Coming Full Circle March 4, 2008

This morning, as I was reading a birth story from the latest Birth Issues magazine, I got a phone call from my Mom telling me that her neighbor had died. Mrs. Rogers was in her late 80’s and had been in the hospital for 3 weeks, but the news came as a shock. My parents have lived next door to Mr. and Mrs. Rogers for 18 years and their presence is as much a part of the community as the annual Christmas party.

As I hung up the phone, I noticed the significance in my reading a birth story moments before learning about the death of a family friend. There is that balance in life that always seems to shine through. The moments of grief for the moments of joy, the moments of success for the moments of loss. The passing of a person is always heartbreaking, but there is comfort in knowing that Mrs. Rogers lived a long life and had her loving husband by her side until the day she died.

Some deaths don’t make nearly as much sense to me. There is, for instance, the child who my friends lost days before she was due to be born. At the very moment when it seemed like her life was about to burst forth and begin, it was instead snuffed out by a chance mishap. When I heard the news of this tragedy, my mind reeled at the overwhelm of such pain. As I stood in the church and watched my friends follow an impossibly tiny casket down the aisle, it made no sense to me. Almost four years later, I still struggle to wrap my mind around it.

As a Christian, I believe that things happen according to God’s purpose and that He has a reason for everything. It’s one thing to believe something, though, and another thing entirely to be able to logically apply that belief to all situations.

In those moments when I think of my friends’ daughter, I’m able to be more accepting of my children. What of the messy house or the fights about socks when there are people out there who can’t hold their children because they are no longer alive? And now thinking of Mrs. Rogers and her husband who has been left behind, I realize how important it is for me to show Bear each day how much I love him.

And that, maybe, is where the balance is created: in learning the lessons from tragedies and being aware of the blessings we receive every day.

Failure! March 3, 2008

Today I tried to get by without making any coffee. The coffee maker is chugging away as I type this.

There was enough coffee left over from yesterday to have a cup this morning. I microwaved it and pretended that it was fresh. And that it would be enough. As of late, I’ve gone from drinking two cups of coffee a day to drinking three or four. While I have nothing against the delicious dark drink that makes my mornings happy, I know that being addicted to drinking that many cups of coffee each day isn’t necessarily the best health choice.

So I drank my one cup today. And I was ok at first. But by lunchtime, I was a grump. The kids were too noisy, Button kept bumping into my elbows, and I wanted to be very alone.

I finally caved when I noticed that I was starting to get a headache and that feeling that my brain just isn’t working right. So I guess for today anyway I’m maintaining my addiction. I’m doing it for the kids.

The Business of Being Born March 3, 2008

Last night, I watched a screening of Ricky Lake’s new documentary The Business of Being Born. After having an unsatisfying hospital birth and then a life-altering homebirth, Ricki wanted to do something to educate and empower women in regards to homebirths and modern childbirth practices in North America. At first she looked into becoming a midwife but she realized that with the years of education required she would make a quicker and perhaps larger impact by making a documentary.

Edmonton’s Association for Safe Alternatives in Childbirth (ASAC) hosted a screening at the Whitemud Crossing Library last night. I excitedly attended with some friends after having read many positive and negative reviews. The tiny theater was stuffed to the brim with people filling each seat and sitting on the stairs and stage while children around in any empty space they could find.

The documentary examines childbirth in North America and compares it to that in other countries. It highlights some significant statistics about the incredibly high cesarean rate in the U.S. (33% nationally, but as high as 40% in some hospitals) as well as the high induction and epidural rates. Also discussed are the relatively high infant and maternal mortality rates and the enormous amount of money spent on hospital childbirths.

The homebirths portrayed in the documentary were beautiful. Women were shown swaying, moaning, and cursing their way through labors, and babies slid out into their mothers’ hands in bedrooms and bathtubs. Contrasting this was footage of both 1950’s hospital births where women were strapped into beds during “twilight sleep” and modern hospital births where women’s labors were managed with drugs and surgeries.

While I’ve felt for some time that natural childbirth is possible for the majority of women and healthier for both mothers and babies, this documentary got me thinking of birth more from more than just a physical point of view. One interviewee explained how that sense of “I just gave birth. Now I know I can do anything” in new moms is something that we all have the right to experience. When the vast majority of women are having labors that are artificially induced, numbed through epidurals, or even outright preempted through surgery, women in our culture are not experiencing the empowering and rewarding rite that has been a part of womanhood since time began.

Also discussed is the idea of how the hormones released during labour facilitate mother-baby bonding. The “love cocktail” as they call, it helps mothers to respond to their baby’s needs and enforces the instinct to protect and nurture their child. If cesareans or inductions stop this hormonal surge from taking place, there can be ramifications in the relationship. The documentary draws a link between the high rate of disrupted bonding and the problems in our society.

I found this to be a very thought and heart-provoking documentary which presents a stark view on modern childbirth in North America. I think it has the power to reach many women and to really lead to a lot of questioning of modern birth practices. As women, we should be educating ourselves about childbirth and not simply going along with the status quo, thinking that putting all our faith in our doctors is the way to ensure the best results. Cesareans, inductions, pain relief, and other interventions are all very valuable tools which have their places in emergency or medically-necessary situations, but birth is a normal and healthy process which women have been experiencing since the beginning of humanity.

The Business of Being Born can now be seen through Netflix and will be available for purchase in May. Go watch it.