Blessings

When I think about blessings, I think about what I've done for so much of my life. I've spent many years of my time on the planet providing birth services (love, care and knowledge) for free. So when I think about it I get sad (because I haven't done enough), and then I get mad (because for a lot of people, it's all about the dollar), then I get happy. Because when we do our work out of love for the other, we are literally changing the world. Love can change the world! Giving love, sacrificing your stuff for another, rains down blessings.

I'd love to change the world...but I don't know what to do.

There's a movement growing: the movement of regulation, of expertise, professionals. If y'all don't conform and waste your time doing paperwork and following the man's rules, then you will get smashed. Smash the patriarchy? Good luck! The patriarchy is busy smashing you, by telling you what to think and believe.

So here's a message to the young doulas and would-be midwives out there: don't get sucked in by the bullshit message that you are a professional. You're not. You are a companion, with hands, heart and kindness, and maybe a smattering of knowledge. You are there to provide comfort, love, warmth, you're there to provide a safe space. Yes, people with money should pay you. But if we let simple companionship become a luxury that's only available for the rich, then we are, quite simply, fucked.

Carnevale!

I only ended up in Italy by accident, falling in love with a man who had spent the happiest time of his life in Rome. So we moved there and made a life in the Italian countryside, raising children, making wine, and living on a shoestring.
I enjoyed life there - it was a fun place to raise kids, and life was always interesting. There were two things, though, that we could never get right. One was the time change - the annual Daylight Saving. Because we lived such a rural and isolated life, without a TV, computer, or much of a connection with the modern world, we never knew when the time was supposed to change, so we would consistently miss the first few appointments after the time change, or get there too early.
The other thing we could never get right was Carnevale. In our area, the children would dress in costumes and eat sweets, bringing back memories of the trick-or-treating of my Canadian childhood. It was a fun time; there would be a parade, and either a few days before or a few days after, the school-aged kids would dress up to go to school.
This celebration was called "Cicicoco," and our timing for this little holiday was consistently wrong. We would either bring the kids to school dressed up on the wrong day, or everyone else would be dressed up and they wouldn't be, or we would dress them as the wrong thing.

So, you may be wondering, what does all this have to do with birth?
I went to two births last week, and both experiences were poignant in different ways. Both the births taught me, again, that birth is never predictable, and we can never know enough to be able to say "I knew that would happen", because we never do.
No details, because both my mothers are having their "babymoons" and I don't want to tell their stories. But it seems to me that we need the humility to laugh at ourselves, if we are going to enjoy the show. We need to be able to wear a mask, and to dress up as someone else. We should be sweet, and we need to be gentle. And we have to realize that timing is everything, and nothing. Babies don't come when they're asked, sometimes not even when they're pushed. Women don't go into labor on set days, and usually if you work on call as a birth attendant, the baby you are waiting on will arrive the day you've scheduled something else.
When we are born we get dressed up in our bodies, and we eat sweets for the rest of our lives. Let's celebrate! Blessings to all you new mothers and fathers!

Blessings

I went to bed happy last night, because every Sunday I get to play jazz clarinet with a small group of amateur musicians (and one professional to glue everything together).

I read for a bit, Adam and Eve, by Sena Jeter Naslund - an interesting read. I put my head down and within five minutes my phone rings and a lady's water has just broken, very exciting, water everywhere. "Just like in the movies," she said.

All is good, I suggest she try to sleep a little. We spoke a few times during the night, as she was having some contractions, but I continued to suggest she sleep as much as possible.

In the morning, she call to tell me that she and her husband have decided to go to the hospital, where the news is that her cervix is not dilated, and they are going to try Cervidil to "jumpstart" labor.

Just asking all you folks out there, whether you're "in the know" or not, to throw a blessing her way. Just throw it out, and if it doesn't land on her, it'll land on another birthing woman...