Blessing Births

I have a rosebush.  It’s pretty, yet very thorny.  I have sometimes cut a rose stem with buds on it before they are ripe to open.  In my kitchen in a vase, they will not open.  I read up on it and this is what one floral website wrote: Cut a rose flower only after its sepals have opened and turned downward. Sepals are the flower parts that look like green petals. If the sepals are wrapped tightly around a cut rosebud, the flower will not open. If a rose flower is of a variety typically has many petals, then wait until a few rows of petals are open before…

I was a doula for a mom who impregnated herself with a turkey baster and had fraternal twins, with two different dads’ sperm.  Right.  She did. She wanted to be a mom while her biological clock was still ticking and she made two babies right before the midnight hour.  She was thankful, so very thankful, for these babies.  It was quite an unusual story….  This blog is not a social commentary on fertility and the means of becoming pregnant.  It’s just my doula stories, doula tips and meditations. Today my tip would probably read: “Do not try this at home”.  But people do try this at home.  All the time. …

It’s apple season where I live.  Trees are laden with gorgeous, ripe red fruit.  It’s harvest time! There are a number of women I know that at the moment are ripe and ready for birth.  What a wonderful time of year to have a baby! There is a technique I learned about early in my doula work called “Shaking the Apples”.  Yes, it’s what you probably are imagining:  shaking someone’s glutes.  It’s getting up close and personal, and it feels great in labour! First, a thing or two about glutes:  they are the longest and strongest muscle group in your body.  Commonly referred to as the buttocks or hips, there…

Teachers are planners.  This is a grand generalization, but I have found it to be true in my doula practise.  I have had many, many teachers on my caseload, sometimes several at a time with due dates close together.  Perhaps no other profession may be so keenly aware of how maternity/paternity leaves work with the school year.  How that perhaps with some planning comes more potential time with a newborn, perhaps even with children at home already.  How family holidays can coincide with school breaks, how having your baby one month early, or waiting til the nick of time, may mean many more months off, etc. etc. Teachers are not…

“Don’t get snippy with me!” I will never forget this line from the movie, “Fargo”.  Policewoman Marge, full of pregnancy and poise, tells off a guy who is giving her a hard time.  And all in her sweet Minnesota accent.  It still rings in my ears! But perhaps Marge would have been one of the many women who ‘get snippy’ during labour with those around them, be it their partners, nurses, even doulas.  Moods and curtness, exasperation and even anger due to hormonal surges are part of the package.  Sometimes it’s even more than that!  I once had a mom so overwhelmed with her pain and angst during a contraction…

Feet sinking, sinking, sinking in the sand as the water of the wave ebbs back into the ocean…. Can you feel that image on your toes? This is a visualization I have used in my doula work many, many times.  It is so effective, because so many of us can picture it and even feel the sensation in our bodies – we can feel the wet feet! Recently I was asked to record my voice, which is soft and gentle, (most of the time!) for a mom in labour using this very picture.  She not only used it over and over again in labour, but shared it with those who…

If you can imagine the above picture to be a birth, not a football image, and the father of the baby to be the catcher and the baby to be the football, you get pretty close to a home birth I was in on – slippery and fast and needing perfect hand-eye coordination!  The birthing mom was not a rookie:  this was not her first ‘labour day’.  Mom’s body had been showing signs of good progress since the night before.  That morning, she thought things might be starting up, but was not worried or fretful.  She had intermittent contractions all day, and called me around 5 pm to say that…

I was a doula for a couple who were very outdoorsy.  Every summer they would go to Algonquin Park for a canoe trip.  This involved packing and preparation, being in good shape for a physically demanding vacation, and knowing the basics of paddling up a river and down rapids. During one of my prenatal visits with them, we were talking about visualizations we might use during labour.  I asked them where their ‘happy place’ was…. They both answered simultaneously:  “Canoeing”.  So, we rolled that analogy into a wonderful labour picture, which they took to heart, mind and body on the big day. Here’s how it worked for them as I…

I swam acrossI jumped across for youOh, what a thing to do‘Cause you were all yellow ( “Yellow”, by Coldplay) Yellow is a pretty colour.  It makes one think of flowers, sunshine and blonde hair.  But yellow is not a pretty post-natal colour.  Jaundice causes yellowing of the skin in newborns, especially the first day or two after birth. It can lead to serious complications if not caught in time and treated accordingly.  Often mothers have been released from hospital and are unaware that this is something to watch out for.  Here is what the experts write on jaundice: Jaundice is caused by too much bilirubin in the blood. This…

Mamas can be pushy.  I’m not just talking about the birthing mother – they are allowed to be, and need to push at some point!  No, I’m referring to HER mother (or mother-in-law). I always asked the birthing mother before her labour: ‘Who do YOU want in on your birth?’  It’s her birth, and she needs to decide, free of pressure and obligation.  This has at times caused a dilemma:    should she invite her own mother, even if she does not want to, so as to not exclude her?  Does she feel obligated to, coerced, and even bullied into it? I have found these scenarios were not always in the…