i am not a good enough feminist

Being a feminist today is effing confusing.  I am so grateful for Gloria Steinem and Betty Freidan and all they've done for me, but I don't know if I identify with them.  Would they look down on me because I want to be a stay-at-home-mom at some point?  Do they think I am disregarding and erasing all the hard work they've done for me?  I don't.  But do they?  Do I?  How do I know if I am being a good enough feminist?

Luckily! that question and more will be explored this weekend, coming to a former Pearl Paint store near you! in the form of an art exibit! put on by some of the most confused and powerful feminists of our generation!  Come out and see some fab ladies' work.  The article I posted a little while back, in which I was interviewed, will be in the publication.

Check 'er out: i am not a good enough feminist.

Every little miracle

I watched this today, and could not hold the tears back.  That's saying something, since I see a lot of beautiful births.

In addition to showing homebirth in a mainstream format (!), this commercial captures the miracle of every birth, every baby, every parent, and every family:

 

Mid-wives-drash

Last week, I celebrated Passover at the home of friends. At this seder, the hosts invite their guests to comment on various parts of the seder.  Last year, as we read the Exodus story, I noticed this part for the first time:

And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shifrah, and the name of the other Puah.  And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.  But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.  And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?  And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.

And I decided that the following year, I should comment on that part.  So I did.  And after some requests, I thought I'd share what I said here:

I’ve wanted to become a midwife since before I can remember, and I’ve also celebrated Passover since before I can remember. But it was only last year that I really noticed this small section in Exodus about midwives. As we just read, Pharaoh leaves it up to the Hebrew midwives, named Shifrah and Puah, to make sure all Hebrew boys are killed as soon as their moms get off that birthing stool. The midwives not only disobey Pharoah by refusing his command to kill the Hebrew boys, but they also outright talk back to him (and lie) when he asks why they disobeyed, saying basically, “Hebrew women are just too good at giving birth, we don’t even get there in time.”

To me, this anecdote is incredibly rich.  As with all things I love about birth, it speaks to the power of women and that incredibly powerful, inexplicable force pushing women to bring forth life from their bodies.   However, it also speaks to the powerful role that these particular women, these midwives, played in the eventual rebirth of the Jewish community, our passage from a life of slavery out into a life of freedom. 

Shifrah and Puah are some righteous babes.   I find the meaning of their names fascinating: Shifrah stems from the Hebrew verb to swaddle or clean, as in a baby, and Puah comes from the Hebrew verb to cry out, as a laboring mother does during birth, as does her newborn baby during the first moments of life.  There’s some more depth to their names, however.   Some rabbis have postured that Shifrah and Puah were actually Moses’s mother and sister, Yocheved and Miriam, making the roles of these women even more central to the eventual redemption of the Jews in Egypt.

In English, midwife means “with woman”, but it seems that Shifrah and Puah, or Yocheved and Miriam, were also, and perhaps more profoundly, with their community and with God. They could not separate their work with women from their service to God and to their community.   Their duty was not only to usher women through the passage of childbirth safely, but also to usher an entire population through a period of time when survival was uncertain.  Shifrah swaddled the babies, giving them security when it suddenly felt like there was nothing to hold on to, and Puah cried out when the mothers cried out, signaling that their suffering was, in fact, surmountable.  As Yocheved and Miriam ushered their community through the parting of the Red Sea, it is said that Yocheved cared for the elders, almost swaddled them, while Miriam danced and sang and cried out with joy.  While these midwives enabled women to give birth and nurture their babies, male or female, they also used their hands and hearts for something more: undying support, encouragement, and selfless love as the Jewish people gave birth to their freedom.

I owe many thanks to Ruchi, a far more knowledgeable Jew-ess and doula friend of mine, who by some Passover miracle, found the time to respond to my questions just hours before the seder she was hosting.  

Chag Sameach, Happy Easter, and most of all, happy birthing.

My Clients Are the Most Best

Two of the many perks of being a doula are:

-meeting really interesting people with all different kinds of skills
-being privy to various birth announcments, pictures, videos, and general updates as the teeny little blob I met on that big day slowly becomes more and more of an actual person.

Earlier this week, those two perks came together, when one of my recent clients (who happen to be very clever filmmakers) sent me their video birth announcement. Published here with permission, of course:


Birth Announcement from Ben Coccio on Vimeo.


Most best birth announcment ever!

Overall, there's good news

Oy! No posts since December? I'm hiding my head in shame.

My excuse is that I've been overwhelmed with the 2011 shit storm of misogynistic politics and can't handle writing about it all. For example: South Dakota and Nebraska thought it would be fun to legalize the murdering of abortion providers, while Utah thinks it's a gas to prosecute women as murderers for having miscarriages.

You see? I can't even comment. It's just too much to handle. Ok, one comment about Utah: Whether or not you agree with abortion, whether or not it is legal and safe, it is a truth of human experience that women will find a find a way, any way, to terminate unwanted pregnancy. But if women had access to safe abortion, they wouldn't be so tragically desperate as to subject themselves to intentional violence. This bill says a great deal about how much these politicians value women's lives.

But recently, there has been very, very good news! Planned Parenthood's budget was NOT cut last week! Ina May came to town! Doctors defended homebirth! And I've attended some truly beautiful births this year.

I witnessed a vaginal twin delivery in which baby B was footling breech. Baby A slipped out like butter, and before the doctor could try a manual version (to turn Baby B), it's teeny little foot poked out. Then its cute tush! It was magical.

I spent all night long with a mother, rocking her baby down. As the sun rose and the snow fell, she felt her baby coming, and whispered, "He's coming, he's coming." Magical.

Ina May came to town to promote her new book, Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesto. She bestowed upon us some true gems of hilarity, common sense, and wisdom, including this little query, directed toward anyone skeptical of the normalcy of vaginal birth: "Why do we all think that only men's thingies can get really big and then really small again? Ours can, too."

She also shared this video of an elephant giving birth, complete with elephant CPR. It's intense and graphic (as Ina May said, a two year pregnancy requires a LOT of amniotic fluid), but incredibly beautiful and life-affirming.

Ina May also told us to blog more. Yes, Ina May, I will. I will blog more. I will blog the good word! Such as news like this: a year or so ago, some American doctors published a study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (AJOG) that claimed that neonatal mortality rates were higher among planned homebirths than hospital births. Earlier this month, some other doctors took another look at that study and realized it was completely flawed. And by the way, these other doctors happen to be Canadian and Dutch, hailing from two nations where homebirth rates are higher, c-section rates are lower, and infant and maternal mortality rates are lower than ours. So I'm more likely to believe the doctors whose patients are dying less. Here are their conclusions in Medscape and AJOG.

Finally, I got to spend an hour talking about myself with a fellow rad Barnard chick a few weeks ago, and now the fruits of that conversation are forever imprinted on the scrolls of the internet. More specifically, in an article in Yale's feminist blog, Broad Recognition, about how doula work takes feminism in a pretty different direction than we've seen before. It's going to later be part of an exhibit at Concrete Utopia called "i am not a good enough feminist" (I effing love that title).

I think that's enough information and links to satisfy your birth brains for now. Don't fret, there will be more soon!

Seven Doulas for Seven Moms

Apparently there was something in the water this weekend and EVERYONE and their sister went into labor. This is what it looks like... when doulas cry.

6am Saturday morning, a doula named Amadoma called me. I said, "How are you?" to which she replied, "I'm so stressed out!" She had three clients go into labor at the same time. Her back-up doula, Erin, was at another birth, and Erin also had three clients go into labor at once. So Amadoma found another doula, Alison, to cover her, but then that Alison had an asthma attack in the middle of the birth. So Amadoma called me. So I went to that birth. But then, one of my clients went into labor. And my back-up, Koyuki, had a cold. Thankfully, mama #1 labored fast and mama #2 labored slow. I left mama #1, went home, showered, ate, soaked my feet in hot water, and went to mama #2.

That's 7 moms for 3 doulas. All the moms eventually got doulas, after lots of frantic phone calling. WHEW!

In other news, Choices in Childbirth released the 2011-2012 New York Guide to a Healthy Birth today! After visiting a client for a postpartum follow-up, I walked over to CIC's headquarters to pick up my copies. It's beautiful! You can pick up copies at any maternity-centered place (clothing stores, yoga studios, etc, Metro Minis included obviously) or order copies (paying only for shipping) from CIC here.

And to finish up, here is a cartoon depicting the 7 babies who just got born this weekend. OMG.

Goodbye Metro Minis... Hello Clementine Midwifery!

Tuesday is my very last day at Metro Minis. My very last day fitting mamas and papas into baby carriers, explaining the ins and outs of cloth diapers (pun on poop? not on purpose...), and holding squirmy babies while mamas and papas try to understand baby carriers and cloth diapers. I'm really going to miss that place.

So why am I leaving? Well, I was recently presented with a new and very exciting opportunity that I simply cannot pass up. Drumroll please...

Clementine Midwifery! Homebirth midwife Stacey Rees has asked me to work as her assistant office manager and birth assistant. OH YEAH!

This job - working alongside a midwife - has actually been what I wanted to do since graduating. I became a doula (went to the training during senior week... I am a DORK) because I thought it would help me land a job with a midwife. Didn't happen that way. So I decided to use that training, began working as a doula, and found out I really loved it. But I also needed a part time job, so I found the truly wonderful Metro Minis. Then, a few months ago, it was time for my annual gyno check up. I was in the market for a new midwife and decided to see Stacey since she just relocated her office to my neighborhood. At the end of the appointment, I said, "If you ever need help, I'm around..." And the rest is history.

The lesson here is: if you want a job, get a pelvic exam. Is that funny, or weird? I think it's funny.

Anyway, I've already had a few days of work at her office. I've been restructuring the content of her website, inputting patient info into her electronic medical record system, and updating her phone system. And answering phones: "Hello, Clementine Midwifery, this is Leda"!

Stacey recently forwarded this video to me, and I am in love with it. It's a short and very clever animated depiction of a hospital midwife's shift. The graphics are amazing and the midwife is wonderful:



My favorite part: when the midwife answers the phone. Watch what the phone cord becomes...