15 posts tagged “doula”

http://www.d-mer.org/

have you or anyone you known ever experienced this while nursing? I had some issue with it (though clearly not as bad as some) but I never thought that it could be stemming from a biolgical issue. weird, but i never put it together. I just thought it was me as I get touched out very easily.

anyhow I just thought i would share it here incase it helps someone else out!

http://www.d-mer.org/

have you or anyone you known ever experienced this while nursing? I had some issue with it (though clearly not as bad as some) but I never thought that it could be stemming from a biolgical issue. weird, but i never put it together. I just thought it was me as I get touched out very easily.

here is a small blurb from theri website that better explains it:

how D-MER Presents:
What Mothers Feel

A key piece of D-MER is that a mother with D-MER feels absolutely fine except just before her milk starts to flow. D-MER is a brief feeling, not more than 30 seconds to 2 minutes, only and always beginning before let-down. This is not postpartum depression and most of these mothers feel perfectly fine except for that pre-milk moment. A brief interval after the negative feelings appear, the milk begins to flow.

D-MER can easily go unrecognized since 1) some mothers have so many closely spaced letdowns per feeding that the feelings do not have a chance to dissipate before the next D-MER is upon her, making her feel that she experiences on long D-MER through most of, if not all of, the feeding 2) many mothers do not physically feel a letdown in their breasts and so does not connect the feeling as to being just prior to letdown and 3) given the fact that D-MER happens with spontaneous letdowns as well, a mother may not immediately connect the way she is feeling to being a breastfeeding phenomenon.

anyhow I just thought i would share it here incase it helps someone else out!

I found out one of my good doula friends. (as in a good friend, not a good doula... thought she is also a good doula!) is pregnant with her first baby. so exciting! she was beaming with that nervous glow on her face that every first time mama has. the first pregnancy is so exciting, a scary and worrisome and wonderful.

it's like a first kiss, you never enjoy it as much as you wish you had in retrospect. but then again you're not experience enough in pregnancy to know what you should be enjoying.

my first pregnancy I dmit wasn't much enjoying. I'm a lucky duck who gets Hyperemesis gravidarum - which in english just means I puke so much with out stopping I have to be hospitalized and get IV treatment for a few weeks before I calm down. happened in both my pregnancies. it's a major ordeal and very hard on everyone in my family. we wanted a lot of kids... ok well I wanted a lot of kids, at one point... but now I don't know. who knows. maybe... but it's hard to parent when you're so ill for 9 months of the year!

anyhow I said all that to say there was still many things I wish I had known to enjoy. like the feeling the baby move, and being able to just laydown and read a book or fold baby clothes and dream to myself about the new baby to come. with my second pregnancy I was so busy I didn't have much daydreaming time!

This coming month I've been invited to attend the homebirth a a good friend's baby. I am WAY excited. it's wonderful to be able to attend your friend's birth. what a bonding experience! getting to be abel to help women thru birth is not only a good feeling but a blessing. you get to take home a tiny bit of that joy with you. you are witness to a miraculous experience! how can you not go home feeling a little warm after wards? nothing makes you feel closer to god than death and birth. your own and others. it's a beautiful thing.

This is a link a friend had on their blog linking to a beautiful video on another blog... which I promptly hijacked! It's a labouring mama at home singing praised to God alongside her husband and doula... her 7 yr old is taped it all.

I warn you though, it's a tear jerker. have a tissue ready! who you turn to in the toughest and most pecious times shows a lot about you.

those who knows me well know I am a huge fan of the Weston A. Price Foundation (wapf). It's a way of eating and living... and well I could tell you all about it, but why not go HERE and read it yourself.

well recently I stumbled upon THIS article about Childbirth pain... great insite on preparing your body for the endurance of birthing. I am going to keep it on hand for my future clients so I figured I wouls share it here as well!

((it really urks me that everything has to have a topic. Vox, where do post my annoyance?))

I was late to the birthing circle meeting b/c Eli was sick. so I called Suzy (Suzy, where ya been anyhow? -she has a vox...) anyhow I called Suzy who was already there and she began. (thanks, Suzy!!!)  I'm not "in charge"  of the group, but in charge of making sure everything pans out. we have a committee and everyone on it is very reliable so we get along great so it's a good time and i think everyone enjoys themselves a lot.

well there were visitors today! which was great to walk in and see new faces! two pregnant mamas and also a local birth instructer. We all had good conversations and joked about the trials and such of pregnancy, birth and mothering. It was fun and it's great to hear everyone's perspective on things like breastfeeding toddlers to how to have natural births in a hospital. Everyone who had a birth plan brought it in and we discussed what worked and didn't work well for them.

which brings me to my point... women in our sociecty do not support one another like they should. we are too spread apart, too busy, and too "spoiled" by modern convience. of course this is all my opinion. but i can do that on *my* blog =P   at any rate it's a wonderful thing when woman come together to enjoy and support one another. The birthing circle and LLL are two examples of just that. I am very blessed to be a part of that. and sadly it also makes me very aware of what I am missing from not having that more than just twice a month.

tomorrow we have our monthly Anne Arudel Birthing Circle meeting and of course I alwas wait til the very last minute ot get it all together. but to be honest, if I get it together too soon I forget it all! I have to wait til a day or two before, so there! it's not procrastination, it's good planning!

well I thought I would share here what I wrote. not that it's particularly beautiful, but it's my best advice.

Birth Plan Tips for Hospital Births

• Always start out on a good note.

• As often as possible say "do" instead of "don't"
  

• Keeping on the positive!

• "Short and sweet"

• Bring more than one copy with you.

• The most imporatant thing is for you to know the rules of both the hospital AND your PCP.

• The bigger the OB/Midwife group you are a part of, the harder it is for them to remember you and your special birth needs and desires.

adventures in headcovering...

So my headcover didn't turn out as well as I hoped... but hey I only worked on it for 8 hrs, that's all.  After much wasted fabric and ringing of my hands, i came up with something different than my original plan. a simple kerchief in lightweight black farbic. simple. but it works best for my shape head/face and length of hair. well to be honest I did make another one I like a lot.. pretty multi colored soft fabric. then as I was adjucting in in the mirror i realized it *does* have a pattern. a pattern I never saw. this weird person holding a bag. but like a stick person. very very weird. and it's right on the back of my head! not really what I was going for... so I'm bummed. at any rate that was more a veil than kerchief style so I plan on making another when I get more fabric.

I am not a seamstress in any stretch of the word so yes it took me 8 hrs to come up with two covers. and yes they are terribly sewn. and i do hope no one looks closely. but hey, isn't this supposed to be about humility? atleast to some degree? heh... well it's certainly humble.

I wore it today to church for the first time. I was quite nervous. a few people gave me sideways glances as it so say "surely that's not a covering... nah. it's just a kerchief... I think... right?"  I guess after 3 or 4 sundays they will figure it out. I guess I was a bit worked up thinking people would take it as some kinda... oh I dont know really... some sort of challenge. as if to say I thought higher of myself. in trying to be modest I felt I may come out as immodest. trying to get attention. this was a very hard thing for me to work past, but a few amish mennonite friend online (yes there are some online) have encouraged me. I guess i just needed some kinda support b/c I felt much braver when I woke this morning. I even managed to not be insulted while my mother looked at me today and exclaimed "you look like you're just out of the 40's!". which of course is missing the point entirely... but I know it's just hard for her to understand. and hard for her to see me make such a dramatic change so I just laughed and said "yeah I guess I do". honestly I'm sure I'd feel just like her if I were her... so I'm trying to be understanding just as she is of me.

yesterday the picnic at the amish farm (not amish mennonite. but old order amish - though rather outgoing) we had a great time. lots of people there! I was shocked to see how some were dressed. of course peope shouldnt try to look amish or something. but geez, I mean don't wear a belly shirt would ya? this is their home! and they have children who've never seen such a thing I'm sure. at anyrate most people were normal and it was a lot of fun. my one friend says to me "so are you trying to be amish wth your head covered?" (she is my one modestly dressed friend, btw so I like her a lot!) and I tell her that I've been wearing a covering dor a little over a week now and I finally decided to after being convicted for a while. and she replies gracefully "oh really? doesn't it feel good to listen to convictions like that?" and it made me feel warm all over. not b/c she wanted to do t too, but b/c atleast one of my mommy/playdate/ unschooling friends doesn't think I'm crazy. I know I shouldn't care, but atleast I can let my guard down with her a little.

Sean posted some pictures on his blog of the farm. but you have to be on his protected list as he didn't wanna flash photos around the internet that would end up being used for anything. Farmer Dan (as we call him said a few pictures were fine by him as long as they weren't posed and kept few. I was surprised as I really thought he woudn't allow it.

I didn't want to leave. I felt like pitching a tent and saying " oh btw, I'm staying. do you have an english/pa dutch dictionary I could borrow?". but I felt that may be a bit fwd heh.

I have been on the phone with a mom in early labour (pre-labour) since Wed. Today she called me in the ealry hours and i met her at the hospital. When I got there she was 3-4. no even an hour and  a half later she was complete and wanting to push. 7 mins later the baby boy came.

it was a beautiful time. the people really really connected with their newborn right off the bat. it doesn't happen like that for everyone. it's always different (thought joyful). but it was like this mom and baby had always known one another since the beginning of time. he nursed right away and needed no help from me (except to calm mom's nerves and cheer her on that she could infact breastfeed).

So many moms when asked "are you planning to breastfeed" say "I hope so" or "I want to try". it's sad that it's like this. that we assume there is some kind ao 50/50 chance of failure. if only they knew how unlikely it is. that sure there are bumps in the road... but it's so unlikley to competely "fail".  there are only a handfull of us out there who truly face the bigger problems and it shouldn't be something we assume will be us. at anyrate some lie has been introduced to our society that breastfeeding is a tricky cruel thing. that it's just a possibility. something you hope to be lucky enough to be able to do. not something you can count on.

when the mom put her baby to breast and he started chowing for a bit, I said "and now you know you *can* and *are* breastfeeding". I don't know if she knew why I said, but i was hoping it would stick with her. plant some kinda seed to grow up thru the many weeds of doubt that out society has planted in her mind. I'm hoping when a trial comes up she can look back and say "but wait, I did breastfeed! I AM a breastfeeding mom". and she will know it's a fight worth fighting in the long run.

I know some people struggle with the trials of breastfeeding. I did. and sometimes it's a mom issue (PPD...) , sometimes a baby issue (like a sick baby). sometimes we must get creative. sometimes we must do things in an unorthodox way. but we are mothers. and we are powerful, strong and smart. and it is very very sad that we don't believe this wholeheartedly and support one another with all our hearts when one of us truly is going thru a trial or tribulation. woman need to believe in themselves and believe in one another. when you get lemons, you make lemonaid. you find a way to make things work. and it's ok b/c we are smart and cappable beings. we are mothers.

it just seems that every topic I have should somehow be related to being a doula, right? I'm a doula and I painted the kitchen...

I painted it the same color as the living room. ok well not so much *I* as Sean and I. we stayed up til about 3am paintng and then had a snack so I was awake until 4:30am and then the shower woke me up (well the person in the shower) at 7am and I tried to fall back to sleep but couldn't. so I'm tired. sooooo stupidly tired. but it's cool b/c it's Sean's day off so I'm taking a big nap.

tonight I'm going to sit in on a friend's breastfeeding class. she works for the hospital too and I since there is about 110 different breastfeeding teaching styles (yeah I know, pretty much works the same for baby no matter who teaches it, but they just use different styles of teaching) anyhow I realized that thru out the hospital many people teach in many different ways and this confuses new moms. They hear one things from the class, one thing from me, one things from the nurses... and by the end they don't know which way they are going. So I'm going to see how it is taught originally and try to keep in mind what they already have learned when I'm assisting them after they give birth. maybe use some of the same visuals and phrases so it hopefully will strike up some memories from their classes. The hospital I work for has wonderful breastfeedin and childbirth preperation classes. I know many hospitals have been accused of having  childbirth classes which should be called "how to be a good patient" style classes LOL but ours isn't that way and I'm thankful!

I find many woman, even though they have taken the classes (which I know are good b/c I know the teachers!) are so overwhelmed by breastfeeding at first. esp if the baby doesn't latch within the first few moments. I see discouragement wash over their face. a look that says "I guess I am not good at this". and my heart aches for them. every woman feels some kinda of doubt about breastfeeding and I want to be as encouraging as i can in the short time I have with them. you're in such a vulnrable state right after birth and I want those memories to be wonderful and precious, not full of woe and worry. I think I say "it's ok! this is totally normal" about a dozen times with each mama. =) and truly it is normal. as I had a wonderful initial latch with both kids and still managed to doubt myself and think "I wonder if I'm doing this right?". just goes with motherhood I suposse.

how were *your* first few breastfeeding moments?