|
Attachment Parenting: Needed Now More Than Ever |
 |
 |
 |
I'm not big on reading the news--and I certainly do not see it since our family does not watch television (going on a decade now and it is still the best decision we've ever made--and it eliminates having a cable bill. Kill your TV. Try it.) but when I run across three stories in the same day, all pertaining to the abuse and neglect of infants, I have no choice but to pay attention. Stories like this strengthen my belief that Attachment Parenting is the key to a better society. API promotes parenting practices that create strong, healthy emotional bonds between children and their parents. For life. So they can take those bonds with them into their adult lives and share them with their children. And their children can do the same, creating a life cycle of compassion and connection.
My mission as a doula and as an educator is to help parents feel confident in their parenting choices. I believe that confident, healthy people raise confident, healthy kids. Not everyone has to parent the way that I have chosen to in order to be a 'good' parent. Although my choice to follow the Eight Principles of Attachment Parenting have made it easy for me to be a dedicated and loving parent...I feel that making the choice to value my children as fully-capable, fully-aware, and fully-deserving human beings is what truly makes me a parent to be emulated. I value their right to have emotions and experiences that I may not always be able to understand or to decipher--but I always acknowledge it. When little Mathilda is up for the ninth time in the middle of the night it is super-tempting to think that she is being difficult--until I change my agenda from "I deserve to sleep, dammit!" to "this tiny human being has a need that she cannot meet on her own. How frustrating and terrifying it must be to be so helpless, defenseless, and unsure of the world!" Almost instantly Mathilda and I tune into each other and I meet her need...a wet diaper, a rumbly tummy, a cold set of piggy toes, a need for human touch. I simply imagine how awful it would be to have no ability to take care of myself...the terror of being helpless to procure my own food, voice my fears, remove myself from a scary situation. That feeling is called empathy. It is easy to see how the headlines above depict a world in which empathy is a dying skill. We lack empathy for newborn babies who are routinely poked, prodded and separated from their mothers at birth. We lack empathy for the infant who has to learn to sleep through the night. We lack empathy for the toddler who cannot use worlds to describe their frustration and instead chooses to fall to the floor in a tantrum. Without empathy, it is easy to see our own agendas as more important than someone else's needs. Without empathy, it is easy to fall in patterns of judging others in a very uncharitable way. Certainly, we feel very little empathy for the 14 year old who flushed her baby after giving birth in the girls room of her school. Why not? How terrified and scared she must have been. Obviously she felt she had no recourse...no one to trust...no one to help her. What would your life had looked like if you were pregnant, alone and scared at 14? How judgmental is your answer to that question? Was your knee-jerk response something about how you wouldn't have been dumb enough to get pregnant at 14 or how even if you did you would have faced the consequences and asked for help? You are not being empathetic--you are being judgmental. You are not imagining what it would be like to be 14, scared and alone--you are filtering the scenario through your grown up emotions and experiences. Feeling empathy doesn't mean that our anger at her for harming that helpless baby is any less justified, but what about the anger we should feel for helping to create and perpetuate a society in which a girl feels that killing a baby is a more viable solution than asking for help? Who taught her to be so mistrustful of the adults around her? Who mistreated her so badly that she trusted no one to be on her side? Why wasn't she surrounded by loving adults right from the beginning of her life? Why wasn't she exposed to examples of healthy parenting in her community if her home life was not an ideal model? If someone like me had been accessible to her--a non-judgmental person who could have held her hand--would she have come to me? This is the very reason that I feel my work as a doula is so important. If I can be there for someone through a difficult pregnancy or birth, perhaps I can use what I have learned to help them make informed, empowered choices. Or perhaps I can be a positive example to someone who sees me parenting my own children. Or maybe my dream of getting my non-profit organization off the ground will come true and I will be able to share the principles of Attachment Parenting & provide free doula support to all pregnant women & families in my area. You can help me make that dream a reality by financially supporting JulianArts' efforts to reach out into the community through films (like our exclusive screenings of films like The Business of Being Born and What Babies Want) parenting workshops (like my plans to teach a course on AP & Babywearing this summer) or our Homebirth Support Group.
|
|
Last Updated ( Saturday, 19 April 2008 05:08 )
|
|
|
Homebirth Journals
|
Kelley's Pregnancy Journal |
 Welcome To A Brand New Homebirthing Journey
Follow Kelley and her growing family as they embark on their journey into parenthood. As many of you know, Kelley (aka KDB or Nanny Featherbottom) is a very special person in our family's life. Originally, she was Eudora's nanny--we simply could not have functioned without her. Since then, KDB has become a treasured member of our family. She was present for our recent homebirth with Mathilda and I cannot think of anyone who deserves to have a lovelier pregnancy and birthing experience than Kelley and her incredibly talented, generous and thoughtful hubby, Kevin. Congratulations & Blessings to them and their family! |
| The last two weeks or so have not been the easiest. I've had the aforementioned nausea pretty much constantly – it feels a lot like constant motion sickness. My boobs are still achey, my head hurts, and I am irritable beyond belief. I'm also playing host to a whole lot of fun and exciting digestive ailments, which I'm sure add innumerably to my Adorable Factor while I am shrieking terribly at Kevin. Basically, I feel like I have a pretty nasty bout of the flu – I am fairly uncomfortable most of the time, but here's the thing: I keep feeling like I am nowhere even close to pregnant enough to be at all uncomfortable. I also swore to myself that, while pregnant, I would be thrilled about it every second, and love every single thing about it...so I feel like a failure, too. Luckily for me, I have an amazing, supportive doula, who is more than willing to subject her ears to a possibly harmful high pitch while I whine about my body's way of making sure it gets every last nutrient it can from my food. Not only does she listen to me complain, but tells me something that I've been needing to hear: that the first trimester is, in fact, icky, and that I am totally justified in feeling that way. |
| I have no clue why I ever would have wanted this. My hair, for the first time in my life, is greasy. Coffee, which I loved more than anything, suddenly smells (and tastes) like some sort of exotic-nut-and-car-oil blend. Oh, and, charm of charms, I throw up every time I brush my teeth. I have become an exhausted, spotty, mean pod-person who sleeps 18 hours a day and spends the rest of it antagonizing my husband. I am going to go eat some Sour Cream and Cheddar Ruffles and cry.
|
| Please bear with me for a moment and imagine, Dear Reader, the movie Jaws. Now, please, in your mind, go to that special, iconic theme music: Daaa-nun. Daaaa-nun. Finally, in whatever way and key you feel comfortable, please insert the words "benzoyl peroxide" into that little tune, and you have what has been running through my head the past week. In a moment of desperation and weakness about a month and a half ago after utter exhaustion of dealing with my problem skin, I ordered Proactiv Solution. I was so thrilled to finally look like a grown-up, and even more thrilled that I was going to have a pregnant glow free of pimples. Awesome, right? Not so much. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to ask sooner, but my midwife told me at 6 and a half weeks that, no, I shouldn't be using benzoyl peroxide while pregnant, especially in the first trimester. I'm going to use the JAWS reference again, and I'm sorry to any galeophobes. You know how terrifying that first sequence is, where the girl is swimming and all of a sudden she isn't? Know how it made your knuckles white and your stomach queasy when you saw it? Imagine that feeling, Dear Reader, and then multiply it by, I don't know, a bazillion, and you have how scared I was – because I may have made a choice that hurt my baby, and not even a choice that mattered! A stupid, selfish choice! I had my first instance of MommyGuilt – my baby would be born sans fingers, heart, left eardrum, all because of my vanity. I feel lucky that this is how the point that my child and I are sharing everything was driven home to me – with an issue that is probably not a risk, but is a good precaution to take anyway. The other side of it is that now I'm using a cleanser with glycolic acid, and it's actually making my skin look even better than Proactiv. I think I'm going to write Jessica Simpson a letter to that effect, and also let her know some things about Proactiv that could probably go onto their commercials.
|
| Milestone: I just threw up for the first time. Lately, I've been noticing that I get to a point where I feel almost starvation-style burning hunger fairly quickly, and that after I eat something, I feel nauseous. Today, the solution to the burning hunger at 1 pm was a delicious bowl of spaghetti prepared for me by my darling fiancee. It got significantly less delicious about half an hour later. Funnily enough, I'm really reassured by this. I'd been slightly concerned that my only symptoms were sore breasts and a heightened irritability to, well, everything that Kevin does. My midwife told me, "The sicker the momma, the healthier the baby," and I was worried that because I wasn't sick, something was wrong. Now I'm realizing that I really wasn't sick because I was making a point to stay hydrated, to eat small amounts constantly, and to lie down when I felt like I'd had too much. Actually being sick really gave me a little insight into what a bullet I'd dodged, and how lucky I've been to feel so good so far! Also, Kevin has started referring to our baby as "she," and it's adorable. I'm going to feel so bad if it's a boy, and buy him something hypermasculine to compensate.
|
I'm pregnant. I'm not entirely sure how to start this, since I've known for a week (eight days, to be exact). The fact is that for that first week none of it seemed very real: it seemed like my period was about to start any day. The presence of two purple lines on something that I peed on couldn't possibly mean that there is actually a little person growing in me...could it? Apparently, it does. My period hasn't arrived, my breasts are still sore, I can't remember anything, and I'm still having the little abdomen twitches I've come to identify as a multitude of ligaments and other sundry connectors stretching out and making room. Now, the worries I was feeling since we started trying to conceive (god, how I hate that phrase) like, "Will it take us a long time to get pregnant? What if we don't get pregnant? What kind of measures would I be willing to go to in order to be pregnant one day?" have been replaced entirely by worries that ultimately come back to one question: "Is this going to stick?" The miscarriage issue is definitely out there. I'm a worrier, and I'm a reader, and I will read anything regardless of its source. Here is my advice as a seasoned reader of everything Google will tell me (and it's a lot!): DON'T DO IT. Because I've read lots of the mainstream articles saying, "One in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage," the past week has been full of anxiety for me. Worse, though, than my anxiety, has been my hesitancy to fall in love with being pregnant, because I don't want to be crushed if it ends. Thus, I've been hesitating on writing down how full of joy this week has been – how good it feels to look at Kevin and see the father of my baby, how wonderful it is to eat and drink and know I am giving my child precious nutrients, how exciting just sitting and resting my hand on my stomach has become. The way I think that statistic should actually be worded is, "Four out of five pregnancies are healthy from the very first second, and end in a beautiful, healthy baby," because it's true, and it's a whole lot more reassuring, right?! When "one in five" pops into my head, I try to redirect it towards the second, more reassuring statement - that the chances that my baby is healthy and growing just fine are much, much better than the chances that s/he isn't. It doesn't always work, but you know what? It definitely works four out of five times. |
|
Say Goodbye to Justine's Pregnancy Notebook |
And Welcome to a NEW Column...Coming Soon.  Stay tuned for a brand new Pregnancy Notebook; follow along with a first time momma as she embarks on her homebirthing adventure. There will be weekly commentary from my Doula POV, as I support her during this extraordinary time in her life. New features on JulianArts will also include the ability to post comments from readers like you! I am excited about the changes going on here at JulianArts and hope that you will bear with me over the next few weeks while my site has a face lift on the front end and a little nip/tuck on the back end. |
Visit the Birth Stories page to read about our beautiful homebirth. Want to share your birth story with my readers? All types of birth stories are welcome. Visit the Contact Me page to send your story! |
March 15th: Happy Birthday, Mathilda! First moment  
Born 10:13pm, 8lbs 6 oz, 22 inches long. I am enjoying our peaceful babymoon and spending all of my time nursing and marveling. I will say this---homebirth was the BEST decision we have ever made. Momma & bebe could not be healthier, happier or more peaceful. Our little Miss Tillie Tobin has yet to even cry...she is alert and turns her head towards all the voices she knows and loves without having to tune out invasive hospital noises. She has not had one single thing poked into her skin, or eyes, or nose or bottom. She makes sounds like a kitten. We are crazy in love with her. more soon... |
 Yes. I am still pregnant! This is the most commonly heard question around our house these days.
We all know that due dates are just guidelines, but this time around I suppose I really believed everyone when they proclaimed that I would "go early with baby #4" Oh the power of suggestion! Actually I was reading this article on due date calculation and it looks like many American women should really be expecting their babies around the 42nd week rather than 40 weeks. As a doula, I have not seen a 40 week pregnancy that is managed by OB's at all. Most women who plan to birth in a hospital setting are induced by week 39. And let me tell you how tempting that thought has been these past few days. Instead of being up all night tossing and turning with crampy contractions for hours and hours, I could be up all night nursing my new baby. I could simply show up at the hospital at 3am with my regular contractions, they would assess me, determine that I wasn't progressing very well, offer to induce and all I would have to say is YES. The cost would be that I'd have to give up freedom of movement, privacy, comfort, and my dignity. I would be heavily monitored, hooked up to an IV, have multiple cervical checks which would increase my risk of infection and antibiotic use. I would be offered pain medication often and told that I wouldn't earn a medal for doing it the hard way. I would increase my risk of a cesarean section. I would increase the likelihood that my baby would be separated from me after the birth to be cleaned up and assessed by the staff. I might possibly expose myself and my baby to MRSA. Click on the Read More link to continue |
Read more...Link
|
Attachment Parenting: Needed Now More Than Ever
