Healing the World, One Baby at a Time

• PLEASE GIVE ON DECEMBER 1st •

"These are uncertain times, the empathy you share gives me so much hope that loving kindness prevails on Earth.  i wish your family may shine in health, safety, and LOVE."

 ~ in Peace, Ibu Robin ~ 

In 2012 I went to Bali to assist at Bumi Sehat birth center. 

I made friends with Robin Lim, the director, and with Erin Ryan who was the head visiting midwife. I also made friends with the Indonesian midwives who provide night-and-day care for the hundreds of mothers who come there for free maternity care. And I learned to ride a scooter!

I made friends with the midwives by being as helpful as I could: I washed gloves (long story, but necessary), I cleaned, I ran and got things, I watched and listened and kept quiet and never presumed to teach. I learned so much there, about gentle birth, and respectful woman-centred, family-centred care. 

Working with very poor and marginalized women in Montreal has always been my task, and I learned about the realities of many peoples' lives on my trips through the African continent in my younger days (another long story, stay tuned!), so I was not so surprised by the realities that the women we served were living. )

But you might be. And this is why I want to explain why it is so important that you and I open our hearts and our wallets and donate, even a small amount, to Ibu (mother) Robin's birthday campaign. Women come to the birth center in labour, riding on the back of a scooter for hours from rural areas of the island. Some families live in small one-room houses, the size of your bedroom. Some women work hard carrying bricks or stones and only eat rice. 

Your donation can pay for a Covid rapid test for a labouring mother (required by law before she can be attended by a midwife); help Bumi Sehat to pay their midwives (in Bali, Papua. Aceh, Lombok); help buy food for needy families.

I was honored to have a live chat with Ibu Robin on her birthday last week. She explained why she wants everyone to donate on December 1, rather than on her birthday. December 1 will be Giving Tuesday, and Global Giving will be amplifying donations made on that day. 

This is the link to the Bumi Sehat Page on Global Giving:  BumiSehatGG

  

And this is a message from Ibu Robin and her team:

"Please accept our love and gratitude. May your families be safe and well, may the heart-storms of this challenging time on Earth, pass quickly. " Love, Ibu Robin and Team Bumi Sehat.

• PLEASE GIVE ON DECEMBER 1st •

Giving Tuesday Global Timetable:

1 December,from 00:00 to 24:00 ET aka New York City, Peru, Toronto, Montreal time.

California, Seattle, Baja Mexico, time ~ 9 evening of 30 November, to 9 evening 1 December. 

Midwest USA, Mexico City time ~ 11 evening of 30 November, to 11 evening 1 December. 

Moscow time ~ 08:00 morning 1 December until 08:00 am 2 December.

Bali and Singapore, Philippines  ~ 1:00 pm 1 December  until 1:00 afternoon 2 December. 

Jakarta/Java time/Bangkok ~ 12:00 noon 1 December until 12:00 noon 2 December.

Tokyo time~~ 2:00 pm 1 December  until 2:00 afternoon 2 December. 

Paris, Copenhagen, Milano ~ 06:00 morning 1 December until 06:00 am 2 December.

Edinburgh, London ~ 05:00 morning 1 December until 05:00 am 2 December.

Perth, Australia ~ 1pm 1 December until 1pm 2 December

Darwin Australia ~ 2:30pm 1 December until 2:30 2 December

Brisbane, Australia ~ 3pm 1 December until 3pm 2 December (Adelaide add 1/2 hour)

Melbourne & Sydney, Byron Bay, Australia ~ 4 pm 1 December until 4 pm 2 December

Happy Birthday Ibu Robin!

In 2012, I went to Bali to volunteer in the birth centre Robin Lim created, Bumi Sehat. I became friends with her and she stayed with me in 2013 when she came to Montreal to raise funds for her birth centre. 

In 2014, she wrote to me after my mother died. I had just received my Certified Professional Midwife credentials, and she wrote a beautiful note to me about doors opening and doors closing, midwifery, birth and death, and Love.

Ibu Robin is a mother and grandmother, a midwife, and a mover and changer of hearts and minds. She does what she does to heal Mother Earth, through birth, through Love, and through action.

Every year, on her birthday, Ibu Robin sends out an email like the one you can see here.

Ibu Robin is turning 64!! At the end of November Ibu Robin will become 64! You are our Circle of Support, and many of you ask me what Ibu Robin  would like for her Birthday.  All She ever wants and needs is help for Bumi Sehat.

Bumi Sehat has been embraced by GlobalGiving. December 1st, will be Giving Tuesday. Donations made on that specific day, will be amplified by Global Giving. If it works for you to put Birthday contributions through on December 1st the benefit would be significantly more. This is the link to the Bumi Sehat Page on Global Giving:  BumiSehatGG     Please accept our love and gratitude. May your families be safe and well, may the heart-storms of this challenging time on Earth, pass quickly.  Love, Ibu Robin and Team Bumi Sehat.

I am very happy to be chatting with Ibu Robin live on her birthday on the Baby Magic YouTube Channel.

Tune in at 6pm EST on November 23; 7am Bali time on November 24 to listen live!

Baby Magic Season Two: The Birth Conspiracy

 

I birthed my new podcast on August 21, 2020 ... commemorating my 64th journey around the sun. A couple of weeks ago Season One came to an end with Episode 8, where I chatted with a volunteer doula from Montreal Birth Companions, the greatest, most radical volunteer doula organization ever that met its untimely end in 2016. 

Just last week, a couple of lovely colleagues and friends, Sylvia Otvos and Jenny Bee,  invited me to chat with them on their show aptly titled Wombs with a View (maternal musings with Jenny and Sylvia). They wanted to ask me about my views on hospital birth, freebirthing, home birth and why women should or shouldn't give birth in the hospital.

The Birth Conspiracy is the title of my book. It's also the title of Episode One of Baby Magic, Season 2. Listen up and you will hear what the conspiracy is all about!

So, should women give birth in a hospital? Actually, I believe that hospitals should be reserved for sick people. During pregnancy, birth and postpartum, of courses, sickness happens. But pregnancy and labor are not sicknesses and do not belong in the hospital. 

Where do they belong? Certainly not in any space at all where the woman does not feel safe, whether that is a hospital where overworked and overtired staff members just want to get the birth over with in the least amount of time, and preferably in the quietest manner possible. And neither all by herself at home, where she has decided to give birth because she's scared of going to the hospital and wants a midwife but can't find one. Nor in a birthing centre, where the midwives are so controlled by government regulations that they regularly send healthy labouring mothers to the hospital to give birth where they didn't want to in the first place.

Birthing women, as the creators of new life, belong wherever they damn well please. We should be working hard to provide safe, respectful, sacred care for mothers and babies everywhere. Home, hospital, center; all of these places are appropriate for birth. It's what we fill the spaces with that is so much more important than what the space is. Hospital birthing rooms should be safe, respectful, and woman-centered. Informed consent means that a woman is explained what her choices are, objectively and truthfully, and then she makes her choice, and then that choice is respected. Sacred care means that the whole of a birthing experience is respected: the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health of the mother and baby are held in the highest regard by the care providers.

Home birth spaces should have that same access to safe birth practices: a midwife shouldn't have to lie to the hospital staff if the birthing mother needs medical care. Access to midwifery care should be universal, and regulations surrounding midwifery care should be created by midwives, for midwives. 

Some women choose to give birth completely on their own, or with their partners and other children. This is a sovereign choice and should be respected as such. But a woman should only make the choice to "freebirth" or give birth "unassisted" if it is a positive choice, that is, it is a choice FOR freebirth and not AGAINST her other limited options. 

Of course, I'm not imagining that it's going to be easy to change our broken maternity care system. It's not. When women are birthing with our sovereign power, in our spaces, with our sisters, and feeling the energy of creation moving through us, the world will tilt on its axis and life on earth will change. Don't imagine any different. When we birth standing up, squatting, lying down, crawling, surrounded by our sisters in loving-kindess, a new life will emerge. 

It's time, sisters, to say out loud what you want. Do you want to go to the hospital during the times of Covid and bring your doula and your partner? Let's find a way! Do you want to birth your twins at home? Let's find a way! Have a VBAC at home? Let's find a way NOW!