I've Been Busy and I Can't Do it All

I have been sitting with the harder realities of the Birthing From Within Training, that there are some things I must leave in the underworld, and regular blog posts are part of what I must leave.

I am busy!  I have joined a regular study group so that when I begin formally apprenticing (when Nettie is bigger) I can focus on births rather then studying.  We are reading through Anne Frye's Volume II and meet twice a month.  

I am birth assisting, one birth a month (sometimes two) until Nettie is bigger. I've started to count my births as part of NARM's PEP process.  I attended a beautiful birth a week and a half ago.  The mom had very supportive and loving friends but the mom noted that when her friends surrounded her, she looked to them to take her pain away.  After more then a day and a half of supported labor, she tried laboring alone.  The shift was dramatic.  Before laboring alone, the mom played the role of the patient, hobbling to the bathroom, supported by others, looking to us, rather then within, for guidance.  When the mom labored alone, she found the strength to walk down the hall into the office, grab a chair to support herself, and carry it back to her bedroom to labor.  She arranged chux pads neatly under her to catch fluids and labored peacefully, diving into and befriending the pain. The mom noted after the birth that she felt so much more grounded when laboring alone.

I have been spending a lot of my free time (not much of this with little kids) helping re-organize a midwifery organization with the hope that we will pursue legislative efforts in our state.  NOT because I need a license but because women should have REAL choice when it comes to birth and because I believe we would have more student midwives if it was legal for CPMs to practice in our area.

With a group of neighbors, I started a small, neighborhood, Montessori co-op pre-school.  Tons of fun and a lot of work but so good to know that my kids have a group of neighbors they know and love and can be with when I am at a birth.

So that is what I've been up to.  I plan to blog once a month, twice if possible, but I can't promise much more at the moment.

Comments

[Kathy]

Looking forward to any post you make even if it is only twice a year!

[Kat]

Thanks!!!