totally demystifies the American childbirth system. I went and did this birth attended by nurse-midwives. The experience opened my eyes to the joys and hard work of childbirth. The experience taught me that it was a natural process. The baby didn’t have to be separated from its mother and could be had at home. I applied for and was accepted to the Northwestern School of Practical Midwifery in Portland run by a naturopathic physician who was dedicated to returning childbirth to its original forebearers — women. He drastically changed his life to take midwives with him on births. The naturopathic board said, “you can’t have these women out there doing births. You’ve got a license.” And he said, “Here, you can have it.” He never got it back. The school was literally underground. The classes were in his basement. We’d go into the basement for classes five days a week and then spin off from there to get practical experience. CSQ: How did you develop the confidence to have two people’s lives in your hands? Midwife: The confidence came from replacing fear with knowledge. He came from a real physiological point of view as opposed to the pathological viewpoint which medical students are taught. I went through a big growth period at the beginning learning how to communicate with families of all denominations and beliefs. You are a guest in people’s homes and part of an intimate experience. CSQ: Was there a point in your studies where there was an enormous growth in competence? Midwife: Oh, definitely. It occurred when I began to have confidence in the process. Once I realized that everyone is different but the process is consistent, it stamped a new awareness on me. I felt like a sponge absorbing the truths around childbirth. The fifth birth I saw was in my home and was a still birth. It completed my understanding of the birth, life, death cycle. Some babies live to be 80, some don’t see the light past the womb. CSQ: The still birth didn’t have a negative effect on you? Midwife: No, not at all. There are no guarantees in the life cycle. There is a power greater than us. The labor went Women s strength in childbirthing is something men can support and encourage but they never really grasp the power of unconditional love necessary to give birth to part of your own body. on for quite a while. It was progressing well, the heart tones were regular and then suddenly they weren’t there anymore. The baby had decided to leave its body. The parents were given the option of going to a hospital but made the decision to stay home and complete the birth. The baby was born to a roomful of tears, compassion and love. They since have had two children, healthy and fine. The still birth was one of those points where we have to look at life and death, and we’ve got to do it together. There was a lot of joy in it after the sorrow. TO one extreme there is always another. It all did balance out over time, and I really learned a great deal from that birth. It slapped me in the face and said if you do this long enough you’re going to see this again. You’ve just got to be prepared for the breadth of human experience. CSQ: What fears did you have to look straight in the eye? Midwife: Death. It seemed that every woman in the classroom had her own fear that she worked at, and had the opportunity to overcome. Mine was fear of bleeding. I didn’t fear hemorrhaging. I feared that the placenta wouldn’t come, and oh, God, then what if she’s bleeding. I had my personal fears from the way I was raised. I wasn’t exposed to childbirth at all during my childhood. Each step of the way the fears were answered with self-examination and sharing with the other women in training — to get to the other side of your fears — to be able to objectively proceed with knowledge instead of reacting with fears. Everyone looks to you, the midwife, for calm, strength and assurance. If you’ve got fears you can’t bring them to the room. You’ve got to work them out before you get there. CSQ: What happens at the initial interview with the parents? Midwife: We tell them by their deciding to stay home — they are sharing the responsibility of the outcome. There are no guarantees. They make the decisions. The experience is as unique as they are. We get a herstory, do nutritional counseling, routine exams and discuss exercises. We look at the whole picture. Most women who come to us have already come to grips with and conquered the fear of home birth. By coming into their homes we break down the barriers that separate many of us. If it feels right for all concerned we begin a bonding process. CSQ: Is there a psychological checklist you use when deciding to do a home birth? Midwife: We are there to recognize psychological processes motivated by stress and anxiety. For example, if a woman is saying that she doesn't want to breast feed, something’s not right there. Some link is missing. In fact, I won’t do a birth with someone that won't breastfeed. I look at the way she relates to her family and how good she is to herself. We nurture her sense of strength and well being. We also look to where she puts her faith because it seems that we all put it somewhere. Many people put it in Jesus because that’s really easy; he can just take care of everything. We basically want to see how much faith she has in herself as a woman. Sometimes I ask her if she’s ever experienced pain before, how she dealt with that, and what her life experiences have been. We just get talking on pre-natals, and a lot of things come up. It becomes a get-together as we spend time just talking about our lives. There’s a sixth sense that seems to go along with midwifery about reading people, and you can tell if something is not going right. It’s easier for us at that point to say, “What’s on your mind? What are you feeling and thinking about?” We need to talk about this. Something doesn’t feel right between us. We tell them this is the hardest work they’ll ever do, so choose your situation well, for it’s a total surrender to a natural process. CSQ: What are the crucial moments in childbirth? Midwife: It’s towards the end of the labor after somebody has been working for hours, and all of a sudden they find themselves totally exhausted and saying, “I can’t do this,” and we’re there saying, “Sure you can. We know that you have that pool of strength inside of you. Find it and tap on it. You can do it. You’re a woman. We know you’ve got the strength. You know you’ve got the strength. Don’t give up now.” We just encourage them to find that strength inside of them. You lend a little bit of yours to get theirs tapped in. And you talk about the well a lot. “Dip into your well; it’s real deep. It’s down there; bring it up; bring it up.” If they’ll be holding themselves back, just pure psychological things, like whining, we say, it’s okay to be GEROVITAL (GH 3) Romanian physician Dr. Anna Aslan's original formula Arthritis? Ulcers? Stress? Heart Disease? and Related Aging Disorders Hypertension? Depression? 150 MILLION USERS IN 81 COUNTRIES INTERESTED? 32 Athletic Club call or write Individualized exercise instruction, counseling, aerobics, spa facilities, free parking and more. 3 MONTHS FREE with all new memberships Tanning at special rates Cal I 223-0480 2306 6th Ave. Clinton St. Quarterly Louise 542-5109 Jean 325-7126 Slocum Spirulina Plus 321 31st Avenue Seattle, WA 98122
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz