A Day in the Bazaar

     Amy and I spent all morning in baby-love land.  Okay, Ananya is the third cutest baby EVER, after Clarabel and Sophia.  I know I am saying this with a midwife's objective eye.  I helped Amy take a bath with her baby for the first time, instead of bathing her in a little pastic tub thingie.  Mother and baby loved it.

   Finally she had nursed enough for the meantime and we decided to go out to a craft bizarre to do a little browsing and shopping.  As soon as we were in a taxi, pulling out of Amy's quiet back streets onto the main road way, it was like, oh yeah, we are in India! My eyes were again working at warp speed to take in all the amazing sights flashing by us.  People pulling ridiculas loads on bikes, like ten mattresses piled on top of each other, little markets and stalls, crazily careening auto-rickshaws, food being cooked on the street, horns blaring.  The women are all so colorful and beautiful in their saris and salwars.

  My sister took us to a special bazaar that only the Indians know about.  It is not in the Lonely Planet guide. It is a government-regulated market, and it costs 20 rupees to enter (40 cents) so that keeps beggars and touts out.  All the stalls are run by the artisans themselves, with crafts and beautiful things from all the different parts of India.   Crowds of beautiful Indian families were there to shop. It was festive and colorful. Ananya happily slept in her Baby Bjorn as we walked around.
     My sister can look at things and say, these shirts are from Lucknow.  These things are from South India.  They make these in Kashmir.  She also has the ability to dicker and discuss in Hindi with the shopkeepers, which came in handy.  Everything was already very inexpensive but she bargained everythng down . Every time I was about to make a purchase, no doubt at the 'tourist' price, she walked up and spoke loudly in Hindi and suddenly 300 rupees were knocked off the price.   It was impressive, to say the least.  I am not much of a shopper, but it seems I will make an exception to that rule during my visit here.  And I will definitely do my big purchases with Amy-ma at my side. 

    Women do not breastfeed in public here so my sis is naviagating how to manage being out with her baby.  We found a quiet corner in the back of the food stalls where she nursed her discreetly and we ate corn roti and almond ice cream. My sister will probably become Delhi's first Lactivist.  She can be an example to the middle class professional women who do not breastfeed their babies.  Her friend told her that only the beggar women nurse their babies in public. 

      There are no big box stores in India.  None.  No walmart, no Target, no drugstore like Longs or grocery store like Safeway.  Everything is picked up at little markets and bizarres.  In a city of 9 million people, isn't that amazing?  That is one of the reasons that Delhi feels like a village - no strip malls!       What India does not have in 'things',  it makes up for it in charm and character.   I wonder how long they will keep the big box stores out....

that's all for now,
Dena

     

Passsage to India

I decided to come to India the day my sister's baby was born.  The preparations were a whirlwind;  expedited tourist visas, vaccinations, gathering baby things for her.  I would be coming alone, leaving my dear hubby and children safely having their Chico Christmas season without me.  Then all my November mamas supported my travel efforts by ALL three giving birth ahead of schedule,  within a crazy four days.   At that point, I got to move my trip up by almost a week!  
  In the days leading up to my departure I would start crying at random moments, just thinking about how excited I was.  Truth is, I have ALWAYS wanted to come visit India, but it had never seemed like the 'right time'.  First, we had no money, then we had babies, then we had no money AND babies, then we were buying a house...then.. then...then. 

    I hadn't flown overseas in more than a decade, since before Bella was born.  I was a bit anxious, but mostly just excited.  When you are used to traveling with kids, going on a trip by yourself is just ridiculasly easy!  I am tuning in with my old backpacker-adventurer self, who globe trotted in her early twenties, now twenty years ago!

  My travels all went smoothly, except for the fact that I did not really 'sleep' on those two overnight flights like I thought I would.  More like drifted in and out of half-sleep and watched a lot of good movies courtesy of Virgin Atlantic.

  I had an all-day stopover in London, which turned into a magical, wonderful day.  My friends,  Sonya Sophia, the EFT teacher and practitioner Goddess extraorinaire, and her British hubby Simon, picked me up and gave me a personal tour of the beautiful city.  Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Harrods, and all the rest.  God, I love cities filled with five and six-hundred year old buildings.  They really knew how to build them back then.  We ended up at a swanky place called the OXO tower on the Thames and had the best meal ever with fabulas London views.  A three-course lunch that included a delicious bottle of wine and the most amazing bitter chocolate mousse that has ever passed these lips.  Lack of sleep, who cares!!

 Late that evening I caught my flight to Delhi.  I already felt like I was in India just at the Heathrow gate.  There were only a handlful of non-Indians on the packed flight.  Food was Indian, and instructions were in English and Hindi.  I got all weepy for the last time ....no really, am I REALLY going to India?  Oh my, I really AM going to India NOW.

   I envsioned a bustling megapolis crazed scene at the airport.  Actually there is not a whole lot going on at the Indira Ghandi International Terminal.  Just a few flights a day, I think.  The vibe was way more like when I landed in the Soviet Union in the late eighties. They have built it, but not many have yet come.  Very chill, enormous buildings,  mostly empty.  I gathered my bags and headed outside. There, I saw a huge crowd of people packed around the exit, waiting for people.  It looked a bit...intimidating..  And there was Amy's driver waving at me, holding a sign that said 'Dena,  welcome'.  YES!  

   A few minutes later we were on my first Delhi road.  Oh SH*T!!!!!!    There are no lanes, there are bike-rickshaws, auto-rickshaws which are motorcycles with  tin-can bodies that can hold riders in it, trucks, cars, buses, people walking, more cars, and even a family riding on an elephant.  Yes, I saw an elephant walking along the freeway.  Everyone is swerving around the slower movers, and EVERYONE is constantly blowing their horns.   Everyone is driving on the 'wrong' side of the street, which is disorienting.  The steering wheels are on the 'wrong ' sides of the vehicles!  On the sides of these crazy roads, cows are sittings, packs of women in colorful saris are carrying big trays of things balanced on their heads, children are playing, little stands are selling things, lots of people are just standing around, and the horns are blaring...and on and on.   Did I mention the horns?


  Delhi is more like a sprawling collection of jumbly ancient villages connected by insane roadways than a cosmopolitan city, at least from what I have seen so far. Delhi has been a city since 2000 BC and there are bits of the architectural remains of each time period here and there and everywhere.  We took a walk in a park with beautiful Moghul tombs from the 1500s.  There are lots of trees, and lots of birds with strange screaming bird songs.  Parrots.  The sky is the smoggy color of LA skies circa 1975.  My sister's neighborhood Defense Colony is a quiet little back street zone. It feels peaceful and very old.  The cook comes in and prepares homemade Indian food in her kitchen every day.  yum!

  now I am holding a sleeping baby so Amy can get a bit of sleep.
Cheers!,
Dena

Destination Delhi Doula

Dear Readers,

   Three and a half weeks ago, a miraculas birth took place in New Delhi, India.  My sister Amy Kazmin is a foreign correspondant  and has lived in Southeast Asia for over a decade working for the Financial Times of London.  She is an amazing writer, and passionate about covering events with empathy and compassion for all peoples involved.  She has had incredible adventures and an illlustrious career in her 44 years of life.  As fufilled as she has been by this exciting life - there had been one thing she longed for - a child.
  This summer, Amy informed us she was expecting, already 5 months along.  She had waited to tell us because she could hardly believe it herself.  She feared that at her age things could go wrong.  A few months later, on November 10, she called me from Delhi to Chico complaining of gas pain in the middle of the night.  I spoke with her for an hour, feeling a bit suspicious that it was something more than gas.  When she called me back an hour later, she had thrown up and  was shaking a bit, and moaning that she must have eaten something 'off',  I asked her to please call her doula NOW!   While on the phone with the doula, her water broke.  The doula arrived, realized Amy was in advanced labor, and helped her pack her bags.  A wild ride to the hospital ensued, and the baby's head was crowning when she arrived  Thus my 44 year old first-time-mom sister had a quick, and nearly painless birth.

Here is the lovely Ananya Rachel, a genuine beauty as only a half-Jewish half-Indian baby can be:

  And now I am here with her.  I have just traveled to the exact opposite side of the planet so I can show my dear Sistah how to burp her baby, swaddle her tight, and wear her in the sling  I wore my babies in.  I can hold my dear new niece while Amy showers and takes care of herself.  I can reassure her that Yes, it is normal for the baby to nurse a million hours a day.  Ananya is a darling little sweetpea and Amy is doing a great job.   This is the best postpartum doula gig of my life!  (I will get to travel around and see a bit of India while I am here too). 

  To follow my India adventures over the next couple weeks, stay tuned!

With Love,

Dena

An OB and I work Together: Tracy has the VBAC of her Dreams

    Tracy had the birth of her dreams on Friday.  She did this at our local hospital where such a birth, a VBAC, is banned!   She came up with an amazing plan, and it worked out magnificently.  This plan included hiring both myself and an OB.   The result was an unprecedented collaboration between myself and someone who has been hostile towards me in the past.   Let me fill you in on the details!

     First, a little of Tracy's story...   Tracy's first birth was the typical hospital induction that went awry and ended in cesarean section.   Baby was posterior.  She was induced with pitocin.  She needed an epidural.  The baby never rotated.  She pushed for five or six hours, numb from the waist down and  on her back.  Not feeling the contractions, her team had to scream "Push!" for her when contractions showed up on the monitor.  Rolled into surgery finally.  The drugs from surgery gronked her little system so the first hours with her baby were just a blur, she can't even remember them.  The first weeks were a misery of  surgical pain, drug-induced fog, depression, and breastfeeding problems.  She was shocked this had happened to her - her mother, grandma, and aunt all had easy natural births!  She felt betrayed by her doctor, and upset with her husband and mother for not protecting her from this.  She felt guilty for having such emotional turmoil around her birth experience, even though she got her healthy, beautiful baby.  "My first birth was the worst experience of my life." She wanted her second to be the best.

100 Births

    A few weeks ago I attended my 100th birth as Sacred Ways Midwifery.  This is the first business I have ever owned, and I still remember how nervous I was six years ago when I took this leap, letting go of receiving a steady paycheck to pursue my true passion..  Fortunately, Chico was ready for more homebirth options,  and the beautiful families came to seek my assistance and keep on coming.
  One hundred births feels like a milestone in my practice.  When we talk about birth,  we often talk about risks of things as "x" in a hundred.  Now looking back I can see what has happened  in 100 births.  For example, I've had 1 baby who wouldn't turn to head down and was born at home as planned breech.  (We had a whole team of midwives for that amazing birth) .  I've had three other babies  who were breech at 36 weeks that we turned to head down before labor. 
   I've had many women in their forties, and one of them had a  baby born with Down's syndrome.  I've had one baby born with a cleft lip and palette, whom we syringe fed with breast milk overnight until we could get the special feeder in the morning .  The baby arrived before me a couple times, mama in labor less than an hour.  I've had one baby that required several minutes of help starting to breathe, and three others who just needed a couple breaths.
  I' ve enjoyed many repeat customers.  What a joy to see a family through the birth journey more than once!  I've had many women come to me after having hospital births, wanting something different.  I've had many first time mommas.  Not a single set of  twins yet but at least a third of all women ask me at the first visit, "Could I be carrying twins?"
  My 100th baby belongs to Heather.  She is a repeat client, whose strapping toddler Conner I saw into the world two years ago. Her sister- in- law Sarah has also had two lovely births with me.  Heather lives an hour away, and I drove  swiftly to her home on a hot August afternoon,  remembering that she was ready to push by the time I arrived with Conner.
    Sure enough, she was ready to push again when I arrived.  She pushed and then said that something doesn't feel right.  I decided to check her and see what was going on.  When I did vaginal exam I found that she was completely dilated but it was not a head I was feeling!  " The baby is breech " I said.....then I checked again.  Well, maybe it is a head... but not the right part of the head.  I felt around and felt a soft mound ....of....maybe it is the baby's privates?     No, it really feels like head...  Eyeball?  Nose?    In a hundred births I have NEVER been unable to tell what part was coming down!.  In the hundreds of other births I've attended as nurse or hospital midwife I've never been unsure like this!.   I didn't want to hurt anything so I withheld from poking too much.  Heather rested on her side while we talked about her options.  I knew that this not-knowing needed to be taken seriously.  We were a good 25 min from a hospital, down winding country roads. After another brief try at pushing, we decided to go in.
    When we arrived at the hospital,  the OB checked her and said " the baby is breech!"  Then he felt again...."the anus?  The nose?  Oh!  It bit me! It is the mouth!"
   Heather's baby had decided to come out MOUTH first.  This is what that looks like:




   The odds of this happening is about 1 in 600.  Doesn't look very comfortable for the little one, does it?  In fact, pushing in this position puts strain on the neck and can damage the head, neck and spine.  Peyton was born by cearean section to save her little self and courageous Heather took it all in stride,  grateful that we transported  when we did and that her baby was safely in her arms.  She was back home within two days, baby nursing like a champ.
  One hundred births and never a dull moment.
   

The Midwife Returns and the Revolution Unfolds

Dear readers,

 It has been three months since my last post... I have been offline and out of town for most of the summer.  This is by design, as I take time off midwifery during the summer so that the people known as My Family get my full attention.  We took a month long camping trip up to Oregon and Washington.  Spending time with my husband and kids in beautiful, natural places with no schedules, no interruptions, and no place to be but Here, Now means the world to me.  Being self-employed we happily trade income for quality time.  And what a time we had!  


We got into some hot water   (hot springs galore):

some white water:

and then the salty spray of the beautiful Pacific waters:

                 

Letter to a First-Time Mother

  Dear New Mother-to-be,

   Your life is full of excitement right now;  joy and expectation.  You are feeling new life within you and when you tune inward, you can sense that you are a part of the great mystery of creation.  Many parts of your life may need shuffling around, requiring re-arrangement to make way for this new human, who will be joining our world soon thanks to your hard work.  Perhaps there is more stress in your life than you would like, in which case I pray for your peace of mind, and for easier times.  Taking good care of yourself is the number one job of an expectant mother - getting enough sleep, eating wholesome food, and cultivating joy and relaxation, all help to grow a healthy baby ready for a good and straightforward birth.

   Our culture is so complex and information-saturated right now, that you are facing all sorts of important decisions right from the get-go!   Will you find out the sex of the baby mid-pregnancy or not, will you have genetic testing or not, should you take hypno-birthing or Bradley classes, and on and on...  All the choices feel confusing  The biggest birth-related choice, the one that will provide the framework for all the other decisions and details of your birth experience, is this:   Should you use a hospital based provider (doctor or midwife) and give birth in a hospital, or hire a homebirth midwife and have your baby at home?

    Maybe you are just now realizing that you even HAVE a choice.  It is likely that your own mother went to a hospital when she had you.  Her mother may have given birth in a hospital as well but you can bet that your Grandmother's mother gave birth at home.  Hospitals were not used for birth until the 1910s in urban areas and the 1940s in rural areas, just so you know.  Before that babies were always, everywhere, born at home.  For ages, since the dawn of humankind.  But when you were growing up, birth in the hospital was the norm, and if you were like me, you never even HEARD of a midwife as a kid.

   But now, you are a grown woman, and a pregnant one.  Times have changed  again and homebirth is suddenly something to consider.  You are healthy and have taken relatively good care of yourself thus far.  You may have a vague distrust of doctors and the medical system, which you have heard is driven by the engines of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries  You may have relatives who have gotten sicker while taking drugs or treatments prescribed by doctors.  And now that you are pregnant you are noticing that SO MANY of your friends have had hospital inductions that ended in c-sections.  And if you ask around, you hear that in most U.S. hospitals there are 70-80% induction rates and that 32% of U.S. births end in c-sections.  This is probably true of the hospital in your neighborhood.  It is true of the three hospitals in our area.  Yikes!  In 1970 the c-section rate was 5%.  And we all turned out fine!  But what is homebirth all about?  Is it really safe?   It is hard to know where to turn, whom to trust.  What is the "right" choice?

   One thing I have learned in my work as a midwife is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to pregnancy and birth. You are a unique woman, that baby inside of you will be a unique individual, and this birth will be uniquely your own experience.  Your task as a blossoming new mother, is to learn how to take in external information and then turn inwards and listen to your own inner wisdom.  That is right -YOUR  WISDOM.  You may think you don't know anything about this stuff, but your body knows everything it needs to grow your baby and give birth.  Say you close your eyes and imagine giving birth easily in a pool of water  and then picking up your baby and kissing her;  your body tells you something right?   It feels good, your body can almost feel what it would be like to hold your new baby.  And say you hear about a scary emergency surgery where the baby was barely saved, you can feel the fear and the anxiety in your body, right?  Pregnancy makes everything feel deeper, giving you the opportunity to really feel into your choices.  So I ask you to not just THINK about your choices, but FEEL into your choices.