Yep, still crazy.

[altarflame]

I've been all happy because I can sleep at night, and I can do a lot of self-motivated stuff during the day, and I feel at peace most of the time. Like my time in therapy and my months of emdr really, really helped me a lot, though there is still of course something there. I'm "channeling all my birth angst into positive change in the world" through my book writing and advocacy work. Yesterday affirmed for me, though, that I have not just some issues but an entire subscription.

*sigh*

BirthGirlz hosted this event called "Embracing the Miracle", which was supposed to be about "How Prenatal Choices Effect Who Your Child Can Become", led by a woman I hadn't heard of who comes with a certain amount of acclaim. I was like, alright, whatever, she's a noted author who's done world tours, Nancy likes her, I figured it would be a little new-agey but I do believe in bonding with your baby in utero and getting researched and junk, which is what I thought this was about. I was volunteered to make a lot of food for the event and that ended up being really satisfying. We had 30-35 confirmed guests, and I made 60 each of stuffed mushrooms, tiny fruit tarts, and little savory tarts. Let me digress for a moment because this is enjoyable: the fruit tarts were little phyllo shells brushed inside with boiled-thin apricot preserves, filled with a mixture of whipped cream, cream cheese and sugar, and topped with sliced kiwi and strawberry slivers. The savory tarts were the same phyllo shells, but the filling was onions and walnuts diced small and sauteed up in a lot of butter, then mixed with cream cheese and bacon crumbles, and I topped each of those with these fresh microgreens we got - pea shoots. They looked freaking fabulous and everybody loved it all, though I think one particular chick ate like 15 of the mushrooms which is totally cheating ;) They were stuffed with tons of onion and garlic sauteed in olive oil, lots of diced red and yellow bell pepper, tiny-diced tomatoes, seasoned breadcrumbs and cheddar cheese (I knew there would be a lot of vegetarians there). And Kristin and Michelle had brought fresh artichoke dip and HOMEMADE CRACKERS and baked bree hot and oozing out of itself and Michelle's daughters baked chocolate chip cookies and brownies and cinnamon rolls and things, everything spelt flour and raw turbinado sugar and anyway, the point is the food was the good part for sure.

I was unprepared for the actual content, which was all based upon the intro topic; "It's not birth to three that really matters, it's birth and the first hour of life". Then we got to build on that for 2 hours, with everything from contrasting slides between the warm glowy home brith pool to dramatic black and white stills of screaming babies alone on cold metal hospital scales with their umbilical cords cut too soon, to real stats and pics of how Japaense researchers have seen on brain scans that babies born by c-section actually have a hole in their neocortex. She talked about how long initial separations like Aaron had can actually cause sensory issues and how premature c-section with NICU stays, like Isaacs, can cause nightmares and high needs babies. She discussed the half life of the drugs you get during a cesarean in your newborn and how they stunt growth of the neural network and how babies turn face up as they come out, this amazing spiral, because women pull their babies up to face them with the cord still connecting. The synaptic explosion that happens when eye contact occurs in that instant. How the endorphin, oxytocin and prolactin bursts just after birth are the chemical high of a woman's entire life, and lay the foundation for the mother-child relationship.

I am not saying the half of it and I'm not GOING to, but I have rarely managed that level of dissociation. Really. I was talking and laughing with my sister or Kristin the whoooole time, and by the time it was time to go I realized my reflection was confusing me and making me mad, when I saw it in the bathroom, and that I already had blank spots I couldn't remember. I got home and tried to go right to sleep (before dinner, before nighttime, me who never sleeps) and was angry when I had to get up. I was totally out of sorts.

Grant got the kids in bed. Then he brought me my crocheting stuff and sat me on the floor between his legs (him on the couch), rubbed my shoulders and asked me questions until I had cried for a freaking hour and described all this crap to him. Then we layed together and made love and then we sat around at the computer laughing at things for awhile and then he pulled out all the him-uncomfortable-but-me-in-his-arms stops to get me to be able to sleep after I got all hysterical again about having to go back into surgery, and how my diastasis and hernia are totally worse the last week, and blah blah blah.

I woke up feeling a lot better. He is pretty amazing.

Some of the stuff the woman was saying was laughable hooey, for instance she referenced crystal babies and indigo children, and gave us a live demonstration of what orgasmic birth would sound like. <- Not kidding. She also had many annoying turns of phrase, such as calling herself a "coyote midwife" because she "sits by the hole and waits", and acting as though she tricked us all after we raised our hands to show who breastfed their babies because NO! We did not breastfeed, our BABIES breastfed! So that sort of woo helped me to disregard and tune out to some degree.

But a lot of what she said is real truth I see manifested in my kids as individuals, that Grant and I have talked about before, at length, and/or is proven whether I like it or not, and much of it is shit I take totally on myself as a burden of guilt.

I really do believe in "reparative work" after bad beginnings, and I think I've done amazingly with that and that is part of why my kids are so great as they are.

Still and all, listening to someone talk about human potential vs damaged goods for an entire afternoon had me wanting to punch her in the face.

Comments

[girl-next-dork.livejournal.com]

*Hug*

Amazing partners are amazing.

You are doing the best you can with what you've got, and beyond. I hope the emotional burden of these sorts of experiences never blocks out that fact for you.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Thank you, and, I try.

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

I wrote this huge long comment about my infertility and adoption angst and how it relates to this and how I empathize with your pain even though I have not had the exact same experiences and....then LJ ate it.

*sigh*

So...there you go. I see it all too.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I would have liked to have read that.

But, I am sure I can imagine a lot of it, too.

OH DAMA YOU ARE GOING TO BE IN MY HOUSE!

[aranel.livejournal.com]

I kind of wish you had punched her. I bet much of even her non-woo stuff was unsubstantiated--there is so much fake science out there. I mean, it's incontrovertible that normal birth is better for mothers and babies than unneeded c-sections, of course it is, that's what I wish for myself and for every mom and baby. But it's also really easy for people to come up with 'studies' that nobody can see the methodological holes in without a lot of background knowledge about study design and statistical significance and all the rest of it. The people doing them are even probably well-intentioned, but that doesn't change the fact that manufacturing pretend scientific evidence covers up for how many unknown factors there almost are and how much scientists really don't understand, because there are so many things they don't have a truly controlled way to test. I mean, you have a daughter who had actual dark places in her brain scans far more significant than anything they can possibly be seeing in c/s babies generally, and just look at her.

[aranel.livejournal.com]

er, should be 'how many unknown factors there always are'

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I think this event, for first time pregnant moms who are open to learning, would be a valuable thing. I would just liked to have a full itinerary of her programs so I could choose the "reparative work" one and not the "scare you into natural birth at all costs" one.

I've been trading fb messages all day with other chicks who have kids already, "born wrong", who also believe most of what she said was true and had a pretty hard go of sitting there.

[aranel.livejournal.com]

As a first-timer who's planning a homebirth right now (second pregnancy, the first was lost to miscarriage), I would be really put off by a "scare you into natural birth at all costs" event. I don't doubt there are realities behind what she was saying (and obviously I didn't hear the presentation so I can't go plug her references into Google Scholar or anything) but it would make me mad as hell to hear somebody undermining her own credibility and by extension *my* credibility as a would-be homebirther and the potential of the homebirth/natural birth movement as a whole to become more accepted in our society, by mixing facts with a lot of scaremongering and pseudoscience and woo.

Which is not to say I'm opposed to hearing about the spiritual/scientifically unquantifiable side of birth. I really admire Ina May Gaskin, for instance. But I am really opposed to using 'scientific' findings, which often on closer examination are not that scientific, to scare people, which is what it sounded to me like that woman was doing, from your secondhand account. And I would think there is really enough fear around birth in our culture already.

[aranel.livejournal.com]

I should also maybe add that I am a big believer that our genetics and innate temperament have an influence on how we turn out that's probably far more important than most environmental factors, and that they along with our own decisions eventually tend to prevail over all kinds of trauma and adverse circumstances. I have scientific and observational/personal-experience-based reasons for believing this, but I have to say it also helps me a lot to accept that no parent or early environment is 100% perfect, and that there will always be factors in my child(ren)'s lives that are out of my control. As in, not to beat myself up for occasionally consuming sugar and caffeine or being stressed while pregnant. :-) Because I have a perfectionist streak, and was a guilt-driven person even before getting pregnant, and the other way (believing that children's early environment is hugely, irrevocably determinative)--that way lies madness, for me.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

It's sort of a viscious circle of logic, really, because every horrible extreme thing you can say about how important it is to breastfeed is completely true - it is extremely important on a lot of levels! But if a baby is not breastfed, will they even possibly be able to be healthy or feel loved? Uh, duh, of course. So it can't be that important! But it is...so, they're screwed? No, not screwed, but blah blah blah. I see this a lot like that.

[aranel.livejournal.com]

I think it just comes down to the question: are you going to trust that moms' desire to do the best thing for their babies (and themselves) is sufficient? Even though a lot of them will not in fact do the best thing? Or are your going to go for the persuasive power of guilt and fear?

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

That first line means a lot coming from you:)

[shechinah-el.livejournal.com]

I wonder if she was aware of the judgment-y edge to the past experiences of mothers in the room when talking about these things. I mean, she's got a point-- those relationship-building moments ARE important (I won't lie, I bristled at "it's not zero to THREE that's important!", lol-- MY LIFE IS FLASHING BEFORE MY EYES, MY CAREER IS A SHAM!!!)-- but there's a gentle art to talking about these things without parents feeling like they've done irreversible damage to their other children. It's a fine line and a real skill. <333

[(Anonymous)]

None of the examples mentioned in the original post are particularly harsh - the differences in brain development depending on the mother's emotional state during pregnancy, the circumstances of birth and the first few years of life are quite well documented. I doubt that the woman who spoke at this event intended to lay on the guilt, it's simply very important information that most women are more or less unaware of, and it's much more vital to get the word out than to pretend like it's less of a problem than it really is so that mothers who didn't do everything perfect can feel better about themselves. The mother who doesn't know any better is as much a victim as her child.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

They are quite well documented, they do definitely need to be gotten out there, and yet they ARE quite harsh if you are listening through my ears. I would loved to have heard things like this before I had a first child.

I didn't say I didn't want her holding her talks; I just would've liked to have had better warning about what I was attending. And/or completely different birth experiences so I could nod along sagely without it ripping my heart out.

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

Maybe you should listen to what all the other mothers on here are saying. If it's hurtful than it isn't useful. If you get the information out in a way that makes women defensive, you are going to fail.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

For the record, I feel that zero to three is VERY, very important and once wrote an extensive, well cited research paper that I presented to a college psych class about it.

But, just like I think the first of those three years has the most potential to lay down some undoable fuckery, or plant the awesomest seeds, I also believe that birth and the first hour are probably the most potent and loaded of that first year. If that makes any sense.

I think she was really trying to speak to pregnant women and birth professionals, which was most of who was there.

[shechinah-el.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree with you! I was more saying "by definition, I had a gut reaction that I was unable to alleviate with the knowledge that the statement was probably not made in a context that would render it quite so literal and binding." I think 0-3 is all so important that it's hard to compare, but yes, I would say that on a sliding scale the earliest years (and hours and minutes) are the most important

[shechinah-el.livejournal.com]

Also-- I'm so, so glad when reading entries like this that you have such a solid, understanding and supportive partner in Grant. <3

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

FOR REALZ.

[idiolecto.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that food sounds delicious.

Also, Kyu and I are wondering if that speaker thinks we are doomed as mother and son since I wasn't even there when he was born. Ouch.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Thank you :D

I think Kyu was completely and totally born to be your son, dude. Seriously and 100%. Since the first picture.

My sister and I talk a lot about constitutions and genetics and things - how she and I weathered some Crazy Shit as kids fairly well but, say, Isaac has a very hard time with daily life in a loving family - her hypothesis is that kids choose the right families to be born into, "for them". And sometimes I think she is on to something.

On a less sentimental note, as the practical person I can sometimes be, I see it like this: Kyu probably did have a pretty hard time not having a familiar smelling mom with a familiar sounding heartbeat around to slip him a titty in those early weeks. And it was probably really rough to deal with being transferred to foster care, or realizing you and Kris weren't taking him back to the foster care he'd gotten used to. But that's the beginning of the story, not the end of it. Part of the rest involves how deeply those foster peeps truly cared for him, and how you two are bending over backwards to "attach", and are giving him what I really see as an amazing life and family. He even came to you well before his first birthday, giving you the majority of that zero to three period still there for molding and shaping securities and trust. Nobody's life is perfect; everybody has challenges to overcome. If the worst of Kyu's have already passed, he's got it pretty damned good.

I am sitting here wondering how I can sincerely mean this and yet not apply it to my own life and family. I think it is about how you and Kris have done nothing but give a child who needed one a loving and thoughtful home, whereas I was actually an ignorant fool allowing harmful things to befall my babies. For instance, with Elise, I really did everything I could and fluke, unforseeable crap really mandated the c/s and medical care really saved her life. So I can feel about her, like I do about Kyu, and be at peace with it for the most part.

[idiolecto.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thank you for this comment. Seriously.

Also: you are NOT an ignorant fool if the worst thing you ever did was trust experts when you were in a vulnerable position. We do the best we can.

[eternamariposa.livejournal.com]

I think that the way you should think about it is that children do pick the families that they are born into. I really think of those souls hanging out with God and discussing matters. And remember that that means that Annie was placed in the hands of the mother she was supposed to have, and the mother she was intended to be with for her whole destiny to work and all was you, as you were at 17. You can't make sense of it because to make sense of something so far reaching in a person's spiritual life as why they were born the way they were and how it fits in with who they will be is trying to grab a hold of a much bigger piece of the puzzle than we are meant to have. I think as the years roll by and you see more and more of their potential coming through things will eventually make sense. Just like for some reason, Brian needed to go through his dental surgery at the ripe old age of 2. I don't know why but I know it fits in somehow and I really don't believe that God would have put that on the itinerary if it weren't important-especially considering all of the whinny bitching he had to listen to about it. ; )

Just an idea.

[gardenmama.livejournal.com]

People who don't have c-sections can totally have fucked up kids. You can twist statistics to show anything you want by ignoring the studies that don't prove your "theory."

I had a totally natural birth with my second, and had bad ppd with him (didn't at all with the first one) and I still don't feel like he and I are bonded like I am with my oldest. But I think it has waaaaay more to do with personality differences than anything to do with his birth. Also, I found it exceedingly hard to bond with a colicky baby who refused to nurse when he was colicky :P

/rant

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I hear you. Every so often I come across someone who has major shit to deal with from the pain of a natural birth, or INTENSE tearing from their homebirth, and who feels all extra-super-jaded because they feel they were doing it all in the "easy to live with" way against all odds...

Honestly, I was incredibly bonded with Ananda in the first few months. First few hours! I didn't feel at all anti-cesarean after that experience, or like I had missed out on anything. Those things came later, after I had a misdated baby pulled out premature, after spinal hematomas and hospital-GIVEN infections and sponges left behind. And NOW, on the other side of it all, I look back and I feel very upset about how different the Annie thing could have went down.

But overall, I feel she's been harmed, herself, far more for me dissapearing into hospital stays and surgeries with her siblings, as she's grown, than by her own birth experience.

[ecosopher.livejournal.com]

Ok, I've never posted before and I have to be quick right now because there is a baby scuttling around, threatening to destroy the place, so I may not be as eloquent as I would like! With that caveat :)

I felt I had to write because I've read your journal for a while and I think you do an AMAZING job as a mum and a friend and wife, and you know, research is all well and good... but it all comes down to the real world and we don't live in bubbles in a lab, and birth isn't always perfect. I love the idea of an unmedicated and low intervention birth, but sometimes it's not possible, and I don't feel as if we should be demonising women who don't get to have that. And aside from aiming for a beautiful, drug free, stressless environment when we birth, coming up with all this stuff about first hour of birth/ mother-baby connection - yes, those things are important, but there are SO many other things which are equally if not more important and you are doing them all :)

I just feel that it's not that useful for people to get up somewhere and quote these stats unless they're going to also suggest ways to help babies and parents to get around the issues which may arise from a traumatic birth and/or subsequent hospital stay. Otherwise it just promotes fear and guilt. Who is she - or anyone else - to say what things affect us other than our births?

I know you know this stuff, but thought it might help to hear it from someone else too :)

Yes, that was me, being brief ;) Love your blog, btw

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Thank you, on a lot of levels :)

uggh

[(Anonymous)]

Total lurker but wanted to say I totally understand that particular "brand" of anger. I've sat through many lectures in the psychology academic world on the horrible mess bipolar people are, all the while wanting to scream "um, hello?! I'm sitting right here as a professional attending this lecture and with a bipolar diagnosis, but I sure as sh*t don't seem as bad as what you're claiming we all are.". Soooooo aggrevating!

Re: uggh

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Yeah. EXACTLY.

[mamablogess.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

As a fellow birth activist who got PTSD from a birth, I can tell you that you will be triggered if you choose to be a birth activist. I have found that having birth trauma has given me a very different perspective then other natural birth activists. For example, I don't feel that what you were subjected to was necessarily helpful in any way. Did the group of women she was speaking to plan on elective c-sections, or where they already interested in natural childbirth? Was she talking to providers that perform c-sections, or to the providers that have the lowest rates of c-sections in the country? If so, this is just more of preaching to the choir. Who needs this information? OB's do. And who is getting it? The people who already know about it. Education is important, but only educating the women, and telling her she has "options" and "choices" as if she is going to go in and order off of a menu is disingenuous to the true experience of trying to have a natural birth in our current maternity care system. Women are instructed to go in fighting, and then their fight or flight panic response is triggered, and then their providers fight back, and then they are subjected to abuses, violations, and trauma symptoms or PTSD. I no longer even identify with being a "natural" birth activist, I am more of an "informed consent and refusal in maternity care activist" or a "mother and baby friendly care activist". Those don't roll of the tongue as well, but they are more descriptive of my goals for maternity care in this country.

What I have found helpful to reduce the triggers is first figuring out what I feel is the way to change the system. Then, I found organizations or projects that were in line with my own ideals and goals. This helped to limit my exposure to people who were heavily pushing educating the women (though I am not opposed to educating women, I feel it is more important to educate providers and push for true informed consent and refusal in maternity care). I still bump into things that trigger me, like if I go to a birth movie/event, but it is something I try to remain aware of.

As for all the things they say are wrong with kids that have such and such birth, I think it is easy to look at a kid and think they fit that description. But, how many kids have had perfect home births and still have sensory issues? Lots do, I have read about many. Whenever their is any quirk with a child it is natural to try to blame it on something. My son has his share of stuff, and I have blamed it on everything from his birth to my PTSD. But, then I stood back from it all and realized something. Of course he had colic, so did his dad. Of course he has sensory issues, because as it turns out, so do I and so does his dad. He had speech issues, but they resolved. He is sensitive and anxious, but so are we. I think it is mostly genetic. I actually can compare him with our childhoods and am now seeing at age 4 that he is better adjusted then we were, and I think that is due to attachment parenting. I actually think AP can heal a lot, even less then ideal birth experiences. I don't buy into the permanent damage theory.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I love everything about this comment.

This particular event was definitely a rousing round of preaching to the choir. Women who have scheduled home births and a lot of homebirth doulas sitting around nodding sagely. And a few of us who have done it wrong sitting around with a big fake smile.

This comment really resonates with me, did I mention that?

This speaker I just listened to has supposedly spoken to large groups of doctors before (like 200 in Japan with a translator at one point), and I can imagine THAT being helpful.

I actually just spent a huge long time talking with my sister about how change has to come from the upper levels; educating individual women has value in those individual womens' lives, SOMETIMES, but overall it is about changing policies because people DON'T GET IMMERSED IN THIS CRAP UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE. Generally speaking, you don't read books about birth choices until you're already a couple of months pregnant with your first baby, if not later. And that is way too late for a radical paradigm shift to really take hold of you. THe problem is that when well meaning, excited new moms find out their pregnant, everything about our society immediately guides them in the wrong direction...and yes, everything you said about trying to approach birth as a battleground while IN LABOR WITH A BABY is definitely true.

Pushing for a midwifery and birth center model of care is also important, I think, as well as normalizing homebirth in uncomplicated situations... the numbers really are there for those things.

[mamablogess.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I am relieved that this comment resonated with you, I was a bit worried about posting it because I know it is sort of an unpopular stance with some.

I agree that if she gave that presentation to OB's, then that would be getting somewhere. However, if she told them about "indigo" children and some of her other woo stuff, then I am afraid that everything she said was likely discounted - as it should be, wow.

I fail to see the value in presenting this to people who are not planning to have a c-section, and to providers who can't even perform them? To me, I think this puts the responsibility solely on the mothers. And that means if they have a less then ideal birth, then that "failure" is solely theirs as well. This is totally unfair, because the mother often has very little control or choice over the matter once she enters the system. When I've told women before that I was being forced procedures I did not want, they said that if that happened to them they would kick their OB. So, the prevailing attitude is that the woman is completely responsible if her birth goes in the "wrong" direction. I just can't accept this, because I know that I had no control over how my birth went. I chose the "right" hospital, the "right" type of provider, a doula, and was "educated", and I went in fighting, and they fought back and I have the PTSD to prove it. We can't change the system by sending women in to fight while they are giving birth.

And yes, I agree that pushing for out of hospital birth options is very important. Then educating women about these options would be very useful, if they actually had an option like this to choose where they could have a natural birth in peace. I think you are right about not being able to make a paradigm shift while pregnant. Women need to learn about out of hospital birth before that occurs. If CPM's were covered by insurance and legal in all 50 states, and awareness was raised, that would go a long way. Women need to know that choosing a hospital birth is going to limit her options for natural birth, and there is no way around that unless you choose a different setting. Do you know about the big push for midwives campaign, or the mama campaign? They are two organizations pushing for a CPM option in health care reform.

Also, I am a big fan of CIMS, and I work with The Birth Survey project, which is trying to bring transparency to maternity care. I also work with Solace for Mothers: Healing After Traumatic Childbirth (solaceformothers.org) and we are directing a lot of our attention towards advocating for current informed consent laws to be upheld in maternity care. This is something that needs to be addressed with all providers, even home birth midwives. If women had true informed consent, more would choose natural or alternative options, and more would feel in control of their own experience thus reducing trauma.

Ugh, sorry I wrote so much! This is obviously a topic I have a lot to say about.

[aranel.livejournal.com]

I have really enjoyed reading your comments. This informed consent stuff strikes me as so very important. I was really impressed with my midwife when, at my first appointment, rather than "Okay, I'm just going to do a pap smear now" she said "Is it okay if I do a pap smear now?"

We can't change the system by sending women in to fight while they are giving birth.

This really makes sense to me. As I keep telling people, my main reason for wanting a homebirth is that, while I am usually pretty comfortable advocating for myself, I don't want to have to try to do it while I'm in labor.

[mamablogess.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I've come to think that informed consent is really the key to changing maternity care. If women were actually informed of the risks, benefits and alternatives, and had the right to refuse options presented, I really think birth would start to become much less medically managed. Not allowing women the right to informed consent and refusal is illegal, but currently barely any lawyers would ever take a case like this (because there is a lack of precedence, and they only take cases they know they can win), so the woman is left with her legal rights being violated but she has no recourse to bring justice to the people who violated her. They then continue this treatment of women unchecked. I really think that is what needs to change if we are ever going to see a difference. Also, this would go a long way in preventing trauma. Like in the example of your midwife, even a simple thing like a routine pap can be handled in a way where the woman feels in complete control. When they decide for her, even if she would have agreed to it anyway, they take away her power and control over her own body and things of this nature can lead to a traumatic response.

And yeah, I thought I could advocate for myself too, but, not in a system that will just hold you down and force you to comply against your screams of protest... I just had no idea that they could legally force me to do anything, so I thought I simply had to say "no" to what I didn't want. And I was right, it wasn't legal, but I didn't know that they would do it anyway. I wish someone would have educated me about that.