We went out for dinner last night. Guess why? Because I thought it was a reasonable idea to leave a pot of chickpeas simmering on the stove while Cassia and I went for a little play in the park.
Do you ever get those moments where you wish you could go back in time and make a different decision? Yeah, me too.
Do you think I'd ever be grateful that smoke detectors in 9th floor rented apartment buildings aren't compulsory in Japan?
I'm not sure how long it's going to take the smell to clear out of this place, but I'm hoping it won't be more than two weeks. Trouble is, it's hot, HUMID, and the air is very still this time of year. Sigh.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Karaoke
Yesterday I went out with some friends. There were four mothers and five kids. The original plan was to picnic at a large park in the area, but the rain put a dampener on things. So we went to a Hawaiian restaurant for lunch instead, followed up by a bit of karaoke.
The funniest incident for the whole day was that in the 20 minutes between leaving the restaurant and arriving at the karaoke, all four of our toddlers fell asleep in the car. So we walked into the building each carrying a dead-to-the-world child on our shoulders (the fifth child is four years old and outgrew daytime naps a while ago). I wonder what that looked like to the karaoke staff.
Anyway, we had lots of fun. I had never actually done karaoke before in that setting. We got our own little room with a TV in the corner so it was all very private. I was interested, however, to still observe the cultural difference between Australia and Japan with this one. In Australia, you just don't really sing in front of your friends, unless perhaps you're a bona fide singer anyway. And if you decide to do something a little bit mad like karaoke, you giggle self-consciously and apologise for your really terrible voice and just generally feel shy. You might warm up after a while, but it's not like you can just launch into it.
Not so in Japan. Karaoke isn't about how well you can sing, it's just about something friends do together as a fun way to pass the time. Of my three companions, one could sing reasonably well, one was ordinary and the third was pretty bad. But she wasn't in the slightest bit embarrassed about it!
And now I can tick off another "quintessentially Japanese experience" on my imaginary to-do list (you know, the one I have to tell everyone about next time we go back to Australia and they ask how Japan is). Perhaps I should consider climbing Mount Fuji with Craig in a few weeks' time after all...
The funniest incident for the whole day was that in the 20 minutes between leaving the restaurant and arriving at the karaoke, all four of our toddlers fell asleep in the car. So we walked into the building each carrying a dead-to-the-world child on our shoulders (the fifth child is four years old and outgrew daytime naps a while ago). I wonder what that looked like to the karaoke staff.
Anyway, we had lots of fun. I had never actually done karaoke before in that setting. We got our own little room with a TV in the corner so it was all very private. I was interested, however, to still observe the cultural difference between Australia and Japan with this one. In Australia, you just don't really sing in front of your friends, unless perhaps you're a bona fide singer anyway. And if you decide to do something a little bit mad like karaoke, you giggle self-consciously and apologise for your really terrible voice and just generally feel shy. You might warm up after a while, but it's not like you can just launch into it.
Not so in Japan. Karaoke isn't about how well you can sing, it's just about something friends do together as a fun way to pass the time. Of my three companions, one could sing reasonably well, one was ordinary and the third was pretty bad. But she wasn't in the slightest bit embarrassed about it!
And now I can tick off another "quintessentially Japanese experience" on my imaginary to-do list (you know, the one I have to tell everyone about next time we go back to Australia and they ask how Japan is). Perhaps I should consider climbing Mount Fuji with Craig in a few weeks' time after all...
Sunday, July 26, 2009
First sewing project
...for Cassia, that is.
Several months ago during one of my 100-yen store outings, I came across this little frog mask/hood. It amused and inspired me enough to make a purchase, with the expectation that I could make a little costume to go with it for Cassia one of these days.
Ages later, at the fabric and craft store I saw a square of bright green cotton drill being sold on clearance. So I bought it, and it sat in the bottom of my cupboard waiting for an opportune time.
Then one day about two weeks ago I was really, really bored. The opportune time had arrived.
The end result is this basic little tunic that does up with ties at the back, and the feet. I'm quite proud of the feet. I think Cassia likes them too, because she's forever asking me to put them on her. The tunic and mask she's less keen on, as you can see from the photo. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.
Several months ago during one of my 100-yen store outings, I came across this little frog mask/hood. It amused and inspired me enough to make a purchase, with the expectation that I could make a little costume to go with it for Cassia one of these days.
Ages later, at the fabric and craft store I saw a square of bright green cotton drill being sold on clearance. So I bought it, and it sat in the bottom of my cupboard waiting for an opportune time.
Then one day about two weeks ago I was really, really bored. The opportune time had arrived.
The end result is this basic little tunic that does up with ties at the back, and the feet. I'm quite proud of the feet. I think Cassia likes them too, because she's forever asking me to put them on her. The tunic and mask she's less keen on, as you can see from the photo. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Bingo!
I was being watched by one of the staff members at Poppo (the playcentre) who speaks English and chats to me most weeks I go there. Eventually she came up to me and said "Are you well?"
Haha. A woman at church asked me that question once, in an extremely random-but-not way when I was 12 weeks pregnant with Cassia but hadn't announced it yet.
"Yes, thank-you!" I replied without giving anything away.
"Very good," she smiled and walked on, pretending a child somewhere else had caught her attention.
About a minute later she came back and asked me if I was looking slim. How hilarious. I'm still a novice when it comes to Japanese culture but from what little bits I do know of it, it seems totally logical to me that she would ask this question. She can't very well say "Are you pregnant?" That's WAY too direct. She can't ask me if I've put on weight. That's too impolite and too direct. And she can't really ask me if I've lost weight because that's obviously a stupid question. But she really wants the conversation to go in that direction, bearing in mind that the Japanese are obsessed with weight during pregnancy. So I politely put her out of her misery.
"Well I don't think so," I said and patted my belly. "I'm pregnant."
"Ahhh!" she exclaimed. "I thought so!" And the ensuing discussion contained all the typical things most such discussions contain. She concluded by telling me to be careful.
So it's official. I guess I'll have to come out of denial now and start posting belly shots.
Haha. A woman at church asked me that question once, in an extremely random-but-not way when I was 12 weeks pregnant with Cassia but hadn't announced it yet.
"Yes, thank-you!" I replied without giving anything away.
"Very good," she smiled and walked on, pretending a child somewhere else had caught her attention.
About a minute later she came back and asked me if I was looking slim. How hilarious. I'm still a novice when it comes to Japanese culture but from what little bits I do know of it, it seems totally logical to me that she would ask this question. She can't very well say "Are you pregnant?" That's WAY too direct. She can't ask me if I've put on weight. That's too impolite and too direct. And she can't really ask me if I've lost weight because that's obviously a stupid question. But she really wants the conversation to go in that direction, bearing in mind that the Japanese are obsessed with weight during pregnancy. So I politely put her out of her misery.
"Well I don't think so," I said and patted my belly. "I'm pregnant."
"Ahhh!" she exclaimed. "I thought so!" And the ensuing discussion contained all the typical things most such discussions contain. She concluded by telling me to be careful.
So it's official. I guess I'll have to come out of denial now and start posting belly shots.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Quickening
I felt the baby's movements for the first time on Thursday night. It was pretty cool. Such delicate, faint flutterings, it's hard to imagine that eventually they're going to turn into pretty sharp kicks and jabs that can really hurt sometimes!This is apparently what the babe (haven't come up with a nickname for this one yet) looks like now. I find these cross-section drawings a little hard to align with my own reality, though. I'm sure my belly isn't protruding that much yet, for example. Mind you, Craig gave me a hug last night and said "Wow! You really are pregnant!" so maybe I'm just in denial. Let's see how many women at the play centre I take Cassia to steal glances at my belly and then look at each other with raised eyebrows and giggle when I go on Thursday -- I reckon that will be a pretty good indicator.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Adventures in weaning
So in my long distant past I had these grand plans to let Cassia self-wean, expecting it would happen around the age of three. Then she was actually born and breastfeeding wasn't quite the blissful pinnacle of mothering I was expecting. Aside from initial difficulties, I just never really enjoyed it that much even though I certainly found my groove with it, was able to feed her without having to watch her every second, and was fine feeding in public. Unfortunately I had watched a breastfeeding video produced by the ABA on Cassia's first day, the catchphrase of which was "breastfeeding should be 100% pleasant and comfortable", and I think it set me up for disappointment. Breastfeeding was never 100% pleasant and comfortable for me.
Nevertheless, I decided to stick to my plan of letting her self-wean because it's not like I hated feeding, I just didn't like it that much either. And I knew that it would not do her any harm at all; on the contrary, it would do her lots of good for as long as it continued. And it's such an easy (read: lazy) mothering tool too!
Then when she was 14 months old I got pregnant again. Oh boy. Why had I never read about the pain of breastfeeding while pregnant before? (I probably had, somewhere, but it was far too theoretical for me to take much notice I guess.) It was as painful, if not more, than in those early days of her learning to latch on and it made me totally miserable. I contemplated weaning her, but certainly felt she wasn't ready for that, physically or emotionally. So I gritted my teeth and bore it a little longer, wondering what on earth I was going to do if she didn't self-wean during the pregnancy because I simply couldn't take the idea of tandem-feeding. Maybe I'd have to wean her at some point after all. Anyway, as the weeks went by and the pregnancy hormones left my body (not that I knew it at the time) the pain eased off and by the time I had the miscarriage it was already back to normal.
So I made a slight change in my original plans. I'd breastfeed until she self-weaned or I got pregnant again (because we were planning to start trying to conceive again when she was 32 months), with a progress review when she turned 2.
Plans, plans, plans. Pfft. I got pregnant again when she was about 21 months old and the way I confirmed it was by the incredible pain feeding was suddenly causing me. Maybe my memory is faulty, but it seemed even worse than last time. And it would hurt on-and-off for the duration of the feed, not just those first few awful sucks. And it didn't abate as the weeks went by either. There was no way I could continue this and keep my sanity. My supply was dropping dramatically because of the pregnancy anyway... and so finally, I made the decision to wean her for good. Quite a lot earlier than I would have ideally liked but that's life. I had no regrets, just found it an interesting exercise in "letting go".
As for the practical side of the process, I wanted to do it as gently as possible which meant taking a fairly long-term approach. She was feeding five times during the day and however many times overnight she would wake, which was usually two or three (sometimes, when I was lucky, just once). I decided to drop one of her day-feeds each week, and the first one to go was the mid-morning feed. Easy as pie. The next week I dropped the mid-afternoon feed. Not quite as easy but almost. Then I dropped her midday-naptime feed. Surprisingly easy. By this time I had coincidentally managed to night-wean her, as she'd begun sleeping through the night or occasionally waking once and being content to just eat food (usually fruit) before drifting back off. So I was down to feeding her twice a day -- once in the morning, and then before bed at night. The morning feed was the next to go, and that also wasn't too hard although by mid-morning sometimes she'd ask for booby and be a little upset when I said no. I'd just have to offer her some other food though and she'd be fine after that. And so came the final week -- down to feeding her once before bed and that was it! It also went remarkably well. As the week went by, and it was still killing me to feed her even just that once, I could hardly wait to finish. I spent the week telling Cassia that it was only four/three/two more days until she would have to say bye-bye to the boobies for good and at last, at last, AT LAST that final feed arrived. I was prudent enough to get a souvenir of it.
(I'm wearing shorts in this photo, I promise. You just can't see them.)
Well, that was 10 days ago. She has asked for booby several times since then and the intensity of her reaction to being told no has a direct relationship with the extent of her tiredness. I've had an emotionally turbulent time for unrelated reasons and she has been reflecting this back to me, which has been difficult, but I'm making a concerted effort to spend lots of time with her. Overall, I'd say the process has been amazingly smooth.
And yet it's obviously not quite as simple as all of that, because I feel compelled to reflect and write about it in this much detail. I do have some conflicting emotions about weaning, but not in ways I would have expected. I don't feel sad about it at all. At the moment, this photo produces more feelings of repulsion than sentimentality. (Ugh, get that child off my boob!) But I strongly suspect this feeling will fade over time and eventually I will look at it and think "awww". Maybe even "sniff". I also feel a strange regret that I can't feel compassion for other women who DO mourn the end of their breastfeeding relationship. They seem to be the ones in most need of a hug, not the ones like us who'd throw a party if anyone would come. (Hmmm, they used to hold "weaning parties" in days of old, didn't they? I'd never really thought about that before...) Perhaps the strongest feeling I'm experiencing is a sense of wistfulness over Cassia's growth and development. She hasn't been a baby for a long time, but she's making progress in leaps and bounds at the moment and I suppose there's that part of me which is aware that time moves on in spite of us.
So now I begin gearing up in preparation for feeding this next babe. I'm afraid it's going to hurt, that I'm going to hate it as much as I hated feeding Cassia towards the end. I don't anticipate the same sort of difficulties I had last time in getting breastfeeding established (though you never know for sure, of course), but right now my nipples are still sensitive enough, and the memories of the last few months are still fresh enough that I cringe at the thought of it. All part of the adventure of mothering, I guess.
Nevertheless, I decided to stick to my plan of letting her self-wean because it's not like I hated feeding, I just didn't like it that much either. And I knew that it would not do her any harm at all; on the contrary, it would do her lots of good for as long as it continued. And it's such an easy (read: lazy) mothering tool too!
Then when she was 14 months old I got pregnant again. Oh boy. Why had I never read about the pain of breastfeeding while pregnant before? (I probably had, somewhere, but it was far too theoretical for me to take much notice I guess.) It was as painful, if not more, than in those early days of her learning to latch on and it made me totally miserable. I contemplated weaning her, but certainly felt she wasn't ready for that, physically or emotionally. So I gritted my teeth and bore it a little longer, wondering what on earth I was going to do if she didn't self-wean during the pregnancy because I simply couldn't take the idea of tandem-feeding. Maybe I'd have to wean her at some point after all. Anyway, as the weeks went by and the pregnancy hormones left my body (not that I knew it at the time) the pain eased off and by the time I had the miscarriage it was already back to normal.
So I made a slight change in my original plans. I'd breastfeed until she self-weaned or I got pregnant again (because we were planning to start trying to conceive again when she was 32 months), with a progress review when she turned 2.
Plans, plans, plans. Pfft. I got pregnant again when she was about 21 months old and the way I confirmed it was by the incredible pain feeding was suddenly causing me. Maybe my memory is faulty, but it seemed even worse than last time. And it would hurt on-and-off for the duration of the feed, not just those first few awful sucks. And it didn't abate as the weeks went by either. There was no way I could continue this and keep my sanity. My supply was dropping dramatically because of the pregnancy anyway... and so finally, I made the decision to wean her for good. Quite a lot earlier than I would have ideally liked but that's life. I had no regrets, just found it an interesting exercise in "letting go".
As for the practical side of the process, I wanted to do it as gently as possible which meant taking a fairly long-term approach. She was feeding five times during the day and however many times overnight she would wake, which was usually two or three (sometimes, when I was lucky, just once). I decided to drop one of her day-feeds each week, and the first one to go was the mid-morning feed. Easy as pie. The next week I dropped the mid-afternoon feed. Not quite as easy but almost. Then I dropped her midday-naptime feed. Surprisingly easy. By this time I had coincidentally managed to night-wean her, as she'd begun sleeping through the night or occasionally waking once and being content to just eat food (usually fruit) before drifting back off. So I was down to feeding her twice a day -- once in the morning, and then before bed at night. The morning feed was the next to go, and that also wasn't too hard although by mid-morning sometimes she'd ask for booby and be a little upset when I said no. I'd just have to offer her some other food though and she'd be fine after that. And so came the final week -- down to feeding her once before bed and that was it! It also went remarkably well. As the week went by, and it was still killing me to feed her even just that once, I could hardly wait to finish. I spent the week telling Cassia that it was only four/three/two more days until she would have to say bye-bye to the boobies for good and at last, at last, AT LAST that final feed arrived. I was prudent enough to get a souvenir of it.
(I'm wearing shorts in this photo, I promise. You just can't see them.)Well, that was 10 days ago. She has asked for booby several times since then and the intensity of her reaction to being told no has a direct relationship with the extent of her tiredness. I've had an emotionally turbulent time for unrelated reasons and she has been reflecting this back to me, which has been difficult, but I'm making a concerted effort to spend lots of time with her. Overall, I'd say the process has been amazingly smooth.
And yet it's obviously not quite as simple as all of that, because I feel compelled to reflect and write about it in this much detail. I do have some conflicting emotions about weaning, but not in ways I would have expected. I don't feel sad about it at all. At the moment, this photo produces more feelings of repulsion than sentimentality. (Ugh, get that child off my boob!) But I strongly suspect this feeling will fade over time and eventually I will look at it and think "awww". Maybe even "sniff". I also feel a strange regret that I can't feel compassion for other women who DO mourn the end of their breastfeeding relationship. They seem to be the ones in most need of a hug, not the ones like us who'd throw a party if anyone would come. (Hmmm, they used to hold "weaning parties" in days of old, didn't they? I'd never really thought about that before...) Perhaps the strongest feeling I'm experiencing is a sense of wistfulness over Cassia's growth and development. She hasn't been a baby for a long time, but she's making progress in leaps and bounds at the moment and I suppose there's that part of me which is aware that time moves on in spite of us.
So now I begin gearing up in preparation for feeding this next babe. I'm afraid it's going to hurt, that I'm going to hate it as much as I hated feeding Cassia towards the end. I don't anticipate the same sort of difficulties I had last time in getting breastfeeding established (though you never know for sure, of course), but right now my nipples are still sensitive enough, and the memories of the last few months are still fresh enough that I cringe at the thought of it. All part of the adventure of mothering, I guess.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
16 weeks and time for an update
But not much to report. I'm pleased to say I can feel my uterus all the time now, so it finally seems more real. A couple of times I've even felt a little "something" that may or may not be baby movements. Braxton Hicks is doing her thing so I could be just mistaking it for that. On the forums I'm a member of there are a couple of women not as far along as me already saying they can feel movement and of course I'm jealous.
It's still not worth taking a photo of my belly yet. I remember being totally obsessed last time with how much I was showing (or not) around this time too, so that's nothing unusual.
We've been trying to explain to Cassia that Mama has a baby growing in her tummy. She can say the words back to us, but we're not entirely sure they have any meaning for her. Fortunately during our last week in Australia we visited P, F & J. F was 38 weeks pregnant at the time and her "big tummy" impressed Cassia enough that she still remembers it. So we've been saying "Remember how Aunty F had a big tummy? She had a baby in there! And Mama's got a baby in her tummy too. It's still pretty small now but it'll get bigger." We've also been looking through our old photo collection for pics of when I was pregnant with Cassia. That's been fun and interesting too. Check this one out.
Wanna take a stab at how pregnant I was then? 39+3. She was born four days later. It's good to have this reminder, though. Stops me obsessing over how "small" I am.
It was also interesting to see photos of me from around the 20 week mark. My boobs were (comparatively) huge! I wonder if that'll happen again this time. Oh! That reminds me -- Cassia has been weaned. YAY. Actually I'd like to reflect on that in more detail later so I'll hold that thought for a separate post.
A few weeks ago I was beginning to find the search for a midwife extremely stressful and decided to take a few weeks off to just relax and gestate. Unfortunately, birth politics in Australia chose exactly the same time to get a whole lot more heated and now homebirthers are staring down the barrel of being forced into hospital (it might take a while, but it's inevitable that freebirthing will also become illegal). The reality of something I suspected but was trying to ignore hit me really hard on Sunday: I would be one of those women ineligible for a homebirth even if I lived next door to a hospital offering a homebirth program because of my high risk status. Yep, I'm high risk because I've had a previous miscarriage and a history of GBS. (Of course, I'd refuse to take all the stupid tests they "offer" which would get me booted off the program too.) Anyway, absorbing the reality of the situation in which I and so many of my homebirthing sisters were so broken by our hospital experience that forcing us back there is akin to forcing a rape victim back to the scene of the crime made me go into shock while standing in line at the supermarket. I felt nauseous, light-headed, went pale and started sweating. By God's mercy I remained upright long enough to get my change, move to the side and rip into the container of pineapple pieces I'd just bought but that's as close as I ever want to get to fainting, thanks very much.
One of the things that devastates me so much about the direction we are headed is that eventually there is going to be a total lack of accountability for the hospital system. Stamping out independent midwifery, which is a voice in the wilderness championing the cause of natural childbirth (because it doesn't matter how much stuff you read on the internet -- the future of which is also up for debate when you read the proposed legislation -- if you can't find people to support you to have a natural birth, you won't get one), is stamping out the only real opposition to what is currently happening that exists. I foresee a continuing rise in interventions and caesarean rates and it BREAKS MY HEART TO THINK MY OWN DAUGHTER IS VERY LIKELY TO END UP WITH UNNECESSARY MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY by virtue of being a woman designed by God to give birth. And people wonder why I'm so upset about this.
Anyway. We press on, remembering that women all over the world have been given a terribly raw deal since the very beginning and nothing has really changed even in supposedly enlightened, progressive free countries like Australia. It's another sign of the times and God speed the day it all ends.
On a lighter note for the sake of my own sanity, we're making some more progress with potty training. It's very slow progress, and that's OK, but it's exciting nonetheless. We've had a few more wees and even one poo! I would LOVE to have her out of nappies for good by the time this next baby arrives. I've got about five months, but there'll be a major interruption in the form of another trip to Australia right in the middle of it, so I don't know for sure whether it'll happen or not. And even if it did, I've heard so many times that toddlers "regress" when a baby sibling comes on the scene so we'll just see how it goes, take it as it comes. But it's fun watching and participating in Cassia's development anyway.
OK, that's about it. I've been sitting here for five minutes trying to think of something relevant to say but I'm done. 'Til later.
It's still not worth taking a photo of my belly yet. I remember being totally obsessed last time with how much I was showing (or not) around this time too, so that's nothing unusual.
We've been trying to explain to Cassia that Mama has a baby growing in her tummy. She can say the words back to us, but we're not entirely sure they have any meaning for her. Fortunately during our last week in Australia we visited P, F & J. F was 38 weeks pregnant at the time and her "big tummy" impressed Cassia enough that she still remembers it. So we've been saying "Remember how Aunty F had a big tummy? She had a baby in there! And Mama's got a baby in her tummy too. It's still pretty small now but it'll get bigger." We've also been looking through our old photo collection for pics of when I was pregnant with Cassia. That's been fun and interesting too. Check this one out.
Wanna take a stab at how pregnant I was then? 39+3. She was born four days later. It's good to have this reminder, though. Stops me obsessing over how "small" I am.It was also interesting to see photos of me from around the 20 week mark. My boobs were (comparatively) huge! I wonder if that'll happen again this time. Oh! That reminds me -- Cassia has been weaned. YAY. Actually I'd like to reflect on that in more detail later so I'll hold that thought for a separate post.
A few weeks ago I was beginning to find the search for a midwife extremely stressful and decided to take a few weeks off to just relax and gestate. Unfortunately, birth politics in Australia chose exactly the same time to get a whole lot more heated and now homebirthers are staring down the barrel of being forced into hospital (it might take a while, but it's inevitable that freebirthing will also become illegal). The reality of something I suspected but was trying to ignore hit me really hard on Sunday: I would be one of those women ineligible for a homebirth even if I lived next door to a hospital offering a homebirth program because of my high risk status. Yep, I'm high risk because I've had a previous miscarriage and a history of GBS. (Of course, I'd refuse to take all the stupid tests they "offer" which would get me booted off the program too.) Anyway, absorbing the reality of the situation in which I and so many of my homebirthing sisters were so broken by our hospital experience that forcing us back there is akin to forcing a rape victim back to the scene of the crime made me go into shock while standing in line at the supermarket. I felt nauseous, light-headed, went pale and started sweating. By God's mercy I remained upright long enough to get my change, move to the side and rip into the container of pineapple pieces I'd just bought but that's as close as I ever want to get to fainting, thanks very much.
One of the things that devastates me so much about the direction we are headed is that eventually there is going to be a total lack of accountability for the hospital system. Stamping out independent midwifery, which is a voice in the wilderness championing the cause of natural childbirth (because it doesn't matter how much stuff you read on the internet -- the future of which is also up for debate when you read the proposed legislation -- if you can't find people to support you to have a natural birth, you won't get one), is stamping out the only real opposition to what is currently happening that exists. I foresee a continuing rise in interventions and caesarean rates and it BREAKS MY HEART TO THINK MY OWN DAUGHTER IS VERY LIKELY TO END UP WITH UNNECESSARY MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY by virtue of being a woman designed by God to give birth. And people wonder why I'm so upset about this.
Anyway. We press on, remembering that women all over the world have been given a terribly raw deal since the very beginning and nothing has really changed even in supposedly enlightened, progressive free countries like Australia. It's another sign of the times and God speed the day it all ends.
On a lighter note for the sake of my own sanity, we're making some more progress with potty training. It's very slow progress, and that's OK, but it's exciting nonetheless. We've had a few more wees and even one poo! I would LOVE to have her out of nappies for good by the time this next baby arrives. I've got about five months, but there'll be a major interruption in the form of another trip to Australia right in the middle of it, so I don't know for sure whether it'll happen or not. And even if it did, I've heard so many times that toddlers "regress" when a baby sibling comes on the scene so we'll just see how it goes, take it as it comes. But it's fun watching and participating in Cassia's development anyway.
OK, that's about it. I've been sitting here for five minutes trying to think of something relevant to say but I'm done. 'Til later.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Dear Ms Roxon
RE: PROPOSED LEGISLATION AFFECTING HOMEBIRTH AND INDEPENDENT MIDWIFERY IN AUSTRALIA FROM JULY 2010
I'm writing this to you as one woman-mother to another. It hardly matters whether I'm a homebirther or not, because the core issue at hand transcends birth location. It's about a woman's right to choose what's best for her and her baby, and I think it's fair to say every woman-mother cares about that.
I see you have one child yourself and no doubt your child is the most important person in your life. So I know this same issue affects you personally, because I'm sure that as you carried that baby in your womb you thought constantly about where and how they would be born, what choices you had at your disposal, and what would be safest and best for you and for them.
I also know you're an intelligent woman who can appreciate that one person's choices are not the same as another's. And when it comes to birth choices, what makes one woman feel safe is likely to make another want to run for the hills.
Ms Roxon, please think back to the choices you made for the birth of your own child. You did what you believed was best for you and them, didn't you? It was none of anyone else's business, was it? It was your body, your baby, and no-one had the right to decide for you what you would do, correct?
Now imagine how you would have felt if some total strangers had come along and said "We don't think the care provider you've chosen for your pregnancy and birth should be allowed to provide your care any more. We are going to remove them their practice. You will be forced to make a different choice, and we don't care if the choices you are left with make you want to run for the hills. We know better than you what is best for you and your baby." I don't imagine, being the strong woman you obviously are, that you would take such an irrational, overbearing and unfair restriction lying down.
And yet Ms Roxon, you are doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING to hundreds of your fellow women-mothers. Do you realise that? Removing legal access to homebirth with independent midwives is a travesty of a woman-mother's right to autonomy over one of the most significant and personal events of her life. It perhaps would be understandable if the choice was a demonstrably unsafe one. However, by now enough people will have written to you with evidence-based research that you well know the opposite is true -- that homebirth is safe, that independent midwives have transfer rates of less than 10% (compare this to Australian birth centre transfer rates of 42%, or the deplorable overall c-section rate of 31%), and that safe, empowering births have an enormous beneficial flow-on effect to society's health in general (less incidence of post-natal depression, greater breastfeeding success rates, fewer health complications caused by surgery, etc).
Ms Roxon, please also consider the irony that YOU, a woman in a position of influence thanks to the political activism of her foremothers, may be responsible for the removal of not only a basic human right for your countrywomen, but also the availability of the safest birth choice for women in Australia.
Please use your position of influence to reverse the direction these proposed laws are taking us in.
Yours straight from the heart,
Nat
P.S. I am attaching a copy of my daughter's birth story as a classic example of what a "normal" (or worse, "natural") birth in hospital looks like.
I'm writing this to you as one woman-mother to another. It hardly matters whether I'm a homebirther or not, because the core issue at hand transcends birth location. It's about a woman's right to choose what's best for her and her baby, and I think it's fair to say every woman-mother cares about that.
I see you have one child yourself and no doubt your child is the most important person in your life. So I know this same issue affects you personally, because I'm sure that as you carried that baby in your womb you thought constantly about where and how they would be born, what choices you had at your disposal, and what would be safest and best for you and for them.
I also know you're an intelligent woman who can appreciate that one person's choices are not the same as another's. And when it comes to birth choices, what makes one woman feel safe is likely to make another want to run for the hills.
Ms Roxon, please think back to the choices you made for the birth of your own child. You did what you believed was best for you and them, didn't you? It was none of anyone else's business, was it? It was your body, your baby, and no-one had the right to decide for you what you would do, correct?
Now imagine how you would have felt if some total strangers had come along and said "We don't think the care provider you've chosen for your pregnancy and birth should be allowed to provide your care any more. We are going to remove them their practice. You will be forced to make a different choice, and we don't care if the choices you are left with make you want to run for the hills. We know better than you what is best for you and your baby." I don't imagine, being the strong woman you obviously are, that you would take such an irrational, overbearing and unfair restriction lying down.
And yet Ms Roxon, you are doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING to hundreds of your fellow women-mothers. Do you realise that? Removing legal access to homebirth with independent midwives is a travesty of a woman-mother's right to autonomy over one of the most significant and personal events of her life. It perhaps would be understandable if the choice was a demonstrably unsafe one. However, by now enough people will have written to you with evidence-based research that you well know the opposite is true -- that homebirth is safe, that independent midwives have transfer rates of less than 10% (compare this to Australian birth centre transfer rates of 42%, or the deplorable overall c-section rate of 31%), and that safe, empowering births have an enormous beneficial flow-on effect to society's health in general (less incidence of post-natal depression, greater breastfeeding success rates, fewer health complications caused by surgery, etc).
Ms Roxon, please also consider the irony that YOU, a woman in a position of influence thanks to the political activism of her foremothers, may be responsible for the removal of not only a basic human right for your countrywomen, but also the availability of the safest birth choice for women in Australia.
Please use your position of influence to reverse the direction these proposed laws are taking us in.
Yours straight from the heart,
Nat
P.S. I am attaching a copy of my daughter's birth story as a classic example of what a "normal" (or worse, "natural") birth in hospital looks like.
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