I loved statistics so much in university. Honestly! I'm still such a geek, that I love to look at my client's stats...not at regular times of the year (like December 31st), mind you. I like to do it when the spirit moves me (the happy convergence of left and right brain.) Or might it be tax-procrastination time?
So, here's this past 12 month's basic statistics...
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On Saturday afternoon, I was dropped off at a client's Co-op on the Downtown East Side. As I walked to their door, a nurse from the local InSite walked by and smiled at me, a man with a grocery cart full of his belongings rattled down the lane, and a siren began to wail.
Once I was inside the door, though, another series of sounds took over...the cry of a woman in labour with her first baby, the shouting and shrieking of children as they played in the Co-op playground out back, the unexpected rhythmic whirr of a push mower acting as sweet green music. I had entered a hidden oasis only a block from Hastings and Main. It was cool, calm and wonderful.
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My goodness!
Dr. Lauren A. Plante, a US obstetrician, has written a wonderful article (a MUST read!) in response to the increasing industrialization of childbirth (wasn't Canada's own Dr. Andrew Kotaska one of the first to argue against "industrial birth"?) Dr. Plante asserts that on-demand cesareans do not represent the height of women's autonomy, but are, in fact, the opposite. She calls for true autonomy for women - the right to choose from a spectrum of choices.
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It's Earth Day today! And it's Isola's and Milo's birthdays, too! They are just two of my client's babies who are part of the "Green Generation." My hope is that they will grow up with the smallest carbon footprints possible. I think they're pretty special one year olds, so they might be able to do it and be worthy of the title.
Now is the time.
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I started to take notes during each birth after November 1, 1993. I know that because Kieran was born on that day. Kieran was a warrior baby. In fact, he was born face first. He never gave up with that chin-up attitude (and probably still hasn't to this day!)
The midwife did one final vaginal exam just before he was born. "Is that a bum?" she asked, just a little confused for a moment. "No, it couldn't be...you're hearing the heartbeat in the right place. It must be a mouth," I said. "It's the baby's lips!" she called out. So, Kieran was born, after a crazy challenging labour, with his mum on her high bed, holding up her silk dress (dad had grabbed a dress for her to wear, and I think it was one that she'd recently worn to a wedding).
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photo by britni grace
I fulfilled a childhood dream yesterday. As a child, I always wanted to be one of those women who rides her bike to visit mums and babies.
I must have heard about it from my mum and her friends, talking about their pregnancies in the north of England in the 1950's and early 1960's. The image of the local village midwife, riding to visits on her bike, just stuck with me. It seemed slow, perfect, just the way someone should visit you when you have a new baby.
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"Next time I'm just booking a cesarean."
"My first birth was so traumatic - I want drugs the moment I start labour."
"I can't walk through the door of a hospital again."
"I think we'd better adopt our second child."
To all the women who say these words...
Please know that it wasn't your fault.
It wasn't your faulty body.
It wasn't your faulty mind.
It wasn't that you lacked will power.
It just wasn't a normal labour.
No guilt or blame.
It just wasn't a normal labour.
Women often ask me if they can eat once they're in labour.
"The books say I shouldn't, but I'm such a hummingbird eater, that I'll keel over if I don't keep eating!"
"Oh, please listen to your body, and it will let you know what you should eat, and when you should eat," I answer.
Think of the fuel that your body needs to do this amazing work! It needs fuel and fluids to function properly. Can you imagine doing a marathon, triathlon, or long-distance bike race without any nourishment? You'd be the one saying, "I bonked so early, it was embarrassing!"
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I've noticed that I can manage most things as long as I move slowly through the day.
Within a few weeks, my children and parents will all be living within an easy bike ride.
I can walk or ride my bike to visit most of my clients. (Yes, you can expect helmet head when the weather is good!)
I can walk home from both BC Women's and St Paul's after births (there's nothing like breathing in the crisp early morning air as I walk over the Burrard Street bridge at 6am.)
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How do I write about the hidden realities of pregnancy? How do I write about the "opposite of birth"? How do I write about that unknown space between life and death?
In this blog I focus on the joy of working with pregnant women, attending their amazing Slow Births, and helping them through their postpartum journeys. But there are other journeys that some must travel. I hear their stories. Now, it's time to start telling some of these stories.
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It's interesting what the body does to us in the last weeks of pregnancy. Even the most active woman feels the slow pull in her mind and body, urging her to wind things down. Slow Pregnancy has struck!
Sure, you still feel motivated to go for long walks (more slowly) and swim (more leisurely paced) or even join a group on a Thursday evening (and do yoga), but your mind and body are slowly, slowly pulling inward, demanding attention.
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Okay...this is starting to become a real pattern...
After each birth, the lovely nurse sighs and says to my client, "I haven't seen a birth like that in ages. Thank you!" Well, actually, yesterday's quote (by a British nurse) was, "I haven't seen a birth like that since I came here!"
Then, I ran into a nurse who had helped us at a birth last week, and she still was in shock that my client gave birth standing. "I tried to get her back onto the bed, I ASKED her to get on the bed, but she just didn't! I had to think, how am I going to do this, where's my stuff? I hadn't done anything like that before!"
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One thing that I love about working in the 'birth business' is that I don't have a structured schedule. Mine is more like a feast or famine schedule - no babies for two weeks, then BAM! four babies in three days. It certainly makes for an entertaining life.
Babies come whenever they like, and they always seem to come in a clump. Yes, a clump. "Group" would be the wrong word. A group feels orderly, predictable. But a clump - well, that sounds like just the right word for how babies arrive in the world. They seem to get a signal that NOW! is the time, and they all come in a clump, all jumbled together, jostling for position.
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I promise my clients that I will always tell them the truth about what's happening during pregnancy and labour...but I must admit that I do downplay things during prelabour. Now, this is only to help the clients to make it through the crazy unexpected early stuff that really, REALLY, isn't labour.
This is the denial phase of labour.
Too often, people have the TV image of labour - your water breaks, off you go to hospital, get the drugs, and the baby is born on the bed (surrounded by gowned and gloved anonymous people). This may be what 90% of births are like...but they're not the kind of births that my clients have. They dare to be different. They live in denial. This is Slow Birth at its best.
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Prodromal labour was the name of the game this week. Four babies were born, who each gave their mums long prodromal labours (and some long active labours, too.) None of the births were "easy" this week. But they were all amazing and beautiful and triumphant.
What's prodromal labour? It's Slow Birth at its ironic finest. It's that part of birth that isn't really labour yet (patience, patience). It's the body trying to deal with something without making it too challenging for the mum. But, the body doesn't realize that the mum has a brain (a very intelligent and 21st century brain) that continually tries to figure out what's happening...why is this taking so long?...why am I not having a 2 hour labour?...when will it pick up?...why?...how?...when? All those questions are exhausting. Prodromal labour demands that we honour the needs and rhythms of the body, and shut down the thinking brain. Prodromal labour forces the reptile brain to kick in. My job is to remind the mum that she must trust her body and baby...they both have their reasons for taking their time.
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"Can we stop on the way and pick up a Big Mac?" asked the woman.
"Sure," said the man, as he turned into the drive-thru...
I was standing at the hospital entrance, wondering what was taking them so long. M was my very first client, and she was in labour. Her baby was frank breech (that's bum first). It was 1988.
M's family doctor was driving her to the hospital because they couldn't reach her husband at work. (Remember, this was life before cell phones and voicemail.) Charles, the doctor, worked out of a little home office in a small beach community, only minutes from her home. They were friends. She told me that he used to be a specialist in rural BC, hence his ability to roll with whatever came his way.
Read moreWe are not our bodies.
As one who lives with birth,
I am at peace sitting at the doorway between life and death,
sitting beside each woman as she discovers the infinite.
At each birth, I must acknowledge that the doorway is open.
I honour it, thinking,
"This may be the day,"
and I am at peace.
During our initial phone call, many first-time mums nervously laugh, then ask me if I can just order them a fast birth "and one epidural in the parking lot, please." It sounds like a drive-through order.
"Why?" I ask myself. Really fast births don't allow the body to churn out all those wonderful pain-relieving endorphins (boy, do you want them!) Fast births don't allow any time for the brain to keep up with what the body is doing. Actually, my least satisfied client had a 45-minute labour and birth. She said, "I waited 40 years to give birth, and THAT'S IT??? It was so fast, I missed it!"
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"Jacquie!" says the voice in the night. "I'm in pain."
It was 1:38am and I had a feeling this wasn't going to be her time. "How often do you feel what you're feeling?" I asked. "About every 10 or 20 minutes. But it really hurts!"
These night-time prelabour calls come often and, just like a baby needs to be calmed before going back to sleep, I just need to offer calming words to each woman, then sleep will come to her soon (after a good long bath). I remind her that the process of having a baby takes weeks, and this is just part of the body's way of preparing. The hormones work even better if she's soft and warm and sleepy...so into a bath, then back to bed. Sleep.
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Maybe I'm just a little slow...but I've finally decided that I have to act on my decision (2004) to start focus-writing on Slow Birth (think slow dancing, slow cooking, slow kisses, slow lane, take it slow, baby...) Don't you just take a big breath and sigh when you read those words?
I loved reading "In Praise of Slow" by Carl Honore, and discovering the Slow Food and Slow Travel movements as they emerged. We had always raised our children according to the "slow" philosophy. We talked, we listened to music, we read books together, and my husband and I kept our lives in pace with our children's development - we kept things slow, and the family flourished. When the slow movement began, it was nice to see that other people were discovering this way of living.
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