Birth (and life) after Cesarean

I love to listen to birth stories. Many of the stories that I hear are a testimony to the pregnant woman's great ability to "animal out" on her attendant. My favorite is the story of a young woman who had her first daughter by cesarean section She became pregnant again the same month and it turned out she was carrying twins. Her doctor was very alarmed and booked her for a cesarean at 38 weeks, She went into labor at 36 weeks and delivered two lovely girls, vaginally.

Of course, women who are trying for vaginal birth after cesarean don't always have such fine stories to tell. Two remarks have stayed with me over the years, and these were both delivered by obstetricians to a laboring woman. The first was: “Childbirth is like war, and I am on the front line.” The second: “This is Monday morning in a busy hospital. There are road accidents, emergencies …” This was said to a woman who wanted to labor a little more before the decision was made to go to surgery, implying that the birth of a child had to be scheduled in somehow between a messy car accident and some other horrific case. Why did this man want to become an obstetrician? How did he feel about his "patients"? How had he been born? What was it about birth that suggested to him images of war?
What is it about childbirth that makes these people think in terms of war, car accidents, death? Is it just fear? And if it is, what exactly are they afraid of? And , more importantly, where does the midwife fit into this mosaic of fear, or does she fit in it all?

Doctors and midwives who are afraid of childbirth are partly afraid because of their training. Allopathic medicine teaches about pathology rather than the whole healthy being, and pregnancy is often seen as a pathologic condition. But there is another more profound reason for this fear, and it has to do with the fact that Western medical training teaches health workers to rely only upon their own knowledge. How does this lead to fear?
Let me explain. During childbirth there is something present that is outside of us as individuals, out­ side our knowledge, even outside our experience or our skill. That "something" has to do with faith. It is only with a leap of faith that you can appreciate or even accept that a new human being comes out of a woman's vagina. Without that leap of faith, what happens? Two things: more obviously, you have to interfere, pull it out, cut it out another way. But another thing happens as well. Strangely, your faith (most of us have faith in something) gets turned inwards. As an obstetrician, you have faith only in your own skill. And that is what is frightening-- that an event which cries out for the presence of God gets reduced to the simply human.

I'm sure that there are obstetricians who works differently, but I think that it is easier for a mid­wife to accept that there is something else, something larger than herself, working through a birthing woman. It is quite noticeable how many mid­wives are religious, how many live in sight of that something which many people call God. But what happens to the sympathetic midwife working within the medical system? What happens to her sensitivity to that Other which touches us when we give birth?
I have met many diverse people over the years of working with birth.I have encountered some women who probably disliked their work, who were overtired, overworked, who had little faith in any­thing. I have also encountered mid­wives who have accepted modern medicine's vision of birth. And I have met many brave and gentle souls doctors, nurses, midwives, and doulas, who are working within the medical sys­tem and trying to maintain their faith at the same time.

What do we see in a hospi­tal? We see, first of all, an exagger­ated reliance upon technology. We know that the use of technology has a snowballing effect, creating the need for more and more complicated interventions. Secondly, we see a rigid hierar­chical structure in which usually one person is calling the shots. Finally, we see the "spiritual" infrastructure upon which this hierarchy is based, to be inward looking and grounded only in human knowledge.
What happens in the hospi­tal when things start to "go wrong," when things don't follow the pre­scribed path? When I went into the hospital in labor with my first child, the nurse, who was actually a mid­wife trained in Scotland, touched by belly and said cheerfully, "This baby will be born by noon." As time went on, she touched me less and less. By the next morning at the start of her shift, she didn't even greet me. As they let me eat and drink less and less, my cervix grew smaller, I was touched less and I began to feel more and more isolated. I was touched only when necessary. The baby's heart­ beat was checked less often. I began to feel abandoned.

Can I offer some advice to birth attendants working with women who are hoping to give birth vaginally after a cesarean section? Remember that the previous cesarean(s) have left scars not so much on the uterus as on the woman's sense that she is capable of giving birth. Accept that having a cesarean can hurt. Please don't de­scribe to her how a ruptured uterus may feel. Watch for danger signs yourself. Keep your concerns to your­self as much as possible. Remember "failure to progress" can be linked to fear and stress.
Keep things easy even when they get hard. Remember that a woman work­ing for a VBAC needs the comfort and security of her own home. Remem­ber that she may need to work on building confidence, on throwing away fear, on finding her "animal" self. Re­member as well, if it turns out to be another cesarean, don't abandon her. Give her the support through the birth and afterwards that you give any birthing woman. If a lady has another cesarean, she may feel very low; it may help her to talk to another mother who has been through the same thing. Avoid the mistake of "You're lucky the baby's okay.That's the important thing." Yes it is, obviously, but ... she may still need to grieve.

I am lucky - I have been blessed to have attended many successful VBACs during my years as a birth attendant. Thank you, again, to all the women who have shown me how fearless and strong birthing women are - not least, the woman who have said "Yes, I am ready for surgery, of course, if my baby's life is in danger."
Here's to a happy marriage of modern medicine and safe midwifery, with lower cesarean section rates and happier and healthy mothers and babies. L'Chaim! To Life!

Safe Birth?

These days, we have all become experts at reading articles in medical journals, or studies, and we casually use words like "exponentially" and "virus shedding" and "evidence-based". So, I am not going to go that route again, and quote this or that Cochrane review that will further convince you that I'm right. I don't even want to think in terms of who's right and who's wrong. I want to go deeper than that. Way deeper. I want to explore what makes birth sacred, and what keeps it sacred, and therefore safe.

I have witnessed three newborn deaths in my doula practice. Two in particular stand out for me. One took place in a birthing centre, and the birth was attended by midwives. I was the doula. When it was clear that the baby was in serious trouble, the midwives, in their fear and panic, became insensitive to the mother's emotional needs. They told me, the doula, to leave. Mother felt isolated, abandoned, and traumatized even more than she had to be. These midwives, don't get me wrong, did everything they should have done medically, to try to save baby's life. But they completely ignored the spiritual, emotional, transcendent nature of birth. Conversely, I was present when another baby died soon after birth in the hospital. The medical staff provided a space where the parents could hold their child and say goodbye. The parents wanted me there, so I hovered, as a good doula does. The fact that they even had spiritual needs was fully honoured by the doctor, the nurses, and the orderly. 

Both mamas lost their babies. Both mamas grieved. But both mamas were not traumatized for years. Because one mother felt safe during her birth experience, and the other did not.

So, what can we do to keep birth sacred? I believe if the sacred nature of birth is remembered at all times, then the attendants will be naturally drawn to keeping the mother safe at all times. Sacred. Just play with the letters a little bit. Scared. Being scared during childbirth is something that has a physiologic root. When our bodies release the stress hormones that initiate the "ejection reflex", our busy brains interpret those feelings as "scared". I have attended the most natural, undisturbed, physiologic births where I have seen the mother become afraid at that moment. It passes, it's transient because it's just a reaction to a physiologic event.

But I've also attended too many births where the birthing mother was actually afraid. She was actually made to feel afraid by the words or actions of her attendants. I often found my job as a doula to be one of shielding, holding the sacred space, creating a human sound barrier between the abusive staff and the birthing mama. Scared destroys sacred. It degrades sacred, pulls it down, tears it apart. Scared does not belong anywhere a mother is giving birth. Even if you're the primary attendant, and you are scared because of something that's happening, your priority is to keep that fear from entering the space.

If a birth attendant doesn't believe that birth itself is sacred, then we run into problems. If you think it's just another medical procedure, then it makes it more complicated. But every doctor knows that a happy patient heals quicker and better than an angry or lonely one. So even if we're not talking "sacred" because some people are scared by the word, we can still try to keep the birthing mother happy, right? And a happy mother feels safe.

Our maternity care system is broken. Too many women go into the experience with no understanding, and they trust their medical caregivers of course, because why not? And they are sadly betrayed. They're told all sorts of scary things: your baby is too big, you're too old, you have a something percent of this or that horrible thing happening, you won't be able to stand the pain, your baby is too small, you live too far for a home birth, there are no midwives, you have to pay $10,000 before you can even think of birthing here, and on and on. Many, many women give birth just fine within the medical system, often with the loving attendance of a doula. These women are a testament to the strength of the birthing mother. But too many do not give birth just fine. They leave the hospital or the birthing centre traumatized and confused. Some traumatic birthing experiences literally take years to recover from. Other women live their whole lives with feelings of inferiority and a damaged sense of worth. Still others spend their whole lives to make the birth experience sacred and safe for other women (Yours truly!). 

There is a growing number of women who are taking the situation into their own hands, and their own homes. They are saying "no" to maternity care that is based on fear, and they're giving birth on their own terms, in their own homes, with people around them who they trust. Keeping birth sacred. 

I don't believe a normal pregnancy and birth belongs in a hospital. Hospitals are places where you go when your health is at risk, or you need surgery. Normal birth is sacred and belongs at home. The undisturbed mother feels safe, and everyone around her participates in the sacredness of the event. This has become clear during the current crisis, where the role of the hospital has been clarified by the event. 

But if we bring birth home, where it belongs, then are we sacrificing another kind of safety? If we don't have midwives who are trained in the art and science of attending Sacred Birth, then every home birth will be a "freebirth". Which is fine for those mothers who want that. But many birthing women want to have someone present, who knows about the things that can and do happen during birth, when it is important to have someone attending who knows how to respond.  

I'm asking questions. I don't have practical answers yet. I am grateful for you doulas out there who are still attending births in the hospitals, and I strive to support you as much as I can. I am grateful to the birthing women I attended throughout my practice, who taught and continue to teach me so much about Sacred Birth. 

Let's talk this out! Let's strive for answers! Let's change birth and keep it Sacred!

The Elusive VBAC

 

I love to listen to birth stories. Many of the stories that I hear are a testimony to the pregnant woman’s great ability to “animal out” on her attendants. One of my favourites is the story of a young woman who had her first daughter by cesarean section. She became pregnant again the same month (yes, I know … but true), and it turned out she was carrying twins. Her doctor was very alarmed and booked her for a cesarean at 38 weeks. She went into labor at 36 weeks and delivered two lovely girls, vaginally.

 

Two remarks have stayed with me over the years, and these were both delivered by obstetricians to a labouring woman: “Childbirth is like war, and I am on the front line” is one. “This is Monday morning in a busy hospital. There are road accidents, emergencies…” is the other. This was said to a woman who wanted to labor a little more before going to surgery, implying that the birth of a child had to be scheduled in somehow between a messy car accident and some other horrific case.

 

Why did the first man want to become an obstetrician? How did he feel about his “patients”? How had he been born? What was it about birth that gave him images of war? The second remark came from a woman. What was it about birth that frightened her so much? How could the birth of a child be imagined in the same breath as a car accident?

 

What is it about childbirth that makes people think in terms of war, accidents, and death? Is it just fear? And if it is, what exactly is everyone afraid of? And, more importantly, where does the midwife fit into this mosaic of fear, or does she fit in at all?

 

The doctors and midwives who are afraid of childbirth are partly afraid because of their training. Allopathic medicine teaches about pathology rather than about the whole healthy being. In obstetrics, pregnancy is often seen as a pathologic condition that can throw the whole system out of sync.

 

If we look deeper, however, we can see that there is another, more complex root of this fear, and it has to do with the fact that Western medical training teaches health workers to rely only upon their own knowledge. How can this lead to fear?

 

Let me explain. During childbirth there is something present that is outside of us as individuals; outside our knowledge; even outside our experience or our skills. That “something” has to do with faith. It is only with a leap of faith that you can appreciate or even accept that a new human being comes out of a woman’s vagina. Without that leap of faith, what happens? Two things: more obviously, you have to interfere: pull it out, or cut it out another way.

Another thing happens as well. Strangely, your faith (most of us have faith in something) gets turned inwards. As an obstetrician, or as a midwife, you begin to have faith only in your own skill. And that is what is frightening – that an event that cries out for the presence of the Divine (or whatever it is that you would name that) gets reduced to the simply human.

 

I know that there are obstetricians who work differently, but I think that it is easier for a midwife to accept that there is something else, something larger than herself, working through a birthing woman. It is quite noticeable how many midwives do live in sight of that something which many of us name God.

 

But what happens to a sympathetic midwife or physician who is working within the medical system? What happens to her sensitivity to that Other that touches us when we give birth?

 

What do we see in a hospital? We see, first of all, an exaggerated reliance upon technology. The use of technology has a snowballing effect, creating the need for more and more complicated interventions. Secondly, the hospital maintains a rigid hierarchical structure in which usually one person is calling the shots. Finally, we see the “spiritual” infrastructure, upon which this hierarchy is based, to be inward-looking and grounded only in human knowledge.

 

What happens in the hospital when things start to “go wrong”, when things don’t follow the prescribed path? When I went into hospital in labor with my first child, the nurse, who was actually a Scottish midwife, touched my belly and said cheerfully: “This baby will be born by noon!” As time went on, she touched me less and less. By the next morning at the start of her shift, she didn’t even greet me. As the nurses let me eat and drink less and less, my cervix closed tighter and tighter. I was touched less and I began to feel more and more isolated. Finally, I was only touched when absolutely necessary. The baby’s heartbeat was checked less often. I began to feel abandoned.

 

Our national cesarean section rate is quite a bit higher than the rate suggested by the WHO, which is 10-15%. In Canada overall, the rate is closer to 25%. I’m not interested in exploring why the rate has shot up so precipitously in the past 30 years, leave that to others who love statistics and platitudes. What I am interested in, is threefold:

To create an environment in which every woman has access to a safe and sacred birth.

To provide access to first-time mothers to be able to experience a vaginal birth BEFORE cesarean.

To facilitate VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) for women who are seeking that route: to provide information, support, informed choices and LOVE.

 

Here is some advice to midwives, doulas, and physicians who are working with women who want to give birth vaginally after a cesarean:

Remember that the previous cesarean(s) have left scars not so much on the uterus as on the woman’s sense that she is capable of giving birth. Accept that having a cesarean can hurt.

Please don’t describe to her how a ruptured uterus may feel. Watch for danger signs yourself; keep your concerns to yourself and your co-attendants.

Remember that “failure to progress” means that a woman was probably afraid and stressed. She does not need to be reminded of her failure.

Keep things easy when they get tough. Remember that a woman working for a VBAC will do well in the comfort and security of her own home.

Remember that she may need to work on building confidence, on throwing away fear, on finding her “animal” self.

Tell her you love her. Give her and her partner some time to be alone together during labor.

 

Remember as well, that if she ends up giving birth by cesarean another time, don’t abandon her. Give her the support through the birth and afterwards that you would give to any birthing woman.

 

The Shaming of Mothers

More and more evidence is coming out about the dangers of cesarean section. Every time I scroll through my birthy friends' Facebook posts, I see another mega-study that confirms what we knew all along: c-sections are dangerous. Of course, this surgery can and does save lives. But it cannot be true that over one quarter of our childbearing population can't deliver vaginally. 

I believe that for a well-fed, healthy population such as ours in the industrialized worlds, the necessary c-section rate should hover around 5%. Do the math: this means that at least one in five women are suffering unnecessary surgery. This surgery sets the tone for a woman's mothering - it isn't always a traumatic event, but it definitely is a physical handicap and a hurdle that many mothers would rather not have to face. 

I don't want to write about the reasons for these unnecessary trips to the operating theatre; the reasons are varied and complicated. I DO want to talk about how we are making women feel when we constantly post about the dangers, risks, and unredeemable damage caused by cesarean section.

Giant study links C-sections with chronic disorders 

Let's shout it out and make women feel really bad about how they birthed their babies. Let's make them feel even worse about an unexpected c-section than they already do. While we're at it, let's talk about how to have a VBAC: all you need is perseverance, inner peace, and you have to be in tune with your body. Right?

Women are having c-sections they don't want. Women are going to the hospital, sometimes with a doula and sometimes (usually) not, and they find at a certain point in their labor that they are not performing well enough, and they are scooted down to the OR. Most women do not want surgery. Most women want a vaginal birth. Many women want to have a vaginal birth even after a c-section. Just one VBAC support group on Facebook has 8,796 members. 

I am asking all of you to spread the word to not spread the word about how damaging c-sections are. Women who have had an unwanted cesarean birth KNOW that they are damaging. Let's try a little tenderness and spread the word instead about loving the mother, home birth, undisturbed birth, midwifery care, all the good things....

Life and Death: A Tribute to My Mother

Death brings into question all of your life. My dreams, my goals, my aspirations, seem so small when I remember what my mother was whispering about on her death bed. 

I've always felt that my task on this earth is to try to do good; to try to be kind; to try to make the world a better place.

God knows I've failed,  spectacularly at times. I have a temper, and I "shoot from the hip", and I have a devil-may-care attitude that upsets people. I seem stand-offish and arrogant to those who don't know how deeply shy I am. But, yes, I must admit, my ability to dance to the beat of a different drum has kept me alive, literally, in the past, and probably will continue to offend people in the future.

I first met my mother after I stubbornly refused to turn from breech and the obstetrician recognized that because of a short cord, a normal delivery would be dangerous for me. My mother had a cesarean, which back in those days meant a serious incision - no pretending that cesarean section wasn't major surgery back in the fifties. It gave you a scar to remember! 

Two years later, she gave birth to my sister, and then another sister after that. Back in Uganda at that time repeat cesareans were NOT the order of the day, so my two sisters were born naturally.

My mother was a very sociable person. She was intensely creative and loved to see the world. She loved a party. She loved to talk to people. Her deafness was a real challenge to her, as she was a great and witty conversationalist. Two days before she died, my sisters both happened to be wearing pyjamas with polka dots on them. We were at her side constantly for the last five days of her life. That morning, she brightened up, looked at my sisters (both in their fifties and a little tired after having been up for three days) and said: "I could spot you girls a mile off!".

She wins the end-of-life, in deep pain, absolute pun prize.

She was always excited about my projects, no matter how zany they were. 

She was brave. She left England in 1952 with my father to go to Uganda where she taught mathematics at Makerere University. In 1959 they decided to move to Calgary where she lived a very different life and was appalled by the backwardness and provincialism of the people there.

In her late thirties, with three daughters, one of whom was spinning out of control (yours truly), she decided to move from mathematics into art and she decided to take art classes. She worked very hard and created some absolutely beautiful works. She became an artist during this time, and continued to paint, draw and create up until very recently.

These are some works she did during and just after my father died. 

Never to stay still for longer than a few years, my parents moved to Botswana in the late seventies where my mother created a silkscreen workshop that is still thriving, at a village museum:

 Phuthadikobo Museum

My mother loved the desert. They would get in the truck and drive on to the pans and sleep under the stars. She loved the light.

My mother loved dressing up. She would mix colors magnificently, and she always made sure her hair was done. She loved jewelry, and perfume, and high-heeled shoes. She loved going out with me to buy a pretty dress.

She loved a party. She was always ready to celebrate! On her 80th birthday, she was with us in Italy and we drove to our favorite picnic spot: 

Cinque Terre

It is a spot by the side of the road where we stop and eat supper and watch the sun go down into the sea. We didn't have a fancy picnic basket - just the usual - home made bread, tins of tuna, mozzarella, capers, beer, ... and then we stuck a lighter into a plastic plate of cookies and sang Happy Birthday.

After the sun went down we drove to the nearby town, walked on the boardwalk, and had a coffee. A perfect party!

She loved to knit and sew. With three daughters, she always had us dressed in matching dresses, at least until her oldest decided to wear only jeans, hiking boots and a small T-shirt.

She was a very skilled textile artist: This is the front of a sweater she knitted for me from a silk/cotton mix.

She loved music. She loved art. She was always enthusiastic about going to the Musee des Beaux Arts when she visited Montreal.

She loved to get presents. 

She loved Italy. I moved there in 1985 and she visited whenever she could, which wasn't often in the beginning as she was living in Botswana. But a few years later, my parents bought a medieval tower in the middle of Umbria. It was, simply, a tower. No electricity, bathroom, kitchen, or much of anything. It had water. And it was in the middle of an Italian village.

They didn't live there, because they were still enjoying the Kalahari. So we moved in: two adults, two young children and pretty soon two more babies on the way. I don't know many kids who lived in a medieval tower for some of their childhood, but mine did - I suppose I must have inherited some of my mother's sense of adventure! 

Just over a year ago, after my father died, my mother found out she was ill. She decided to forgo exploration and treatment and instead booked herself on an art tour to Italy: 

Italy Art Tour

This year, my mother spent the winter vacation with us, and she partied with her six grandsons well into the night on New Year's, 2014.

L'Chaim!!

In loving memory of my mother who died on March 17, 2014. 

Ask the Doula - the "too-big baby"

A week has gone by already, so quickly. I am involved in many interesting projects, more about them in a few days...
It's Ask the Doula time again!
Please keep sending in your questions. You can add them as comments below, or send your questions to our facebook page, or twitter @montrealdoula.

Today I am going to be looking at the question of cephalo-pelvic disproportion, or the "too-big baby". This mother generously agreed for me to print her question and the response.


Question Number Three 


"I had my first baby three years ago. I am expecting again and I would like to have a doula to accompany me. I am not sure how it will go. My doctor told me that my pelvis is too small to give birth. My first baby was born by cesarean after I was in labor for two days. I had contractions all day on the first day, then by the next morning they were so painful I couldn't even talk. We went to the hospital, where they broke my waters, and then I took an epidural. My baby didn't come out after two hours and they said she was too big. She ended up weighing seven pounds thirteen ounces, and had an Apgar score of 9 and 10. I have a very small pelvis and a narrow pubic arch. Do you think this is a good reason for a cesarean?"

First of all, let's understand how birth stories work. A woman will tell me her story, and it will be just that - her story about what happened to her. It is a story in the first person, about a primal experience she had. I will listen to the details but I will also listen to the tenor, the resonance, of the story.

This story is about a normal labor that somehow went wrong. The first hint is that she labored all day and after 24 hours had contractions "so painful I couldn't even talk." This is normal labor. Mothers will have contractions for a few hours, or a few days, and they will be uncomfortable and even painful. Then the body gets down to work and contractions become so intense that she cannot speak through them. Then she gets to the point where she doesn't even want to speak in between contractions, and this is when the doula knows that the laboring woman is definitely in good labor.

But in this story, the woman was not prepared for the intensity, and she went to the hospital soon after she entered the beginning of active labor. She doesn't say why they broke her waters, but usually it is done because there is a perception that labor isn't moving quickly enough.

In this case, it appears that the breaking of the waters did stimulate labor, and this stimulation increased the intensity of the contractions to the point where the laboring woman decided to take an epidural for pain relief. She was probably quite tired by now, as well, as no one had told her to rest during the night in between the contractions.

The epidural probably helped in terms of her energy, and her body obviously did the work of opening so that she reached the pushing phase. Then what happened? She pushed for two hours. The staff told her the baby was too big and she went to surgery. I cannot extrapolate too much, but here is a possible scenario:

The pelvis is narrow and small. The body made a baby that, in fact, was a perfect size for this pelvis. Her labor was progressing normally and the baby was doing the appropriate moves to navigate through the bones of her mother's body. At a certain point, she had moved her head to a sideways plane so that she could get some leverage to push it down further.

Imagine one of those wooden toys, where the child has to push blocks through different-shaped holes. The child will turn, and turn, and turn the block until it finally pops through. He learned this at birth.

But suddenly, the amniotic fluid drained, and she found her head stuck upon the bone in a awkward position. She still instinctively pushes her head to the other side, to straighten it in order to descend further. As she is doing this difficult work, she feels her mother's helpful body go limp. She has no more help from the outside, just uterine contractions that are pushing her more and more into a position that will be very difficult for her to move from.

The cervix becomes fully dilated, because the body is doing what it should. But the combination of the narrow pelvis, the crooked head, the epidural, and the impatient staff adds up to an unfortunate turn of events.

If she had decided to stay at home longer, until labor was more active, she may have avoided getting her membranes ruptured. If she had a wider pelvis, the baby may not have gotten stuck. If she had a doula by her side, she may have managed to avoid or at least postpone the epidural. If she had not taken the epidural, vertical or forward-leaning positions could have helped the baby come down. If the staff had patiently waited another hour, she may have pushed the baby out.

But we do not know. We really can never know what could have happened, had things been otherwise. But if we agree that we could never know what might have happened, then we have to also admit that we do not know if another baby, perhaps with a slightly smaller head, in a better position, without an epidural, with a doula assisting the mother, could successfully navigate through the birth tunnel and be born vaginally.

My answer? I do not know the reason for your first cesarean. But I do know that you do not have any conditions that definitely preclude your giving birth vaginally. There is a saying: "labour is the best pelvimeter". In layperson's terms, this means that the best way to measure your pelvis is with a baby's head, when you are in labor.

My advice? Hire a doula. Make sure you have a good relationship with your doctor or midwife.Stay positive and open. I wish you the best of luck!

Mother's Day?

Well, yesterday was Mother's Day and what a week it was! It started out with a birthday party - last Sunday was my youngest son's tenth, so we took a crew of little boys out and about and then home for cake and fun. Monday was his actual Birth Day so that was busy too. I always get a little sad on the birth days but I didn't have a chance.
I spent every other waking minute working on a very exciting project proposal that involves mothers and babies in Africa. Keep tuned and I will definitely let you know what happens. So I was working like crazy on the proposal when, Thursday morning, two out of my 6 clients for May called to say they were in early labor. Of course - couldn't do it next week, on separate days. By Thursday night they were both having good contractions, so I went to my first-time mother's absolutely beautiful natural birth - just a wonderful birth, a wonderful family, and all...the only thing that rang a slightly jarring tone was my pager that kept beeping and muttering. I snuck into the bathroom every so often to call for backup but I really wanted to make the next lady's birth. Baby was born, and they new parents said "Go! Go on, we're behind you! Go give that other mother some love!" So I rushed out, got a cab, and Baby #2 was born soon after. A triumphant VBAC after two cesareans. Yay!!!
Back to work on my project. Very excited at the possibility that I may be able to give back to Africa what Africa gave me (life, the spirit of adventure, a sense of rhythm, love of heat...). Then my best friend, husband and partner found out he had to go out of town. Now I know most modern people spend lots of time apart but we don't. We are usually together. So for him to go away for two days is a BIG DEAL. And he left on Mother's Day, at 7am.
But what a wonderful day - all sorts of giving and loving from my five sons. A sunny day, a bike ride, the kids messing around with the mechanical stuff in the driveway. A postnatal visit to a happy mother. Homemade brunch including pancakes, pasta salad, apple tart, salad.... all made by the chef (22 y.o.) and his ten-year-old assistant. Then a barbecue at night.
Mother's Day is for loving - and mothers are for loving - and let us try to open the doors to all that love and leave not one mother behind.