Booked a last minute flight this morning for first thing tomorrow morning.
We're going back east to be with family right now.
We'll be gone until Monday August 11th.
It will be just me and the kids.
I need time to process.
Will write later.
~ Sarah ~
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
what to say
Hello.
Where to begin?
It's like speaking after a long awkward silence.
I've been a little low-energy lately.
Ever since after L's birthday.
She turned three.
I want to hop back in over here but feel so far behind. Got to start somewhere, I suppose. Miss you all. And Sarah, thanks for being there to chat the other night; I'm sorry to have text-vomited all over you. I don't know what came over me. I'm feeling and doing better now.
I guess if you're not a robot, your bound to have good days and bad days. I'm just typically not the type of person who usually goes and tells people, let alone actively seeks out someone to blurt out everything circulating in my brain at that given moment. Perhaps that's a change for the better? Well, it certainly didn't make me feel worse. Thanks for being there and listening to my uninhibited prattle. Hugs.
And I'll make a conscience effort to check-in, read and post more.
P.S. supermushi pisses me off. (It's probably a jealousy thing.)
Where to begin?
It's like speaking after a long awkward silence.
I've been a little low-energy lately.
Ever since after L's birthday.
She turned three.
I want to hop back in over here but feel so far behind. Got to start somewhere, I suppose. Miss you all. And Sarah, thanks for being there to chat the other night; I'm sorry to have text-vomited all over you. I don't know what came over me. I'm feeling and doing better now.
I guess if you're not a robot, your bound to have good days and bad days. I'm just typically not the type of person who usually goes and tells people, let alone actively seeks out someone to blurt out everything circulating in my brain at that given moment. Perhaps that's a change for the better? Well, it certainly didn't make me feel worse. Thanks for being there and listening to my uninhibited prattle. Hugs.
And I'll make a conscience effort to check-in, read and post more.
P.S. supermushi pisses me off. (It's probably a jealousy thing.)
Friday, July 18, 2008
a few interesting stories
Been a bad blogger again. Need to write. I will, soon.
In the meantime, check out these interesting stories:
Ravers lose vision at laser light show
Cop breaks in to car to rescue fake baby
Eight-thousand people moon Amtrak
In the meantime, check out these interesting stories:
Ravers lose vision at laser light show
Cop breaks in to car to rescue fake baby
Eight-thousand people moon Amtrak
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
L demonstrates the effects of caffeine
Don't worry, I didn't give her coffee. Jeez. It was just pretend.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
animal versus human birth
Excerpted from "Safer Birth in a Barn?," Midwifery Today, Issue 83
The protocols in the world of animal husbandry to protect an offspring at the time of birth—no strangers, dimmed lights, freedom of movement, familiar environment, unlimited nourishment, respectful quiet, no disruptions—are done without hesitation because to do otherwise invites "unexplained distress" or sudden demise of the offspring. These thoughtful conditions are the norm, along with careful observation to determine when to use the technological expertise in true emergencies. When we have veterinarians in our childbirth education classes, they always start to smile and nod when I tell this story. These are givens—instinctive givens, even, for animals of all descriptions!
Yet what are the "givens" for the human who births not in a barn, but in a "modern and advanced" hospital? In many cases, 100% the opposite! Usually a minimum of a dozen strangers pass through the world of the laboring mother in her first 12 hours in the hospital—security officer, patient transporter, triage secretary, admission clerk, triage nurse, resident and/or doctor on call, admitting nurse, first shift nurse, break nurse, additional nurse at delivery, doctor or midwife plus possibly students, anesthesiologist, pediatrician, etc. Bright lights in the triage and labor rooms are challenging to dim. Mothers are tethered to monitors or IV poles and are moved through a bright hall with unfamiliar sounds to a new room in a building devoted to illness/trauma that most have visited once briefly if at all. They receive poor quality "clear liquids only." They are exposed to voices of others in the hall or chatting by the attendants during contractions and endless disruptions throughout! But then, do we ever find that we have an offspring experience "unexplained distress?" Of course, and at frightening rates! Yet, oddly, many of these disruptions are promoted as minor inconveniences or necessary to "protect" the baby.
Curiously, while veterinarians commonly have to defend interventions in light of the additional cost and the risks associated with interfering with nature, providers caring for human mothers within the medical system more commonly are forced to defend why they did NOT intervene! Consider the high rates of inductions, epidurals, artificial rupture of membranes, immediate cord cutting, cesareans and the vigorous defense necessary to fight for anything different, especially if time is involved (time to go into labor, to progress, to push, to allow the cord to stop pulsation or to get "done" bonding). I've recently seen outstanding CNMs and obstetricians sacrifice their own political reputations and suffer departmental reprimands for births with great outcomes where they protected the mothers' yearning for privacy, allowed extended pushing time with great vital signs or, during a healthy normal birth, followed their intuition and honored the mother's begging to check heart tones frequently by hand during pushing instead of what the mother considered the massive intrusion of wearing the monitor belt. Interventions are considered to be the ultimate protection from litigation in human care, yet they contribute mightily to the high rates of distress in mothers and babies!
In animal husbandry, the first line of defense for protecting the unborn is to protect and nurture the nutritional needs and comfort of the birthing female. In the case of institutionalized birth for humans, however, in spite of evidence to the contrary, the norm is to act as if the nutritional needs and the comfort of the birthing mothers are of concern to, at most, the marketing and public relations department! It's an affront to common sense that as a society we are currently more accepting of the needs of foaling mares, whelping poodles and high-producing cows than of our birthing humans. From the high rates of fetal distress, meconium staining and breastfeeding problems, the consequences are clearly devastating to our infants, just as any decent horseman would predict.
— Beth Barbeau
The protocols in the world of animal husbandry to protect an offspring at the time of birth—no strangers, dimmed lights, freedom of movement, familiar environment, unlimited nourishment, respectful quiet, no disruptions—are done without hesitation because to do otherwise invites "unexplained distress" or sudden demise of the offspring. These thoughtful conditions are the norm, along with careful observation to determine when to use the technological expertise in true emergencies. When we have veterinarians in our childbirth education classes, they always start to smile and nod when I tell this story. These are givens—instinctive givens, even, for animals of all descriptions!
Yet what are the "givens" for the human who births not in a barn, but in a "modern and advanced" hospital? In many cases, 100% the opposite! Usually a minimum of a dozen strangers pass through the world of the laboring mother in her first 12 hours in the hospital—security officer, patient transporter, triage secretary, admission clerk, triage nurse, resident and/or doctor on call, admitting nurse, first shift nurse, break nurse, additional nurse at delivery, doctor or midwife plus possibly students, anesthesiologist, pediatrician, etc. Bright lights in the triage and labor rooms are challenging to dim. Mothers are tethered to monitors or IV poles and are moved through a bright hall with unfamiliar sounds to a new room in a building devoted to illness/trauma that most have visited once briefly if at all. They receive poor quality "clear liquids only." They are exposed to voices of others in the hall or chatting by the attendants during contractions and endless disruptions throughout! But then, do we ever find that we have an offspring experience "unexplained distress?" Of course, and at frightening rates! Yet, oddly, many of these disruptions are promoted as minor inconveniences or necessary to "protect" the baby.
Curiously, while veterinarians commonly have to defend interventions in light of the additional cost and the risks associated with interfering with nature, providers caring for human mothers within the medical system more commonly are forced to defend why they did NOT intervene! Consider the high rates of inductions, epidurals, artificial rupture of membranes, immediate cord cutting, cesareans and the vigorous defense necessary to fight for anything different, especially if time is involved (time to go into labor, to progress, to push, to allow the cord to stop pulsation or to get "done" bonding). I've recently seen outstanding CNMs and obstetricians sacrifice their own political reputations and suffer departmental reprimands for births with great outcomes where they protected the mothers' yearning for privacy, allowed extended pushing time with great vital signs or, during a healthy normal birth, followed their intuition and honored the mother's begging to check heart tones frequently by hand during pushing instead of what the mother considered the massive intrusion of wearing the monitor belt. Interventions are considered to be the ultimate protection from litigation in human care, yet they contribute mightily to the high rates of distress in mothers and babies!
In animal husbandry, the first line of defense for protecting the unborn is to protect and nurture the nutritional needs and comfort of the birthing female. In the case of institutionalized birth for humans, however, in spite of evidence to the contrary, the norm is to act as if the nutritional needs and the comfort of the birthing mothers are of concern to, at most, the marketing and public relations department! It's an affront to common sense that as a society we are currently more accepting of the needs of foaling mares, whelping poodles and high-producing cows than of our birthing humans. From the high rates of fetal distress, meconium staining and breastfeeding problems, the consequences are clearly devastating to our infants, just as any decent horseman would predict.
— Beth Barbeau
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