Family Christmas

The past few years, since Littletree and I went through a major shift in our lives, we've been celebrating Christmas. Just quietly, in our own way. The last two years we went down to spend the holiday with my family in South Australia, but that wasn't possible this year, so we created our own special family here at home.

Littletree got involved with the google+ Secret Santa, which was awesome

We created a geeky Christmas "tree" -a binary tree made of coat hangers in a tree formation hung with manila file folders and decorated with broken tech - old USB cables, wonky gadgets, broken ADSL splitters - our 'Angel' was Andy the Android and of course we added a TARDIS.

Gifts we kept simple - of course a few sneaky treats for Littletree from Doctor Who (because we don't believe in Santa)

 

Naturally, every time Littletree wasn't looking, "The Doctor" popped by with his TARDIS and left another little present

 

We kept it simple with gifts; aside from her much appreciated Secret Santa hoard of Doctor Who merchandise and Art supplies, Littletree got a portable bluetooth speaker from me and Shark Girl

I gave Shark Girl a gift that was more shark wrapping than actual gift, and Littletree gave her a book about sharks with an altered book cover that she'd made herself

 

And Littletree and Shark Girl together got me the most incredible gift - a really nice Android Tablet :) Which is super cool and replaces the old iPad that I won back in 2010 (amazingly the 5 year old iPad still 'works' but thanks to Apple's stupid closed system, the device is completely obsolete and unusable - ironic to turn it on and find that it can't update anything and most apps aren't supported on this "out of date" technology).

I also got a very treasured gift - a friend back in Israel sent me copies of my two favourite picture books that we always travelled with and that I read to Littletree every day when she was small. I lost our original copies under sad circumstances, and I missed them very much. So it feels extra special to get these; even if only for nostalgic reasons. And I'm teaching Littletree to read more in Hebrew.

The three of us all hand-painted little singlets for the fresh baby our new housemates had (he's 6 weeks old now!)

And we had a few good friends around for an awesome barbecue. Simple, delicious. Fun times!

     

Beautiful Belly, Perfect Placenta, Midwife Mayhem

At exactly midnight last night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, the phone rang. My client, calling to tell me her waters had released. She said she wasn’t having any sensations yet, and nothing was really happening, but she wanted to give me a “heads up” and suggested I drive out and sleep there rather than getting woken up and have to rush over at quarter to ridiculous in the morning, or whenever things got really happening.

Good idea! I’d rather drive the 40 minutes to her house up a winding, dirt road at midnight than in the wee hours, so I extricated myself from my cosy bed and went out in the rain to go… only to get my car bogged in the mud in my own driveway! Oh goddess NO!

So after a fair whack of swearing and spinning wheels, and jacking up the van and digging under the tyres and putting a few boards down… I was out. Just before I got the van out of the mud, I stood up and said to Ariad (thank the goddess she was there to help me!), “why am I even bothering, I bet she’s birthing a little girl at this very moment”.

A minute later my phone rang – my client’s partner telling me they’d birthed a little girl, all healthy! Only 40 minutes after the original phone call, no less! So I wouldn’t have gotten there anyway.

They asked me to come out and check to make sure everything was fine, and help with the placenta (which took three hours in the end!). Isn’t she a beauty! Nutritious and restorative too :)

So no birthing photos, but I do have yummy pics from when we did the belly cast when the mama was 39 weeks.

Yay for women’s bodies and babies, yay for beautiful birthing!

Flashback Friday–Pregnant Majikfaerie

I’ve had a few requests for some old travelling stories, so I thought I’d do an occasional random post from before I started blogging (because, really, all the most interesting stuff was before we moved to Australia when I started this blog).

So, the first one will be my pregnancy, in honour of Littletree’s birthday :)

Littletree was conceived on a yacht in Amsterdam. Purple and I were living on the yacht, preparing to sail to Brazil. She was an awesome boat, and we worked hard getting her seaworthy.

Lying in a hammock off the boom over the water while the boat is sailing is AWESOME.

I don’t have all that many pregnancy photos (something I regret) but here’s me at about four months teaching a crochet workshop at a rainbow gathering in Israel

And at five months at Avebury stone circle in England

Seven months in Lençois, Bahia.

Eight months in Arembepe community, Bahia

Me with Purple at the World Rainbow Gathering in Brazil (he looked pretty different back then!) (photo from Chad)

Nine months at the rainbow – I used to swim out to this rock and sit every day.

And I’d sit in this perfect “natural jacuzzi” as well (photo from Simon)

Nine-and-a-half months (and over it) inside our tipi

I think that’s all my pregnancy photos. I don’t have any from when I was in Germany or Israel. I did manage to get on the TV news in Athens when I was 5 months pregnant though!

A Call for Healing

My friends Earth Mama and Autumn’s little boy, Jallahyn, who was born into my hands, and is dear to all our hearts, is gravely ill.

He has developed septic arthritis in his left hip joint, which is spreading down his thigh bone. Today he is scheduled for his third surgery at the Mater hospital in Brisbane to try to clear this out.

Please send healing energy, prayers and blessings to all the family.

Luscious Visits

*for some reason, this post didn’t go through last week when I sent it originally, so I’m re-posting*

We’ve had such a steady stream of friends, visitors, houseguests, couch surfers and random hippie folk staying at our house since we got back from the last Australian Rainbow Gathering!

Last weekend we had Luscious over to stay with A, her 2 year old boy, which was great, we even got to celebrate her birthday! (Naturally I made some decadent yummies)

It was great to get to connect, and share life in our village

 

and share hanging out by the Laundromat while we dried laundry, since it rained about the whole time they were here

Though we didn’t get to do all that much since I came down with a yucky head cold and spent half their visit in bed feeling miserable.

At least A had lots of fun with Littletree’s rollerskates

Fun times!

Midwifery Monday

I started hosting morning teas for my clients and any pregnant women or new mums in the area to get together and have a birthing-focussed women’s circle.

It’s been really lovely to sit with women and have a natter, and very convenient for me when I have 4 clients all approaching due – this way I get to see them all at once, rather than seeing each one individually every week, and I can answer everyone’s questions at the same time, rather than repeating myself over and over. Even better, the mamas all talk amongst themselves too, so they get to share and connect with each other.

Its great for the mamas who’ve already had their baby to share with the pregnant mamas, and for everyone to be able to talk about their experience, and know they’re not alone. And we all get to fawn over the cute babies, and I get to see them as they grow.

I’ve also been listening in on Gloria Lemay’s new online Midwifery Classes, which are awesome – I highly recommend them to anyone interested in midwifery or birthwork, they’re incredibly affordable and open to anyone. Check it out HERE.

Beautiful Birthing

I’ve been busy lately with mamas birthing. It’s been a fantastic journey around trusting birth.

One birth I was at, the mama was so graceful and focussed. Every time I had thoughts about what might go wrong, or the technical things I should be doing or checking, I looked up and saw the picture she had on her wall

Trust

It was so perfect. Just reminded me to trust. Because it was all flowing exactly as it needed to; no complications, no difficulties, and the mama’s and baby’s bodies knew what to do, just as they were designed to.

At some point in her birthing process, the mama said “no more photos”, so I put my newly-acquired life drawing skills to use and drew a picture to capture the beauty of the scene – one powerful, graceful mama, deep in her process, focussed inwardly, in the bathtub with the shower running on her back.

Last night I was at another birth – a second baby boy for Earth Mama and Autumn. We’d discussed making a birth plan during pre-natal visits, but I started thinking a birth plan is somewhat pointless. Earth Mama wasn’t going to hospital, and the staff rarely take birth plans seriously anyway.

This is the birth plan Earth Mama came up with in the end – I LOVE it! And we totally stuck to her plan 100% :D

Stay home – stay safe!

Home Birth – Risk Safety and Responsibility

It seems the media is all aflutter with the recent birthing of Dannii Minogue’s baby boy – you can read a standard example of the mainstream media coverage HERE

Honestly, it’s not such a big deal – a baby was born: congratulations to the family! It was a celebrity family: well, yeah, that’s interesting to fans, and would usually get a line in the gossip pages or something, so why all the fuss?

Dannii had a *gasp* home birth. Which is hugely confronting, because we all thought Dannii was a pretty intelligent woman who is likely to be well-informed and make sound choices about such matters. So it challenges our sensibilities – surely only crazed hippie fringe freaks have home births!

And it gets worse – Dannii, under the skilled eye of a trained midwife, transported to birth in hospital when the birthing process became complicated. Well, we can all heave a sigh of relief. See: she needed the hospital.

Except that this proves the safety of home birth with a skilled midwife – it is possible to transfer to hospital if needed, of course, the majority of cases don’t need it, and birth safely and happily at home.

When a woman plans her birth in a hospital, and complications develop leading to a transfer to a larger tertiary-care facility, or a caesarean section, no one is blazing trumpets and newspaper articles saying hospital birth is unsafe (well, I am :P )

The reality is that for the vast majority of women, home birth is a safe option, and a hospital transfer is a viable resource when back-up is needed.

Dr Ted Weaver, the president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is reported to have said

“Up to half of all first-time mothers attempting a home birth had to be transferred to hospital due to complications”

Great. He’s a doctor with a fancy title, so we can all ignore the fact that he’s just making up statistics as he goes along, and, in the words of Gloria Lemay: hallucinating his own reality.

Really? Up to half of all first-time mothers attempting home birth transfer? Based on what study? I’m willing to bet it’s based on the “study” of his own personal experience.

Dr Weaver went on to say,

“It is better if first-time mothers don't attempt a home birth or, if they do, they should be counselled about their risks and needs for transfer."

Oh the hypocrisy! When are women ever counselled as to the risks of hospital birth?

I have a real study published in the British Medical Journal showing that outcomes were the same in planned home and hospital births, but interventions were much lower at home and the mothers reported more satisfaction with their births. BMJ 1996 313 1313-8

In European countries where midwifery care is the standard, mortality rates are much lower under the care of midwives than under the care of obstetricians at all levels of predicted risk. Even when unplanned transfers to hospital are taken into account, home birth is still safer than hospital birth. Tew, M (1990) Safer Childbirth, Midwifery, 7(2):55-63

The true issue of home birth is control and responsibility. If you birth in hospital, the risks of complications, interventions, morbidity and mortality are higher than at home with a skilled midwife, but you have no responsibility. If something goes wrong, the doctor says “I’m very sorry, we did all we could”, and that’s the end of it. Taking that much smaller risk that something might go wrong means that the responsibility is taken on by the birthing mother.

If something goes wrong at home, everyone says “you should have been in hospital”. If something goes wrong in the hospital (even though this is more likely), it’s “just one of those things that happen”.

Ultimately, Dannii made a reasonable, responsible choice regarding her own birthing experience. It makes me so angry that the medical establishment is using the media to spin hype and misinformation, which is actually increasing risk for women and babies.

Littletree Life Drawing

This week we had Life Drawing class again – classes were off for the past 6 weeks or so because the teacher was having her baby (a beautiful water birth I attended), but we thought we’d try having another class and Littletree agreed to “babysit”.

Which meant that Littletree sat with the baby at the mama’s side, bouncing her and being cute. We managed to have a good class, despite regular breastfeeding. Here’s my fave picture I did:

It didn’t really take Littletree all that long to get bored, and she decided to join the class and do some pictures. I was slightly reluctant, because usually when she draws pictures she get very perfectionist and cries that she needs help if she doesn’t get it “right”.

But this time I was amazed. She did really well and came up with some fantastic pictures.

Honestly; how many schooled children get to do life drawing? I think it’s such a great learning experience.

 

Now the problem is going to be getting to go out for Life Drawing on my own, because Littletree will want to join! I’ll have to find another class I can do on my own. LOL

LaborPro – Just Say No!

Some bright spark has invented a totally non-invasive machine that will use continuous ultrasound to measure contractions, progress, foetal position, station and presentation, while having a couple of little alligator clips in the woman’s cervix to continuously measure dilation, and has a little probe that is screwed into the unborn baby’s scalp to monitor the foetus’ heart rate and status.

Wow. this is awesome. It basically means that no one working in labour and delivery will ever need to know anything about caring for birthing women, and midwives will become all but obsolete!

NursingBirth, in her recent post, The WORST Idea Since Routine Continuous Fetal Monitoring for Low Risk Mothers gives a pretty good rundown.

I honestly fail to see how anyone could count having 4 electrodes stuck on your abdomen, clips on your cervix and an electrode literally screwed in to your unborn baby’s scalp (which means that the waters must be artificially ruptured and the cervix possibly manually or chemically dilated), as “non-invasive”.

Why on earth would anyone want to expose babies to lengthy doses of ultrasound, the safety of which has never been proven? Here’s what Marsden Wagner, the former head of Maternal and Child Health in the European region in the World Health Organisation has to say about it: http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/ultrasoundwagner.asp

The LaborPro people keep using that “non-invasive” word, but I don’t think it means what they think it means.

Honestly, I think I’m going to be sick.

 

The Mother of All Rallies

I got back from my trip to Canberra for the homebirth rally yesterday morning. It was quite a hectic adventure! Incredibly, I managed to drive 2200km, (1400mi) spend 24 hours in Canberra, breakdown and get stuck in nowhereseville overnight and still make it home again in less than 4 days!

Phew!

I had thought I was going to do the drive on my own, but at the last minute one of my clients called up and asked to come with, so I had an 8 months pregnant woman and her 2 year old son with me in the car.

The drive was pretty easy and we took lots of breaks – it’s so nice to have a van with a bed in the back so we could take comfy naps at rest stops.

Canberra was freezing cold – 14C when I’m used to 30! and on the day of the rally it rained (of course). That didn’t stop around 2500 people coming to show support for homebirth.

 

People gathered in front of the Old Parliament House, by the Aboriginal Tent Embassy where there was a ceremonial fire and some speeches made. Then the crowd marched, banners and placards waving, to the front of the New Parliament House for the demonstration.

The crowd was pretty thick – mostly pregnant mamas, and mamas with babies in slings, or toting children. There were heaps of children and babies toting signs (or with signs pinned to their slings or clothing) saying which room of the house they were born in. This one was particularly cool :)

It was almost impossible to get in near enough to see the stage!

I walked around to the front to snap a photo, but it was still hard to see.

 

Mostly I was meeting and catching up with friends. It was awesome to meet so many friends from Liberated Learning that I’d never met in real life before! And it was great to catch up with old friends, and see other independent midwives.

I even got to meet Lisa Barrett which was quite an honour

And best of all; Currawong was up on the stage playing her awesome homebirth song.

After the rally, we went for lunch with Artemis of the Eucalypts and her family, and my friend J to the Asian Noodle House in Dickson for the best Laksa ever (yeah, they have weird place names in Canberra – funnier than Dickson, they have a suburb called Downer)!

Then it was back on the road, trying to get home by Tuesday night. However, about an hour out of Canberra, the car broke down. We stopped for petrol and the car wouldn’t start again – totally flat battery.

Thankfully I’m in the NRMA (AAA equivalent), so I called them, and was informed there would be a 90 minute wait for a patrol to come out. I mentioned that I had a pregnant woman and a baby in the car with me, and we were put on priority – someone came within half an hour.

The NRMA guy was very nice, and managed to jump start the car, but he said the battery wasn’t charging at all because the alternator was dead and we’d have to be towed to a mechanic. He called the NRMA tow-truck, and told us there’d be a 2 hour wait.

I called them back and mentioned again the pregnant woman and baby, we were again put on a priority list, and the tow truck came within half an hour. All the time we were waiting, the 2 women working in the petrol station were so nice – gave us hot soup to eat (artificial instant soup, but in the words of the woman who gave it “more nutritious than McDonalds” LOL), old magazines, coffee, and even offered to drive us to town.

Anyway, the tow truck came and took us with the car to a mechanic, and then to a hotel for the night (being that it was after 5pm). Thank goodness I remembered to mention to the NRMA rep who booked us into the hotel that I am travelling with a pregnant woman and baby, so they paid for us to get a bigger room, and to check us in for 2 nights so we wouldn’t have to check out at 10am before the car was ready!

At noon the next day the mechanic said there was nothing at all wrong with the car and we were good to go! Grrrr! Turned out it was a really simple thing – the battery terminals weren’t screwed down tight enough; something the NRMA patrol man should have seen and fixed in 30 seconds.

Oh well – the universe wanted us to stay a night in Mittagong, coincidentally, just up the road from where my friend’s son’s great-grandfather lived, so while we were waiting for the car to be “fixed” she went up to visit him.

Finally, we got on the road again, and made good time; we stopped to sleep at midnight, just 2 hours from home, and got up early in the morning for the last bit of the journey, arriving at 8am. 

It was a fun adventure, but it’s good to be home and see Littletree!