birth too.

Less nobly than some maybe,

but a noble experience nonetheless.

You say you honor choices.

Can you really honor mine?

I will always honor the process which

brought forth flesh of my flesh.

I honor your births too.

Can you ever honor my experience, or will I

forever be a part of your statistics on

the way things shouldn’t be?

Remember me.

I have previously shared some thoughts about pushing. Today, I came across a helpful resource for first time mothers that really thoroughly explores the pushing stage of birthing your baby and has all kinds of information about “how to push” (really quick answer: with your body!). The technique shared is to “breathe the baby out”—but it really goes into how to do that and what that means. The article also talks about what your birth partner can do. Check it out: The Pushing Stage of Labor.

I’ve shared quotes about birth and power before and here is another good one. Someone on the ever-fabulous Independent Childbirth group shared it today:

“Today the old images and models of childbearing are giving place to a new model.  There is a growing groundswell of awareness that birth is a point of maximum power for women.”

Emmett E. Miller, M.D.

Something that occasionally comes up during birth classes when talking about birth plans is, “well, I completely trust my doctor, so I feel like his judgment will be right for me…” (the reverse comes up more frequently, see my previous post!). I recently finished reading an older book called Education and Counseling for Childbirth and the author mentions this:

“‘Trust’ in doctor or midwife, valuable as it is, is not always a sure recipe for a happy labour. It may be enough for a woman to be healthy and hopeful and to know what is happening to her; it may be enough for her to be looking forward to her baby and to trust her attendants; enough for her to learn some breathing exercises and leave it at that. But it may not. Time and time again I meet women who need more time and care than is given by an overworked general practitioner or the enthusiastic but psychologically uninformed antenatal teacher—-women who need an opportunity to talk, express their fears and worries, and work through their problems in pregnancy in readiness for the responsibilities of motherhood.”

Trust is important—though I really emphasis trust in yourself, trust in your body, and trust in birth rather than exclusive trust in provider—but there is a lot more involved in preparing for a great birth than simply trusting your care provider.  Additionally, there is definitely a lot more to birth education and preparing for birth than knowing medical terminology, anatomy & physiology, and the phases of labor! I continue to strive for classes to will help build women’s inner knowing and sense of self-confidence. One primary benefit I see to teaching private classes, as I do, is that the couple is my sole focus of attention and so are able to have all their questions answered without feeling as if they are monopolizing class time (or embarassed to ask questions in front of other couples).