Archive for 2009
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Better Birth
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009Childbirth is on my mind. Not merely because pregnancy and birth are part of my very fabric but because I see a new trend in birth again becoming terribly “polarized”. Historically, it happens every couple of decades. Today, as the holes in our health-care system are glaringly apparent, birth has become a hot topic for dissection. You can see it in the multitude of childbirth books with titles such as “Better Birth”, “Your Best Birth”, “The Best Birth” . Every pregnant woman will tell you that, more than once she has been asked the million dollar questions. Doctor or midwife? Home or hospital? Natural or medicated? Epidural or not? And then, regardless of her answer, she is told what is “better, best, what she absolutely should or shouldn’t do” and on and on. It is exhaustive and rather than being helpful, more often leaves a woman feeling confused, frustrated and unsure of herself and her choices.
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I Think I May Be A Bad Mommy Too
Thursday, May 14th, 2009It could just be my imagination but it seems as though more and more frequently I am reading articles and blog posts that vilify women who openly speak about their struggles and feelings about motherhood. The backlash against Ayelet Waldman and her recent book, Bad Mother is only one example of many. In the book she openly talks about how she feels about her husband and her kids. Her crime seems to be her honesty and her pointed observation that the expectation of mothers is completely unreachable. Funny thing is that her family doesn’t seem to be disturbed by any of what she says. She seems to be in a happy marriage and has 4 pretty well adjusted kids. So what’s the problem?
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Happy Mother’s Day
Friday, May 8th, 2009One of my favorite songs, by John Mayer, has a line that says, “Girls become lovers who turn into mothers, so, mothers, be good to your daughters, too.” This resonates with me because all the work I do concerns the parents that you will become, or already are. When I was pregnant, a close friend who has three children said to me, “Don’t wish away your pregnancy or those first sleep-deprived months. One day, you’ll wish for them back.” This is so true. I love each stage of Alexander’s growth, but some days, I wish he still had tiny feet! Although the parent-child relationship is always complicated, it is also the most fundamental human bond. I just want to share with you a story of my own mom.
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The Madonna Phenomenon… no, not that Madonna
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009Looking through women’s magazines and news articles about celebrity moms, you might conclude that new mothers are treated like royalty, or at least the mothers of royalty. By these accounts, new mothers glow, parents and in-laws dote, partners are awed, and girlfriends constantly stream in to help with the house, the kids, and the shopping. But does it really happen? Ask your mom or grandmother what things were like when she had her babies.
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Rewards of Motherhood: A Mother’s Day Edition
Friday, May 1st, 2009As it’s getting closer to Mother’s Day I am doing a lot of thinking about motherhood. Just as with the stages of pregnancy, it changes and shifts as we move through each new stage and phase of our fetus/infant/toddler/child/tween/teenager… ah heck, baby’s life.
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Cara Muhlhahn
Monday, March 30th, 2009There has been a great deal of discussion during this last week regarding Cara Muhlhahn, the midwife portrayed in Ricki Lake’s film, The Business of Being Born. The article does a very good job of outlining several different aspects of her practice. Ms. Muhlhahn has birthed many hundreds of healthy babies and appears to be well thought of by the majority of her clients. She has also settled a “just under a million dollar” malpractice suit stemming from a baby damaged during birth and has had a baby die under her care.
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Same Sex Families
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009I am in the line of work of building families. Well, actually not building them (their parents do that) but rather welcoming beautiful children into families. Families of all types, from all different kinds of backgrounds. It is remarkable all of the ways families can be created. I grew up in a traditional, Midwestern family. Within my own family, I have two stepsons, four “grandchildren” who call me “Tia”. They have four sets of grandparents and my own son calls my husband’s ex-wife Grandma.
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Homebirth vs. Hospital Birth – The Gloves Are Off
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009Birthing babies is what I love most in the world. The fact that I now have women ask me “is it really bad for me to have my baby in a hospital?” breaks my heart and has forced me to come out swinging. Enough is enough. I can no longer sit back and listen to this dialogue about homebirth come up again and again without inserting some badly needed facts and a serious reality check. The argument is always the same by homebirth advocates. Hospitals are loud, hectic, bright, insensitive, uncaring machines full of greedy doctors and overworked “medical personnel” – (I am pretty sure as a nurse, that means me) who are just waiting to hook women up to unnecessary medications and prevent them from “trusting their bodies”.
