Blast from the Past

You know when you decide to do some spring cleaning and before you know it you're deep in yesteryear, smiling over some things, scowling at others (how did I ever think that colour suited me?!?) ... well, that happens to me all the time with my writing and I've been doing a cleanup, getting my Doula Program running better (now that it's virtual I have more to play with but less at the same time...).

Anyway one of my most amazing yesteryear memories was the 13 years (2003-2016) that I was honoured to lead the Montreal Birth Companions. If you read StarHawk's Truth or Dare, you will realize why an anarchist such as myself made structural errors in designing an organization, so that when a seismic event like a sexual assault or even a power struggle hit the structure, it crumbled. People don't do well with anarchy in action, and so my beloved MBC died a natural death. BUT when she was alive, she was powerful, strong, and the MBC doulas literally changed so many women's lives with their kindness, skill, love, and caring.

So, here's a trip down memory lane. 

And if you're in the mood, give me a shout and we can start her up again! There are always, always women in need who cannot afford to pay for a doula. This blog post is from 2013:

provides free doula services, prenatal and postpartum support, and resources for refugee, non-status, and other marginalized women in Montreal.

We are in need of birth companions ... please contact me if you are willing and able to devote some time to our worthy cause.
If you are a doula and you can donate one birth every six months to MBC, we would be happy to have you on board!
We are looking especially for birth companions who are fluent in different languages. We would love to have more doulas from our diverse Montreal communities. We welcome everyone who has an open heart and is willing to donate their time and energy.

The women we serve appreciate the companionship, support and kindness that her doula provides. Women come from many backgrounds, walks of life, stories and histories. But the birthing year is the same: we want to give birth to a healthy baby, and we would like to have that experience to be filled with joy. This is not always possible if it is a sad time in the mother's life, but the presence of a birth companion can help spread the love.

We have clients from all around the world. Right now we are serving women from: Algeria, Haiti, St. Vincent, Germany, India, Nigeria, Philippines, Mali, Senegal, Guinee, and Quebec. Next month, we could receive requests from China, Cameroon, Mexico, the US, or Russia ... we never know where our clients will come from or when they will find us. We have had calls from women in their first trimester, and from women in labor!

Many midwifery students try to gain experience as interns in other countries. Volunteering for MBC is a way that doulas and aspiring midwives can gain experience working with women whose cultural attitudes and lives are very different from their own. It is a way that these doulas and aspiring midwives can really understand that the birth experience is universal, and that accompanying a woman in labor transcends language and reaches across boundaries.

photo used with permission

The End of Midwifery

A Heavy Heart

My heart is heavy. Guess what guys? The Man won! It's the end of midwifery! Ok, probably not really. There's always movement and change. I guess the brave families who decide to birth at home on their own will engender the new wave of fearless midwives. I hate it when polemics are forced upon you though.

Ok, I will stop speaking in tongues and get to the point.

I can't believe it's been two years since the crackdown. Actually ... yes, two years. In October, 2016, in two Canadian provinces, three women were charged with "practising midwifery without a licence". Also, just under two years that independent midwives in the UK (fully trained and registered as midwives but choosing not to work through the National Health Service) were forced out of work with a legislation that passed in January, 2017 that meant that they needed to find private indemnity insurance in order to take on clients. And in Hungary, professional midwife Agnes Gereb was sentenced to two years in prison for practising midwifery.

Satanic Brain Surgeons?

What does all this mean? Is it similar to a satanic team of brain surgeons who trained at woodworking school and decided to give everyone down-home lobotomies?

Nope. It's a question of what happens with regulations and legislations. It engenders all sorts of divisive tactics and means that the powers that be, i.e. the legislators, have to keep things steady by creating divisions between people.

It was the midwives' associations that took unregistered midwives to court. That same organization was born during the slow process to legalization of midwifery, back when all Canadian midwives were working "illegally": the work itself was deemed illegal. So how could those women have retained their memories of their own actions and still thought it appropriate to condemn others doing the same?

How did The Man win?

Well, it was actually we who lost. We've created an illusory community based on love, trust, love and peace and all that stuff. We talk about safety, honor, respect, inclusivity, but in the end it all disappears in a puff of smoke when push comes to shove. Which it does.

I've travelled the world; created vibrant and useful volunteer organizations (Montreal Birth Companions and WWOOFItalia), and left them; I've been an organic farmer, a midwife, a doula, a teacher. I left that work and now I own and run a small cafe. I'm hiding from the world, I've created a space where at any given time I have a couple of breastfeeding mums sitting n the couch chatting; a lineup of working people getting their lunch; a few retired couples or groups of friends; the constant stream of coffee drinkers working on their laptops. I serve wholesome home made food. I've withdrawn from the birth world, and from the volunteer world, with all of the broken trust and betrayals that both those worlds offer.

What do you mean, betrayals?

I witnessed two NGOs fighting over turf: refugees caught in the middle. Warehouses full of clothing, diapers, and other donated items laying abandoned as not-for-profit enterprises argued over who was to deliver which items where. What levels of insanity are at work here? I was sneaking baby clothes and diapers from the basement of an NGO to take them to a woman in need who wasn't registered with them.

Two volunteer doulas were sexually intimidated, one of them physically, while they were attending the birth of an asylum seeker. Her bible-toting "friend" assaulted one in an elevator and made crude remarks throughout the labor. The response of the aid organization to the complaint? "It's their culture: it's our job to tolerate and teach." What levels of insanity are at work here? Racism: the Nigerian men are all rapists? Sexism: the women's job is to submit and teach by example? Classism: y'all are just volunteers; we are salaried midwives/bureaucrats and our word counts.

I witnessed a 60 year old midwife who was a fully trained professional break down in tears when she read that her government would no longer allow her to practice midwifery. What levels of insanity? Insurance schemes, corporate health care, pitting woman against woman. The end of midwifery.

And on a teensy but frightening personal level, I witnessed a disgruntled doula wreak havoc online by accusing his elders and publicly shaming them.

Culture in Full Decline

We in the affluent world are witnessing a culture in full decline. There are many signs; just look around you. We live in a culture based on fear and suspicion, when there is really very little to fear. The culture abounds with cheap goods made in sweat shops staffed with children who should be in school. The biggest problem of our age is the refugee crisis; xenophobic leaders are being voted in all over the western world because the left has made a caricature of itself. We can buy pot in little plastic child-proof containers; midwifery is tightly regulated; everyone is afraid of each other with no reason; language has been turned inside out. The end of midwifery.

This is where beauty lies.

Real midwives take risks. Real midwives love each other. Real midwives support women. Real midwives can take no for an answer. Real midwives are tolerant. Real midwives know when their skills are not enough. Real midwives are afraid sometimes, but they don't allow their fear to guide them.

For some real midwifery, have a look here, or here. Write to me if you want to know more.

Sending out love on this gibbous moon waning.

Opening our Hearts

Yesterday one of our MBC mothers gave birth. We are rallying around two families right now who have nothing, not even one onesie. MBC volunteers are loving these mothers, who come from all over the world.

Montreal Birth Companions provides support, love, companionship and diapers to over 100 families every year. We do this with NO FUNDING. Every single one of my volunteers acts with love, compassion, and a deep conviction that we are all on this planet together, in the same boat, let's say.

In June of 2012, then Immigration minister Jason Kenney (succeeded by Chris Alexander) announced a series of cuts to the Interim Health Care Plan for refugees and refugee claimants. Although that legislation was recently deemed to be unconstitutional, the mess that evolved from it meant that birthing mothers that we were serving were regularly being bullied and extorted for money during they were laboring and birthing their (Canadian) babies. 

I thought that the damage done to families by our government could be assuaged by a group of committed, compassionate individuals providing loving care for people in need. 

Until a few days ago.

We have wide open spaces. We have shops brimming with goods. We have food banks. We have furniture, clothes, appliances that no one wants. We have loving people who are ready to provide assistance and guidance to families who are new here. We have jobs. We have schools. 

Let us end this culture of scarcity, where you are afraid that you won't get enough if you give something to someone else. 
Let us stop feeding the hungry ghost, and start opening our hearts and our doors to those less fortunate than ourselves.

Building a Space

Over ten years ago I was in our old living room at our table, with a couple of good friends. Sharon and Sarah have moved on to better things (the music scene and soap making), but back then we were excited about the idea we shared. We had a map of Montreal spread out on the table, and Sharon had some funny stickers. We were putting the stickers around on the map, picking out places where we thought our idea would ROCK.

What was our idea? A place where we could meet with the women we serve, and a place where we could meet amongst ourselves. A place where we could gather. A place where we could have our classes and events. A home away from home.

I started looking that year, and found a tiny bookshop that was closing down (so sad! that's another story) but the rent was too much for a struggling charity/doula group. Sharon moved away, and Sarah started a different business.

I continued creating an organization that could effectively provide doula care for hundreds of families over the years, with no private or public funding, that relies on the goodness and dedication of its volunteers. With insight and determination, I persisted in spite of many setbacks. I created a doula school where many of the volunteers learn the basis of doula care, and others move on to deeper knowledge, or take workshops with visiting teachers. With the income I made from the school and from my private birth attendant activities, I felt justified putting increased hours into the volunteer program. Justified in terms of my economic responsibilities at home: I do not come from an independently wealthy household where charity can be a useful hobby.

I have been dreaming of a space for several years now. This year, everything is coming together. One of my five sons is a chef. We are opening a cafe that will serve quality vegetarian/vegan food and excellent coffees and teas.

But how does this tie in with my original dream? The foundation can be described with one word: self-sufficiency. I want to create a space where everyone can come and feel comfortable, where people can eat and drink together, and speak different languages, and learn about different things. But spaces aren't free, and grants were not forthcoming. So we took out a personal loan, found a place with cheap rent, rolled up our sleeves and got to work. We renovated, painted, and hauled. We bought second hand equipment. My chef learned how to do electricals.

We all pitched in and built, sanded, stained and varnished the counters and tables. A friend sewed us some curtains. Another friend designed us a logo. We scrimped and saved and worked hard and .... we are almost there, opening soon, a home for whomever wants to visit.

Caffe della Pace means the Peace Cafe in English. Come and visit next time you are in the neighbourhood!

Midwifery and Doula Work

I just found out that another student graduate of the MBC Doula School has been accepted into Ryerson midwifery school. She will make a wonderful midwife and I truly believe that the experience she has had volunteering for Montreal Birth Companions has given her the groundwork that she needs to start her midwifery education with confidence and compassion. I hope she can be inspired by my friend Robin whose midwife life is documented in this wonderful film:

I have been involved in maternity care since I was thirteen, which as my youngest son likes to point out, was a very long time ago! For years, when my four older children were small and I was running an organic subsistence farm, I studied Clara Hartley's "Apprentice Academics" long-distance midwifery courses, and so I gained my theoretical background for woman-centered care. When I returned to Canada, I chose to attend births as a doula and I continued to learn from every woman I accompanied, and from every professional I met.

I have been part of programs that offer midwifery internships to students in parts of the world where midwives is scarce and hospitals are under-equipped and expensive. This phenomenon morphed into programs in the southern US that provide midwife-based maternity care to Mexican women, and it also became a popular way for student midwives from the US to "get their numbers" for the Certified Professional Midwife program administered by NARM. This practice has now been discontinued because of ethical considerations, which makes it even more difficult for midwifery students from North America to have contact with women from cultures outside of their own. 

Midwifery programs in Canada are not apprentice-based, and the university programs that teach Canadian midwives do not expect students to go to the community to gather their birth experience. Practical experience is combined with theoretical study to provide the students with a grounding in midwifery in Canada. 

The requirements for graduation vary slightly from province to province, but generally a graduate midwife must have attended "a minimum of 60 births, acting as primary caregiver for at least 40 births in home and hospital settings." (http://www.ryerson.ca/midwifery/overview.html)

A student midwife can learn a lot from participating in the births of 60 babies. As every birth is different, the student will see, hear and learn about many variations to the tune of giving birth. If she is primary caregiver for 40 births, hopefully she will attend ten home births, and possibly have to transfer one of those to the hospital.

But I propose that prospective midwifery students in Canada and around the world can greatly benefit from a foundation of learning and experience that they will find by volunteering as doulas for needy women.

Why? 

First, volunteering as a doula can teach a midwifery student about an important aspect of midwifery, an aspect that is not taught in class and can only be learned in practice - and even better in doula practice! This is the art of sitting on your hands: "Don't just do something - sit there!" is one of the golden rules of being a true Birth Keeper. Doulas working in hospitals alongside medically trained professionals need to be able to keep their opinions to themselves. They need to learn how to act diplomatically in all sorts of situations. They need to learn how to comfort, how to heal, how to facilitate natural birth with only the lowest technologies. They learn how to measure cervical dilation with their eyes and ears. They can distinguish between normal pain in labor and suffering. They are adept at hearing the little catch in the breath at the peak of a contraction that means that a woman is nearing the pushing phase. They can sense the difference between the "6 cm rectal pressure" (when a woman probably just needs to have a poo); and the fully dilated deep pushing urge.

Why are these skills important for a midwife? Because the art of midwifery rests on a foundation of physiological childbirth. And the more a midwife knows about how NOT to disturb the birthing process, the easier her task will be. Then when she starts her midwifery classes, which teach her the skills that doulas are not trained in, she will already have the very basics of birth attendance.

Secondly, as a volunteer doula with an organization such as MBC, the midwife-to-be will come into contact with women from many backgrounds. She will witness birth experiences that will be as different from each other as every woman's story. She will find herself listening to women's stories from around the world, and she will learn about herself as a woman and as a birth companion. She will learn about professional boundaries, and about the challenges that women face when they are marginalized.

As a Birth Keeper, I have witnessed many births and I have been part of many more, as coordinator of MBC, as shoulder to cry on, as mentor. I have learned from books and from my teachers (Basia, Ibu Robin, Heather, and others). I have learned what NOT to do from other teachers - and those I won't name - but I have witnessed midwives, nurses and physicians who have treated birthing women with disrespect and brutality. 

But the most I have learned has been from the birthing women I have served. And this is why I believe that volunteering with an organization such as Montreal Birth Companions should not be an aid to midwifery school acceptance, but a requirement.

MBC Doula School Level One

Interested in doula training in Montreal? MBC Doula School provides a comprehensive doula training with hands-on experience throughout, as the students volunteer with Montreal Birth Companions (visit us here).

Level one is starting September 8, 2014. Follow the link below to find out more about a future in birth work!

MBC Doula School. 

Back to Birthing!

 

I found this beautiful broken robin's egg shell the other day. It reminded me again of how I miss going to births. I finally feel ready to go back to attending birthing women after having taken a couple of months off to attend my mother's death and to then mourn her passing.

When I had a farm, back in the days when I had four little boys under my feet; an acre of vineyard; a huge market garden and a wheat field ... not to mention needy Wwoofers and occasional building tasks (like hoisting chestnut beams for the roof) ... I digress ... when I had the farm, I used to pick coltsfoot flowers in February to make syrup for the next winter's coughs. Just last week, I found some coltsfoot on an abandoned lot in Halifax.

Spring is lovely. I am so happy that the sun has returned - I thought it never would. The darkness of winter 2013/14 was very, very dark, and I am grateful to be alive on this warm lively day.

Projects coming up: I am available for prenatal classes and to attend births; the new MBC Doula School  is growing and expanding; Montreal Birth Companions, as always, is providing doula services for women in need. 

Please contact me if you are interested in joining in any of these projects. I am always happy to share the love!

Women who want to be Doulas

Mamas, please let your babies grow up to be doulas.....

We started Level Two again two weeks ago - time is already flying - there's so much to teach and learn at every level! Two of the Level Two students are accompanying a birthing woman today, so they won't make it to class tonight.

I am so pleased to have met my new students. The group of women this year is very diverse, in age, background, experience... and yet we are all drawn by the desire to accompany women through the journey of childbirth.

I believe that all midwifery students should have to accompany at least fifty women through the birthing process (but even better one hundred or more), and that most of these should be in the hospital environment. Why is this?

Doulas learn to sit on their hands and let the birthing process unfold.
Doulas learn to keep their mouths zipped while they maintain a safe space for the woman.
Doulas learn respect.
They learn that the birthing process is unexpected. That it proceeds better when it is undisturbed, but that nature is pretty flexible with its rules.
They learn what NOT to do.
They learn humility, kindness, diplomacy, and they learn when to speak out and when not to.

We may all have our different ways of practice, just like we were all born slightly differently, just like we will birth differently. But we all practice companionship, which is the most important aspect of our care.

Learn to be a doula here.

A Student Doula's Story

Here is a post from another blog by one of my Level One students … giving you an inside view of what it's like to be a student doula, volunteering for Montreal Birth Companions.

DEAR BIRTHING, WITH LOVE (thank you http://highalert.net/news/dear-birthing-love)

I am ready to stop typing and run to my phone if it rings. It may be a call from the doula I’m shadowing. There is a woman who will give birth any day now, and when this woman (the client/patient/mother-to-be*) needs birth support, I will go (with the doula) to be with her at her home, or maybe straight to the hospital.

Besides my own, the only birth I’ve attended was that of my little sister, and I was a 5 year-old, and it was late at night. This makes me a minority among the 16 women in my Level 1 doula training course with the Montreal Birth Companions, because I am not a mother.

You don’t have to be a mother to be a doula. You just have to be there. In the last few months of this course, I’ve learned a lot about birth: anatomy, pain-alleviation techniques, how it progresses and why it might stall, affirmations, visualizations, and what to pack in my birth bag. This is all important, but the most important role that a doula plays is of being present, and being loving.

Montreal Birth Companions, then, love hundreds of women a year. They provide free doula services to women in need. They are most often refugees, immigrants, women without family in Canada, and women who don’t have health care. They are women who just need a little bit of love at a vulnerable time.

With each ‘birth story’ that I hear from a fellow Montreal Birth Companion, I am filled with admiration at the important role they play at these births. They are advocates and peace-makers, negotiators and videographers, a friend and calm presence. I am also filled with a certain amount of frustration or anger at a medical system that seems, often, to desecrate such a powerful moment—perhaps the most powerful of all. Birth also has two sides: pleasure and pain. But, I’ve learned that pain in birth serves a function—it releases oxytocin which makes the contractions stronger and more effective, and stress hormones increase blood flow, which brings much-needed oxygen to the baby. I’m not confident, though, that the ‘pain’ of the medical system serves a purpose.

I’ll remain on high alert for calls to explore birth and love in the hospital. In the meantime, I encourage you to VOTE daily for Montreal Birth Companion’s campaign to provide more free pre-natal classes to women. You can like the MBC’s facebook page and select 'get notifications' for daily reminders.

*Serving as a doula is new to me and I am not sure what language I feel comfortable with, yet. As my teacher writes in her book The Birth Conspiracy, 'client' seems impersonal and business-like, while 'patient' may disempower the woman giving birth.

Level Two Doula Course

I am very pleased and a little taken aback that my doula course has been so well received. So, happily, I will be offering Level Two starting on November 25, 2013. 

Classes will start on November 25, 2013, and will go through to February 17, 2014, with a break in December. Classes will run every Monday night from 6:30 to 9:30, at 6767 Cote des Neiges, in Montreal.

I have tweaked this course a little, and added two extra classes, as there is always too much to learn! So it will be a total of thirty hours of class time. Shadowing and attending births will of course be part of the learning experience.

Please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in Level Two. As always, the cost is $400, payable in instalments if need be.

We will be adding several other courses this year: Level Three will definitely be offered, also an in-depth Fun with Herbs Workshop and a doula retreat.

Here's a taste of Fun with Herbs:

Herb Day 2013

Healing Balm

Call for Volunteers

Montreal Birth Companions provides free doula services, prenatal and postpartum support, and resources for refugee, non-status, and other marginalized women in Montreal.

We are in need of birth companions ... please contact me if you are willing and able to devote some time to our worthy cause.
If you are a doula and you can donate one birth every six months to MBC, we would be happy to have you on board!
We are looking especially for birth companions who are fluent in different languages. We would love to have more doulas from our diverse Montreal communities. We welcome everyone who has an open heart and is willing to donate their time and energy.

The women we serve appreciate the companionship, support and kindness that her doula provides. Women come from many backgrounds, walks of life, stories and histories. But the birthing year is the same: we want to give birth to a healthy baby, and we would like to have that experience to be filled with joy. This is not always possible if it is a sad time in the mother's life, but the presence of a birth companion can help spread the love.

We have clients from all around the world. Right now we are serving women from: Algeria, Haiti, St. Vincent, Germany, India, Nigeria, Philippines, Mali, Senegal, Guinee, and Quebec. Next month, we could receive requests from China, Cameroon, Mexico, the US, or Russia ... we never know where our clients will come from or when they will find us. We have had calls from women in their first trimester, and from women in labor!

Many midwifery students try to gain experience as interns in other countries. Volunteering for MBC is a way that doulas and aspiring midwives can gain experience working with women whose cultural attitudes and lives are very different from their own. It is a way that these doulas and aspiring midwives can really understand that the birth experience is universal, and that accompanying a woman in labor transcends language and reaches across boundaries.

Please consider volunteering for MBC.

Level One Doula Class Fall 2013

Doula classes are starting again in September. This program has been a great success! The doulas that completed Level One in May, 2013 have had a very busy summer attending births as volunteers with Montreal Birth Companions (always working with a partner, as a shadow and then as a co-doula).

Level One will start again on September 9, 2013. Registration is moving along, so if you are interested please get in touch with me for a registration form. See below for a description of the course.

Level Two is scheduled to start at the end of November, 2013.

Birth Companions Doula Course

Level One Description

Fall 2013

Introduction

This course is the first of three levels of the Birth Companions doula program. It includes 24 hours of class time.

Classes will be held every Monday evening starting on September 9, 2013, for eight weeks.

When you have completed this level, you will be eligible to accompany clients from the Montreal Birth Companions volunteer doula program, under my mentorship and with a partner doula. During the shadowing process, you will proceed to Level Two, after which you will be able to work as a private practice doula.

The course will integrate theory and practice. Shadowing and mentoring may take place throughout.

The only prerequisite is enthusiasm and availability.

Materials

Bring your own experiences, a notebook, your hands and an open heart. We will utilize The Birth Conspiracy as our main reference. The book will be available on or before the first class.

Requirements

To fulfill requirements for Level One, you need to attend all of the classes, if possible. I may ask you to present or prepare assignments, but these will be done within class time. If you are interested in doing an independent project, please speak to me and I will be available for mentorship.

Cost

We are pricing this course to be accessible for as many women as possible. The cost for Level One is $400.00. I do not turn anyone away so please contact me about a financial plan.

Birth Companions

I work with a group of women who dedicate themselves to some of the neediest pregnant and birthing women in our city. Since 2003, a "small group of thoughtful, dedicated citizens" has provided prenatal education and birth companionship to refugees, non-status, immigrant, and other needy women living amongst us on our affluent urban island.

Last weekend, two women gave birth, accompanied by MBC doulas. One lady was having her second child. She was isolated in many ways: linguistically, financially, and she was suffering an abusive marriage.
The second lady was having her first baby, and she was new to Canada and appreciated the companionship of the two women who stayed with her through the night.

The Montreal Birth Companions spend hours of their time with women in need. They never complain that they are underpaid; they never say how tired they are; they volunteer tirelessly not only attending births but also helping out with the administrative side of the organization.

I would like to share some photos of the doulas, the babies, and the women we serve.

Hands

One of our mothers with her beautiful son

Add caption

New Office - sorting donations

Ibu Robin Lim in Montreal

Midwife or Doctor?

Watch this video of Ibu Robin Lim giving birth with a doctor in attendance, then with a midwife!

Birth Companions Doula Course

The next Level One doula course is coming up soon - starting on April 15! This course will give you the skills you need to volunteer with Montreal Birth Companions.

Level One Doula Course

Looking forward to seeing you there!

MBC presents Ibu Robin

Birth Witness

Montreal Birth Companions is an organization that serves about sixty women a year. We provide doula services for the poorest of Montreal's women - the refugees, no-status women, and very recent immigrants. We have been active in Montreal for almost ten years, without funding, and without office space. The volunteers are either trained doulas, or doula students, matched carefully with the women they serve.

We have seen our share of disrespect and abuse in the maternity care world here in Montreal, and we are now initiating a project which hopefully will be the beginning of a constructive dialogue.

We are gathering stories from women, which are about instances during their birth experiences where they felt uncomfortable or maltreated. 

We are not out to vilify obstetricians. Our goal is to help to create an environment within which a woman who will be going to the hospital to give birth can be secure that she is treated with respect, whatever her language, colour, marital status, financial level, or whether or not she has healthcare coverage.

We believe that a woman, any woman, has the right to be told what her options are; to be asked permission before she is touched; to be spoken to with respect.

We believe that the attending caregivers, whether they are doulas, midwives, nurses or physicians, have the responsibility to care wisely for their patients. This responsibility includes providing information, asking permission, and exercising cultural sensitivity. 

MBC volunteers have witnessed physicians loudly scolding women without health coverage, as their baby's head is crowning, about their financial mess. I have personally witnessed an OB who made an overtly sexual remark about a vaginal pack. I need to remind residents that it is not okay to rupture a woman's membranes without telling her, just because your hand is in her vagina. I myself pushed my agenda on a woman who was heading for what I considered to be an unnecessary cesarean section, resulting in her feeling betrayed and angry instead of happy about her birth.

We need to talk about this abuse loud and clear. We are not suggesting that every woman in Canada must have a natural birth. We are suggesting that we start to create a system where the woman is at the centre, surrounded by respectful attendants.

Justice

We used to be ridiculously politically incorrect in the olden days. Remember Flip Wilson, dressed in the judge costume, wearing a tilting greyish wig and the "Heah come da judge!" routine?

So, I had to go to court to testify about a case that involved my car and a driver who decided it would be ok to smash into me and then drive off. But two different people (me duh and someone else) got his license plate number. So I toddle down to court on the metro (subway in Montreal), on one of the freezingest cold days of the year, when I'd much rather be at home working on my book (yes, writing another one)...and anyway, the guy had paid his fine and I didn't have to go. They refunded my metro tickets and sent me home.

And I started thinking about justice and how it works.

1. Someone does something bad.
2. They get caught.
3. A group of people decide that the person did indeed do the bad thing, and how the person should be punished.
4. A negotiation starts.
5. Sometimes, justice is done. Sometimes, it isn't.

And I started thinking about the interesting projects I am involved in. I just started helping to organize Montreal's One Billion Rising event. This is a worldwide event that was conceived by Eve Ensler,  to demand an end to violence against women.

This is justice.

Montreal Birth Companions has started a Birth Abuse Witness Program, which will collect attestations from women who have been left uncomfortable with their birth experiences. These attestations are part of a campaign to change the maternity care system in Montreal.

This is justice.

Every week, MBC volunteer doulas assist women who have no resources, who are from other countries, who may not have families or partners here, who may have experienced abuse and violence. MBC doulas accompany these women to give birth and provide a safe and nurturing environment for them and their families during this important time.

This is justice.

At Bumi Sehat, in Bali, women are given quality care during their childbearing year. Midwives, doctors, acupuncturists, and others care for these women without payment because of the generosity of others and their desire to do good.

This is justice.

So, justice isn't only about hit and runs and terrible crimes. When those things happen, yes, we would like the state to get involved and do its thing. But the simple acts of justice, love and kindness balance out. They have to.

Let's find the balance.

Level One Intensive Doula Course

Intensive Level 1 Course!

 

Four Sundays – January 13, 20, 27, and February 3, 2013

Graduates from Levels One and Two are already working as doulas … if you feel you would like to accompany women through the childbearing year, take a few Sundays to spend with us learning doula skills, and more!

Level One gives you the skills to volunteer as a doula with Montreal Birth Companions, or you can go on to learn more doula skills in Level Two, which starts on February 9, 2013.

For a registration form or more info, please leave me a comment below...

Cost $400 (plus tax).

Fall 2012

Autumn Leaves

So much has happened since the summer months - its hard to imagine that it's only been four months since I was preparing for my trip to Bali.

Yayasan Bumi Sehat is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Please have a look at their website, and make a donation if you can. I will be holding a fundraiser here in Montreal in the near future, and I plan to blog more about my experiences there over the next few months. In short, Bali is a wonderful place, and the Bumi Sehat clinic is next to its heart.

After my too-short stay in Bali, we traveled up to our hideaway in Italy, where we are slowly fixing up a pile of rocks we call our sometimes home. Our place on the mountain  started as a family project, on an isolated track off the beaten path in the mountains of Italy. Families grow and change, but the building, clearing, hiking and mushrooming stays the same. This past summer, we had a lot of work to do to repair the damage done by 2011's harsh winter. We finally got it all fixed up and we settled in to relax a little...

Back in Canada, several family events led me to realize that we are being invited, when we come into this reality, to take part in a magical mystery tour. The most important thing is to be kind to the ones around you. Show the people you love that you love them, each and every day. Don't take anything for granted. Thank you, I love you, and I'm sorry are important  phrases. Don't forget to use them.

More exciting news for the fall: Levels One and Two of the Birth Companions Doula Course are starting this weekend at Studio Vie. Visit my site and have a look at what's offered.

I am taking on more doula clients for the fall, as well as guiding women through the maze of birthing choices here in the city. I am always struggling to keep our wonderful volunteer organization afloat - if you are feeling generous and want to contribute to this very worthy cause, please visit Montreal Birth Companions.

Advice for 2012?

Be gentle with others. That includes birthing women and newborns.

Love each other.