A Midwife Is Not A Jr. Doctor

I love Diana, the midwife. Love, love, love her. I love that she comes to Lily's house for everything. She brings her bag and pulls whatever she needs from it, like a blessed Mary Poppins and it all just feels so right. She is so calming. She has four children. She has delivered many babies and has a crazy-low transfer rate. When Lily was going to the Birth Cottage in her pregnancy with Owen before her blood pressure became an issue, Diana was working there and both Jason and Lily felt the most comfortable around her. She was reassuring and Lily's blood pressure was fine when she was the one taking it.
And now, right in time, she is on her own with what she calls her "little home birth practice." And very happy doing so. She said that she delivered four babies last weekend. That doesn't sound too "little" to me.
"Full moon dregs?" I asked her.
"Must have been," she said.

I mostly played with Owen so that Lily and Jason could sit and chat with Diana, go through Lily's history, concentrate. Focus. We played inside, we played outside. I was his personal slave. Okay. I am always his personal slave. But I was able to come in when Diana was looking for the baby's heartbeat. She found it, too, and tears sprang to my eyes, to hear that loud, strong, rhythmic proof of life. Second pregnancies are so different from first ones. It's always been so ironic with me that during the second pregnancy, when you really do need the most help because there is generally already a crazy toddler around, so much less help is offered. It's almost as if everything thinks, "Oh yeah. She knows what she's doing by now."
Which is true, but the body is as tired and the tasks are so much more.
And it is so good to be reminded that there really IS a baby in there which is every bit as magical and amazing and miraculous as it was the first time.
Which it is.
So. I heard my second grandchild's heartbeat today. Or, heartbeep, as we like to call it. Owen said it was "loud." He was a bit overwhelmed by the whole situation but by the time Diana left, he wanted to give her a hug.
"I'll be back soon to see you," Diana said.
"Bag," he said.
"Yes, I'll bring my bag."

I am just so overwhelmingly grateful that Lily may be able to experience what I was able to experience in giving birth. The comfort of getting the sort of personal care which can only happen when the midwife comes to your house. It sets the completely right tone to me- the midwife is an honored trusted guest in your home, not a semi-stranger in a white coat or scrubs to whom you are required to go see. No signing in, no "may we have your insurance card?" every damn time. No sitting on a paper-covered table with weird pictures on the wall while waiting that interminable wait for the care-giver to come in. There is a million times less anxiety which the body will thank you for by being able to give birth more easily. As Ina May points out, we don't like to poop in front of strangers in strange places. Why would we want to give birth in that situation?
No, it's not the same but there is no getting around the fact that there is no medication or drug in the entire western medical arsenal which can relax a birthing woman as much as being in her own home, surrounded by only the people she chooses to be there.
It gives the mother a sense of control which she cannot possibly have anywhere else. And it empowers her in a way that nothing else can. To know that she can trust her body to do what women's bodies have done for so long. That the midwife in her practice is proof of that fact. Yes, she has her bag but mostly what she has is faith in the mother and the process. And her hands. Her strong, midwife hands.

I feel so at peace with this situation and I think that Lily does too. And Jason, as well, and that is as important as anything- that support from the partner. I saw the way they worked together getting Owen born and I know it will be that way again. But hopefully, this time, in their own home, by their own time frame.

I heard my new grandchild's heartbeat today and of course, my heart leaped in response. This is the way of it. A new one coming.

And then we took Owen to lunch at the Mockingbird and saw our darling May-May and Owen cried out to her for the entire lunch, "May-May! May-May!" and every time she came to the table his eyes shown and he showed off for her and he loves her desperately as she loves him and two years ago, he wasn't even here and then he was and the world shoved over and made room and our hearts opened up and made room and now we get to do it all again.

Thank-you, Lily and Jason for bringing all this love into the world. And thank-you, New One Coming, for letting us hear your heartbeep. We are so looking forward to meeting you. You can't even imagine. But we are.
And thank-you, Diana, for walking the hard path of the midwife. It's one I thought I wanted to walk, but realized I did not have the strength for. But I tell you this- if there is one thing that I know, it's that if there are goddesses on this earth, they are the midwives.

Giving Me A Wah-Wah

Got the saddies today, as my friend Sue used to say, and I don't know why. Maybe it was my dreams which have been Wes Anderson-like in their complexity and casts of interesting characters and houses. Last night's were not so fun, although I can't remember much about them but know I woke up with a heaviness in my heart.

It's another beautiful day here, still with a fresh morning coolness, and blue of sky and that, perhaps, is part of it. We need rain desperately. A few months ago when the blackberries began their blooming, I was thrilled to see what looked to promise a bounty of berries. Vast plots of white-blooming bushes, and now they're setting the berries but with no rain, how can they end up being anything but hard and sour instead of bursting with juicy sweetness? Picking blackberries is such hard work. It's always way too hot, it's a snaky, buggy business and the thorns of the plants rip your clothes and flesh but if there is anything that makes me feel richer than having bags of frozen blackberries or jars of sweet preserves, I don't know what it is and so the work is always worth it.
And I was looking forward to that work. I was.

So there you have dreams and drought but here's another thing:
Yesterday HoneyLuna brought over the movie The Business of Being Born, the documentary made by Ricki Lake and Abbie Epstein. She had watched it the night before and wanted to see it with me. We watched it and it was great. Every pregnant woman should watch this movie. But I felt as if I had seen it over and over again already in my life. Nothing has changed in the birth business in over thirty years except that the medical interventions are growing worse and with them, the infant mortality rate in the US. I loved seeing the footage with Ina May Gaskin, the patron saint and goddess of birthing women everywhere in the world. They had old footage from when she was a realitively young hippie midwife, delivering babies on the Farm in Tennessee and new footage of her discussing birth practicies today. Her book, Spiritual Midwifery was the seed this movie grew from. Ah. That book. I know it like the back of my hand. I know it like I know the faces of my children. It inspired me, it enlightened me, it trained and advised me. It still does.
But I didn't learn one damn thing from that movie and you know why? It's all stuff I've been saying for over thirty years. That every intervention they do in the hospital leads to another which leads to another, ending up in a 40% C-section rate with mothers believing that the mighty doctors saved their babies' lives while if they had been surrounded by supportive and knowledgeable midwives who helped them let their bodies do what women's bodies were designed to do, their babies would have been born naturally and safely and they, too, would have known the feeling of ultimate joy and accomplishment and love that comes with the birth of a child. It makes me despair for the human race, it really does. Dr. Michael Odent was discussing the "love cocktail" of hormones that enfold a mother and her baby when birth occurs naturally and over its own time and I told Jessie that really, our society doesn't want women feeling the incrediblely passionate need to nurture and protect their young these hormones deliver along with the baby. Too many women would refuse to go back to work, leaving their six-week old infants in someone else's care.
And I really believe that.
Jessie, who is planning on going to nursing school and probably doing her time in L&D before she goes on to become a midwife asked me, "Am I going to have to go along with the way the hospital does things?"
And I said, "Yes. You are."
She asked, "Will I forget what natural birth is supposed to be like?" And I said, "No, you won't."
And she won't. Because it's in all of us, this knowledge. Hell, it's in our DNA or the human race would not be here now. And I honestly believe that a lot of our problems with postpartum depression can be explained by the fact that women aren't allowed to give birth the way nature worked out so many eons ago.

So that made me sad because women don't have the slightest idea what their bodies can do. They think "why have pain?" if there's no reason. Because no one talks about the reasons. No one talks about the ecstacy which follows it. And don't even get me started on how, if you try to talk about the incredible sensuousness of holding and nursing your child you're labeled as a sicko-lacto-Nazi, trying to push your weird agenda on others.

And then Mr. Moon is going fishing this weekend. Which I want him to do. It's time for him to get his Viking genes humming, to get out on the water with men and fishing rods and forget about the stuff that happens on land. I love it when he can do that and I love it when he brings home fish meat for me to cook.
Besides, I love having time to myself. Mr. Moon is a bit worried because of the recent crime wave around here. He wanted me to ask one of the kids to come out and stay but really- what good would that do? Kathleen and Herb (my Boris, her boyfriend) have offered to come home with me after the performances we're doing this weekend, which will be our last of this play, to make sure all is well here and I love them for that and it reassures Mr. Moon. Herb used to be a Marine and I feel certain he knows how to check a perimeter.
Plus, I have the dogs. And good neighbors. And a phone to call them on or the sheriff if need be.

And my magic turtle foot.

And I'll be glad to finish up this silly Killing Mr. Withers but I'll be sad, too. I'll miss my cast mates and our directors and our jokes and making the audience laugh. I will.

And one more thing- I went with my mother to see a neurologist on Tuesday. She's been having dizziness and headaches for over a year and her GP has sent her to the ear, nose, and throat guy, the balance and hearing clinic, and she's had MRI's and nothing has helped her and she suffers, she does. She can't go out and walk or play bridge or volunteer and it's making her crazy and depressed not to mention the fact that she's always in pain.
So we went to see this guy and he was as personable as, well, I can't think of anything with less personality. A rock has more interesting features, a bucket of dirt has the potential to grow worms or weeds or something. He offered his hand to me as if he were offering a wet tissue, and before I'd had time to barely grasp his fingertips he'd withdrawn his hand entirely, taking it back for himself.
He asked the questions, he did the pin-pricks, he said, "Follow my fingers, walk with your eyes closed," etc. And Mother did it all and I have to say I was proud of her, the way she responded and passed her tests and finally he said, "Well, this is very mysterious."
And suggested she get off her Lipitor and he'll see her in six weeks.
He left the room and Mother said, "I don't like him," and I didn't either. What a jerk. Would it be asking so much to show a little human courtesy to an eighty-two year old woman who has been in pain for over a year? And what if it IS the Lipitor and her doctor has sent her on all these adventures in medicine when the side effects listed for this hugely prescribed drug include many of her symptoms?
Ah. Back to the good old American way of doing health.

Well, as you can see, my canna lilies are starting to bloom and that is a sweet part of summer. The mosquitoes may be fierce, the ground may be bone dry, the heat may be intolerable, but the canna lilies bloom on.
And I may be sad and I may be having weird dreams and the medical system may suck and the fate of the whole human race may be in peril but I don't feel crazy. Boy. Am I grateful for that.

And much more importantly, Ina May Gaskin is still delivering babies, still writing books, still changing the world one birth at a time, and women are still discovering that what our modern way of birth is doing is not only making birth less safe but is also robbing them of the rights they have when it comes to having their babies- the most important thing they'll ever do. I am very grateful to Ricki Lake and Abbie Epstein for making that movie, for shining a lot on the midwives who still exist, despite a hundred years of the medical profession trying to kill them all with innuendo, smears, and lies. Midwives who drive the dark streets of New York City, even, to get to the mothers who labor in the night to deliver their babies at home.

And the world moves on and the chickens are growing and the clothes are hanging on the line and despite the drought, it's so green, so very, very green here in Lloyd. There may be criminals roaming the woods at night, jumping the fence and stealing our stuff, there may be weird gnawed off turtle feet on Main Street and the blackberries may be drying on the bushes, but it's okay. I'm here. And I'm glad. The cannas are starting to bloom, bright yellow in the yard, and I'm glad.

Let's Try Life

Okay. I think time’s up. Time’s up for the current world leaders to try and do something about this mess. They’ve given all the Big Questions their best shots, don’t you think? The Middle East, global weather changes, the whole energy thing, all the religions and boundaries and beliefs and starvation and disease and nuclear treaties and desires and needs and rights and creeds and crimes and well…

Guys. Let it go. Go on home. We don’t like your answer to most of the big problems, which always seems to involve another damn war.

Nah. It’s not working, that death thing.

I think it’s time to let some real experts try to handle the problems.

I say, let’s give the midwives a chance.

Why do I say that? Well, because midwives know what life is all about. They know what it takes to get it here and how to keep it going once it's here. Can't you just see a gathering of women from all over the globe, each selected for her ability to safely and skillfully and wisely work with the forces of nature to deliver life?

And this wouldn't be happening at Camp David either. No, all it would take would be some basic housing and plenty of kitchen tables for the women to sit around. Midwives know how to figure things out sitting around a kitchen table, late into the night, sipping nothing but raspberry tea.

And there they'd be, all these women of every color and creed and religion and belief and age, dressed in saris and mini skirts and burkas and blue jeans, with their strong midwife hands, their wise midwife hearts, their powerful midwife arms, their smart midwife brains and their midwife souls, dedicated to life.

All of that instead of a bunch of men in suits with bodyguards and computers and war on their minds.

Why not let these women get together and try to sort out the problems we face because midwives know what's really important and what's really important is for life to go on. Not just our lives, but the lives of all the things that make this planet livable. Midwives know that it is the tiniest of creatures who hold all of the future.

Midwives know that life is too short and precious to waste our resources on bombs and guns and tanks. They know the money would be better spent on making sure that everyone has enough to eat and that everyone has clean water to drink and air to breath and medicines to treat what can be treated and access to those medicines and to education for all the children.
Midwives know what it means to breathe life into a child born not breathing and what it takes to ensure that that life gets a chance to keep on breathing and be healthy and productive and deserving of the amazing effort it took to get it here.

Midwives are not afraid of blood or work or shit or tears or love. They know that all of these things are necessary for the creation and delivery of life.

I think that if all these women were gathered together with all their skills and knowledge they might be able to figure out some of the things that we are so obviously not able to figure out with the tools and fools we're using now.

It might take time.

But every good midwife knows that birth always takes time. And patience and constant vigilance and maneuvering and the ability to stay awake and pay attention.
And the constant knowledge that nature must be respected in all ways and at all times in order for life to thrive.

At the very least, it would be interesting to try life for awhile, and peace, too, while we're at it.
I'm tired of this death thing. I'm tired of war.

Let's give the midwives a chance.