Mother of Many

Winner of the UK's BAFTA Award for animated shorts, I was able to purchase a copy and have it mailed to me.

Yesterday was Midwives Day, and it's Nurses Week, and my good friend Marian gave birth today!

Happy birthing, happy mother's, happy families; in honor of upcoming Mother's Day.

xoxo

Love Love Love

Baby updates!

Here is a photo I just recieved in an email update from a proud papa from a birth I attended in Bali over a year ago. This is his "epitome of cuteness" daughter, Gek:

See previous post for a newbie shot.

Estoy Embarazado

Heheheheheh...

This is one of my favorite puns in Spanish-English mistranslation.

Anyway, today while orchestrating one of our now famous whirlwind prenatal clinics in a tiny village around town we had a local comadrona come asking for us to attend a birth at one of the homes down the road. Catherine, the professor and midwife, told us to choose a number between one and ten... Meant to be...

I followed her and the comadrona into a bedroom where a woman lay flat and with contractions her mother-in-law pushed on her fundus. She looked exhausted and strained. We auscultated fetal tones, palpated, sat with her through a few contractions, encouraged fluid and movement. Had her mother-in-law help us to remove the extra belt she was wearing around her abdomen (perhaps to also "help" push on the fundus, but really these seem to just block complete movement of the baby--we've seen lots of transverse and oblique presentations in the clinics). The comadrona asked Catherine to check her cervix. Only 4 or 5 centimeters. Definitely not time to be pushing, sheesh.

We left, Catherine saying, in all her years she has never been asked to a home birth in Guatemala. While it could have been considered an honor, it felt more like the family wanted all these foreign medic people to offer them some other standard of care than they assumed they were already receiving. They asked for an IV, and more gloves, and for us to stay.

We gave them reassurance, a bundle of onesies and receiving blankets and moved on to the next village for our scheduled prenatal clinic set-up. Our cultural broker, the local Health Promoter, told us that although the family may have wanted us to stay, the comadrona would not be paid for the birth if so, and these women put in their time and expertise working with each woman and family, we think she was being polite in front of us and the family. The woman has already had many babies, and she was going to do fine.

Sure enough, we got word by the end of the prenatal clinic at the next village, she gave birth at 4pm (2 hours ago) and everyone is great.

Birth is most exciting and wonderful, when least eventful and interrupted eh?

"Our Culture is Our Resistance"

I LOVE having a bag full of the following items in my living room:

* receiving blankets, onesies, hats, teeny socks, and sleepers (x 40)

* stethoscope, sphygmomanometer, fetoscope, penlight and non-sterile gloves

* bottles and bottles of ibuprofen, prenatal vitamins, ferrous gluconate and syringes

* scrubs, self-filtering water bottles, arnica, expensive camera, sketchbook and journal (the real paper kind, not a computer)

* Call the Midwife, A Midwife's Tale, Where There Are No Doctors, a Spanish dictionary and The Glass Castle

* poncho from a friend who went last year for the afternoons when it drenches and pours

* an expectation that I will somehow get to experience a sweat lodge with one of the traditional Mayan midwives, comadronas, and learn more Spanish.

* passport

Wish me luck on yet another guaranteed-to-change-your-life-once-in-a-lifetime-experience-cultural-immersion-adventure.

PS. if you ever find yourself capable of acquiring any of the following items, I decided that I could probably use a regular income of these for future endeavors: onesies, receiving blankets, non-sterile gloves (smalls), prenatal vitamins, iron, ibuprofen, arnica (homeopathic), amoxicillin, metformin, glucophage, one touch test strips, or urine dip sticks. Save 'em for me, I promise to spread them around the world.

Cheers!

Photographs from the amazing and beautiful book Our Culture is Our Resistance: repression, refuge, and healing in Guatemala by Jonathan Moller.

... because she believes in me.

Today I saw three Seattle Metro buses sporting the above advertisement.

I stopped and stared and began to smile.

For the past three years I have been teaching a course at UW on the culture of birth in this country. The following have been my course titles:

Birth 101: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Birth (2009)

Birth; Delivered (2008)

Inquiry Into Childbirth Culture in Contemporary American Society (2007-Inaugural Course)

This was the absolutely brilliant idea of my former doula business partner, Jane Harris. Together we propositioned the CHID department, no not Child, CHID stands for Comparative History of Ideas, in which Jane H. has a degree. This department has a course, CHID 496 that enables students to teach whatever they want, an incredible opportunity that has solidly become one of the highlights on my year.

I am struck today by this in-your-face advert because I have begun my class each year by saying something along these lines:

This class is biased, I will happily be up front about this, you should all know that I support out of hospital birth for healthy term pregnant women, and I support local midwives--providers best suited for the majority of pregnant women out there, healthy, normal and at term (as defined by weeks gestation: 37-42). Ninety-eight percent of babies are born in the hospital in the United States and still you see billboards and sides of buses with advertisements oozing with the cuteness of perfect mini humans all smiles, with phrases like: My Baby Was Born at Ballard, Born at Swedish, and my favorite pretentious claim, Smart Babies Ask to be Born at the UWMC. See, hospitals capitalize on birth, thereby squaring away lifelong loyalty by coaxing patients even before they're born. Question that statement? Who do young women go to for their first exam in the pelvic floor department (I'm talking about "smearing your pap" ladies)? The gynecologist of course, the OBGYN--Obstetrician/Gynecologist in fact. Which means what? Well, that when a lady finds herself preggers, she automatically turns to her Gyno who she's been "seeing" for years. Boom, scheduled sectional surgery later* and there you have another loyal lifelong patient already in place.

*Important note necessary here: This is of course not always the case, depends on a few things, also as much as a I knock surgical birth, please note that what I am actually opposed to is unnecessary medical intervention in an otherwise more-than-perfectly-normal bodily experience, birthing a baby. It is absurd to think that it is normal for our nation to have evolved just so that in that last two and half decades females can no longer accomplish what has been occurring for centuries--thousands of them in fact. What is also worthy of particular mention here is that we have amazing medical interventions today that literally save mother's and baby's lives. The cesarean was born so-to-speak for just that purpose, saving both mother and baby, an option previously unavailable. When cesareans are the only way out for a new member of society, they are one of the most impressive acts of the human hand to witness. It is still very much the birth of a baby.

Anyway, I am very tangential when you get me started talking about birth--did ya ever notice that?

The point is, today there were bus adverts for midwives! My class is based on the underlying philosophy that we live in an economically-based society with the expectation that we have consumer options in life, about everything. And we do, we have the option to birth however we want. Not very many of us even know exactly what midwives do. Incidentally they catch babies, they are trained, experienced, and professional baby catchers who are fully equipped and prepared for any twist and turn in labor. This goes for the scary ones too, at which point midwives make a note of the pink flag, not waiting for it to turn into a red flag and get thee to a medical facility that can implement the tools necessary to keep birth safe. It is extremely rare for an out of hospital birth to transfer in a state of true emergency. So, with consumer options comes public education and commodity marketing. Market away midwives of Seattle! Hurray for choice in this part of the world, exercise your right to education and make the right choice for you. Learn and believe that birth is one of life's most normal events. That, and dying... but I'll save this topic for another moment of sharing down the line. Know that death is also something I am rather passionate about, and like birth it is often medicalized, painful, scary, and in the hospital, alone with providers who don't trust it and therefore tend to contribute to the emotional instability of it, when it could otherwise be supported and protected, peaceful and beautiful.

Speaking of matters of life and death (because this is what keeps you ticking), even though I'm pretty bad at this, I've decided to do the crossword everyday this week... any suggestions?

Shoe part that touches the floor [7 letters] / Wedding rental [4 letters]

Undercover Doula

Disclaimer: I am a HIPAA-Happy provider, don't fret, details have been changed to protect privacy, or permission has been granted.

I am totally freaked out by L&D [labor and delivery] nursing.

I just finished my last clinical during this quarters' OB rotation. When the quarter started, the first thing I did was make an announcement on the doula community boards to warn them that there would be purple scrubbed nursing students roaming the halls of three major obstetrical units in the Seattle area, and to tell their clients to request that there be no students present for their births. To our credit, the nursing students were told it was an observational clinical only, and the most we could do was offer support, like be a doula!!

So the weeks ensued, and I attended a few births at the baby factory that is Swedish First Hill Hospital, where upwards of 800 births occur each month--holy crap--you know that means they put mama's on a ticking clock to make room for the next labor, at absolutely all costs. But I made the most of it, and resorted to my tried-and-true doula alter ego. I successfully avoided doing the charting and administration of procedures and injections and ordering of interventions. Phew. Ethically, I cannot phathom the role of the labor and delivery nurse [incidentally, pizzas are delivered and babies are born]. You leave a labor when your shift is up, not when the baby is born, and you meet the family in the throws of labor, not prentally where you have time to develop a trusting relationship and bond. So I'm just not on board with the whole concept.

A recent repeat doula client's newest babe--also photographed above holding dad's finger.

So on my last clinical day I attended a high risk birth, and morphed again into their doula and not the nursing student. I, alone, coached her through three hours of second stage pushing, with an epidrual, which requires a little coaching as you can't freakin' tell when you're contracting! And the nurse preceptor later tells me, "thanks for doing the pushing--I hate that part" Yikes. And ahem, I did no such thing, that mama pushed her baby out! The baby was called Joseph Michael, tribute is due here to a certain unaware namesake :)

I was later taken into a small hallway room where they keep "memory box" supplies and there was a nurse carrying what looked like just a baby blanket as if she were carrying a baby; nestled into the crux of her arm. She placed the blanket down and unwrapped it on the counter. A teeny less than 1 pound, 21 weeker baby girl was unveiled. She had just been born, after inducing her death because of spina bifida, a spinal cord deformity that is sometimes incapatible with life, as they say. Her tiny finger pads and toes looked like little tadpole digits. Her skin was sticky and transparent so that you could see the intense red of her vascular system barely beneath it. She had perfect ears and nose and eyebrows and even fingernails. She looked like a little tiny alien creature, and she was beautiful in her miniscule human way. The two nurses in the room with me were chatting amongst themselves about their various judgements they had toward the family. I listened, perturbed to the core at their very nerve, and softly touched this little being and sent her soul some reiki. I couldn't help it. Back out on the unit, I thanked my nurse for showing me the "fetal demise" and she said, "oh no problem, we get a lot of those here"...

I was then reading up on incoming patient's charts in the nurses' station, when I saw out of the corner of my eye a familiar face. A doula! I went out into the patient waiting room and chatted with long time doula, Jennifer Mendleson, we attended a birth together, ages ago now, my first home birth actually, the sixth time mom who labored for an hour and with a single push caught her own son and brought him straight out of her home jacuzzi onto her breast. It was so fun to see Jennifer there. She was waiting for her client to come out of surgery for an abdominal birth (sectioned as the L&D nurses affectionately call the cesarean). She asked me if I felt like I was undercover. I laughed. I absolutely do. I love it.

I love birth, and was happy to be a part of the one's I was assigned to, during this rotation, but now I know with conviction that I could never be a labor and delivery nurse, and that I will be a midwife. I think I could make a good birth nurse if I had to, a doula-esque nurse, but it would be ethically challenging for me to do so.

This is one of my doula babies, an awesome birth from 2007. I nanny for her twice a week now. We play, and she teaches me Mandarin. The other day she was playing on the fake phone and apparently having a conference call between my mom, President Obama, and her baby girlfiend. "Hi C. Lee, hi c lee hi clee Obama, Zoe, Obama, Maumi, (Mandarin for Kitty), Zoe, hi c lee, Obama" I love her to pieces!

Next quarter is my last in the nursing program, and my senior practicum placement is the Harborview Psych Emergency Department. Get ready to be spit on, pinned and swung at... says a few knowing colleagues. I'm totally stoked.

I caught my first baby today!

Ok, now that the title has no doubt grabbed you--be forewarned that this post may indeed come across as a smidge gratuitous...


First things first, yes today I did catch a baby, my very first. Today my clinical nursing group had a lab for our OB studies. One station was "the birth" where a simulation mannequin births a sim-baby. Each patient has real pulses and can make real sounds, pretty cool nursy-techy stuff really. And, well among the group of us, someone had to be the baby-catcher. So there I was, and it was a little scary and very very exciting, even if everything was rubbery and bolted together.


Now, onto more thought-provoking matters of the vagina...


This glorious quote comes to mind: My Vagina Is Under-utilized.


A great friend said this to me one evening in Thailand, and later I experienced first hand what that might entail. In Bangkok there is an infamous event that is referred to as a Ping-Pong Show. Those who are proper, avid Tom Robbins' readers may be familiar--this was my source of course (Villa Incognito). But, as suspected this was certainly something to be seen to be believed. So I will leave out many a detail so that those interested may get the full experience for themselves one day. Though, as another dear friend said: Jane, I wouldn't go see a ping-pong show much like a wouldn't support zoos. Word.


What I do want to share with you all here is the amazingness that is the vagina. Apparently women (possibly only a select few) can extract a collection of razors, or open a glass Coke bottle, or indeed shoot ping-pong balls into a target (or sometimes the audience..) all with their vaginas! But I noticed something else, something very interesting among these women. The first couple of talented ladies had obvious Caesarean birth scars on their lower abdomens. I thought, oh no, I hope these ping-pong artists are not choosing a surgical birth for the sake of their demanding professions! The theory that your vagina never returns to normal after a vaginal birth is about to be further debunked with this rather unique example: as lo and behold the remainder of the vagicians had no surgical birth scars in combination with unequivocal evidence of a birth (stretchmarks and the post-delivery belly). I was so excited... that these women were using their vaginas to the utmost potential, taking on a great challenge and making a living off of their fantatic tissue integrity. It was a very rewarding ethnographical study to be sure.


There are no pictures to accompany this posting. Now that would be inappropriate.


Hmm, I think vagicians™ might be my new favorite word... I hereby coin it. Can I do that?

Politicized Birth... and yes, the Ocean.

So I've traded the lulling sounds of the ocean waves, breezes and the chiming of wooden carvings for the barking dogs of "home" at the birth center again. I spent some time in Lovina and swam in the hot spings, then to Amed where I went a smidge crispy on the beach and finally to Tirta Gangga a hillside village on Mount Agung with misty rice paddies out my front door and nighttime fireflies! I had a gorgeous time, but was looking forward to coming back.

***

Birthing in Bali is just as political as anywhere else in the world I suppose.

Medical care is not available or subsidized by the government, it's all out of pocket. To the point where cars speed up and pass someone on the street who has just been hit and is now in a bad motorbike accident. People won't stop and help, no one comes to take the injured to the hospital because then they would be expected to pay for the hospital bill! 

For births, there are many small clinics around the island that offer "low-cost" maternity care, which is an option for those who cannot afford the hospital. In hospital, a cesarean birth may cost 5 million rupiah, or roughly $500. This is a ridiculously high price for the majority of the Balinese. Here's the catch: If you cannot pay your medical bill after birthing in hospital, you do not get to bring your baby home until you do settle that debt. 

The birth center here is free, and safe and good. But you know, after a few days away, I've been really thinking about the births here. And they are not so gentle sometimes. Maybe they are still better than a hospital where they can keep your baby for ransom, but there are so many things that could be made gentler here. There are a lot of postpartum bleeds--near hemorrhage--and part of it may be the aggressiveness in which the bidans anticipate and worry about the potential for a bleed and therefore are overzealous with the oxytocin injections, cord tugging, and manual extractions. I've seen things here that I have never seen at home. My first bleeds, my first atonic babies, my first fainting in labor, my first neonatal resuscitation. I don't see this in the hospital, at homebirths or at birth centers back home. It makes it really hard and scary to think about families telling the midwives to do anything they can to keep them here at the clinic when things are going badly, because they would rather bring a baby kept alive only by epinephrine to the hospital where it will be allowed to die rather than cope with the debt that befalls the whole village if they transferred for a cesar. This of course is not the case for everyone, not even close, but apparently it does happen. The family who had the one cesarean we've had here in the past 5 weeks told me that their neighbor, an ex-pat from New Zealand, paid their hospital charges. 

Maybe this post should be titled: How being a doula in Bali cannot change the political atmosphere of birthing and health care administration, or even ease the fear-based practices of the midwives who work under pressure of policy and protocol.

Little lady born September 2

...and in the middle of the night (but not quite at midnight.)

It was a quick second time mom though, and so I didn't get called to the birth.

That babe is not pictured here, this is a lassie whose parents and I bonded. Birth brings people together (at least in places where support is--well... supported), sharing this is a beautiful treasure and honor.

***

I'm just posting a little note here to say that I am actually heading to the coast to see the ocean today. I'm really looking forward to it, and was worried that I wasn't ever going to sneak away from this place if I didn't just do it.

The Midwoof

There are angry mangy dogs everywhere in Bali, and organizations called “I *heart* Bali Dogs” try and save them from their potential miserable lives. But I’ve decided I don’t love the dogs, or the monkeys who try to steel everything from you; cameras, food, sunglasses, I’ve heard about them picking up burning cigarette butts and put the wrong end in their mouths. But they chase, and bite and hiss, they are nasty. They live in the Monkey Forest Sanctuary which I walk through if I need to get to town from the village I’m staying in: Nyuh Kuning village which means “yellow coconut."

There is one dog who has decided for some reason that he needs to walk me from the clinic to the ashram if it’s during the night after a birth. I just learned that his name is Highway, and he’s considered the “midwoof” of Bumi Sehat. Ah, I love it.

***

This week there was a grand ceremony holiday called Galungan, and it's been described as the Hindu Christmas, meaning it's probably the biggest holiday of the year. It's mainly for the children and each family compound spends days building and creating a beautiful and uniquely decorated HUGE branch from the forest and sticks it upright in the ground with dyed palm strands and lanterns and flags and amazing floral and fruit arrangements hanging all over it. You can see in the photo of the street (from in front of the clinic) that it's lined with these overarching "Christmas trees." The kids eat a ton of sweets, traditional Balinese meals are made, and family's spend money they don't have to put it all on. I've been told that bellies, cupboards, and health tend to go without for a few days before and after in order to make it work financially.

What was very striking to me was that the clinic was very busy the day before the holiday, chock full of primips (first-timers) in very early labor and multips (not first-timers) who were drinking lots of young coconut water in an attempt to get labors going. There were 8 babies born the day before the big day. Then... nothing. Then a flood of births came on the day following the holiday! I think that's hilarious. It's been amazing, but exhausting. The number of volunteers has also dwindled, so my own workload has picked up. I'm doing a lot more clinical tasks than on top of the labor support, which is very good for keeping up my nursing skills, it's been great. And, I consider this kind of thing a bonus or perk to this job, I saw a baby born in the caul for the first time. This happens when the membrane of amniotic fluid never rupture during labor, and labor progresses fine without the need to have it ruptured which is soooo common to have done. So the baby is actually birthed still in the sac--face all smooshed up. It's imperative to break the sac at that point but it is considered very spiritually lucky, in many cultures. It was exciting for me.

***

Also posted is a photo of Robin Lim and her daughter Déjà. We were privleged to see the very first unofficial "premier" of Déjà's new documentary Guerilla Midwife. The film is about Robin and her incredible life's work to bring peace on earth with every gentle birth. She and her organization did a lot for the Tsunami victims in Aceh on Sumatra, the stories in the film told by survivors are horrendous and beautiful. I can't wait till the film is available for everyone, it's a "must-see."

You Can Only Get Hit By the Truck That You Don’t See Coming

I love attending births on other people's birthdays... it feels like I'm honoring that person. So here's to Sara Sage!

This morning I got called into the clinic to assist a labor for a woman already at 7 centimeters dilation. After three hours of back-labor progressing into a resistant second stage there was another full moon baby at Bumi Sehat. My predictions of raining babies this weekend definitely came true after a relatively quiet week. Afternoon rolled along and I was actually going to make the appointment I'd made the evening before to get my first massage here. It was a new place highly recommended by the staff at the clinic, and this month there is a grand opening 50% discount. So I went for some therapeutic pampering. And it was. I received an hour and forty-five minute massage and body scrub of rice, ginger, peanuts, oil and potato and then finishing with a bath in the first warm water I've felt (I shower under a hose of icy cold water at the ashram!) not to mention the bath was dense with frangipani buds and ginger bark. The whole experience was incredible, and it cost $7. I stopped in at the clinic on my way back and we have two primips (first-time moms) here both at 1 centimeter, and they are sisters-in-law! It's going to be a long night--good thing I feel completely mushed yet rejuvenated.

Take care of yourself, pay attention to the signs your body gives you and really listen and then don’t forget to respond. Namely; slow down and you might live a longer life--literally (hence the title of this entry.) This is reiterated to me by Dr. Bobbi, the acupuncturist at the clinic. I am going to be getting my first treatment by her this week. I have always recommended acupuncture for folks for a lot of ailments—but I have never had it! When I was freshly diagnosed with diabetes, almost nine years ago now, I was told that there was an acupuncturist who was curing newly diagnosed diabetics. I remember that my mom actually spoke with this person, and he wanted me to immediately stop taking any insulin therapy, and that I should come and stay wherever he was practicing for a proper healing, unfortunately that would mean leaving in the middle of my junior year of high school. It was not practical. So here I am years--and loads of insulin--later, finally about to receive my first treatment. I’m hoping for some boost in the circulation department, possibly a recharge of my energy overall, and any kind of kick in the pants on the old pancreas that I can get!

Speaking of health and diabetes: I have noticed a few wonderful perks to this already pretty fantastic experience. I walk everywhere like the poorer Balinese (i.e. no Motorbike) and I eat like the ex-pats (trendy macrobiotic health cafés) and so far I have been enjoying a steady stream of blood glucose levels right around 130. I’m very pleased with this. And, though unrelated, I’m also very happy to notice that my usually miserable cuticles are very healthy looking, which is helping me to grow fingernails (which for me and my nasty nail biting habit is a really big deal!)

So, my body and my soul are very happy here. 

Meet some families

A few photos of some beloved families from the clinic.

I've been working mostly with families coming in from the "fields" as they say here, with very very little, still almost everyone has a mobile phone. To announce a few generalizations here: almost every woman has experienced a pretty decent tear, the theory here is that folks are very malnourished because of an increase in white rice production thus decreasing tissue integrity. Also there are occasionally sad faces with a family having just birthed another daughter. But there are wonderful things too: dads are very involved in labor; cooing, massaging, and perpetually smiling.  Also I never know what any of the babies' names are before they leave here because there is typically a three-day naming ceremony, which sounds very fun--so I have to wait for a postnatal visit to learn all these newest little folks' names.

Nafas... santai... bagus.

Breathe... relax.... good.

Bali is exquisite.

I arrived late afternoon on Friday 8/8/8 after 24 hours of traveling. Robin Lim met me at the clinic gate with kisses. This is her baby (well, one of many I suppose), but her Yayasan Bumi Sehat clinic means Healthy Mother Earth. At the clinic there are 8 local Indonesian midwives, or bidans, and several volunteer midwives who come from all over to bring their expertise and learn the Balinese way of birth, or maybe Robin’s way of birth—which is worth learning. When I arrived I met two nurse-midwives, one from Australia, one from Italy, as well as a Canadian studying midwifery in New Zealand. There was also another doula/nurse from San Francisco; today was her first day as well. 

Robin tells me immediately that there are two women in labor right now... taking the hint, I unpacked my things in the volunteer ashram across the street, and headed back. Apparently there hasn’t been much going on all week, so of course tonight was the night there were four babies born and thunderstorms struck outside. Hmm, now that I think about it, I started menstruating as well, and last month I started on the night of the double birth mentioned in a previous posting... 

So many beautiful things happen here when someone is born. Robin does two very striking things in preparation for a birth. She asks someone to bring pusba or flowers. That night she asked her granddaughter Zhouie to go across the street to shake the tree in front of the ashram and she brought back beautiful plumeria blossoms. With these Robin drizzles them into the warm bath water where a woman is laboring, and I am crouched and bent over with my arm in the bath so that she can have the counter-pressure she needs on her lower back as her baby descends. Robin then asks all her moms what religion they practice or place their faith, and she proceeds to chant or recite a beautiful prayer with each contraction until the baby is born. This night she sang the Balinese Hindu prayer song, recited the Catholic prayer to Our Heavenly Father and sang Ave Maria, and then by morning she was saying Allah to the Muslim couple in anticipation of the father reading the full prayer to this new baby as the first words she hears. Someone asks later and she tells us that her own religion is primarily based on women and babies and "gentle births bringing peace on earth"—sounds like a good religion to me. Lastly, though Robin does a gazillion things, something very sweet she does is to scoop the plumeria blossoms and strew them around the placenta in a bowl. I think it’s a gorgeous tribute to one, if not the most amazing organs in the human body. You need one, you make one, you need another one, and you make another one! When you’re done with one it nourishes whatever it goes to; the earth if planted or the body if ingested, anyplace that is except a biohazardous waste bag in a landfill somewhere.

Of the six births during my first 24 hours I saw the above stunning posterior water birth (baby with his face up to the sky and eyes opening under water as he was born), and I walked into a room where a man kept poking his head out, his wife was laboring beautifully but he seemed so nervous. I stepped back out to get the midwife and went right back in to her room. She lifted her skirt and there was a baby’s head all the way out! The midwife came in behind me and with no time for gloves, eased out the rest of this little lady. It was a beautiful and busy number of hours. We did, unfortunately, have to send one baby to the hospital for suspected respiratory complications, a perfect birth but she just couldn’t cry that fluid out of her lungs.

This birth center and clinic is amazing how it creates so much with so little. I think my favorite so far is instead of medical supply KY lubricant for the Doppler ultrasound machine for listening to fetal heart tones, we use cheap and lovely smelling aloe vera gel!

Robin has many theories on why this world works in the ways that it does, and sometimes that involves saying things like, “I’ve never had a good feeling about this bed, tomorrow we’re getting rid of it,” after the baby who was transferred to the hospital was born in it. Getting rid of beds aside, they are definitely at capacity here, there are several beds to a room already, and so Robin is hoping to expand the clinic to accommodate the community—this is part of the One Million Mothers campaign.

And so it goes, this is birthing in Bali.

Welcome lots of new babies!

All along my three July clients have been neck and neck, maybe I should have seen it coming.

All serendipitous matches to begin with, I felt such a strong pull to work with each of these familiesl. So of course I thought it would all work out and didn't really feel that pull to square away solid back-up!

Each told me at one point they thought they would have Fourth of July babies... none did, but I ended up attending another mama's birth on the 4th as I was back-up doula for the holiday weekend. Each of mine were checked out at 1-2 cm that week, and then each remained unchanged, still 1-2 the next week.

Then Friday, my first due date mama swigged back a little caster oil to get a labor going after nearly 24 hours of ruptured membranes and no contractions. While I was on the way to meet her at the hospital as contractions had definitely begun minutes after the caster oil... I got a call from due date number 2, I thought she was confirming a prenatal visit we had set up for Saturday morning. Nope, contractions were coming and going. But she was certain it was still early. Once due date 1 was admitted and checked (almost 4cm) I got a call from due date 2, they had just gone to their hospital (of course, clear across town) to get checked out, and they too were admitted at 4cm!!

**here is the moment where I had a mini doula panic attack**

Second couple said they didn't want an interim doula, me or no one.

I called nearly all the doulas I had in my phone, one answered, and was in fact willing, wonderful and ready to come to my rescue to hospital number 1 (I know I was already there, but they were coping beautifully, and I felt that I needed to be at hospital number 2) she could be there in 40 minutes. I went to present the idea of a swap with first family laboring in the jacuzzi... nope, me or nobody at this point they said.

Called to cancel emergency doula rescue, and prayed to the doula goddess, and before I could finish my plea--in shuffled a huffing due date 1 to the labor room from the jacuzzi room, and 10 minutes later she had pushed out her baby! Unbelievable. They thanked me profusely for staying, and I thanked them profusely for having the fastest labor ever! I left them semi-settled, but exquisitely happy (in that familiar incredible state; oblivious to everything but their shiny new hot slippery baby...) and went on to the next one. I listened to all the messages left by everyone I called. It was cozy warm doula vibes all around. Called second dad on my way, and he says (music to my ears) "you have plenty of time."  

Second labor took a different route than the first, but both were amazing, glorious, un-medicated (ok, a little for labor number 2...) and ended with both mama's dream: I want this baby (second baby for both) in my arms immediately!! Needless to say, this was not the scenario for both first labors and it certainly was the case for both seconds. Hurray!

And a big thank you to due date 3 for not calling Friday night, I'm ready now though.

So this was a first for me, and it worked somehow. I've still never used back-up... Knock on something wooden!

What an amazing thing it is to be a doula?