One:

The midwifery model is all about partnership with a pregnant person, a baby, and their family.  I've always known that as a midwife, I want to be an equal partner with my clients, who are the real primary care providers for themselves and their babies. But as a student, with my brain all cram-packed with this knowledge about pregnancy and birth that I'm so excited to share, I have overlooked something important about holding up my end of the egalitarian relationship.  If I'm really invested in being a partner, I need to stop telling clients what I think they should do, and start asking them what they think would help with any given situation.  I can offer my opinion, if I feel it's necessary, after I've really heard theirs, or if they ask.  There's no real partnership if information is only flowing in one direction, or if I don't respect my clients enough to acknowledge their expertise on their own lives.  I feel humbled that I needed to hear someone say this this to understand that it is true.  Thank you, Elizabeth Davis.  I continue to learn from your wisdom.

Two:

It's not just the pregnant person I need to ask for their wisdom about the pregnancy.  It's not just the pregnant person I need to engage in problem solving.  The baby is a partner in this work also.  I need to talk to the baby, tell the baby what I'm doing & why, ask the baby to help us find solutions for problems.  I've learned this already, first from Karen Strange, but it is easy to forget that the baby is an active participant whom I can engage with, contained as she is during most of my knowing of her inside of someone else.  So when I'm going to palpate, I need to ask the client's permission, the whole mamababy client, not just the mama half of the mamababy.  When we need the baby to do something different, I need to do more than try to work with the body around the baby, but instead, I need to tell the baby what's happening and engage them in finding a solution.  I need to share my healing touch or healing energy with the baby also.  The tiny embryo that is invisible in the equation when I meet most families incrementally shifts over the course of care until, by the end, she is someone I can truly interact with.  I won't wait until she's on the outside to engage with her anymore.  Thank you, Carol Gautchi, for your wisdom.

Three:

Some of the stuff that we see at birth will be terrifying and traumatizing.  So we birth attendants must examine our fear and trauma, both birth-related and not, to understand what it does to us, to learn how we respond, and to harness the power of our fear to make us effective & clear headed actors.  We must not be at the mercy of our fear, because we will witness scary shit at birth sometimes and we will be afraid.  If we push those experiences and our fear away without examination, we lose the opportunity to choose how we respond, and we are stuck responding based on our history and the coping mechanisms we learned along the way.  And maybe those mechanisms are good, but maybe they're not, and certainly they're not something we've consciously chosen to bring with us to our birth work, and we owe our families better than that.  If our fear responses come with us to birth, and they do, we better sit down and figure out how to work with those responses, and try to discard the responses that paralyze us in favor of the ones that motivate and alert us.  I am grateful to the woman whose name I don't know who started this conversation.  We all have wisdom in us, and we don't need to be a fancy person with a big name or a big mouth or a big book to have wisdom to share. 

I am learning.  I hope I have some wisdom, and I hope it continues to grow.  

The clinic where I work got a letter the other day, no return address, so I knew it was gonna be good.  It was also  unsigned: Mr or Ms Anonymous Coward wants to give us fair warning of the "prayer siege"  s/he is now waging against our clinic.  Yes, if every single one of us working there doesn't cease & desist our work providing abortion (or billing insurance companies for abortion, or making appointments for women to get abortions, or answering their questions about abortion...) we're going to experience terrible suffering and ultimately death, all because of the prayer siege of Anonymous.

Prayer as warfare?  Really?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  But I still am, every single time. 

The sign on the wall of the classroom where I spent the Sunday mornings of my childhood said, "God is Love."  Years later, long after I had left the church and Christianity, I had my own personal experience of what I can only describe as the presence of God, and I finally understood that saying I had heard and read so many times.  God Is Love.  Like, really.  The peace and joy of being embraced by limitless Love -- that's what encountering God feels like to me.  When I pray, I see the object of my prayer embraced by a golden glow of Love; prayer as I do it is a transmission of love.  And, as much as I no longer identify with my Christian upbringing, it was the Christians who first told me the lesson I had to learn for myself to really believe, that God is Love.

Now, I get that we all have our own ideas about God, and that I can't really KNOW that I'm more right about it than the anonymous letter writer; that's where the faith part comes in.  The thing that I don't get is how the Christians, who taught me that God is Love, can be so very hateful, and that their hatefulness can even extend into their prayers for ill to befall a lot of people whom they have never met.  Hatefulness is not Christlike.  If God is Love, why are your prayers so full of hate?

If you disagree with me about abortion, or sexuality, religion or whatever, please feel free to pray for me.  Pray that we both may all follow the sacred paths that have been set before us by God.  Do not be certain that you know what the path should look like, and pray that ill befall me when I stray from your idea of the path.  Know that I am praying this for you also:  May we all walk in Grace.  I think that you are wrong, but I am trying to love you.

In fact, another important doctrine of my faith I also learned from Christians first.  I remember vaguely some story about casting loaves out to sea, and having a really huge loaf of bread wash ashore to fee the village.  The parable illustrates the Law of Tenfold Return:  That which you put out you will receive back tenfold.  Do unto others as you would have the do unto you.  Karma.  It has many names and articulations, but it is another sacred truth.  If you pray for me to experience hatred and wrath, the hatred will eat your own heart.  Pray that we may both make the world a better place, work in your own life to do so as you see it, and free your heart from that hate.  Send me Love instead, and I will send Love to you.  

Please consider donating to one of my favorite organizations, Faith Aloud, which brings the truth of a loving God to women who choose abortion. 

Blesses Be! 

Mercury moves backward in the sky, so we
go back through what we have said to discover
what it means now.  We pack
boxes, and load them
into your parents' truck. 

You tell me you have chosen this life
and me.  I am grateful.

Things cannot ever be easy.
There is no easy. There is only
Things and The Way They Are.

Some of the beets are sprouting
in the garden and I
hear the seeds whispering to me
from the shelves of the shop
and the pictures
in catalogs. 

What we are growing is good
is what you tell me, though
the growing can hurt like hell.

Yes.  I will embrace it then,
the growing, the planting,
the constant flux that powers
Life, Learning, Love.

NPR recently did a story on circumcision. I sent them the comment below.

Please ask Dr Diekema, who recently spoke on your program in favor of routine circumcision of baby boys, to cite his sources when he says that circumcision results in a huge reduction in STDs. I do not believe the best science supports this claim, and I think it is good news to hear that fewer parents are choosing to have elective surgery done on their infant children. Condoms prevent STDs, not circumcision. Please allow some of the people who are making the increasingly common choice to leave their sons' genitals alone speak on your program about their rational, valid reasons for avoiding this procedure. If our Creator hadn't wanted us to have foreskins, it seems like he wouldn't have given them too us in the first

I don't understand people who believe that they understand the truth about the Divine. The whole point of God, the Great Spirit, the Creator, our Holy Mother & Father, is that these things are bigger than our understanding. As a hymn from my childhood says:

"He formed the stars, those heav’nly flames;
He counts their numbers, calls their names;
His wisdom’s vast, and knows no bound,
A deep where all our thoughts are drowned."

How, than, can we mere mortals know the One Truth of God? How can our fallible intelligence comprehend the Power that is all Life, all Light, all Love? How can God fit within one human gender? How dare you tell me that you know that God hates me? How can it not be blasphemy to say that you understand fully the will of God, enough to condemn the beliefs and the lives of your brothers and sisters?

I am so grateful for what I learned from the teachings of Jesus growing up in Community of Christ church; these teachings inform so many of my beliefs in social justice, service, compassion and love. But I am no longer a Christian. When I left the church I felt emptier than I had wearing a false cloak of beliefs that did not fit me as a member of a faith that did not move my heart. Having never felt a connection with the Divine in church, I assumed I never would. And then I found God, for myself, outside a church, and realized that though Chritianity did not speak to me, there were other ways, other places where I could encounter the Holy Presence. As a pregnancy and birth worker, a called midwife, my heart responds to the idea of Goddess more so than God; my work is with the Divine Feminine, and God spoke to my heart for the first time in a circle of women, on a full-moon night. Call me a witch if you like, or just call me a midwife; in Europe where my ancestry lies these have often been equated.

I leave each of you free to see the face of God that speaks to you, but please do not doubt that I have also been in that Holy Presence, and remember the story of the blind men who encounter an elephant: one feels the leg and says it is like a tree, one feels the trunk and says it is like a snake. In our limited understanding, may we each be free to respond to the call of the divine however we perceive it. I pray that one day all believers will respect the faith of their brothers and sisters, no matter what the specifics of our individual beliefs.

Every child negotiates the journey from total dependence to independence and autonomy, and I imagine it happens at different times for different children, but there is a general agreement that the third year is difficult for children & families, and I think this is why. We are no exception; two has been hard. The intensity of feeling Ramona experiences over the color of her cup evokes an equally intense response in me as the milk goes flying on the floor because what she wanted was the blue cup instead. I say it to her and it is true: it hurts my body and my feelings when she hits or kicks me when she is upset with me. We have talks and time outs and read fabulous books at the library in the mall, called "Hands are not for hitting," "Feet are not for kicking," "Words are not for hurting." I love these books. I think she is learning this stuff, but it is hard not to feel disappointed in myself when I see her deal with her anger in appropriately. I am a slammer of drawers and cupboards when I am angry, and I have been known to throw a thing across the room in moments of great frustration. I know she has learned about how to deal with her anger from me, and I want both of us to learn other, better ways. She has started saying to me, "Take a deep breath, mommy," when I am stressed, because that is what I tell her when she is upset. Usually, when I say it, she screams "NO!" but when she says it to me, I usually take a deep breath, which is exactly what I need to do. Breathing slowly and deeply so that the belly expands short-circuits the hormonal cascade of the fight or flight response. Deep breathing deactivates stress. She is reminding me to model it for her, and it helps me as well.

There is also a journey taking place from total self-centered self-awareness to the ability to understand and empathize with others. Empathy, ultimately, is behind sharing and not hitting and speaking kindly -- you understand how your actions impact another, because you can imagine being on the receiving end of those actions yourself. We're so not there yet. I know it's a process, but it is hard not to feel badly when my child is taking toys from other children, or throwing sand at them. At those times, I feel like I am doing something horribly wrong. And who knows, maybe I am. Certainly, some people will think that I am, because everyone has an idea about the best ways to be a parent, and most people think you're doing something wrong if you don't do it like them. But she is also so interested and engaged with people, she sings, she talks about the things that are important to her, both memories and future plans. She loves to read books. She is learning to use the potty and go to sleep by herself. I am so proud of and impressed with her. She does things that melt my heart, like grabbing Jamie and I around the legs as we hug for "whole family loves" and we have such a good time hanging out together, gardening, hiking, at the zoo, watching Fraggle Rock. It is hard, but it is wonderful. I wish I felt certain that I was doing everything right as a parent, but all I can do is my best. I will do some things well and some things poorly. Hopefully I will earn enough money in my forthcoming midwifery career so that I can pay for her therapy when she grows up.

Still, I hope that some of the big transitions will be completed here pretty soon, and we can go along merrily till adolescence hits and we make eachother crazy again. That's how it works, right?

Tonight, Ramona ate salad with gusto, and last night she asked for salad on her taco. This is my child who usually picks any green bits out of her food. But this is special lettuce; it is from the garden.

A few months ago, we turned over the earth that had been sitting with winter-worn remnants of last year's squash, calendula and cabbage. Ramona used her very own kid-sized orange hoe. The next week, we poked and sprinkled seeds of lettuces, spinach, broccoli and onions into the ground. Now we have a bushy crop that makes mixed greens for every occasion. The slugs also enjoy our greens, but I pick them off when I have the time, and there's really enough to share. Ramona is bummed that there's not as much digging involved these days, nor as much watering can, since it's been raining constantly. Still, she loves visiting and tending to the garden when we can, and has now become interested in eating the greens we harvest from it. I love sharing this experience with her, and I have lettuces to bring to share at work to eat and share, green leafy vegetables grown without pesticides for an investment of a few hours and a couple bucks worth of seeds.

I also appreciate the way that gardening connects me to the place where I live, my little corner of the earth. Last year's garden was sparser because it got less water in June, but this year with all the rain, it's absolutely lush. Our garden is affected by the weather, the other beings we share the space with, including worms, slugs, birds, bugs, spiders. When I turned the soil in March and saw worms, I knew we would have a better garden this year than we had in last year's somewhat sterile bought dirt. I have no idea what I'm doing, haven't read books about how to garden, I just throw seeds in the ground and see what the earth can make with a bit of help. And something grows, even last year, I tinctured calendula and wildcrafted plantain, made an amazing red cabbage salad and a meal of tiny stuffed squash. But this year the garden is a part of our every day diet, and we are eating better and saving money because of it. Ramona is learning where food comes from, and how to make it herself. It is worth my time, and it is not that much time. I am only using about 5X3 feet worth of space. You can do it too. You'll be glad you did!

After a week of difficult nights of co-sleeping & marathon nursing with my 2 year old, I decided on Friday night that I was going to try a night without nursing and maybe get some much-needed sleep. I had been told that it would be difficult for her to accept, which makes sense, as we've always nursed at night except for a few days when I went out of town to deal with a family emergency a few months ago. Friends with older kids (as well as the naturopath who is Ramona's doctor) had told me that when the time came for night weaning, I should be loving, but firm: NO nursing, the "ni-nis" have gone night-night, there's water if you're thirsty. She woke up three times, at 10:30, 1, and 4, and each time she got really upset about no "ni-nis." The first time, Jamie talked to her, and helped her understand that having mommy and no ni-nis was better than no mommy. She fell asleep laying on my chest, and wiggled off to the side of me once she fell asleep. Jamie says this is how they do the getting to sleep together when I'm at work or, lately, after she and I have nursed before bed and they lay down for him to put her to sleep. So, her second wake up at one o'clock, same thing, hard, Jamie helps a little, eventually she's willing to lay down and sleep with me without nursing. And she sleeps so much better, isn't disturbed when I cough or blow my nose (I've been sick), and I sleep so much better, and it's great, except for how upset she gets, but I was, as I say, expecting that. I specifically did this first try on a weekend night, knowing that this week our family would be the annoying loud neighbors.

In the past, the loud apartment has been the one above us with the kids running around till three in the morning on weekend nights and the parents yelling at them to shut up. There's generally one loud drunken party every weekend, sometimes from the other side of the wall in the room where Ramona and I sleep, sometimes with music so loud it shakes the wall. And the people below us have a little baby that we've heard in the past. There was that one night where a pissed off ex girlfriend banged on the next door down the hall and screamed about the other bitch inside with her man. It's just part of apartment living. The one time that the guy upstairs was scaling the side of the house and crashed into our bedroom window (thankfully, he bounced off and hit the ground outside, uninjured, but our window had to be replaced) was the only time we've ever called the cops, mostly because we wanted some witness to the fact that it was not actually us that broke the window, and also because when it happened we didn't know if someone was actually trying to break in. We've never called the cops because of noise, or when the neighbors smoke close to the windows (which I think is supposed to be illegal in Washington, to prevent terrible second hand smoke drifting in); most of the time, even in the summer, we just keep the window closed. Given all of this, I have been feeling very ready to be done with living in apartments.

But last night it was us causing the ruckus, and when Ramona woke again at four and was so upset about not getting to nurse, Mr Wall-Shaking-Music-Porch-Smoker started banging on the wall, then our door screaming about how we had to make our baby shut the fuck up or he was gonna call the motherfucking police. Ramona was silent with terror, her arms squeezing my neck. My heart was pounding. When the guy was done with the door pounding he headed back home, gave us a few more wall kicks for good measure, and shouted that he was gonna come knocking on our door in the morning and tell us all about what crazy motherfuckers we are letting our baby cry like that. This is a person we've been civil to in the past. He gave Ramona a doll for Christmas. With all the propaganda out there that it's okay to let your baby "cry it our" I was kind of shocked that this was the response we got. And I was mad. I do not let my child cry it out. As she was so upset about waiting till morning for her ni-nis, I held her and talked to her, asked her what she wanted, how I could make it better, rubber her back, wiped her nose, and waited out her upset for her to calm down and get back to sleep. She was upset, she was loud, children sometimes are these things. How dare you threaten me with the law because I'm trying to help my child begin to make the difficult and, yes, sometimes noisy transition from baby to big kid?

Of course, the guy on the other side of the wall had no idea what was going on in our apartment, and I'm totally grateful that the law allows children to be protected from parents who are physically or sexually violent, or seriously neglectful of their child's well-being. But I hate the way the law is used to police children and parents. I hate the way that the vase majority of kids that end up taken away from their families are in poor communities of color, though these communities have similar instances of child abuse and neglect. I hate the fact that people who have different ideas about health and health care (like, for example, those who choose out of hospital birth and refuse certain allopathic treatments like vaccination, those who breastfeed beyond infancy, those who sleep with their children) have to fear losing our children because the parenting practices that match our values are seen as atypical by our culture. I hate that I KNOW I'm not a bad parent, but the threat of the police last night made me cave on my commitment to seeing through one night of no ni-nis. After the door banging/yelling/swearing/wall kicking, I nursed her the rest of the night to keep her quiet. Her reaction has made me think that she's probably not really ready for night weaning, anyway, but I wanted to give it one night and see how it went, and I didn't make it.

I've been really learning from someone who pushes all of my buttons, and I think is actually kind of mean. I want to keep hearing her wisdom, but am wishing for a little less of her vitrol. I don't know why this stupid online interaction has been so powerful for me, but I need to learn what I can from it, and let it go. I am doing what I am called to do, and I will not hear people tell me that it can never be enough.

My girl is two. She is likes to read books by herself in her room. She goes to sleep with her daddy now so I can stay up late. She talks about squishing play-dough (pronounced "bowly" for some reason) with her words and her hands as well, and I think the baby signs (even as little as we did them) helped to make her a very expressive girl. She likes to talk about her birthday by saying, "Cake, , candles, Mona." She loves babies, and kissed a baby of a midwifery client over and over again the other day; I feel bad that I'm not planning on providing her with her own baby to kiss any time soon. She also has teeth coming in and is difficult to please; sometimes you get to a place where she is so upset that something hasn't been done "right" according to her vision of it that then nothing can be right until a serious change of course is made. There may be thrashing on the floor, and screaming "NO!" Jamie is feeling very challenged by her right now, and perhaps I am not because I've been working two jobs and am less present for them. I talked to Jamie today about how they are my priority, even though I feel like there's so much good work for me to do in the world, and he can always call me on it when I'm not putting them first. Of course, as a midwife, there will be times when I must literally put another's welfare above the immediate wants and needs of my family. Thus, when I have the opportunity, I need to make them a priority.

I interviewed today with a midwifery practice in Olympia that has a good percentage of teen clients, a population I am so interested in working with! I have wanted to find an apprenticeship in Oregon, but I also want to find the right apprenticeship and so I'm also going to do a week-long working interview in Salem in late Spring as well, and hopefully also talk to some midwives nearer to Portland. I admit that I am scared of truly taking on midwifery -- How will we afford for me to focus on apprenticeship? Will Jamie find a job where we need to go? Will I ever truly be ready to take full responsibility as a health care provider for a birthing women & her baby? Will I ever know enough? Will I still be a good parent and partner? I have a good job for a great business right now, and it is so hard to think about leaving that comfort and security behind. But, that's my plan. I can't look back now. Midwifery, here I come.