Love-Knowledge Baby

Dear Whoever-You-Are (Mom, Husband, Friend, etc.),

To begin, I’d like to say that I understand your perspective.  You love your family or friend.  You love your pregnant wife, the mother of your grandchildren, or whoever she is to you.  Whatever the situation, it starts with love and concern.

You’re standing back, wondering why she wants to do this “natural childbirth thing” when everyone else knows that birth is dangerous and that’s why we let doctors handle it.  Right?  That’s the norm.  We go to the hospital, and a lot of times bad things happen, so it’s good that the doctors and equipment are there.

Are you nodding your head?  Are you thinking that enduring labor without drugs is unnecessary?  Why should your loved one suffer through an experience that is, by nature, painful?  Why would she WANT to?  And as for homebirth, it’s just crazy . . . right?  What does a midwife know that an OB doesn’t?  Isn’t it riskier?

At some point, you have to take your love and concern and use it to fuel actual research.  I’m saying this as nicely as I can:  Get off your butt, and take a look at maternal and fetal mortality rates in the United States as opposed to other countries.  We are NOT doing so hot.  We rank far below Sweden, Japan, and other countries (which utilize homebirth, midwifery, and woman-centered care).

The latest articles coming out say that the maternal mortality rate in the world is going down, everywhere except the US, where it is rising.  Another two studies put mothers and babies at 3 times the risk for death if subjected to a Cesarean Section.  The average C-section rate of a normal patient cared for by a midwife in our country is 5% or less.  The average C-section rate of a normal patient under the care of an OB is going to be 30% or higher, depending on region and individual practice.

Some states have an average rate of almost 40%.  That means, if you lined up 10 healthy pregnant ladies, 3 – 4 of them would probably have C-sections.  The World Health Organization suggests that Cesareans should be 15% or less.  Any higher, and more harm is being done than good.  In our country, Cesareans are an epidemic.

Can it be that bad?  If it were that terrible, why would it keep happening?  I can trust OUR doctor, right?  That’s where the “Get off your butt” part comes in.  You hit Google, and you tell me.  Look for actual peer reviewed studies.  Look for documentaries about birth.  Look for articles.

But really, you don’t need to do that, if you don’t want.  The only resource you REALLY need to take advantage of is right next to you.  She’s been there all along, and she needs your support and love.  If she says she wants a “natural childbirth,” it’s not about a hippy idea of having a good experience (though that’s a GREAT side effect of laboring and birthing as your body was designed to).  It’s about safety, avoiding unnecessary interventions, keeping mom and baby healthy, giving them the best start, and trying to preserve a woman’s basic human right to choose how to birth.

The only research you need is a heartfelt conversation with the woman whose motives and desires you’ve been questioning.  Do you really think she CAN’T think for herself?  Do you really think she’d choose something that could affect her health and her baby’s health without care and consideration?  Do you trust her?

If she says she doesn’t want pain medication, trust that maybe she knows that she wants to feel the labor and birth process and let nothing interfere with the impact of the first few moments of bonding between her and the baby.  Trust that she might know that drugs and epidurals can lead to a multitude of complications that no natural labor could.  Trust that she is willing to trust her own body, and that she needs YOUR unquestioning, unflagging support—because you’re supposed to be there to back her up when her own determination wavers.

Trust her when she says she wants to see a midwife instead of an OB.  Trust that she has thought about what kind of care she wants, what fits HER life, and what will hopefully work out best for her.  So what if other people keep choosing to go to the hospital. Evidence points toward increased complications due to unnecessary interventions and iatrogenic (doctor-caused) injuries, and the last few years C-section rates have been steadily climbing . . . as has the rate of homebirth in response.

Yes, you can trust an OB—as a trained surgeon.  They want the best for you.  Most doctors are doing their job and trying to help, but when you consider that their training and background starts with the idea that birth is inherently dangerous, that they are trained to look for problems, that most of them have never seen a normal birth (with a woman fully mobile, not drugged, supported physically and emotionally, birthing upright or in whatever position suits her, and without maternal-infant separation), and that their jobs rely on having problems to deal with . . . you start to understand the fuller picture of birth in our country.

Yes, trust the doctors when something has gone wrong.  But first trust the woman and her baby.  Her body is amazing, and fully capable.  Trust in the process enough to give that woman and that baby a fair chance at having the best birth, the best start to life, the most natural and ideal labor and birth, and the most fulfilling experience.

Remember where we began this journey?  It all starts with your love and concern for that mother and that baby.  Convey that love and concern to her, but don’t question her motives.  Your support matters SO much, and she’s doing all the hard work of carrying and bearing the child.  Don’t pull the rug out from underneath her because you’re scared.

Birth IS scary, but that why we women need unquestioning, unwavering support from our loved ones.  Because a woman can birth her baby, without gadgets, without people shouting at her to count to ten—We are stronger than you think.  And if THAT is what you’re afraid of, and you’d rather tear her down, just stay away.

She doesn’t need your negativity.

My hips percuss the air, my ankles flexing, my knees bent and pumping like pistons.  My arms are up, fingers and forearms curved and flowing.  I am standing straighter than I do in life — shoulders square, my chin up, my eyes bright, and the corners of my lips curling up of their own accord.

I found a wonderful blog post about a pregnant woman’s right NOT to be pushed.  The author goes into various scenarios and sums up the right of parents to make gaurdianship chices for their children, including a pregnant woman’s right to consent or decline any treatments.  Her last scenario includes a pregnant woman whose rights were violated because the doctor didn’t “do VBACs” . . . she narrowly escaped a coerced C-section.

I’m glad to read such an intelligent post about the politics of birth in America, and I perused the Hot Belly Mama blog a bit more and came across a great opportunity to win a Bumgenius diaper:

Win a free Bumgenius 3.0 Diaper! This is a valuable All-In-One cloth diaper that you can use for yourself or give as a gift to someone expecting a baby! Go check out Hot Belly Mama’s Blog for details on how to win this wonderful All In One Cloth Diaper. Hot Belly Mama will announce the winner on March 30th, after her 30th birthday!

Here is the direct link to her blog:

http://hotbellymama.blogspot.com/

Good luck

So go ahead and enter to win a diaper, read Hot Belly Mama’s great perspective on life, and perhaps add her to your blogroll.

Another great blog I follow is called Stand and Deliver.  Rixa writes about birth, and she knows quite a lot.  Her blog is a fount of knowledge about birth and the birthing scene here.  In fact, she has her PhD and her dissertation is about the unassisted homebirth movement in North America.  It’s a great read, and I highly recommend letting that PDF load and sitting down with a drink and a snack to take it all in.

I was also delighted to find that she received her PhD in my state of Iowa, specifically at the University of Iowa which I’m considering for my own masters or doctorate.

Rixa’s latest post enlightened me of two breastfeeding books which I could enter to win, and I wanted to share those opportunities with you:

First, the Motherwear blog is giving away a copy of Breastfeeding: A Parent’s Guide by Amy Spangler.  Please click HERE to enter.

The second book you could win is a visual guide to breastfeeding entitled Breastfeeding with Comfort and Joy: A Photographic Guide for Mom and Those Who Help Her.  This innovative book is filled with large color photos of real women breastfeeding.  This kind of assistance is greatly needed in a culture in which women are innundated with images of bottlefed babies yet left in the dark about breastfeeding.

One of the more helpful tips included in the book is how to avoid sore nipples by facing the baby’s entire body inward towards yourself, instead of upward as they would if they were bottle feeding.  Because of the cultural images we absorb, women tend to face their breastfeeding babies up toward the ceiling and lean their breast over the baby’s face.  This causes a lot of pulling on the nipple and bad posture for the mom, both problems which can impair a breastfeeding relationship.  There’s more information in Rixa’s review of the book.

Having photos of other women nursing with their babies laying across laps with their bellies tucked close to their mothers’ bellies could help countless women (especially visual learners) get the hang of breastfeeding.

So, you want to win this awesome book?  Click HERE to enter.

Nursing your baby is something that can be hard to get right, especially if you don’t have the proper support.  Switching to formula is always an option, but it’s an overrepresented option.  Why would I say this?  Because Breastfeeding Saves Lives:

“Breastfeeding appears to significantly reduce the chances that babies will die in their first year of life, researchers reported recently.  An analysis of a nationally representative sample of about 9,000 US babies found breastfeeding decreased the risk of dying from any cause by about 20%.

The researchers estimated that about 720 infant deaths would be prevented annually if all Americans breastfed their babies for the first year [...] “There’s already a lot of reasons for women to breastfeed their babies,” said Walter Rogan, an epidemiologiest at the National Insitute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, “This is one more.”

Although other studies have found breastfeeding provided a variety of benefits for babies, including apparently reducing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, the new study is the first to demonstrate an overall reduction in mortality.”

- The Calgary Herald

I’ve spent a lot more of my recent time reading blogs rather than blogging here, but I’m hoping to change that.  Coming soon will be my OWN giveaway.  Stay tuned!

We spend our lives hiding from the divinity within us, separating our faith from our practical lives. We eat badly, filling our temple with toxins. We drug ourselves senseless instead of preventing harm. We birth in fear, and we fear death.

For some people, there is a moment where the illusion of life shatters, revealing the true nature of existence.  Pregnancy and birth has, for me, lifted the veils of illusion, allowing me to see the open doors which allow faith, spirituality, and the divine to embody every practical moment, renewing with every day my son grows and learns, and every second I spend as his mother.

Faith is not an evidence based practice. It’s all a matter of interpretation. Scientists do not know what causes a few molecules strung together to form the tiniest living organisms, mere strings of amino acids with just fragments of RNA. We don’t know what separates us from the rest of the Universe, but we swear by the labels which define our world.

In essence, every day is an act of faith.

Birth was the crucible for my pragmatic faith, and I came out the other side a woman instead of a girl, a mother instead of a child, and an individual of immense surety instead of doubt.

What comes with an ultimate faith in the Universe, my own body, and the divine plan of love, is a great unending joy which I can choose to reach out and fill myself with. Many times I forget I have access to this, and I get caught up in the stress and worry of my life, but I can never fully lose that measure of peace. The door in my soul is open, and it cannot be locked shut again.

Before I was a mother, what faith I had was not solidified. It had no practical application in my life. As a pregnant woman, I learned the wonders and mysteries of true magic, and found that spirituality can have a very pragmatic face. My faith grew roots and took hold in the simple wonder of pregnancy, the possibilities represented in birth, and the discoveries of motherhood.

I had never felt God before I was pregnant.
I had thought God before, but I had never felt God.

My normal worries, thoughts, compulsions, and fears gave way in the face of the experience of living a miracle. Still I was unable to listen to my true intuitive voice and trust in Birth, so I wasn’t totally free of the illusions of life: webs of fear, desire for praise, fear of punishment and failure . . .

My midwife asked me what I envisioned birth to be and what I wanted it to be. I couldn’t answer her. I just told her something non-committal like, “I don’t know” or “I can’t imagine it” . . . Hindsight tells me I was being a coward. I really needed to tell her that I didn’t need her. I needed to tell my midwife that I wanted to seclude myself, and that my fantasies of the perfect birth included only my husband. I was blocked from those realizations, kept those fears and declarations to myself, and tried to avoid being disrespectful of my midwife.

I was deferring to her authority, and she wasn’t even demanding it. I’m sure she would have appreciated being a labor companion, a helper, and a trusted friend. I didn’t allow myself to let anyone fulfill that position.

A lot of training goes into making a good Chinese girl. A lot of negative energy, shame, guilt, and shocking silence formed my self-identity. I dreamed of birthing alone, in my own power, but I didn’t believe in that . . . I just went along with the assumption that people HAVE to have birth attendants.

I didn’t work through fears, didn’t voice them, pushed them away, and convinced myself that negative thoughts and energy would sabotage my birth. Unfortunately, but failing to address any fears, or allow myself to think of them, I kept all the fears in me . . . fears I didn’t know I had.

Everyone has these fears. From the moment you yourself are conceived, you take in the emotions and attitudes of your parents. You live your own birth, and perpetuate what you learn in the first moments of life outside the womb. Your experience is changed and built with every encounter you have with life — every woman you saw on television screaming in fear and pain as she labored, every “emergency” C-section, every friend or relative you visited in the hospital, and every time someone says “You’re gonna beg for an epidural!” — your heart and soul are impacted.

If I had to do it all again, I would live and breathe affirmations of joy and acceptance. I would meditate and clear myself of my own birth trauma, my mother’s birth trauma, and the trauma of every woman, fictional or real, who has imprinted on my mind, so that I could experience childbirth with pleasure and joy.

I’m reading so many different stories in which women who labored naturally and without fear (in their own homes, alone or attended) had PEAK EXPERIENCES. Child birth is supposed to be a woman’s rite of passage, the hard trail on an inner path to meet one’s true self . . . a recurring theme I run into over and over is “Oh, so soon?” and “I wish I had longer” and “if only transition hadn’t come so fast” and “next time I want longer before the baby comes out, so I can really enjoy it” . . .

Can you imagine that? If you trust and support your own body enough and in the right ways FOR YOU, you might enjoy birthing a baby so much that you want the experience to LAST LONGER? In these cases, women are so healthy and the babies from such births are so healthy. How can anyone even doubt that the ultimate and ideal child birth is a pleasurable experience for both mother and child?

Birth is so dependent on your inner self. To have an ideal birth, you have to know your fears, face them, and set them free. You have to know how to support yourself, follow your intuition, and trust your body. You are important to the process of birth. If you go to the hospital, you will not be treated as important to the process of birth. I wish that would change, but our Obstetric system lives in self-perpetuated ignorance fueled by fear and profit.

Birth is sexual. Birth is spiritual. Birth is personal. To deny any of these faces of birth is to do it a grave disservice, and to inhibit it.

Forget that child birth is “supposed” to hurt. It’s actually SUPPOSED to be fun, and joyful, and pleasurable in all sorts of ways. Work through the circumstances of your own birth and try to see that you live your life influenced by the way you came into the world. I was birthed with midwives, and I felt compelled to fulfill that type of birth when I became pregnant–even BEFORE my mother told me that I’d been born with midwives at the hospital.

Maybe the circumstances of my own birth AT THE HOSPITAL, and the social conditioning that babies are born AT THE HOSPITAL, and my mother’s doubts and opinions that I should be AT THE HOSPITAL . . . maybe all these things got in the way of my being able to finish laboring and birthing at home.

What ever it may be, I release it.
I acknowledge it, and I release it.

If you’re interested in legalizing midwifery and promoting natural childbirth in the U.S. please write to our new President Barack Obama.  He’s taking suggestions on how to improve our country HERE.

Here’s what I wrote under the “Economy” & “Healthcare” sections:

The most common reason for hospitalization is childbirth.  Birth is a billion dollar business, but one important thing is overlooked: Birth is natural.

We rank 29th in infant and maternal mortality in comparison to other countries.  The money we spend on Obstetrics, C-sections, infant monitoring devices, needless tests, invasive procedures, medical supplies, doctors, nurses, what we ask our insurance to pay out, or our medicaid to pay out . . . all of this could be simply and effectively reduced while AT THE SAME TIME reducing infant and maternal mortality, increasing maternal satisfaction, reducing instances of iatrogenic complications such as high C-section rates, episiotomies, and greatly reducing Post Traumatic Stress conditions arising from high intervention and lack of compassionate treatment in the hospital setting.

Midwives, doulas, and labor assistants trained in TRUE physiological birth (during which the laboring woman is allowed free movement, allowed to progress normally, is supported in an upright position to facilitate birth, and is allowed to push normally and when the need arises) are much less expensive than the upkeep of a single Obstetrician.

A trained and certified midwife is able to tell the difference between a normal, safe pregnancy and one that might have risks.  Midwives would ideally provide care for the majority of pregnancies.  Use of midwives would increase maternal satisfaction due to time spent and quality of care at prenatal visits, increase the number of women able to cope well with labor, decrease use of analgesics which would prevent the cascade of interventions that might not have been otherwise needed.

Studies prove that midwife care at home is as safe as hospital births in regards to fatality, and even safer in regards to needless interventions (C-sections, episiotomies, antibacterial courses due to infections originating at the hospital) . . . just look at the statistics at The Farm under the supervision of Ina May Gaskin.

One way that we can immediately improve our country, improve the quality of life of every emerging citizen (our babies), and save enormous amounts of money . . . is to train midwives in large numbers and to train doctors to work WITH midwives.  Use Sweden’s great practices and wonderfully low infant and maternal fatality rates as inspiration.  Invite Ina May Gaskin to take part in this task force to revamp the American birth system.

Legalize midwifery in all states.  Use our tax dollars in the scientifically and historically supported practice of midwifery.  Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please don’t hesitate to look further into the studies I’ve alluded to.

Leslie Hing Hing Kung,
an American woman of childbearing years, birth advocate, and mother.

I was laying in bed next to my husband and my baby, and I was asking myself to remember a moment of great joy because today is Christmas.  Christmas is about joy, but it’s also about birth.  People don’t often think about Mary’s sacred act of labor.  She toiled in a manger and birthed a messiah.  It must have been a beautiful birth.

I believe that she was blessed to birth naturally, with calm in her heart, with joy.  I can believe that she did not scream.  She didn’t worry about how “unclean” her surroundings were (after all, she wasn’t surrounded by sick people . . . it was merely a manger).

It might have been like the painless births described by Grantly Dick-Read during which one woman turned down his offer of pain relief and, after the birth, when asked why replied, “It didn’t hurt.  It wasn’t supposed to, was it?”

How far the myth of Eve’s “Curse” has spread since the witch hunts of the middle ages.  All things having to do with women’s power and women’s knowledge, like midwifery, healing, herbal knowledge were burned along with the bodies of women called “hags,” “witches,” and “dirty nags.”  The old and the young were turned over to this crucible.  In some villages, no female members were left alive.

Instead of supported by knowledgeable midwives, mothers, grandmothers, women who served the laboring lady, women were locked away by themselves, terrified, and convinced that pain was inevitable.  Even when doctors began practicing, attending births was considered beneath the male doctor–until they began to realize how much business could be had if all midwives were out of the picture.

It continues today.  I know it, and I have seen this witch hunt at work.  Many other industrialized countries are appalled at the American Obstetric community’s continued prejudices against midwifery, a safer, cheaper, more apt assistant to a laboring woman . . . proven over and over in countries which continue to far exceed our poor results in regards to fetal and maternal fatality.

I have seen the ink on my own hospital records:  “Failed attempted home birth ^ UNCLEAN”.

I want to march into that OB’s office and tell him that my midwife used sterile gloves and discarded them immediately after any contact.  We went through almost an entire box and too many sterile absorbent pads to mention.  I want to tell him that he has no idea what a homebirth is like, and that he’s never seen a physiologically normal birth.  I want to gag him and handcuff him to a chair and make him watch a REAL birth.  I want his retinas to burn with the power of an unhindered flowering, the becoming of a woman as mother, the entrance of a precious light onto our physical plane, and I want him to weep with the realizations of his unwitting crimes against women and babies.

Since that’s not going to happen . . . and since I don’t have it in me to impede a woman’s labor with the stress of a handcuffed and reluctant witness, I just want to remember that my son is the greatest gift I have ever received.  To remember that feeling–the first time I held him in my arms, and the third day of his life outside the womb.

I’d been visiting him, looking down at him silently, his little unformed features, the wrinkles on his feet, the way his chest and belly moved as he breathed.  How simple life is when it is reduced to one room, to one little heated plastic bed, one tiny body . . . How simple life is when you brush so close to losing everything.  He looked so fragile, and the tubes and monitors snaked out from him, making him look even smaller.

“Have you held him yet?” a NICU nurse asked, in a sort of off-hand manner, as if she were remembering something of little importance.  I just shook my head, no.  “Do you want to?”  I think I stopped breathing as I nodded, yes.  I can’t remember what she did.  She must have gathered his wires, cleared them from around his limbs, lifted him.

I can’t remember that part.  I just remember when the weight of him pressed into my arms.  He felt so substantial, so much heavier than he looked on his sterile platform.  And yet, he was so tiny, so fragile, and so light.  Beauty and Grace and Love had no true meaning before I held Bailey.  No happiness, no simple joy, no object, no moment could match what I felt then.

Joy poured into me, filled me, and spilled out from me.

I overflowed.

Thank YOU, whatever Power, Entity, Spirit . . . That Which No Greater Can Be Conceived.  Thank you Universe.  Thank YOU.  I take this moment to praise All That Is, and give up the bitterness of the moment.  I promise to be truly thankful for that moment of sheer joy, because maybe I needed those three days to well and truly understand.

Maybe I needed those days without the feeling of my baby in my arms so that I can really be a witness, so I can value the births and first moments, so I can ALWAYS do anything in my power to preserve that sacred moment when a mother receives her child in the world just as Mary received Jesus . . . with her own hands, with her own God-given power as woman.

Three days could not mute the rushing tide of love that blasted through me at the first warm weight of his body in my arms.  I won’t let it.  Not three hours, not three days, not three years.

Merry Christmas, and may you all be as blessed as I was.

May you all be as blessed to realize your blessings.

I’m going to lay back down beside my blessings and finally let myself sleep.

Here are my requests as a pregnant woman: Above all, support me. Respect me. Allow me my dignity, my choices, and give me the benefit of your full attention.  I pledge to return these courtesies.

Support my pregnancy. Don’t voice your fears, but do encourage me to voice mine. Don’t tell me I’m too young, old, fat, skinny, rich, poor or anything else. You may tell me that I will be a great mother. You can tell me that I’m doing a great job. If you have criticisms, let them first be formed as questions and suggestions. Allow me to be in charge of my own body, my own decisions, and support my choices once I’ve made them.

Don’t tell me horror stories. Tell me joyful ones. Don’t tell me I’ll be begging for an epidural. Tell me you enjoyed yours, but that’s it. I want to hear about your experiences, and your choices, but I want to ultimately make my own. Just because you or someone you know had X, Y, or Z happen, doesn’t mean it’ll happen to me. Offer to rub my back, my shoulders, and feet. Offer to cook for me, or to take my garbage out, or to do my dishes.

Take me out to the farmer’s market for fresh produce. Cook for me, or cook with me. Take care of my older kids, if I have any. Don’t tell me I can’t eat X or Y because those alarmist fads change every year. Encourage my intuitive knowledge (especially in regards to my diet), and believe that I have my baby’s and my own best interests in mind (because assuming otherwise is insulting).

Encourage me to listen to the needs of my body and the baby within. Have faith in this natural process, and help me keep my faith in it.

Ask if I want hugs or contact. Don’t touch my body or invade my space just because you want to rub my belly. Ask first. Treat me like a physically able, healthy person . . . because I am not an invalid. Pregnant women are not weak or delicate by nature. In fact, with proper care, it is one of the strongest, physically wonderful times in our lives.

Keep inviting me out for fun things. Perhaps we won’t go bar-hopping, but I still need my friends and my social life. Ask me to go on walks, go swimming, run to the library with you, or just hang out and play games. I still want to play tabletop RPG’s. I still want to play card games or board games. I still want to watch movies and laugh until it’s hard to breathe. Keep being my friends.

Do me a favor and ask questions. I want to know what you’re curious about. I want to discuss the changes happening with me and the baby. I want to hear what you think and talk about your dreams or fears.

Love me and feel joy for me.

If I ask you to, be with me when I am in labor. If you are there for me, pay attention to my signals. Know that I might find it hard to vocalize. If you notice something is making me uncomfortable, ask me (wait until a contraction has eased) if you can help me by removing that stimulation. Be prepared to leave if I ask. Offer me comforts, but offer them one at a time, (between contractions) so that I may accept or decline with simple body language.

If you offer and I accept your touch, keep your hands firm and steady, with deeper pressure, slow and steady strokes. Quick, light touching comes across as frantic and distracting. Tell me I’m doing a good job. Avoid giving me orders, especially at the peak of a contraction when my full concentration is needed. Voice suggestions instead, and wait for me to accept. If I seem to be focusing on the pain (whimpering or making high pitched noises), tell me to think of each wave as the most interesting sensation that requires my full attention.

If a midwife or doctor wants to perform a procedure, make sure that they explain it to you along with reasons, so that you can put it into simpler language and ask me if I understand and consent. Simply translate for me, and act as my gatekeeper.

Make eye contact with me. Deep, steady eye contact is sometimes all a woman needs to get over one cresting rush of a contraction. If I want it, hold my hands and look into my eyes. Encourage me to change positions. Again, offer one suggestion at a time, and don’t rush me. Suggest that I stand, or kneel, or squat. Suggest I sway my hips while hanging onto your shoulders. Put on belly dance music and shimmy your hips for me. Tell me I can work that baby down and out. Ask if I want to dance.

If I say, “I give up! I can’t do this! NOO!” say “YES! That’s what we want to hear! When women say that, it means the baby is coming soon. You’re in transition! That’s wonderful! It won’t be much longer.”

Respect my wishes at the moment. If I didn’t want an epidural, then I decide the pain is too much . . . help me into a warm pool of water, help me move, let me try different positions, ask me to endure 5 more contractions, trying different things all the while, then when the 5 are over, ask me again. Tell me I’ve done such a beautiful job, that I’m so strong, that I handled those 5 SO WELL, and ask me if I’d like to try another 5 contractions before asking for pain relief.

Don’t remind me what I said before I went into labor. That doesn’t matter any more. That person doesn’t exist. The creature I am during labor doesn’t give a rat’s behind what the left brain thought it wanted. Do your utmost to support me, and if I ask for pain medications after all of those efforts, and all your encouragement, make sure you’re looking into my eyes as I tell you what I want. If I have to get intervention that I didn’t necessarily want in the first place, praise my efforts and my choice.

“You were in a lot of pain, and it was distracting you from your real work. Now you can rest, and you’re going to open up really wide and have this baby. You did all the hard work, and you’re making the right decision for YOU.”

Likewise, if I choose to have NO pain medications, let me labor! If I have to say no to a procedure more than once, and you ask until I give in, you’re abusing me while I’m powerless. Respect my wishes, and support the natural process of my labor. I would do the same for you. I would respect your choice FOR or AGAINST pain medications or other interventions.

So, for your own sake, and for the sake of others you will come in contact with, BE INFORMED. Do the research. Don’t accept the medlore, the myths, or anything JUST BECAUSE everyone does it that way. Look it up. Read books. Hit the internet.

For your own sake, and for every pregnant woman or new mother you’ll ever encounter, shed the burdens of the myths surrounding your OWN birth, or your mother’s births.
“Her/my hips were too narrow.”
“They needed to cut an episiotomy.”
“I/the baby was stuck, and nothing could have helped it.”
“The baby was just too big to come out the normal way.”

When I hear those stories, I ask a few questions, and the answers are almost always “No”:
Was she allowed to move freely during labor?
Was she given the support of one trained individual (doula, midwife) for the duration the labor?
Was she given any of the following options: multiple changes of position, equipment such as a birth pool, birth ball, birthing stool, a rope or sling to grasp and hang her weight from, acupressure, acupuncture, massage, encouragement to vocalize as needed, a comfort object or focus, mantra, any support person(s) requested, the ability to ask disturbing simulations to cease (even if it means banishing a specific doctor or nurse), etc.?
Did she or her attending physician or care provider consider birth a normal physiological event?
Was she allowed to progress normally, and let to push when she felt like it, and HOW she felt she should?

If I ask you to be there for me during labor and birth, give me all the benefits of an unimpeded labor and birth. Fight for my right to listen to my intuitive self and birth as I know how. Even if I doubt myself, reassure me. Have faith in my body, and know that I would do the same for you. I would do everything in my power to aid you.

Value me and my baby over hospital policy. Value me and my baby over schedules. Value us more than cultural norms. I would do the same for you. Tell me to scream and moan if you want, but guide me toward low, open moans, deep noises and grunts. Watch the tension of my mouth, and suggest things to relax it. Make me laugh, smile, or suggest I make out with my husband/partner. These things will relax my mouth and likewise relax my perineum.

Have faith that I can open wide without tearing. Know that it is a normal physical event for a baby to pass down the birth canal, twisting and wiggling and changing positions, and for my hips to widen, my perineum to dilate and efface (use the words “open” and “flower” and “bloom” and “relaxing” and “widening”) without any tearing or cutting.

When the baby is coming, let me be in an upright position or laying fully on my side. Help me avoid being flat on my back or even reclining on my back, because those positions narrow the pelvic opening. Turn the temperature up and dim the lights for me (and let me know what you’re doing as you’re doing it, and why). Shush people. I don’t want anyone to yell or scream at me at ANY point. Let it be quiet, let everyone be still. Let my baby come down, crown, and suggest I touch my emerging baby’s head. Let me feel every sensation. Catch my baby or help me catch the baby, but do everything slowly and with calm. It is not an emergency. The baby does not need to be separated from me. There’s no rush. Don’t even rush me to pick the baby up, or do anything. Again, don’t give orders.

Whatever I need to do, feel, or process . . . just let us do it. Don’t cut the cord. It’s still serving a purpose. Don’t touch the baby unless I want you to. Let me pick up my slimy baby and look at her. Let me shake and shiver and press her against my bare belly and chest. Let her take her first breath, but don’t jab things in her throat and nose. The mucus clears by itself. It really does. Wrap us in a blanket, and let me savor the moment.

Start cleaning up quietly, and only take the baby for weighing and other things when I’m ready to let her go. Take care of me, and offer a warm bath for mom and baby. Offer food, drink. Get us off to a good start with breastfeeding, and let the placenta deliver itself. Treat the blood, the cord, and the placenta with respect, and ask what I would like done with them.

Always offer more support, and if you’re no longer needed, say you’re coming back to help again soon, and depart quietly. Be available. Teach me how to latch the baby on the nipple, and talk to me about the benefits of ecological breastfeeding (including natural infertility). Teach me how to give her the benefits of skin to skin contact. Teach me how to use a sling or carrier, so I can have an easier transition into motherhood. Teach me the difference between Natural Infant Hygiene, cloth diapering, and disposable diapering. Teach me about baby sign language. Teach me the difference between family bed, co-sleeping, and crib sleeping. Teach me about the “fourth trimester”, and not to listen to people who urge me to let her cry it out.

Teach me to listen to my intuition when it comes to my health and the baby’s health. When I feel like something is wrong, go to the doctor’s and don’t take no for an answer. When I feel that something is right and good for us, let me make that decision and praise me for my assurance.

Give me resources. Give me education. GIVE ME CHOICES, and respect the choices I make. I pledge to do the same for you.

Before I was a mother, I was a student, a philosopher, and above all a self-motivated learner. As early as junior high, I was contemplating the meaning of our existence and searching for a universal connection between all people.

I wondered what my true purpose was. I wondered how we could know anything, especially each other. How could we bridge that abyssal gap between one human mind and soul and another? I was convinced that we could never know any empirical experience besides our own, each individual an isolated island.

These questions, the conversations of philosophers, and my own contemplations were shelved as I fell in love, graduated college, married, and became mired in the bog of a 40 hour a week obligation.

When I found out I was pregnant, I was overcome with feelings of love and responsibility so enormous that they threatened to crush my beating heart. I still cannot describe the combination of joy, exaltation, and sheer terror that overcame me, filled all the empty spaces of me, and overflowed.

The most apt comparison I can think of is to what The Romantics called The Sublime: that feeling inspired by the majesty and vastness of nature, filling you will awe while giving you a sense of how small you are in it.

My baby was an amazing gift of insight for me. I was a vessel of life. I felt as if I had a mission, a passion, and a true and irrefutable connection to the universe and to Creation itself. A part of Perfection and Spirit and the Universe was busy multiplying itself in my abdomen! The loneliness and monotony of life as a working adult just melted away, and I began to research.

In a cascade of breathtaking revelations, my knowledge about pregnancy and birth bloomed. I was not content with skirting the edges of knowledge and accepting the bare minimum summarized in those What-To-Expect books. I dug deeper.

I did not expect it, but when I found Birth, I fell in love.

I watched videos, read books, and scoured the internet. Overwhelmingly, people are disconnected from their bodies and taught to be in absolute terror of birth. I began to realize that women have no idea the miracles which reside in their own bodies. Whatever cause to which you attribute these wonders, evolution or design, if you find the research, you will be amazed.

The pregnant woman has super powers. When I was pregnant, my senses were more alert. I could tell by scent what food was good for me and my baby and what wasn’t. I was more emotional but also more alert to dangers and comforts. As I watched my body swell and change, I thought to myself, I am a shapeshifter!

How little knowledge and faith most people have in this miraculous process. My reading led me to believe that ultrasounds were over-used and entirely too liberally interpreted, not to mention that the studies on high frequency sound suggested that they could be harmful, rupturing cells and possibly disturbing the growth of the fetus. Based on a lack of conclusive research, I refused a routine ultrasound.

The nurse was aghast. She stuttered that it was necessary. I asked her why. She stated that they needed to check the gestational size and age of the baby so that they could get an accurate due date. If the baby was determined late, they would induce.

I told her I didn’t believe in routine induction. She looked further horrified, and said to me, “Well, THAT could lead to a dead baby!” Offended, I asked for my medical information to be copied so that I could switch care providers. She made sure I knew that she was telling the doctor that I refused the ultrasound AND the internal exam.

When a fetus has fully developed lungs, he or she releases a chemical into the shared bloodstream, and this begins the cascade of hormones which lead to labor. When I found that out, I was amazed and awed. Then I wondered why so many babies were being scheduled and induced.

How little faith do we have in our own bodies that we let others manipulate us into interventions and treatments that we have never researched ourselves? How have we come to trust that our bodies will fail us? Furthermore, how has this system come to exist in which professionals providing care to a pregnant women often feel it necessary to threaten her with the death of her baby should she not cooperate?

My spirituality and love of the Universe and all that resides within was conceived with my son, but my true faith in the Great Universe was born in adversity. For every revelation, there was a backlash. For every choice I made which supported our optimal health, there was a social stigma.

I didn’t want medications to dull the sensations of birth because if you medicate the burn in a runner’s muscles, you steal his runner’s high. If you numb his legs, his gait will become sloppy, and he will injure his ankles.

I wanted to climb the mountain of childbirth with my senses wild and enhanced. I wanted to feel everything and open wide for my child to enter the world, without chemicals in our blood, without harsh lights, sounds, and scents.

I loved myself and my baby, and I had to fight tooth and nail for what I decided was best for us based on our research and revelations. I left traditional OB care and found a midwife willing to support me, and kept reading, kept watch those grainy videos of home births, and studying that moment of exaltation on a woman’s face after she has borne a baby of her body and her will alone.

That expression, I thought, is the expression of someone meeting God.

Since the first moment I held my baby, my faith in this Universe has been affirmed and reaffirmed daily. Every discovery, every sensation, and every new revelation has generated a momentum akin to a locomotive. Every natural thing about us is perfect and beautiful. If we could truly discern the whispering voice of intuition and see these wonders within and around us, we would weep with joy.

The composition of breast milk is absolutely perfect, changing moment to moment to support the growth of a healthy baby. Breast milk fights off infections, containing a million white blood cells in each drop, has a different composition if your baby is premature or ill, and is consistently what nourishes babies in the rest of the world until the average age of 4 years. Between 4 to 7 years of age, the human immune system fully matures.

Breastfeeding obviates the need for artificial pacifiers, and creates a very strong bond, releasing the love hormone in both mother and baby. Breast milk is a living manifestation of love in a very literal sense.

We know babies are meant to be carried. Our milk resembles that of animals which carry their babies on their bodies, with lower concentrations of fat compared to mammals, like wolves, which leave their babies for long periods of time. Our newborns have thicker, denser fat on their backs which is meant to keep heat in and protect them as they are held against us.

The most soothing motion to a baby is the average tempo of an adult walk. The way newborns curl their legs when lifted up is a flawless adaptation to their need to be consistently close on an adult body. Babies move and shift with us, as we walk, so in-arms or in-sling time counts as tummy time, building core strength.

Those who are held or worn cry less, receive more vestibular stimulation, often sit up earlier, and are more social, more engaged with the world as active participants, and are able to learn from their safe and high vantage point.

The temperature of the skin of an adult torso adjusts perfectly to warm a baby, performing better than plastic incubators, especially in the case of premature babies. You might have heard of Kangaroo Care. Premature babies experience less apnea if stimulated by the sound and feel of adult breathing, and the skin to skin contact is an unquestionable boon to a breastfeeding relationship.

Newborns are aware and able to communicate about their elimination needs. Around the world, diapers are a foreign idea, and millions of families sleep together in the same bed as the newest addition to their families and wake up in an unsoiled bed. We Western mothers are calling it Natural Infant Hygiene, Infant Potty Training, and Elimination Communication, but it is just a natural part of life we’ve forgotten.

Starting with pregnancy and birth, I could go on and on with these wonderful affirmations of nature’s plan. I am filled to the brim with them, and this knowledge sings in every cell of my body.

Everything and everyone in the Universe fits into this miraculous scheme. There are no missing pieces. There are no isolated occurrences. I never need to look at another human being and feel a mental chasm open between us.

I used to question why we are here. That question is no longer important to me. This journey I undertook with and for my son has led me to believe that we are under no obligations other than to simply exist. I now know deep in my heart that Existence is Love. There are no beginnings and no endings. There is only change.

I used to search in vain for a one universal thing that could bridge the gaps between our islands. Now I realize that the space that separates us is an illusion, a mere thought-construct. We are all born, and we all die.

Our society shies away from both of these universal events and treats them with fear. The more faith we have, the more knowledge we acquire, the less we try to control both birth and death.

Birth and death are inevitable. There is nothing that needs to be done to save a woman or baby having a normal pregnancy and a normal, physiological birth. Trying to interfere and control the process merely complicates and endangers both the mother and child.

I wish to believe the same of death, for when it comes for me, I do not want to be afraid.

The cycle which connected me, connects every living being. I was born and have given life. My fellow human being was also once cradled in the womb, was born, and will also experience the change of death.

Through my pregnancy and birth, I found the Universal.

Through my son, I found an enduring faith.

You know, peeing on a tiny test strip is actually pretty hard. Persons of the female persuasion usually don’t have practice aiming. The trick is, I suppose, to let loose and THEN place the target into the line of fire. I like doing things neatly, but God likes a good joke now and then . . . With that urinary challenge aside (and thoroughly scrubbed hands), I sat down to wait. It was probably 11 p.m., and Brad had already dropped into bed (and thereby was insensible to the world), but I had been feeling strange.

My breasts were tender, and I couldn’t bring myself to stay lying on my stomach for any amount of time. What did I need a pregnancy test for? I knew.

But I did have to KNOW (intellectually as opposed to viscerally), so there I sat in the bathroom, rereading the instructions and fine print. FYI: false negatives can occur, while false positives do not. So if it comes up as positive, you’re pregnant; Human growth hormone was found in your urine.

The inevitable result took about forever (a.k.a. a few minutes) to reveal itself in the tiny window.

Positive!

I was pregnant. It was shocking. Electrifying. It was mind-boggling and enormous. WITH CHILD! I’d been expecting it, lusting after it, and finally knowledge of conception triggered a rush of what the insanity of the biological clock steals from you: Fear.

Even though I had wanted this baby, I was sure that I had just ended my life. All my goals, my dreams were shattered by the ultimate sacrifice of my carefree youth. I was now about to be a mother.

I rushed out of the master bath and climbed into bed. Brad lay unmoving.

So I told him. “I’m pregnant.”

He replied, “Huh,” in a not very impressed manner, which elicited some hysterical response from my hormonal self (I can’t even remember what I said).

“What am I supposed to do?” he grumbled, and rolled over. So I started crying.

To be fair, I must note that some people tend to be rude and obnoxious when drunk, but Brad is rude and obnoxious when asleep . . . So don’t hold it against him. He wasn’t conscious to receive the news of impending fatherhood. (Or so he says.)

And that the the glorious start to the end and the beginning of my life as a mom. I must say I like it better now (7 months postpartum) than I did when the little peanut was inspiring daily, hourly trips to bend over the commode, but that’s another story.

How did this all end with me teaching babywearing, making baby carriers, and starting a webpage? Well, I didn’t plan on being an attached mom (referring to Attachment Parenting), but as a self motivated learner and a self-starter . . . pregnancy, motherhood, and everything to do with that subject were now my top research concerns.

So, I peed on a stick, surfed the net, read WAY too many books, hired a midwife, threw up a million-gazillion times, planned a water birth (which didn’t happen), and I became a mother.

What still surprises me is how happy I am to be blessed with my son Bailey, no matter what miseries I’ve suffered (or am suffering) as a result of parenthood.

Welcome to LKBaby.com where I, Leslie Kung, will share my experiences, my DIY how-to’s, my babywearing instruction, and my handcrafted baby carriers and more. This is my journey. These are my discoveries and my creations.

With Love and Respect,

Leslie Hing Hing Kung (Bailey’s Mom)