Self-Directed Childbirth Course

Coming soon to the Madison, WI area 

    As you may know, I have been studying, writing and standing in support of women's self-directed birth journeys for over a decade (as well as experiencing the self directed births of my own four children.)  The time has come to share what I've learned through a series of classes aimed at providing expecting (or hopeful) parents with the tools to pursue their ideal births with confidence.

     Self-directed childbirth is not limited to any specific birth choice.  The lessons are first and foremost about self-discovery, healing, informed choice and empowerment.  The concepts we will cover in these classes can be applied to birth in any setting.  Whether planning to birth in a hospital, birth center, at home with a midwife, even unassisted or through planned Cesarean Section; whether a first time mom or experienced mother you will be provided with valuable tools and insights for your individual self directed path.

    My goal is to have 3-7 women in each group (your partner or birth support person is welcome to join you.)  Initial classes will be offered at a discounted rate, and private classes can be scheduled for a slightly higher fee (though, if possible I encourage you to take advantage of the group option because the activities, discussion and support are amplified when shared with others)
The Self Directed Childbirth course is divided into 5 parts and will cover:

• An introduction to Self Directed Childbirth
• Taking personal responsibility for your pregnancy and birth
• Embracing pregnancy
• Utilizing tribal knowledge (community) versus relying solely on authoritative knowledge (experts)
• Examining and healing damaging beliefs about childbirth and/or your body

• Basic Physiology of Childbirth
• Logistics of birth in different settings/circumstances
• Iatrogenic complications versus naturally occurring complications
• Avoiding a rebound relationship with homebirth (or Dr Google)
• Information gathering (self-education)

• Working with your intuition
• Making powerful decisions
• Communicating your needs with confidence

• Creating your own Self Directed Birth Plan 
• Preparing back-up plans
• Approaching birth as an active (and flexible) participant

• Healing and reflection postpartum
• Baby's first days and weeks (babymoon)
• Basic baby needs and instinctive parenting

     Each class will include and instructional portion (tailored to meet the needs of participants,) hand-outs to bring home, and a talking circle to facilitate deeper, individualized exploration through sharing and discussion.

     You should come prepared to dig deep and be real with yourself and others about your thoughts and feelings surrounding pregnancy, birth and parenting.

     Additional information (dates, locations and prices) will be available soon.  Please contact me to be added to my mailing list. If you'd like to attend a Self Directed Childbirth course in the near future, let me know; I will do my best to prioritize dates based on interest.

     Eventually, I hope to offer this course in other locations (Green Bay, Milwaukee, Northern WI, Atlanta GA, St. Petersburg FL, and Denver CO are all on my list as potential areas) and eventually, through an online option.

Knowing vs. Being

Working with intuition can be lonely.  While in some ways, the process of uncovering the self reveals an infinite connection to everything, in other ways, having a clear view of one’s own perspective strips away the illusion of shared experiences.  Even in our most intimate relationships, the way we experience life and express our experience is so varied it’s as if we are speaking different languages. 

I think back to a time when my husband identified himself as a republican.  I heard him disparaging social programs (some of which had recently supported me) and thought “He can’t be that guy.”  I struggled more with the fact that I didn’t see him as an angry right-winger than the fact that we had different political views. It wasn’t that I wanted to change him, but I did want to convince him to embrace this thing I saw in him that he apparently didn’t see.  Holding space to agree to disagree over time, I was able to see him as both the man he identified himself as and the man I saw beyond that identity. He eventually found that piece of himself I’d seen all along and embraced it.

Reflecting on this story has provided me with a sense of balance now as I embrace my intuition. I’m seeing things that no one else sees – things that are just as real as the physical reality even when they appear to be in contradiction. I’m working to balance the potential I see in a person or situation with the physical reality of the moment and expanding my vocabulary in order to express my visions without discounting the path that leads to them. 

Rejection, the Critical Eye and the Humble Heart

     When I share with other writers that I'm working on my first book, I usually hear a lot about rejection. Don't let it get to you.  Querying sucks. Rejection sucks.  Don't take it personally, and so on.  I don't love querying; it's tedious and seems to suck lots of time into a black hole where you don't even know if your material has been read.  But I don't see it as a game of winning or losing and I don't hate rejection.
     I relish harsh criticism.  I'm not saying its comfortable, but when you have something important to communicate, it's worth challenging yourself to get it right.  The best way to get it right is to figure out where you are going wrong -- what is getting lost in translation?
     My creative energy (and I suspect most creative energy) is cyclical.  I'm in the downswing.  But the lows -- sitting back with a critical eye and a humble heart -- are just as important as the peaks of productivity.  Editing is essential.
     Last week I received a rejection from the agent I was most hoping to connect with.  It was brief but personalized, siting concerns about the size of my platform (which I'm aware is the biggest hurdle at this point) and a vague reference to not feeling quite "pulled in" enough (something that will need my attention, as another of the agents I had hoped to work with said something very similar.)  The increase in actual communication versus form rejections is encouraging.  Interestingly, though, I actually felt more relief than disappointment. I felt confirmation that the shift I've been feeling is pulling me in the right direction
     The hardest thing about allowing myself to be humbled like this is patience.  With the awareness of how much I've grown in the last years (or even months) comes the awareness of my potential for so much more.  I can do so much better!  But here I am, day by day forging the tools I'll need to proceed.  Not only am I impatient, but I know it could be so much easier.  I know it will be.  I look back at my life (or my writing) 10 years ago, and see all these simple things I was doing to get in my own way... and I see that I have a pile of my own stuff getting in my way now, making everything seem so much more complicated than it really is, but the tools to break through that pile just aren't ready yet.

Where I am...

    If I had to choose one word to describe my religion—my roadmap to enlightenment, or connection to god – it would be relationship.  I've always been pretty introverted, so while I feel the pull of intimacy, it doesn't come to me without real effort.  

     I find getting in touch with the core of another human being, letting them into my core illuminates darkness.  When the light inside of me touches the light inside of you, its like two pieces of god coming together.  The more places we are connected in genuine truth, the more pieces of the puzzle we have and examining them gives us a clearer picture of our source.

     But all these connections take energy to maintain.  Being open to them, I am also open to challenges, darkness -- I'm faced with the work of seeing how the pieces fit together best.  I have to maintain boundaries and protect myself from other energies that invade and overwhelm my focus.  Learning to do so takes practice. I've come a long way, but I'm still learning.

    I'm in the middle of a landslide right now -- watching old ideas and attachments crumble away, just waiting to see what the landscape of this new awareness will look like.  I'm spending a lot of time present in the moment, which is amazing and intense and sometimes uncomfortable because there's this sense that important work is being done even though I'm just processing feelings; I face resistance and the urge to retreat into old habits.

     I'm not connecting with my writing much at this time.  The headspace just isn't right for it.  I'm working with some intense stuff in  my journal, though, and along with processing feelings about relationships in my circle, I'm uncovering more about my relationship with myself.

Lessons from The Virtual Campfire: Finding the Right Words

      Tonight I was browsing Huffington Post to get a feel for whether it was the right place to submit an article I'm writing.  Several stories inspired Shares on my Self Directed Childbirth Facebook page. This one, The Hole in the Middle of the Bed, had me in tears. I try to be careful, when I post links on my page, to be sensitive to the pregnant readers and warn them about emotional triggers.  I quickly clicked out "wheew. if you're in the mood for a really good cry..." before hitting Post. I browsed around some more and upon returning to the Facebook page, found this response from Beth, a regular on my page:
  

      Reading this has nothing to do with my being in the mood, whimsically, for a "good cry"; I read this to honor these parents, and other parents whose child died, as did my daughter Lily., She would be sixteen now, if she had not died as a very small baby. Bless Donna and her family. Bless all of us who have had to see our children precede us in death.

 

Ouch. I realized immediately how insensitive my "warning" had been (and apologized accordingly.)

       I learned a long time ago not to say "so when are you going to start having kids?" to a newly married couple -- heaven forbid they'd just privately suffered a miscarriage.  I knew how insensitive "at least you have a healthy baby" sounds to a woman traumatized from her birth experience and I knew to avoid platitudes like, "you can always try again," when speaking with a woman about her miscarriage.  But, reflecting on what I was feeling as I typed such a cavalier statement about a story so painful, I realized that my choice of words came from the same place as all those comments: the desire to avoid intimacy or vulnerability or to fill an awkward silence rather than be with someone  in the intensity of emotion.  I had been belittling my own feelings by quietly chuckling at how emotional I was behaving rather than really honoring what I'd just read by letting the tears flow. 

     I am truly grateful that Beth had the courage to tactfully call me out on this (and for continuing the  conversation which inspired this blog post.)  She inspired me to give extra consideration to how I label other people's stories when I share them.  Not only that, but it was a reminder not to sit quietly by and watch someone say something insensitive just because we know they didn't mean it harshly.  The reminder to stay present is such a gift.  

    As I bask in tonight's gift, I picture myself sitting around a campfire with my virtual tribe... What a strange and wonderful thing to gather primal wisdom through moments of vulnerability with practical strangers via the use of technology.

Dreadlocks, Dandruff & Knotty Boy Shampoo Review

     I'm working on writing a couple of intense pieces right now, so I was happy to come up with a light little piece of distraction today in the shower.  While rushing through my weekly hair-washing routine, hoping to give my scalp a nice thorough scrub before the baby started to get hysterical, I remembered that I had a really hard time finding any information online about dealing with dreadlocks and dandruff.
     Before I knotted up my hair, my head-washing routine consisted of shampooing with Head and Shoulders  Intensive Care shampoo once or twice a week to combat dandruff and using copious amounts of conditioner with every shower to fight frizz and tangles.  This is the best picture I could find of my hair in it's natural pre-dread state.  Gotta love a candid shot, huh?

  I put in the dreadlocks in June 2011.  I did them myself through an hours long process of back-combing and hand-rolling (spread out over several nights/days.) I took my time so even in their infancy, they were nice and tight.  My hair-care routine got a lot easier. No more combing through my hair with handfuls of conditioner, no more globs of hair left on the shower walls so they wouldn't clog the drain, no more static hairballs clinging to the armpits of my sweaters; and I was able to keep most of the length. But I was concerned about how my scalp would hold up without the dandruff shampoo.

photo by Rebel Photography

This picture was taken a few days after putting in the dreadlocks.

   When I first started out, I bought the kit from Dreadhead HQ.  I was happy with the products, but over time my dandruff returned.  It was especially challenging in the dry winter months.  I made up some mixtures of tea tree oil (you know I love that stuff!) and other herbs that were supposed to help.  They felt good sprayed on, but didn't really solve the problem.  When I finally ran out of the Dreadhead HQ shampoo, I decided to try a different brand.  Knotty Boy came highly recommended, so that's what I tried.  I love the smell, I love the feel, and months later (in the dead of winter no less) dandruff is not an issue.  I did use coconut oil once a few months back when I had a particularly dry scalp.  I found it helpful, and I'd say it also speaks to Knotty Boy's versatility (for those of you with oily hair) because it washed out nicely.  Bottom line: If I were to comb out my dreads tomorrow (not happening!) I would not be switching back to Head & Shoulders. I'd continue using Knotty Boy Shampoo.

My year-old dreads (with almost no maintenance beyond the first couple of months)

And just for fun, let me show you the strangest thing I ever found in my dreadlocks....

Yeah. It's a bat.  I took this picture myself at 2am before letting the little stinker go outside, because someone besides me had to see this!

January

 I see myself buried deep in a burrow of snow lined with dried leaves and grasses,

the faint smell of autumn clinging to them,

a reminder of the season’s impermanence.

 There is sadness in cold slow movements,

a sense that I am lacking purpose or direction. 

Maybe it’s just hard to see in all this glaring white.

The year I first wet my feet in the waters of adulthood,

 I nearly froze to death. 

For several years following

I dreaded winter so much I couldn’t embrace my love of fall.

 My den was cold, lonely. 

Self-pity hollowed out too big a hole to soften with leaves

or warm with body heat.

 I refused to invite anyone in and yet grieved the lack of visitors.

A woman now, my coat has grown thick. 

My cubs tumble and climb around me.

Damp noses nuzzle into me to suckle.

 My den is so full, it’s hard to sleep or stretch. 

The air is moist and thick,

 hard to breathe in deep

 but not painful like inhaling the sharp cold outside.