Category Archives: thoughts

Brain Dump

03 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by in birth, birth work, children, community, doula thoughts, family, marriage, miscarriage, miscarriage healing, thoughts

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Do you read Kimberlee over at The Peaceful Mom?  I heart her.  Seriously.  I’ve pinned about a million of her posts.  One of my favorites, though, is about her suggestion to do a brain dump.  While I have yet to actually accomplish this on a daily basis, I thought here in my tiny corner of the web might be a great place to start.  I’ve been woefully absent from this space lately and I miss it.  I have tons of thoughts swirling around on a regular basis but zero uninterrupted hours to make it understandable to anyone but me…unless you count while I’m sleeping.  As much as I like the blogosphere, I like sleep even more!  So, here’s my version of my blogging brain dump.  Most of these are blog post ideas totally unformed into cohesive gold, so be forewarned.

window pregnant (2)

After reading my friend’s post this morning about how many kids and whether they’re done or not, I got to thinking about my unequivocal NO! to more kids.  I admit that occasionally I catch myself thinking wistfully about pregnancy and babies and once or twice I’ve looked for that fifth kid who isn’t here; but really, I’m done.  I know this for many reasons (even though sometimes I change my mind), which include the daily dose of guilt I feel that one of my kids is always getting the short end of the stick.  It’s not always the same kid, but daily, at least one kid doesn’t get enough.

Speaking of not getting enough, I’ve been wanting to write about a shared “first” experience with one of my kids and why that was so special.  We went to a concert together…it was AH-MAZING!  The most amazing part, though, had nothing to do with the concert and everything to do with getting be part of an experience that child will never forget, getting to spend a large chunk of the day focused on only that child (which is rare these days) and just getting to be.  

Having children on each end of a spectrum is fun but also difficult.  Since I have a teenager and a toddler, I am acutely aware of how quickly the intense needs of toddler-hood fade into …. you guessed it … the intense needs of teenager-ness!  And, even though I’m aware of it, I still see myself wishing away these days.  I wish for a few moments of peace in the midst of 2 and 4 year-old chaos and then I turn right around and wish for more time with the teenager or even a return to toddler-hood so I can fix everything I think I’ve messed up.  It’s a strange place to be and I think on it often.

It’s been almost two years since this new little being joined our family.  Each child changes the make-up of a family, but we were unprepared for the many changes that occurred within me after the birth.  My husband and I talk about it…is this how I am now?  It’s getting better, although there are still many, many days I wonder if I can go on.  The anxiety over the little one, the mood swings, the sinking and/or overwhelmed feeling…

Because I think some of the above stems from my previous loss, that brings up another topic.  Loss.  It’s a topic that is always close to my heart and something I feel pulled to work with.  In my work, I hear mothers say similar things…their experiences and grief are in NO WAY the same or even similar, because each grief story is so very personal and intimate, however, some of the things they say during our times together are similar.  Something I discovered recently is that loss comes in many forms for women (and men, too, but my focus is usually on the women).  A dear friend of mine experienced the unexpected and emergent loss of one of her ovaries and while we were discussing it, I heard her say almost exactly some of the same things I’ve heard mothers whose babies have died say.  What a revelation!  This is further proof, to me, that loss is loss is loss when it comes to our children…even the ones that were only microscopic eggs waiting to be conceived or shed.

When I feel overwhelmed, I start thinking about what I can cut out to ease the load.  I (like so many mothers I know) have an unfortunate quality of taking on far too many projects.  It never feels like it when I start them, then they add up to not enough time.  I had the realization during my last client’s birthing time that I just can not continue at the pace I’m going.  Someone is always going to lose at that pace, and more often than not, it’s my family.  I’ll gladly rush to the side of a friend (or even sometimes acquaintances or strangers) no matter how inconvenient, but I snarl and snap at my family’s requests for me.  I love this and hate this about myself.  I love that I have a heart for serving others, but I wish that translated better for my family.  I desperately do NOT want my children writing the next “Mommie Dearest”!

The One Billion Rising event several of my friends and I participated in on V-Day.  It was a very poignant evening for me, and that took me off my guard.  Why was it so poignant?  I’ve been reflecting on that ever since and the answers have also surprised me.  In any case, it’s interesting to note that the sense of safety I have now with my husband is allowing me to ponder other situations where that wasn’t the case.  I think this is a tremendous compliment to him, but it also leads to some frustrating side effects.

Serving vs. helping….is there a difference?  You may have noticed that I generally refer to what I do as “serving” or “being of service”.  I like that term better than helping.  I can’t think of a good way to articulate why today, hence the paragraph being here in brain dump instead of nestled in its own post.  Anyway, serving seems to fit better for what I *feel* like I’m doing, but then it complicates (for me) the issue of payment.  I HATE discussing payment and I HATE charging for what I do because, frankly, everyone deserves to have wonderful me available to them and it shouldn’t be reserved only for those who can afford to pay and I wouldn’t even be able to pay myself so … ugh… I can make my head spin with this subject.  The end result is that no matter how I feel about charging for my services, I simply must.  My family can not survive if I were to doula without charging.  There are costs to me (childcare, gas, food, etc.) that I can not cover.  And yet, it feels wrong. *Sigh*

Inequality….it is glaringly obvious that many of the hats I wear with regards to women and babies and birth and pregnancy and parenting are not reaching or serving anyone in my community other than middle-class white women (or maybe the occasional upper-lower-class).  While it’s important to serve, it also feels important to serve those who need it most and, quite frankly, it’s often not the middle-class and/or white women.  As a white woman, I feel totally inept when it comes to racial inequality.  I get poverty and economic issues, I get single and young mothers, because I’ve been (or currently am) in those places.  However, I’ve never been anything other than white and I fully recognize that I will not ever truly get it because I can’t.  How do I fix this?  CAN I fix this?  How can I be of service to the many women who are in need but going under or un-served?

Zen…labyrinth…my house….sprouting flowers and mold.  The short version is that I have a love-hate relationship with my current house, the love of my fabulous yard and the hate of every.little.thing falling apart or molding.  I made a labyrinth over the winter to encourage me to feel more positive about it and to remind me that even the ugliest things can be beautiful/give us peace.  I spent all day making it and as I sat all zen-like, admiring my work, my kids decided it would be fun to run the length of it.  I immediately got upset and started shouting (my default noise level as well as theirs) about how that was peaceful place and I worked hard on it and they should leave it alone!!!  Um, can anyone say i-r-o-n-y??  Luckily, I got a clue before real harm was done and I turned it over to them.  I showed them the design and we ran around in it for a few minutes, but mostly I just sat watching them delight in it.  It was a sweet moment for me.  Yesterday, I was raking leaves and as my very-neglected labyrinth became uncovered from its blanket of leaves, I noticed tiny little crocus flowers…gorgeous…sprouting up!

So, there are some beginnings of posts for you (me).

Radical Honesty, Days Two and Three

02 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by in family, life path, mothering, thoughts

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I don’t have much to report.  Friday I didn’t do much, only leaving the house to head to the grocery store and then come home.  I tentatively made plans with a friend to visit, but it didn’t work out.  First, the kids were all playing so nicely and doing their own thing… L was watching the newest episode of The Vampire Diaries, M was playing with some blocks on the floor, C & B were playing some game on the computer….that I didn’t want to interrupt them.  Seriously, I was picking up the phone to call her and say we weren’t coming because they were having such a good time when the two middle kids erupted into fighting.  It escalated quickly to the boiling point, which was obviously unnecessary as I can’t even remember what it was about now.  So, in the span of about two minutes, I went from not wanting to head to her house because we were all so happy to not wanting to head to her house because we were all yelling at each other!

This, in turn, led to a vicious downward spiral of despair about one child’s behavior and my reactions to it.  It seems like that happens every few days here.  For a brief bit, I felt like we had some light at the end of the tunnel.  Friday was a dark day.  Saturday morning, though, we had some bright spots when just the two of us went to the farmer’s market (in the rain).  I can’t remember the last time it was just the two of us, and that felt special.  I should do that more often, but I probably won’t.  Consistency is not my strong suit.

I received an email newsletter from the Radical Honesty folks and read through it.  They had an interesting way of putting it: noticers instead of thinkers.  So, following that train of thought, I guess it makes sense that they comment on things the rest of us leave in our minds.  I don’t think I can do that.  I don’t know why, but I can’t.  It seems wrong, but why?

The Radical Honesty Experiment

30 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by in reflection, thoughts

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A while back I started watching Lie to Me, a show about a behavioral scientist who is basically a human lie detector.  The show itself is quite entertaining and thought-provoking, but what really stuck with me was a series of seemingly simple interchanges involving a supporting character, Eli Loker.  At the beginning of the first episode, his superior questions his tardiness and the answer he gives appears to be sarcasm.  Later on in the show, we learn that the character actually practices radical honesty.  I found this intriguing when we watched the show and thought it would be interesting to be that way.

For several months, I have been mulling over the subjects of honesty and lying with respect to energy output/input, mental/physical health and relationships.  We already know that our outlook can deeply affect us and those around us, but how far does that go?  Some speculate that holding in our negative “energy” is making us sick and I’m starting to believe that.  Furthermore, I’m starting to question the ethics of even the “little white lie”.

I’ve begun to wonder what life would look like if we were all honest, all the time.  Would it actually be more difficult?  Or, would we be free of the chains that bind us?  Would our relationships suffer, wither and die, or would they be deeper and more fulfilling than we ever thought imaginable?  These are just a few of the many, many questions I hope to answer for myself with this project.

 

The Radical Honesty Experiment:

One week.  No lies.

Rules:

I can give the other person in the conversation a warning of my experiment and the option to walk away.  Sort of like Morpheus offering Neo the blue pill or the red pill…that way, it’s up to the other person to hear the truth (my truth) or not.

I can choose not to be honest with those who do not function in reality.  I have contact with a couple of those and allowing them their safe haven they’ve constructed for themselves is safer for everyone concerned.

I will be completely honest about my truths, but other people’s are off-limits.  Yes, I know that really all truths *I think/believe* are my truths, but you get the point.  I carry around a lot of private information about others, and that’s just going to have to be okay.

Here we go…

Weddings and Births and Warm Fuzzies

18 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by in birth, birth outcomes, birth story, birth trauma, family, marriage, thoughts

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Last weekend, I attended the wedding of a friend from high school.  It was the first wedding I’ve been to since my own almost two years ago.  I was surprised at the emotions that came up, as no wedding I’ve attended has felt that way before.  I had a running log of varying thoughts on that day….

When she walked down the aisle, stunning in her gown and looking beautifully happy, I thought about the several weddings I’ve attended in my lifetime (three of which were my mother’s!), and how I don’t recall being emotionally impacted.  Sure, they were beautiful or fun or both, but they never made me really feel anything.  Even my own first wedding had very little impact…of course, looking back, I get why!  Anyway, the point is that because weddings didn’t hold much value for me, I didn’t expect much when I got married again in September of 2010.  Then, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” started and I walked towards my soon-to-be-husband.

Kids walking me down the aisle

It was, in a word, magical.  I cried the whole way and when I got to him he said, “It’s okay, it will be all right”, to which I replied that I knew it would be and that’s exactly why I was crying.  In that moment, surrounded only by our closest friends and family, I understood what all the fuss had been about.  I finally got it.

I recalled the above feelings as she turned the corner and approached her own husband-to-be.  I wondered, and hoped, that she felt that same inner calm; the knowledge that she was walking towards a lifetime with her best friend.

Making vows to each other and the kids

As they recited their vows, I thought about what it took getting to that day.  I thought about the planning, the weather (it was threatening rain at their outdoor ceremony) and how it should be everything she wanted.

Since birth is never far from my mind and I see parallels with it everywhere, I couldn’t help but think of my friend’s recently posted essay “All That Matters is a Healthy Husband.”  It’s a scathing, sarcastic look at how our society respects and reveres wedding days while being almost completely dismissive about birth days.  She and I have long discussed how ridiculous it is.  We all know that delays, mishaps and disappointments on wedding days do not directly reflect how happy the couple will be or how long they will stay together.  Still, though, if a bride recollected her day with pain, sadness, disappointment or any other emotion besides joy, NO ONE would say to her “at least you have a healthy husband”.  Instead, we would empathize with her feelings of loss at the special day she’d taken so much time and care to plan going awry.  We’d think anyone who interfered with that dream of hers was awful.  On the other hand, we have tons of research to prove that the way a woman is treated during labor/birth, her perception of the events and her care immediately postpartum all deeply affect her AND her baby.  So why, then, are mothers shushed and shamed when they experience negative births (or more importantly, why are they having these negative experiences in the first place)?  Why are they told that they are not important in the process, “the only thing that matters is a healthy baby”?  These thoughts are why I do what I do.  I do not want mothers to have to “get over” their birth experiences.  I want mothers to be able to plan the births they want for themselves and their babies, and to have every possible opportunity to see them through that way.  I want them to feel fully supported in the decisions they made.

I also think about how many hours were spent meticulously planning my wedding day, how many blog posts I wrote about it, how no one ever said to me that it was “just one day” and to quit talking about, planning and dreaming of it.  The truth is that yes, it was just one day, but that one day sustains me during the rough waters.  When I’m angry at my partner, I think about walking towards him and the feeling I felt right then.  I think about the love in his eyes and the tears I saw when he spoke to me, to my children…who became our children.  These snapshots remind me of that moment of pure love, pure joy. 

Joyful tears at wedding

Why do we not expect…no DEMAND…the same thing from the births of our children?  Why are women having unnecessary, sometimes (often?) physically and/or emotionally damaging, procedures done to them at vulnerable moments in their lives only to be told that it’s just one day and to get over it?  Why are we not standing on the rooftops shouting, “All that matters is a healthy [MOM AND] baby?”

Joyful tears at birth

Just as the snapshots from my wedding sustain me during the rough moments of my marriage, so do the snapshots (like above) from my children’s births.  The pure ecstasy of meeting them for the first time.  Yes, we can have those moments even when the rest is crap, but shouldn’t we strive to give mothers as many of those as possible?  Mothering is hard work and we need as many moments of pure love as we can get!

And finally, as my friend and her new husband were returning from the marriage altar one couple and one family, I got these delicious warm fuzzies.  My heart literally felt warm with happiness and love remembering my own wedding day.  Excitement for them, that they too will experience the kind of joy and love we have.  Everyone deserves that!  Everyone deserves to look forward to waking up next to their love and to call them way too muchwhen they’re away because they have to share right now.  They deserve to laugh ridiculously loud and have inside jokes that only they will find funny.  Just as I wish all mothers to have happy, healthy pregnancies and births, so do I also wish each person to find their perfect partner.

Catching a quick kiss before the ceremony

 

Having a “moment”

Giggling about our “secret” pregnancy

More giggling

Catching a tender moment

 

Inside joke..

Birth Day Thoughts (or, I Am Awesome!)

27 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in birth, children, family, motherhood, mothering, reflection, thoughts

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Me at three. Aren’t I cute?

Today is my birthday!  Woot!  I am a total child when it comes to my birthday and make a huge fuss about doing only what I want to do…while expecting everyone around me to shower me with love, affection and yummy offerings.  Doesn’t that sound fabulous?!  Lucky for me, my children think it’s fun because they know it’ll be their turn soon enough (tomorrow for one of them) and oblige.  My husband doesn’t necessarily find it as fun or endearing, but he obliges me because..well, I’m awesome and he loves me.  🙂

I have lots of different ideas for a post today.  I thought about sharing all the things I like about myself because that seems like a cool way to celebrate me, right?  I also thought about exploring my own birth and my mom, because it’s fascinating to me.  Last, I can’t think about my birthday anymore without thinking about my daughter’s birth day, because it’s the day after mine.  So, I think I’ll just do a little bit of all three!

Talking about why we think we’re awesome seems to be a taboo subject.  Why?  Is self-love only acceptable when done in private?  Where is the line (or is there even a line?) between confidence, appreciation in/of one’s self and conceit?  I don’t have these answers, but I know that I don’t always share my accomplishments (except with those closest to me) or admit just how great I think I am (except in a joking manner), because I don’t want to come off as conceited or full of myself.  But shouldn’t I be “full of” myself, especially if I’ve worked hard and that hard work paid off?  Who knows!  Here are some things I like about me:

1.  I am beautiful ~ I was tempted to leave this one out, or tuck it in between two other things, precisely because of the above paragraph.  But then, how would that be honest?  I am beautiful.  I am beautiful partially because of good genetics (thanks mom and dad!), but mostly because I feel beautiful.  I don’t look at myself in the mirror and think, “Yep.  I am pretty” and I am fairly critical of how I look in pictures (one of my eyes closes more than the other and is kind of wonky).  I have a big nose, but it is truly a family nose that many people are able to identify me with…”Ah!  You must be an Eyberg!!”  Anyway, the point is that there are certain features I’m not enthused about, which tells me that I don’t necessarily think I’m all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips, but I feel beautiful.  I don’t know how to describe it other than that.  I am, overall, happy with myself.  I am a nice person who does nice things and I smile A LOT.  I smile at strangers.  I even smiled at the grumpy clerk yesterday who wouldn’t let me set my stuff down on his cart while I moved the baby from back to front because he needed to move it… five feet from where I was standing.  I think it’s something inside of me that is beautiful and it comes to the outside.  I believe, wholeheartedly, that beauty is on the inside, because that is how I feel about myself.

2.  I can laugh at myself ~ If you’re my friend on Facebook, you’ve already seen proof of that.  If not, too bad for you!  Just kidding…here you go:

Why Glamour Shots are HEE-LAR-I-OUSOh my goodness…and I thought that was so cool at the time!  Don’t judge me.  For reals, though, if we take ourselves too seriously life is going to get B-O-R-I-N-G.  Besides, I do some funny stuff.  There’s the time I ran out to the car in my underwear, only to realize later that there was a HUGE, strategically placed hole.  So, I could either cry or laugh.  I choose to laugh.  And share it on Facebook.  😉

3.  I’m passionately active ~ This is one of my favorite qualities about myself!  Passion is great, but if there’s no action from the passion…what’s the point?  I have moments where I think it would be so much easier to sink into apathy but, usually, it’s right about that moment when I get an email or call from a mama and I am reminded why I do the work I do, why I push so hard for change and why I can’t give up until we have a safe, humane, family friendly maternity care system.  Will it happen?  I don’t know.  I do know ~ without a shadow of a doubt ~ that I can not just sit by and watch until it does.  I have to act.  I have to help.

There are other things I like about myself too, but I think you get the idea…I’m awesome!  I appreciate my life path and look forward to many more years on this journey.  It’s been an interesting ride so far.

Moving on, I can’t help but ponder my own birth on this day.  I don’t often think of it, because it hasn’t been discussed a lot.  I know that I was breech when my mom was “due”, and although my father was gung-ho about having the chiropractor turn me and/or just having me come butt first, my mom was not.  She opted for a cesarean.  I also know that fathers were not encouraged in the room at the time, something that upset my dad greatly….and something that he refused to adhere to.  His child was being born and no one was going to keep him out!  Beyond that, I don’t know much.  My mom functions in a somewhat altered reality these days, so even though I’m curious, there’s no way for me to know how she really felt.

Did my own tumultuous birth affect the course of my life and is it possible that some of my drive comes from that beginning?  I don’t remember it, so I’m not sure.  I think about that, though.  I also think about my mom…about how she went on to have two VBAC home births and gave me the image of a birth warrior to carry into my own birthing experiences.  Did she feel triumphant?  Did she mourn the cesarean, especially after having experienced such empowering births with her next children?

Mom nursing me at a few weeks old

My final thoughts today are about my sweet baby girl.  We have grown up together, literally.  She’s been with me almost half my life….CRAZY!  I am scared to death.  Of what, I’m not quite sure.  Or, maybe it’s that I don’t want to admit my fears.  Either way, they’re not coming out just yet.

First Birthday

In just a few hours, I’ll be the mother of a teenager.  Eek!  How quickly she’s gone from baby to toddler to child to young woman.  As she lays here next to me dozing off, I think back to those first moments with her…my entrance into womanhood, into motherhood, into adulthood…they were all rolled into those precious moments.  This tiny being was laid on me and I knew my life would never be the same.  Even now, so many years later, that second is still so real, so visceral.  It’s rare that I look at her and see anyone but who she is now, but I feel it.  I feel the deeply ingrained love that sometimes moves me to tears.  I don’t love anybody the way I love my children.  And she was the first.  She and I learned about life together, we taught each other.

Happy Birth Days to me.  🙂