Looking for a new apprentice

I am currently looking for an apprentice.  I have a few requirements, however, before taking on someone new:

  • They MUST be willing to move to Salem, Oregon or the immediate vicinity
  • They MUST have considerable book education - I have a preference for people who self-study or have an education that fosters independent and critical thinking, but do not require that they are part of a formal curriculum
  • They must be able to fit in with the diverse population of clients that I serve.  Anyone that is unwilling to put aside extremely conservative, rigid belief systems is not going to fit into my practice.  This includes political, religious (overtly pagan symbols, etc) and judgemental beliefs about other people’s lives.  I serve fundamentalist Christians, lesbian couples, single women, teen moms, Rastafarians, middle-class families and professionals.  Blending in with all of these types of families is extremely important to me.
  • I have a typically hands-off practice.  Obtaining clinical skills could take awhile though I’m known for having apprentices jump in immediately for any and all skill opportunities.
  • I appreciate apprentices who challenge my ideas and thoughts and are willing to learn and make mistakes right along with me.  I don’t claim to have all the answers and appreciate the current thoughts and research that many student midwives bring to my practice.
  • I want someone who is confident, outspoken when appropriate and committed to unhindered, gentle birth.
  • I would like to have someone who supports unassisted and unattended birth.
  • I prefer someone who is deeply involved in birth culture:  has read numerous books that challenge current midwifery and obstetrical thought, etc.

Realizing that these are pretty specific requirements, I’m willing to interview and talk with many different types of students.  While I’m hoping to find someone that fits in well with my practice, I’m willing to wait for the right person.

Please pass this on to anyone that you know that might be interested.

Extended breastfeeding

A recent post by lovely Laura Shanley discussed an upcoming American TV appearance by a UK woman that practices extended breastfeeding. Extended to the time when her child(ren) was 8 years old.

Anyone that knows me is already familiar with the fact that I am wholly supportive of child-led weaning. I also understand the decision women make to nightwean or to wean earlier than their child would choose. Each case is individual and based on a multitude of factors - none of mine to judge.

However, looking at this picture I’m struck with surprise. It definitely stirs something up inside me, no matter how progressive I am about extended nursing. I wonder, though, if what I see and what it stirs in me is the same thing that most people see when coming upon a 2.5 year old nursing? For me, nursing toddlers is not a big deal. Even nursing a four year old isn’t a big deal. Something about an 8 year old that I’m still working on within myself.

Still, I’m open to the intimate relationship that nursing brings children and mothers. Far be it from any of us to discount the needs of both.

For more information on Veronika Robinson, check out The Mother Magazine.

Group Beta Strep

Lisa Barrett has a great post about GBS (Group Beta Strep).  Enjoy!

Two babies in two days

Births four and five for the month of June:

A sweet baby boy, 8lbs even, to first-time parents that wanted an unassisted birth.  They hired us and asked us to be there for the birth, but to be in another room unless asked or needed.  We arrived around 3pm on Wednesday afternoon and after about four hours of pushing the sounds of the baby arriving were heard in the bathroom.   My assistant met her partner in the hallway (the mom was alone) and they both helped to catch this baby as the mom stood.

Hemorrhage started almost immediately, was slowed with herbs but continued with a fainting spell on top of it.  We administered Pitocin, got the placenta out, started an IV and had oxygen on mom in a matter of a half hour total.  It became clear that, after unsuccessfully attempting to wean mom off the O2, we would likely have to go in to the hospital.

EMTs were called, they arrived pleased to see that we had a line and fluids started and took mom to the hospital with the father and me behind.  (My assistant stayed with the baby and an hour later brought him to the hospital)  We had a very homebirth-friendly doctor (he had attended homebirths in previous years) that treated our client well.   The staff was supportive, gentle and sweet.

(Though, after hearing his weight - 8lbs - they all said, “oh! a large baby!”…do they just say that to make the mom feel good or do they really think that 8lbs is large?)

Mom was out of the hospital less than 8 hours from admission.

The other birth was a couple that was having their fourth (first girl!) baby, third homebirth.  I wasn’t sure if I’d make it to this birth, as I nearly missed the last one due to rush-hour traffic.  Mom called at 7.30am this morning to come, baby emerged into her father’s hands at 12.20pm.   Sweet birth with loads of family around to share in the experience.  8lbs 14oz.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I’m in the process of bringing all my posts from my previous blog over to this site.  If you have this blog on a blogroll you may need to know that there will be a huge influx of new posts because of this.  Just a warning.

Life is good.  Hay fever is horrible, trying acupuncture next week for it as nothing seems to help enough to allow me outside.  Still blissfully in love, amazed that every single day brings more emotion and more fun with this incredible man.  I am so blessed!

I’ve made the decision to start writing.  A book.  Well, an attempt.  I’m not a great writer so I have huge reservations.  Still, I’m hoping that it will encompass my midwifery journey and all that has come with it.  I am open to suggestions if you have any - or if you are a great editor!

Babylove

What I wouldn’t give to see this woman’s show.

(Warning: not for those that are sexually conservative or afraid of a woman’s changing sexuality through motherhood!)

How this one-woman show was born. And the essay that the show was conceived with.

Her blog, which features the great post entitled Sexy Mom Self-Image.

I love this topic.

Women are (of course!) highly sensual and sexual beings. Once we become pregnant and have children our bodies, sexual desires and experiences change dramatically…but they don’t dissipate. I appreciate Christen Clifford’s honest look at all the crazy, phenomenal and orgasmic ways we slide through this journey.

ACOG/AMA Interest: Money and Power. A tradition for over 100 years.

So many eloquent bloggers have written about the recent ACOG /AMA drama that I have decided to link to their thoughts rather than blab on and on in my usual fashion.

The Huffington Post’s feature from Ricki Lake, Jennifer Block and Abby Epstein

Celebrity gossip rag TMZ even had their own take on it

USA Today

RH (Reproductive Health) Reality Check - Bad Medicine: AMA Seeks to Outlaw Home Births

Feministing [see how bipartisan this issue is, ACOG?] AMA Passes Resolution to Ban Homebirths

Citizens for Midwifery

Natural Family Blog

From Mothering.com’s Discussion Boards here

- and here

Crunchy Domestic Goddess

Ertel Expansion Project

I’m actually quite impressed that the AMA and ACOG are so up in arms about home birth. Women are dissatisfied with what is called maternity (s)care in our country. A woman’s choice is a woman’s choice. Plain and simple.

They’re up in arms and it’s because of our awesome grassroots efforts to show women a safe, gentle and empowering way to birth their babies! We all continue to do amazing work!

chubby baby girl

Third baby, second homebirth, an 11lb 6oz baby girl waterborn into her father’s hands after just under four hours of active labor.

dark haired baby girl

third baby, second birth with me.  beautiful baby girl born into her father’s hands in the water at 10.31pm last night.  8lbs 1oz.

those silly, silly ACOG fellows…

One of my closest birth friends, Linda, recently wrote her reaction to a statement put out by ACOG (part of their annual legislative review). The statement (entitled “‘Lay’ Midwives and Homebirth: Troubling Trends in Legislation”) reminds me of the propaganda pushed in the early 20th century to sway women from midwives to physicians. Could it be that the pressure is on for ACOG?

Linda’s piece…

 

First, let me clarify for those of you unfamiliar with ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, that it is not a college in the modern sense. It comes from the latin collegium, meaning “association”. So it’s an organization of people who have a shared purpose, which in this case is to promote and advocate for professional obstetrics and gynecology. And more specifically, to promote and advocate for obstetrics as the sole valid approach to care in childbearing (with nurse-midwifery allowable as an obstetric practice minus the surgical training.)

ACOG does not support homebirth as a choice, nor midwifery as an autonomous profession.

This isn’t meant to be just an opinion. This association of medical professionals (some 50,000 of them) is actively working at the level of state legislature to force all childbearing women to submit to hospital-based obstetrics as practiced by obstetricians, family practitioners, or certified nurse-midwives overseen by a doctor, and its efforts have resulted in the illegalization of homebirth midwifery in many states.

Yes, there are still places where a woman can’t decide for herself where and with whom she is going to allow her body to engage in this particular autonomic physiological process. ACOG sees this as a good thing, and is extremely concerned that some states are passing bills to give this choice back to individuals, and it regards arguments for such autonomy as “propaganda”. As if the right to autonomy in a normal bodily process isn’t self-evident.

In its latest yearly review of the situation, ACOG observes, correctly, that the general attitude of non-obstetric midwives has shifted from wanting to protect midwifery from the control of the state, to embracing licensure and the associated regulation. It clearly has no understanding, however, of what motivates that and does not attempt to understand it, because it doesn’t care. All that matters is that the midwives are coming, and even establishment-controlled nurse-midwives “no longer can be counted on to speak publicly against home birth or lesser trained midwives.” Clearly, things are spiraling out of control.

ACOG complains that the push to legalize homebirth is based in propaganda. This is hilarious, given that ACOG itself is not above making statements that are misleading, untrue, irrelevant, or just outright illogical. In this document alone it claims or implies that

1. midwives have traditionally preferred to be underground
2. CPMs (midwives certified by associations of midwifery professionals) are largely self-taught, completely ignoring the fact of the existence of schools of midwifery
3. all training outside of ACOG-approved institutions is inadequate
4. midwives who do not work with obstetricians cannot be properly qualified
5. legalization is occurring because
-a. conservative lawmakers, legislators in general, and the general public are too stupid to understand the difference between types of midwifery training, as well as too stupid to understand that the right to personal autonomy is not important
-b. midwives have “huge numbers” on their side and “play” to the sympathy of the public
-c. nurse-midwives are “fickle”
-d. lawmakers see it as “just a turf battle between doctors and non-doctors”
6. the conditions that make homebirth relatively safe in other countries do not always apply here, therefore it follows that homebirth should be illegal here
7. all studies that find favor with homebirth midwifery are “not scientifically rigorous and unconvincing.” (Oh, okay, if you say so, then I guess it must be true.)

ACOG finds Missouri’s homebirth legalization bill “deceptively simple” (no elaboration on that, unfortunately.) The bill reads:

“Nothing in Missouri law shall encroach on a mother’s right to give birth in the setting and with any caregiver of her choice.”

Yeah, I don’t know what that’s covering up, but it must be something dastardly.

Seriously, though, I just don’t understand why ACOG would so furiously oppose such a thing. Is it a pride issue? The idea that a woman might reject a doctor’s sacrifice of having gone through the hazing of medical school, that she might not consider a doctor deserving of esteem and exaltation just by virtue of being a doctor, is just too horrible to allow? Is it money? Is the existence of midwifery and homebirth really so financially threatening to the practice of obstetrics? Is it that ACOG really does care so much about me an individual that it will fight so hard to protect me and my family from supposed danger even when I am angrily yelling “NO”?

Whatever it is, it all boils down to arrogance, doesn’t it? Either this group of people deserves to have control over the rest of us as a sort of reward for their specialness, or they consider it a moral imperative because they are smarter and therefore know best what is good for us. Either way it’s galling.

Thank goodness for women like Linda. Thoughtful, articulate and spot on.

It has seemed like ACOG has really started to get their panties in a wad over homebirth. Just like a solo blogger that has put so much time, money and energy into criticizing this one issue, I wonder if those that shout the loudest are those that are hiding their own small voices of truth.

(I specifically take issue with ACOG’s reference to CNMs as “fickle”…the sexist language throughout this entire statement is troublesome.  Is this not 2008?  Is this an organization that serves women?)

pregnancy and birth story

From a client of mine who just birthed her third baby, first at home, in the water:  Her birth story, part one, which details issues around complete placenta previa and her emotions and feelings around that.  Keep posted for the rest of her story!

shocking celebrity news!

ohmigawd, did you hear that Christina Aguilera plans on continuing to nurse her son until he’s two years old??  man, what is wrong with her????!!!!

/sarcasm

I especially love the comments to the post/story.  Hurrah for those who are speaking the truth about nursing!

baby girl with a rosebud mouth

Baby girl arrived at 6.55pm last night, 8lbs 8oz, to first-time parents at home. She is simply beautiful.

Crochet?

One of my clients is fabulously talented with the crochet hook…and creating her own patterns. She sells the patterns on Etsy.com - check out these adorable baby booties!

update

I’ve been having major issues with my blog program so things have been put on the back burner for awhile.  I’ve since worked out all the kinks (or at least I hope so!) and look forward to getting back on track.

I have had one birth since my last entry and plan on asking the mom for her permission to relay her birth story.  It has some interesting twists in her journey.

Was heading off to bed tonight (or rather, this morning) when I received a call from a first time mom who is having contractions that are sporadic, sometimes every two minutes, but short in duration.  They aren’t super strong (she could talk through them, though it was noticeable that she was having them as she spoke).  I suggested she try some herbs to help relax her enough to sleep between…she’ll likely kick into a more active, regular pattern soon.

So, rather than sweep and mop the floors (for a small gathering I’m hosting tomorrow night) I shall head off to bed.

unattended waterbirth video

This is a sweet waterbirth video that I recently enjoyed and wanted to share with you…

June is a crazy busy month for us, with six mamas due.  It’s also getting closer to the time where my apprentice will be ending her time with me and a new apprentice will start hers.  So bittersweet.  I feel almost relieved to have such a full schedule to keep my mind off the sentimental stuff.

another boy

born this morning, into his mother’s hands in the water, after a three hour labor.

third baby (third boy!), first homebirth.  at one point the eldest boy, who is about seven, said:  “This is the happiest event in our lives!”

congratulations to the sweet family!

Happy Mothering Day

I’ve witnessed over three hundred transitions of women crossing into motherhood as they birth their babies.  Some new mothers, some birthing their twelfth child.   No matter the number, no matter the mode of birth, the intuitive wisdom that comes with carrying a child in your body stays with you forever.

Happy Mother’s Day to those women who are brave enough to take on this priceless and important role.  We are changing the world through our own lives and that of our children’s.

For those birthkeepers, here is a beautiful poem that landed in my email this morning (thanks to A for passing it on to me):

Being Born Is Important

Being born is important
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.

You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward the nipples where white milk is ready~

You who have seen this love’s payday
of wild toil and sweet agonizing~

You know being born is important.
You know nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with the circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood~
It must be older than the moon, older than the salt.

~Carl Sandburg

12lb baby boy

Third time mom, first home birth.  Various due dates ranging from April 10 to April 27.  Long prelabor, stop and start painful contractions for the past month.

Late last night, after a three hour labor, this beautiful mama birthed her 11lb 14oz baby boy into hers and her husband’s hands in the water.

What a different birth than her previous two hospital experiences.   To be in control, to feel your baby moving down through your body, to feel his little fingers born with his head…home birth offers so much for both mom and baby.

The Birth Spool

Amie and Elizabeth over at The Birth Spool (if you don’t have their blog bookmarked, I recommend it!) interviewed me recently for their blog. The interview is found here - it’s a bit wordy (no surprise to those of you that know me in real life!).

International Midwives Day

Tomorrow (May 5) is International Midwives Day.  Contact your favorite midwife (midwives) and send them warm appreciation (or some fabulous gift).