One of the defining moments of my life was when I was in the 5th grade. My mother had been mostly absent for years, my grandmother was my beacon of femininity, and my extended family was doing everything in their power to prevent me from slipping through the cracks (Thank God for them!)
I was 11 years old, and I was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of my great grandmother's house. I was on the phone with a friend. I said, "I want to be an obstetrician. They deliver babies and I want to deliver babies. I hear it's pretty complicated, but I think I can do it." At this point my well intentioned aunt (pronounced "aint") walked out to me and said, "Good girls don't talk about stuff like that." I remember giggling awkwardly and just telling my friend I had to go. Coincidentally, about a year prior to this I was terribly confused when I looked under that same aunt's bathroom counter and saw these flat wrapped objects, and I genuinely thought that menstrual pads were like rolling your own cigarettes. I was told then that I didn't need to worry with that stuff.
You know what this did? It led me down the rabbit hole. What else aren't we supposed to talk about? In retrospect my grandmother never called sex, "sex". She called it "Making Love" (to this day I hate that phrase). So, around this time AOL discs were a dime a dozen, or literally free at the local grocery store. I went through about 15 discs in 6 months; I think they were 500 minutes free? 1500 minutes free? Anyway, I looked up everything. I looked at always.com, I looked at kotex.com, I looked up informational pages about periods. I looked up books. I got books from the library. I wanted to know everything I could about sex, periods, and pregnancy. I read Judy Blume (not recommended), and other teen based books; often thick with "life lessons on the irresponsibility of sex out of marriage."
By the time I was 14, purity rings were a big deal. I see that they still are; the jury is out on that one. Needless to say, I was opposed to making promises I couldn't keep. I remember being in 3rd grade and refusing to sign the D.A.R.E. promise for the exact same reason. If you want to believe that indoctrination wasn't an issue while I was in school, I'll ask you to view my school record that shows me getting 1 referral in my life: because I refused to sign a piece of paper at 9 years old. PS, there is another referral unofficially on my record for skipping school; at least I'm honest.
In my household nothing was a big deal. Making mole hills out of mountains caused me to not be overly preoccupied with alcohol or sex. This is not to say that sexual curiosity didn't come on early for me, but I wasn't terribly concerned with having sex at an early age. Anywho, I went away to college, was put on birth control for a medical reason, met a boy, and the rest is completely.... deviant from the norm. :)
I moved to California when I was 22. I was put on birth control when I was 19, and around 24 when I stopped. I didn't stop because I wanted to get pregnant. I stopped because it was ruining my relationship. I stopped because my already "dry" emotional state became like a tin roof; nothing stuck. Nothing bothered me, but nothing made me happy. I was non-committal to everything. Plus, it wasn't getting rid of the symptoms it was supposed to. When I stopped taking birth control I was convinced for a year that I would get pregnant. And then I didn't; this is not a miracle or anything, we were using barrier method.
And then. And then. My old employer was a Catholic SAHM. She told me about NFP. And that part really is history. Through, what I can only identify as a rebellion, I've realized that how we speak and react to fertility is perpetuating an unnatural fear of sex. I love sex. I don't just love sex for me, I love sex for all consenting adults. I openly admit in my instruction that my goal as an instructor is to give a couple as many usable days as possible. Call it manipulative, call it unhealthy, but sex is a pretty savvy cure-many (notice it's not a cure all), for relationships. When two people are consenting and having a good time, let the good times roll! Whatever floats your boat, let it take you away. That part is no one else's business.
My goal is to help people be empowered in fertility. Fertility is not a barrier to sex. Fertility is the heartbeat of sex, one to be observed and listened to, like the heart pounding of a first kiss or the barely noticeable slow, patient, beat of a Sunday morning cuddle. You do not have to get pregnant while practicing fertility awareness. It is not a game of chance. It is not purely for Catholics and Muslims. You have been lied to, and I'm here to help.
Marquette efficacy:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18997569
Generic NFP research:
Frank-Herrmann P, Heil J, Gnoth C, et al. The effectiveness of a fertility awareness based method to avoid pregnancy in relation to a couple's sexual behaviour during the fertile time: a prospective longitudinal study. Hum Reprod. 2007;22(5):1310–1319....
Predicting ovulation with at home urinalysis (not produced by Marquette)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23831784
Medical training on forms of natural family planning:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28620604
Ovulation correlation to cervical mucus production:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25724738
Showing posts with label parenthood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenthood. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Thursday, April 27, 2017
The moving target of an ideal birth.
Millennials (yep, I'm going there), are culturally perceived to be lazy, but more and more research is showing that people in this age group are working harder, spinning their wheels earlier and longer, than other generations (see facebook meme a-aaaaaa, as example).
We as a whole are out to improve the world. As the Harvard Business Review article below states, millennials do not value vacation time, often choosing the statement, "No one can do my work as well as I do" as a comment on why vacations are on the decline. Is this a deep seeded remnant of arrogance? Or, have we simply come to believe what we've been told: "Become the best, so that you can't be replaced."
Maybe I see this more than others because I am in a profession that is solidly planted in entrepreneurship. Burn out is for REAL in my world; it is an actual threat to the survive/thrive plan. So, what does this ideology have to do with birth?
We, you, they, whatever you want to read, are over-achievers. My people, my crowd, my soul sisters and brothers are the Hermione Grangers of the world. I fancy myself more of a Ron, but at the end of the day I'm intellectually one of the laziest of my friends....and I am a HARD worker. This lends itself to smart people with a lot of promise, burning out way too soon. They burn out because their soul kissing dreams are intangible. Words like "success" and "financial freedom" float around, just outside of grasp because they are indefinite. Here's where birth comes in.
Different organizations surrounding birth have created guidelines of what is acceptable in the progression of normal pregnancy, and this amplifies in birth. In pregnancy you should measure a certain way, blood pressure should stay within a certain range, blood and urine analysis should show markers of health, weight gain has its own parameters, and fetal heart rate has a window of acceptable findings. Any variance from these numbers will inevitably involve some element of intervention. Sometimes this intervention is mild, like bed rest. Other times, the end result is a shell shocked new mom with a 24 week gestation baby, or worse. This is in no way to insinuate that medical intervention is unnecessary. I am quite literally the product of medical technology; if not for NICU services, I most likely wouldn't be alive.
In birth, there are Bishop Scores, APGAR scores, statistical rates of advancement, and other markers that indicate necessary intervention. Here is the problem: time is changing these parameters. As overachievers we want to be perfect. Ne'er you mind the mom who smoked throughout her pregnancy in the 60's, moms now avoid flying due to radiation exposure and avoid deli meats all in an attempt to give their baby the best start possible. These moms and dads are changing their whole lives from the day of conception (or possible conception) out of love to the be the best for their children as possible. This is parenting. This is love and sacrifice from day one. Healthcare professionals tend to want to focus on objective parameters, and that is great! Generally, though, we aim to impose the statistical norms and that takes the control out of mama and daddy's hands, and places them in an algorithm. I am a huge fan of Improvingbirth.org. I want the birth world to be over flowing with research! But at the end of the day, if a mom is comfortable birthing at home, she should, unless absolutely unavoidable circumstances arise, be at home. If a mom is comfortable in a hospital, with every monitor and doo-hicky attached to her, she should be there.
We can not turn birth in to a race. We can't turn it into a talent show where someone loses. When we do that, competition and self-depreciation become the name of the game and no one, especially that new family unit, will benefit. No matter where a woman labors and delivers, when she meets the eyes of her little one, there should be no room for anything but absolute adulation. The target should be that look. The target is that smile, or sob, or throwing heads back, or hugs, or whatever, but it should be ideal in the eyes of mom and dad. Ideal doesn't mean without a hitch, it doesn't mean a baby born in the caul in a tranquil water birth, it doesn't mean sans stretch mark, it doesn't mean measuring exactly 35 cm at 35 weeks. It means, at the end of the day, Mom and dad (insert any birth partner and their relationship to mom), know that they have done what was best from their own knowledge base.
Harvard business Review article about the work-a-holic-millennials
We as a whole are out to improve the world. As the Harvard Business Review article below states, millennials do not value vacation time, often choosing the statement, "No one can do my work as well as I do" as a comment on why vacations are on the decline. Is this a deep seeded remnant of arrogance? Or, have we simply come to believe what we've been told: "Become the best, so that you can't be replaced."
Maybe I see this more than others because I am in a profession that is solidly planted in entrepreneurship. Burn out is for REAL in my world; it is an actual threat to the survive/thrive plan. So, what does this ideology have to do with birth?
We, you, they, whatever you want to read, are over-achievers. My people, my crowd, my soul sisters and brothers are the Hermione Grangers of the world. I fancy myself more of a Ron, but at the end of the day I'm intellectually one of the laziest of my friends....and I am a HARD worker. This lends itself to smart people with a lot of promise, burning out way too soon. They burn out because their soul kissing dreams are intangible. Words like "success" and "financial freedom" float around, just outside of grasp because they are indefinite. Here's where birth comes in.
Different organizations surrounding birth have created guidelines of what is acceptable in the progression of normal pregnancy, and this amplifies in birth. In pregnancy you should measure a certain way, blood pressure should stay within a certain range, blood and urine analysis should show markers of health, weight gain has its own parameters, and fetal heart rate has a window of acceptable findings. Any variance from these numbers will inevitably involve some element of intervention. Sometimes this intervention is mild, like bed rest. Other times, the end result is a shell shocked new mom with a 24 week gestation baby, or worse. This is in no way to insinuate that medical intervention is unnecessary. I am quite literally the product of medical technology; if not for NICU services, I most likely wouldn't be alive.
In birth, there are Bishop Scores, APGAR scores, statistical rates of advancement, and other markers that indicate necessary intervention. Here is the problem: time is changing these parameters. As overachievers we want to be perfect. Ne'er you mind the mom who smoked throughout her pregnancy in the 60's, moms now avoid flying due to radiation exposure and avoid deli meats all in an attempt to give their baby the best start possible. These moms and dads are changing their whole lives from the day of conception (or possible conception) out of love to the be the best for their children as possible. This is parenting. This is love and sacrifice from day one. Healthcare professionals tend to want to focus on objective parameters, and that is great! Generally, though, we aim to impose the statistical norms and that takes the control out of mama and daddy's hands, and places them in an algorithm. I am a huge fan of Improvingbirth.org. I want the birth world to be over flowing with research! But at the end of the day, if a mom is comfortable birthing at home, she should, unless absolutely unavoidable circumstances arise, be at home. If a mom is comfortable in a hospital, with every monitor and doo-hicky attached to her, she should be there.
We can not turn birth in to a race. We can't turn it into a talent show where someone loses. When we do that, competition and self-depreciation become the name of the game and no one, especially that new family unit, will benefit. No matter where a woman labors and delivers, when she meets the eyes of her little one, there should be no room for anything but absolute adulation. The target should be that look. The target is that smile, or sob, or throwing heads back, or hugs, or whatever, but it should be ideal in the eyes of mom and dad. Ideal doesn't mean without a hitch, it doesn't mean a baby born in the caul in a tranquil water birth, it doesn't mean sans stretch mark, it doesn't mean measuring exactly 35 cm at 35 weeks. It means, at the end of the day, Mom and dad (insert any birth partner and their relationship to mom), know that they have done what was best from their own knowledge base.
Harvard business Review article about the work-a-holic-millennials
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