So what life am I made for?

It's been an emotional week.

I'm doing a night class to get a qualification to support my application to University to study Midwifery. I love being a Doula but seven clients in twelve months is not going to fulfil me let alone give me pocket money. So with great trepidation I have begun the application process to get into University in order to get that elusive Degree. Having been brought up to study hard in order to get good qualifications, in order to get better qualifications, in order to get a good and well-paid job, I have always felt somehow unworthy that I do not have a decent well-respected qualification which would grant me access to that well-paid job. It's a long story but I've been out of school education for over 24 years. By this time in my life I imagined I would be comfortable and able to get holidays in the sun...

So, various news items over the last few days has left me wondering where my future lies.

The Albany Midwifery Practice is one practice I always hoped I would be able to arrange a placement with. They believe:

women have the right to be given evidence based information in order to make informed choices throughout pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period.

Fantastic! Just what I want. I am also fortunate in that I would get to do placement at local Maternity Units which also have this outlook, and it would be wonderful to go to the Farm too ;)

However, King's College Hospital have terminated their contract. Why? The Albany has low medical intervention rates, high home birth rates, and mothers who have birthed there appear to be passionate in their support. They like being able to make informed choices, they like being treated like sentient adults.

A baby died, this is very sad. But why the kneejerk reaction from King's to terminate the Albany's contract? Especially when apparently the investigation did not include comparative Data?

On another Blog, The F Word, Amity Reed reports on the effort to keep that Albany open and why it's so important for reproductive rights. Womens' reproductive right to choose where to give birth.

Why does King's College Hospital not look to it's own backyard? After all, they can't even support their student midwives sufficiently. A midwife was found hanged after she wrongly believed she was to blame for a baby's death, an inquest just heard.

Yet in Milton Keynes a coroner has branded midwife shortages at a hospital where a newborn baby girl died as "nothing short of scandalous". And it's not the first time in Milton Keynes, and Milton Keynes is not the only hospital. Being in hospital does NOT make birthing safer. Having one to one care during labour from competent and supported midwives makes birthing safest.

All over the UK I hear from midwives who are disillsuioned and leaving the profession. Yesterday I saw a letter from respected Independent Midwife published on AIMS website and I truly wonder what I will be letting myself in for. I mean, if even the Independent Midwives feel they can no longer practise what hope does Midwifery have in the UK?

Joseph DeLee's 1915 Campaign to Eliminate the Midwife is one I was horrified to read about on Unnecesarean: The Blog. However, I don't believe this attitude has fully died out, even in the 21st Century :/

So... can I enter the lions' den? Will I be able to cope for 3 or more years in the 'system' where bullying is rife, where the type of midwife I want to be is likely to be quashed? Will I be strong enough to come out the other side and be the midwife I would want to be, the midwife others would want to care for them, the midwife who gives women evidence based information in order to make informed choices throughout pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period?

I believe that women should have the right to choose to give birth at home or in hospital, to be able to plan an unmedicated home birth or to plan an elective Caesarean section, respecting their wishes whilst considering risks rationally, and then being supported compassionately whatever the outcome of the birth. Respecting parents' informed choice is paramount, even if we sometimes disagree with it.

Being part of Doula UK means that I have support and mentoring from my fellow doulas. Doulas need to be Doula'd. In fact, as human beings we all need to be Doula'd through all stages of life. I'd like to think that midwives get mentored and supported fully but once qualified I'm not sure if they do, and I am devastated that Theresa Naish felt she had no-one to turn to.

Save the Albany
AIMS

Louis RIP

How do you tell a four year old that the cat is dead? One that has been there all her life? The other one, Ella, died just a few weeks before she was born

Well, I got books out of the library, read them to her and then explained that Louis was old and had not been well. She could easily relate to the characters in the books.

She understands that Louis is dead, she wondered if he was coming back at first but I reminded her that he was dead. She talks about him doing things in the book. I wish there was a book in the library about a cat dying but there were two about dogs and one about a bear, so I got them all out.

I dug a big hole in the front  garden this morning to bury him. Then she watched me as I dug a bit more of it out this afternoon and then we fetched his body from the back garden. I didn't have the stomach to take him out of the bin liner, in case it wasn't a pretty sight. But it would probably have been ok as it was only about 36 hours and it's been VERY cold. So he felt frozen. But I wish I'd taken him out the bag to let him go to the earth quickly.....

I was just too scared she would be traumatised even slightly by seeing his body...

Silly me.

We talked about how much we loved him, that we were sad and would miss him, but that we were happy he was off chasing mice and rabbits in Heaven, that he was no longer unwell and that we knew he was happy. He no longer needed his body so we were putting it in the ground where he would be safe and warm.

So he is buried across the path from  

Ella, RIP 18/05/05 (estimated birth date 06/05/96)

Louis RIP 03/12/09 (birth date 06/05/98)

Heaven by Nicholas Allan 

Up in Heaven by Emma Chichester Clark 

Bear's Last Journey by Udo Weigelt; Christina Kadmon 

Why we need to listen to our bodies

I was lying in bed this morning, thinking....

I was thinking back to the Race Night a few weeks back when I fell and got a couple of good bruises on my ankle and knee. The ankle bruise welled up into a huge lump, which looked very wierd and freaked me out. I immediately went to get some ice and sat with my ankle on a chair being 'soothed' by the ice pack. The swelling subsided fairly quickly and I felt good that I'd prevented my ankle from looking too deformed.

As the days and weeks passed I noticed that the discolouration of the bruise on my ankle disappeared earlier than that of the bruise on my knee. So applying an ice pack helps. As usual, I forgot to take my arnica despite often recommening it for others.

So, back to this morning. I was thinking about how we don't listen to our bodies enough these days and how I'd resolved to rely more on what my body told me and less on the secientific and medical advances we all take for granted. All part of the more holistic approach to life I want to take.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on going back to the times before the Industrial Revolution. I am very grateful for living in todays' times, some of the time. I wouldn't give up my dishwasher, and I miss my car which has been off the road for too long. I am grateful that we have life saving procedures and increasing medical knowledge to improve our quality of life.

But, and it's a big BUT, I believe it needs to be balanced with the knowledge our bodies hold within us. As mammals we should have an innate instinct within us. Something I've learned in my journey as a mother and a doula. For example our hormones, far from being an annoyance once a month, are very important during childbirth. Once the roles of oxytocin, prolactin, beta-endorphin, adrenaline and noradrenaline were understood I realised how well we are designed for life. I share an article written by Dr Sarah Buckley1 about the hormones of labour with women very often. Although not a scientifice person in the least I am enjoying the Human Biology course I am taking and admiring our wonderful bodies even more. They do, indeed, know what to do.

I was even discussing this with my favourite vet yesterday. He treats the human owners as compassionately as he does the animals, very important. So, he was showing me round the building as part of an open day and it was interesting to see all the equipment on site. I remarked that James Herriot would have been envious but then thought that it would be such a shame if the instinct vets have was lost. This vet agreed that it would be, as when training many years ago he had been impressed with a mentor who could diagnose with a good 'feel' of the animal. Nowadays, sometimes it might be that, rather than do a good investigation by sight and touch, vets would forego that for a routine x-ray, hardly handling the animal at all. It's not just humans that might be suffering as a result of over medicalisation but I've not even looked into that side of things yet...

So, if my ankle swelled up after that disastrous attempt at a three-legged race was it because it needed to? Our bodies know how to heal themselves and do so in the most remarkable way. If I 'help' my ankle by preventing or minimising bruising and swelling, am I in fact hindering it? I'm glad that my bruise healed well but wonder if I should have left it to do it's own devices. If it had been badly swollen and painful I might have been forced to take it easier for a few days. Rest would have been a good thing at that moment in time and as it happens, 36 hours after that fall I did indeed end up in my bed for a day with a migraine.

So my body did find a way to get some down-time after all..... :o)

References:

Pain in Labour: Your hormones are your helpers - © Dr Sarah J Buckley 2005 www.sarahjbuckley.com

Chocolate can be dangerous

So....

I was eating my favourite chocolate of choice, Minstrels, which have a shell coating. And, as sometimes happens, a little piece of this shell seemed to get stuck in the flesh in my throat and was seriously irritating me. The coughing was implusive and I could not stop, it felt a little like choking even.

I was coughing so hard and trying to make my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water but it was taking a long time. You just can't walk and cough/wretch at the same time.

Eventually the coughing was so hard it made me vomit.

Not once, all over the carpet.

Not twice, in the sink

But three times, had to stop it till I got back to the sink....

Should have stuck to the lovely fruit scones I'd made earlier. However, I thought that eating a fourth was too much.... and that the Minstrels would be better.

Well, you know what thought did, don't you?

Crochet.... just for old ladies?

I don't think so!

I'm itching to do more but have to feed the kids, and study, and stuff... can't think what really ;)

I've knitted a jumper and a cardigan but couldn't be bothered with a pattern so just did them, I referred to a pattern to get started with the crochet hats but then abandoned their goobledeegook instructions to go by instinct.

Instinct

How many of us listen to our instinct?

I mean, really listen and tune out the wonders of modern technology?

There are many times I 'know' things and later find out I was correct, but doubted myself at the time, or allowed doubt to prevent me from saying what I thought.

I was on-call as back up for a fellow Doula, and we hadn't gotten around to me going to visit the mum. We had merely talked by email so that I was clear on her birth preferences, and I had given some information that might be useful. However, I kept thinking how much I would like for my fellow Doula to have this experience as it would be her first. I couldn't shake that I would never meet this mum....

So, I am elated to have heard the joy and buzz in my fellow doula's voice as she quickly called me to say I was no longer needed on call. I can't wait to hear all about it and help her debrief :)

There have been previous times in my life where the 'knowing' was really strong. When I was pregnant with my first child I was never happier in my own body. So much so that I walked past an office being refurbished and 'knew' that an accquaintance was never going to start the job she had been offered. I spoke to her about two weeks later and she told me her job offer had been withdrawn. There were many more occassions like this during that pregnancy and I began to realise that being totally in tune with myself allowed me to tune in to other senses we don't normally recognise in today's world.

It's taken many more years to start listening more and to learn to have faith in myself and my body. I am becoming more and more holistic in my approach to life, whilst remaining grateful to the scientific advances of the last 150 or so years. My own childbirth journey, as well as the journey I have travelled to become a Doula, has led me back to instinct, and the fact that women have innate, animal instinct we have suppressed for far too long. 

I'd like to share with you one of my favourite brands - Faith In Nature very reasonably priced, smell gorgeous and have wonderful customer service so far. I feel really good getting out of the shower knowing that I'm not putting man-made ingredients on my skin. It's a little thing but it's made me feel good. As most mums reading this will appreciate we usually put ourselves at the bottom of the priority list but I'm inisiting on having these lovely products.

Cooking is not my forte but we do try not to buy any processed foods, and if there is anything remotely pre-prepared that it has the purest of ingredients. I'm not totaly organic, but try my best to use the best foods I can. And now I'm thinking about the medications we put in or on our bodies. I am very concerned about the ingredients contained in vaccines and all over the internet we can see both sides putting forward their arguments. Both my children have had all their immunisations to date, mainly because I did not have access to the information I do now and because with each injection neither of my children suffered much of a reaction. We all seem to cope well with them. But I can't help feel guilty that their cells may now have undesirable chemicals attached to them. Sixteen years ago my instinct was very concerned about putting 3 immunisations into my little baby's body at once, but back then the average person didn't have access to the internet like we do today. It's hard to find unbiased information, so I'm going to listen to my instinct on this topic as well as with the rest of life.

Instinct, and research-based evidence.

Here goes nothing............

Hi, I am going to try to empty my head of all the stuff that goes around and around in it, and put it all here. This means that there will be quite an eclectic mix of randomness but should contain my thoughts on childbirth, cats and crochet plus lots of other useless useful tidbits.