Journal

It appears that writing a blog is something like writing a journal: sometimes it happens regularly, sometimes it doesn't. It also seems that the more is happening, and therefore there is more that should be written about, not as much gets written. Too bad this can't be remedied by multitasking. Actually, I suppose it could if you have a program such as Dragon and you can talk to your journal or blog while you are doing something else.

This picture was taken in August. Across the back are Daniel, Joseph, Joanna and Laura. In front are Cedric, Seth and Amena. It was a rainy day.

All of them were born at home and/or with a midwife.

Laura was born October 28, 1991. Present were her father, my mother, Liz Travis, the midwife, and Liz's assistant; I don't happen to remember her name at the moment. I remember that we had a big plastic sheet on the floor in the livingroom in order that I could squat during labor and delivery. At the time, although it was a good idea, I really didn't know enough about the whole process for it to work well. It is a good way to get a baby out but when I was squatting, it seemed that everything wanted to happen too fast and I wasn't ready for that. I also remember being on the bed wondering how I was ever going to finish the process. I'd given birth to Alisha five years earlier but when she was born, I really didn't know what I was doing or what to expect. With Laura, I knew what was ahead of me and I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to do it. Being pregnant was great but giving birth wasn't exactly on my list of favorite things to do.

More later.

Invitation

Just a little note to anyone who might be visiting, please feel free to leave comments. I'd love to see what you have to say.

A Change

Does everyone have a day that changes their life? I suppose that most of us actually have several of those days. Sometimes the change is very small; so miniscule that it is not even recognized. Sometimes the change is monumental. Yesterday was such a day for me. I am not yet ready to rate it, but I can feel a difference.

I have always had an interest in the workings of the human body. We had some encyclopedia-type books about human growth and development and I devoured them. They covered everything from the reproductive cycle, conception, pregnancy, birth, and beyond. When I first began reading them I was probably about 12 or 13 and had not yet begun menstruating so that is what I was most interested in. I knew that girls and women bled every now and then and I wanted to know why. I think I learned more than I needed to know at the time but in the end that was okay. As I got a little older, and started really thinking about things, it occurred to me to wonder how it was that women had babies. If it took a woman and a man, and the woman had the baby inside her, how the heck did it get there? I do not recall that the books actually described the process but it didn't take much figuring to deduce that if a woman had a vagina and a man had a penis and the man had to deposit sperm in the vagina, the penis somehow must enter the vagina. That surely meant that the two involved in this process must need be naked. Hmmmm. When I confronted my parents about this, they confirmed that it was so. This is a concept I surely wasn't ready to wrap my mind around. What a disgusting thought! Who on earth would want to be seen by anyone without clothes on? Especially by someone of the opposite sex? It must have been around this time I decided that I wasn't going to have children or get married.

So, I knew what the parts were and I knew how the process worked. But somehow I got the idea that it wasn't cool to talk about those parts or the process. I am not sure how I developed this idea because the one time I asked my parents that one question, they were forthcoming with information and didn't seem to have a problem with talking about it although I don't remember them ever initiating any conversations. My grandparents certainly didn't have a problem about such things. I used to go to their house often and Grandma and I would "draw" on each other's backs and have good back scratching sessions. For these, Grandma would take off her bra and fling it across the living room to the couch. I remember once when I was somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 Papa mentioning that you had to "use it or loose it" when it came to sexual activity. He would have been about 66 or so. By then I had had three babies so I knew what caused them but I hadn't thought about intimate relationships in any context other than creating new life.

In spite of the odd ideas I somehow managed to get into my head, I had still convinced myself that when married, any topic of conversation would be okay. Including breasts, penises, vaginas, and various other body parts; even what they do and what might be fun to do with them. Well, I was wrong. I know that not all people feel this way, but some believe that to talk about such things is to invite bad or even evil in. Quite frankly, I think that if it were wrong to talk about and find enjoyment in our bodies, God would have stopped with Adam and found a way for reproduction to happen without Eve.

So how did I get to the point that I was so apprehensive about yesterday's class? All we were doing is learning how to do breast exams, pelvic exams and draw blood. Before class, I was somewhat uncertain. I mean, I've done breast self-exams. Not monthly like I've been told I should but often enough to know what is or isn't normal for me. All I can think of is that my background, my culture, if you will, had taught me that homosexuality is bad, that pornography is bad, that masturbation is bad and that anything that is or looks bad should be avoided. I am not going to argue for or against these things; I have my beliefs and they are what they are. Others have their beliefs and they are what they are. It isn't my job to change the views others have any more than it is their job to change mine.

Until yesterday, I was somehow more concerned that someone might think that I was doing or being something bad by wanting to be a midwife. I mean, how can you perform a pelvic exam without using a speculum to view the vagina and cervix? How can you perform a breast exam without looking at a woman's breasts? How can you perform a breast self-exam without touching your own breasts? It's okay to do these things.

Today was an incredible day. Learning how to do a pelvic exam was like the most logical continuation of learning the skeletal and muscular systems I can think of. How absolutely incredible to feel the sacrum and ischial spines. What an amazing thing to find out that a breast is a breast. How wonderful to hit a vein and draw blood the very first time I attempt to do it. What an empowering experience this was knowing more now than ever that the things I am learning I will be able to take and use to help other women and in so doing, be able to help their children and their families. This is my goal.

Cultural Outlook

All is quiet on the home front. Yesterday I could tell I was trying to get sick so I stayed away from candy. However, since we went to the Chili Cook-off at church, it was hard to stay away from the food. There were prizes for chili, chowder, pie and bread. Paul took some turkey chowder that turned out quite good and I took cheddar chowder to which I added too much salt and pepper and forgot to add the ham, shoo-fly pie, apple pie and pumpkin yeast bread. I got honorable mention for chowder and Joseph won the funniest costume--he was the cutest T-rex around.

Anyway, I had some chili that was good and some seafood chowder that was really good. then some pie. I started feeling icky before bed so I went by 10 in spite of the fact that I wanted to study for sociology and A&P. Once in bed, I was too warm with covers, too cold without, and had to get up five or six times to use the bathroom. Now I'm drinking a cup of Wild 'Bout Berries tea and enjoying the quiet since all the humans have gone to church. I plan on a shower, maybe knitting, maybe reading and writing a bit.

I am finding this year since beginning the midwife course and taking classes, that culture comes up a lot. Especially in the midwife course and sociology. Add to this one of Alisha's speeches she did for one of her classes about the racism she has experienced in Idaho and I've had a very thought provoking couple of months.

Racism and prejudice obviously exist. Anyone who thinks otherwise muss be stupid or blind. Or both.

For sociology, we have been assigned a paper about a film. Even though it's not the sort of movie I watch (mainly because of it's rating), I chose American History X because of the ten we were given to choose from, it seemed to be the nearest my past, and current, interests.

How any group of people can think that they are better than another based on skin color, where they live, what church they belong to, or whatever else, is beyond me. Do we not all bleed red?

In addition to pondering the whole cultural issue, I have spent considerable time wondering how I came to have the views I do. Is it because I was born with an open mind or because my parents fostered that in me? Is it because one of my cousins is part African American? Is it because I was born on Martin Luther King, Jr's, birthday and wanted to learn more about him? I do not know.

I do know that by the time I was old enough, I was not afraid to marry a Mexican. In spite of the fact that the marriage did not last, it certainly helped to broaden my life experience and certainly played a part in who I am today.

Idiots come in all shapes, sizes and skin colors; they come from every imaginable background. My grandpa worked for years in the lumber mill in the town I grew up in. By the time I was born, it had undergone some cultural changes but when my grandparents moved there, it was still predominately Catholic Italian. Although Papa was raised Catholic, Grandma was not, and neither of them was Italian. Papa is the kind of person who can get along with anyone. Even if he can't stand you, you are not likely to ever know. One thing that used to irritate him is when the northern Italians would be giving the southern Italians a bad time. It seems that those of northern descent thought they were better because they had lighter skin than those of southern descent. One day, having heard enough, Papa said, "The only difference in your skin color is who raped your grandmother."

Is this where my attitude comes from? It seems likely.

Thinking

As I was sitting in church this past Sunday, I was thinking that I hadn't written regularly in a journal for quite some time. Before we left Idaho? After? I am not sure.

In my midwife course, we have been encouraged to write about out journey to becoming a midwife. I have been thinking about this a lot lately.

Recently, I was looking back to pinpoint just where/when it was I decided that becoming a midwife is what I wanted/needed to do. It was definitely in Idaho because in New Mexico I had not reached that point. It was then, I believe, the seed was planted.

Sherri was an awesome midwife. A couple of Sunday's ago, I took one of my journals to church to show the kids in my class one of the ways we can help ourselves remember things. As I read some of the entries, I ran across my first meeting with Sherri. At first, I thought she was an odd duck but the longer we spoke, the more I grew to like her.

Because of Sherri and her library, I learned much about midwifery, birth, and a little about myself. That was a beginning, but not of my desire to become a midwife.

Not planning on having any more babies but always wanting to be prepared, once we were in Idaho, I looked midwives up in the Yellow Pages and found Barb Rawlings and Womancare Midwifery. I don't remember if I found Denise Midstokke in the phone book but any time we drove south of Sandpoint, we'd see her sign: Pend Oreille Midwifery. Also, and this is key, I went to the library to see what books they had on midwives and/or midwifery. There were some on nurse-midwives but that wasn't what I was interested in. I was interested in a book called Sisters on a Journey. It is a compilation of short biographies of midwives in the US. One was Ina Mae Gaskin. Sherri had at least two copies of her book, Spiritual Midwifery, which I declined to read because I thought, "Yeah, right. What can a bunch of hippies know about spirituality?" (Which is an indicator of how little I knew about it.) While reading about Ina Mae, something hit me, I'm not sure what, and I just had to read her book. I requested a copy because there wasn't one at the library and it was something akin to torture waiting. Once it arrived, I devoured it and years later when I won the trip to Portland, I bought my own copy at Powell's.

Even then, I'm not sure it had entered my thoughts to become a midwife.

Before Seth was born, Barb and Denise were both visited. I liked both of them but someone else liked Denise more so that is who we chose. I think we got some basic information on each such as short bio-blurbs, and I learned that Barb had graduated from Seattle Midwifery School. So had Sherri. I looked SMS up on the internet and requested information. At this point, even though I didn't know it, I was on my journey.

In spite of the fact that we were only eight hours away from Seattle, I knew the chances of my going were pretty minimal because I had no money and no support from home. Now, SMS has been absorbed into Bastyr University so finances would not be a concern. However, having moved across the country, distance would be.

The Beginning

Many beginnings begin at the beginning. This beginning begins in the middle. Someone asked me if I was going to blog and, quite honestly, I hadn't thought about it. Needless to say, I did after that. However, I had no idea where to start.

Then, this morning, I googled "blogging" and "blogger.com" was at the top of the list. I took a brief dip, decided that it looked pretty easy and now here I am.

This is the story of my journey to midwifery.