Breastfeeding Cultural Norm???

Yestderday, I sat a discussed the difference between how La Leche League and the Federal gov't have approached the task of increasing breastfeeding. The other woman pointed at (as I have heard in other arguments) that part of the gov'ts logic is that breastfeeding should be considered the norm and everything else as abnormal. That is the reason for their negative breastfeeding tactic. Which consists of them basically telling people how horrible their child will be if they don't breastfeed. I have always loved La Leche League's method of encouraging woman to breastfeed by telling them how wonderful it is. I started thinking about the differences between the two. The gov't version is based on fear. We need to do this lest we screw up our kids. It is this same basis that for the last 100 yrs parents have left their babies screaming in the other room as the mother cries because she wants to pick up her baby. She continues to do this until her baby are both desenstized out of fear of spoiling the baby. LLL philosophy has always encouraged woman to breastfeed by pointing out the positive aspects of breastfeeding. It is such an easy task now that there is so much researching citing a great variety of benefits which extend well beyond just the baby to the mother and to the baby as an adult. How many people in the 50's knew that their choice to breastfeed would affect their child's nutritional absorption for the rest of their lives.
So this brings me to my point. According to their research the negative method the gov't went with gets more woman breastfeed than the positive method of LLLI. The question that must be asked though, is what is the goal. Is the goal to get mother's to breastfeed for 4-6 mths or is the goal to encourage woman to embrace motherhood, trust themselves and do what is natural which of course includes breastfeeding. Looking at the longivity of each method, the gov't technique will only work as along as people stay afraid. Once fear supsides or is recreated into a fear of something else, breastfeeding will fall apart. The woman have not been educated or empowered, just scared. If we educate the woman about the joys and benefits of breastfeeding, they will have learned a lesson that they can communicate and educate future generations about.
So for those of you that don't care about breastfeeding, how can this be applied at large? Well whenever human beings (especially children) are raised out of fear, the reaction supsides as the fear diminishes. This is why God contstantly tells us DO NOT BE AFRAID! He wants us to choose him out of love not fear. In the Old Testament, the people were afraid of God and lived in great fear. When our Savior arrived on the scene in the New Testament he told the people not to be afraid that he was with them. The old ways of fear were short sided and reactionary, the new law of love is eternal.

Up at Midnight

Okay, so this is my first blog and this is really just a motivation for me to start writing some of my thoughts down. So the warning is that I often type with one hand sharing a keyboard with a curious one year old.

So my three year old and I were up last night working on falling asleep. He was sincerely trying; it just wasn't working. It was 11:30pm and he and I rocked and rocked. I started thinking about how God asks us to be like children and what that means to us as adults. As the parent of a small child, I find that I am called to help him understand himself. Rather then punish him; I need to help him understand his emotions that are triggering the reactions he shows. How true it must be of our Heavenly Father! He never punishes us (contrary to many religions and people's belief). He always gently guides us into a deeper understanding of ourselves. I am in the midst of reading a book about power struggles with children and Kurcinka's number one point is that if you are in the midst of a power struggle you need to first look at yourself and your expectations for the child. It is in examining our temperament that we can better understand the temperament of our children. With our heavenly Father, as he gently guides us and teaches, he shows us the depth and meaning of ourselves through an understanding of him. So I must continue to pray to God that he reveal himself so that I can not only better understand and love him, but also understand and love myself.

Dominic's Birth (very long)

Dominic’s Birth Story

Labor began at 3pm on Thursday May 13^th. I continued on with my normal day. Since it was a Thursday in the summer, Brandon, Alexander & I went to the Thursday night barbeque. I figured it would be a while so we might as well go since Brandon really enjoys them and we needed to drop off a grill. My contractions were getting closer as we approached so I told Brandon that we would only be able to stay a short time. The BBQ was very long as my mind focused on the eminent birth. All the random conversations seemed so trivial. Finally at about 9pm we left and headed home. My contractions had become and random and sporadic. We all got ready for bed, me bummed that the birth suddenly seemed so far away and I know the BBQ caused it. At 2am I woke up needing to go to the bathroom. The moment I got on the toilet, it felt like I water was flowing from somewhere else. It wasn’t much, not like the gush I hear most woman have, so I wasn’t sure what it was. I pressed on my belly and noticed it was less squishy. I thought oh wow, my water must have broke. I never noticed it break with Alexander. I thought I should clean up the toys in the yellow room so we have room for a pool. The contractions got stronger and more intense. I got a kitchen timer to time a few. They were about 45 seconds long and 8 minutes between. They kept getting closer and more intense. My disposition was failing as it was the middle of the night and I didn’t want to wake up my midwife. I was also tired myself. At about 3am Brandon woke up and found me in the bathroom timing contractions and trying to get things ready. He began helping and suggested we call the midwives. I said not yet lets wait until at least 6 or 7am so they can get some sleep. He wanted to call anyway and we decided to time another round. The contractions almost completely stopped. We continued set up the pool figuring that needed to be done no matter what. At about 5 in the morning, I was tired ad getting crabby. I sent Brandon back to bed so we weren’t both crabby in a few hours when Alexander would wake up. I decided to sit and watch Newsies to let myself rest a little. I fell asleep for about an hour based on what parts of the movie I missed. I woke up feeling refreshed with NO contractions. I was bummed. I got up and had breakfast with Brandon and Alexander. I told Brandon he might as well go to work. But he decided to stay home. I think out of fear that I wouldn’t call him before the baby was born.

After that the contractions started again slowly again. Brandon said we should call the midwives. We called them and my mom and the contractions slowed down again. Throughout the day, friends came over to keep me company and help out. Looking back, I realized that every time someone cam over everything stopped. My mom informed me she was on her way even though I told her it would be hours if not days. By 3pm, I had a spotless kitchen, an exhausted self who hadn’t slept much, and very few contractions. Brandon went to take Alexander for a walk in hopes that he would take a nap and I could get some rest. I decided to stop answering the phone or door and take a hot bath even though that is supposed to slow labor. At this point it had been 24 hours so I figured what was a few more.

The next hour was one of the most amazing hours of my life. I laid in my hot claw foot tub in my adorable green (such a peaceful color) bathroom and began to rest. I fell asleep for about 5 minutes and would wake up to a contraction. I decided to pray through my contractions for different people and try to visualize the work my body was doing through these growingly intense contractions. Dominic’s Godfather, Chris, was experiencing a very difficult time with his faith. I decided to offer up the pain of the contraction to his faith. It was the MOST painful and longest contraction I ever experienced. I decided that no matter how much I loved him and wanted him to return to his faith he could only have one contraction. I felt in my heart, however, that the contraction changed the world. A year later (through many other people’s prayers and his own too) I am astonished by the faith of Dominic’s Godfather.

I continued laboring praying in total serenity, a place that is as close to heave as I have ever felt. It was a state of prayer and sleep, complete submission and peace. I was so happy tears would fall then I would slip into a deeper sleep to be awaken by more prayer and meditation accompanied by contractions. It was such an amazing time that words could never encapture the level of peace and tranquility that flowed over me. I read somewhere that men spend their lives fasting and meditating in hope of obtaining the state of women do naturally through childbirth.

Alexander (still awake) and Brandon came home. Brandon once again called the midwives, but this time didn’t tell me what they had decided on the phone. Alexander and I hung out in the pool while it filled. I worked on some different exercises and positions to try to Dominic to move around my crooked hip. Alexander would sit and poor water over my (and head) as I leaned over the birthball contracting and relaxing. His beautiful voice kept me grounded, centered, focused and going strong. The pool ceased to relieve my discomfort so I moved to the bed. At this point, Dominic’s birth started to exactly mimic Alexander’s except that Brandon was there to help with the back labor. Alexander and Brandon would play in the other room or on the bed with me. I would just say “Brandon” and he would come to give my back counter pressure as the intense back labor proceeded. After a while of this, I felt like it was time to move on. Transition was ending and the big moment was arriving. We headed back to the yellow room where the pool was. The midwives (who Brandon had told at 3pm to come closer) were called gain and told to come straight to our house. We called Jennifer (who was supposed to watch Alexander, but later was unable to b/c of a Girl Scout outing). I began getting and urge to push, but was scared of tearing since I hadn’t been examined to see if I was at 10. I had heard such horror stories of tearing. (When will we trust ourselves to birth and know our bodies?) The doubt of late transition set in and I began to cry how I couldn’t do this and what if this baby was not okay? I your mid during was 0 for 2 and didn’t have an ultrasound to prove he was okay. (although that was completely inaccurate with my first). It amazes me the things that run through birth, all the doubt and fears. I think hospitals really focus on this and not as much on all the beauty and positive energy of laboring women. Alias my rock reminded me that even if he wasn’t okay we could handle it. God had brought us such grace and peace with both of our other children, he would always provide.

The midwives were still not there so I decided to try and push again. I pushed and no head. Part of me was scared to have the baby before the midwives arrived, part of me couldn’t get a comfortable pushing position. I was eager to try squats and other positions that are supposed to be so wonderful. Part of me thought this is as hard as I remember pushing with Alexander and no success. The midwives arrived. Jean walked upstairs and asked how I was. I immediately said “am I at 10?” From across the room without looking at me she said “yes”. I got to the other side of the pool where I realized there was an entertainment stand I could lean against. I began pushing and pushing. A sweet whisper in my ear said, “You can do this, God made you to do this.” This was exactly why I chose a Christian homebirth. As I was pushing, I discovered that Jeanine was also Catholic. My son was going to be welcomed into the world by a loving father, brother and two women of great love and faith. Love filled the room as I pushed. The bag of water, still partially intact, began to bulge. Gosh it hurt to push the bag of water out. Only after the birth did I find out I could have easily popped it. Heads have so much more give than water. Water also doesn’t retract between contractions like heads do. A few minutes of intense pushing later and a beautiful head emerged. The first words I remember hearing were “wow that is a big head.” His body was born quickly after. He was wrapped up in a towel and immediately started to nurse. As he nursed, I asked if anybody checked to see if it was a boy or girl. No one had, so I decided that I wanted to know now. I then introduced Dominic to the world. After 15 minutes of nursing, I cut him off so I could get out of the water and get both of us dry and cleaned up. He weighed 7 lbs 8 oz and was 49.75 cm long. After he was weighed, measured, his vitals were check and his cord was cut, we went downstairs and I ate dinner. I can never manage to eat from transition on. My mom came over to meet her 2^nd grandson. Jennifer came over to help clean everything up. After everything was cleared and checked, we all snuggled up and spent our first night sleeping together as a now 4 person family.

The next morning couldn’t have been more ideal. Alexander and Brandon woke up early as they always do. Dominic and I slept in until about 9am when I woke up to see my beautiful, perfect baby boy laying next to me in the morning sun. As I lay in bed, he told me his middle name was John. I sang “Good Morning Beautiful” sweetly in his ears. Whether the peaceful tranquil birth led to the gentle disposition our son has, we will never know, but hopefully, he will always be belonging to the Lord.