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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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

[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.

[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

[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

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!

[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.