Working out at the gym the other day, I was rocking out with my iPod and reading a trashy magazine. Hey, some people can read Pynchon and listen to Mahler, I need brain candy and synthpop. (I also choreograph song parodies as I'm trudging away. If anyone ever needs a breastfeeding promo set to Madonna, I'm your woman. Call me Madoula.) Anyway, I came across an Oscar Mayer ad, and though I'd normally flip right past it, something in the jumbled images caught my eye.
Apparently Jewel is now shilling for Oscar Mayer. But leaving aside how icky I think this processed crap is in the first place, something else really, REALLY bothered me. Can you guess what it is before scrolling down to see a close-up?
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Okay, here's the zoom-in, also turned upside down:
That right there, in what we're apparently supposed to think is Stuff You Find In Jewel's Bag, is a copy of Babywise. No doubt about it. See?
I'm sure people following my blog are familiar with the most notoriously awful book on parenting ever there was, but just in case, you'll find all you need to know here.
So, was this an intentional endorsement? She just had her first baby a month ago (congratulations on your baby boy, sincerely), so it's possible that this was on purpose (not the Boudreaux's Buttpaste in there as well). Or was this purely a matter of "Hey, young photographer's assistant, run out and grab a bunch of mom stuff. I dunno, diaper cream, I guess, whatever. Jewel can't possibly care what it looks like she's promoting if she's doing an Oscar Mayer ad, anyway,"?
Anyone else bothered by this? I'm not, like, ready to torch her Texas ranch or anything, but some sort of explanation would be nice. If, in the end, only kindness matters, "Babywise" is philosophically about as far from that as you can get.
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And now for something completely different:
It bums me out that I haven't had more time for blogging in recent months. I normally try to maintain SOME boundaries between the blog and my real life, which may seem odd given the intimacy of many of the experiences I've shared here. But I'm not a "mommy blogger" in the strictest sense, if there is strictness in such things - while I certainly have blurred the lines at times, my focus is not on chronicling my parenting experience; my shared experiences have all been mostly on-topic.
But, suffice it to say, low-income single parenthood is seriously kicking my ass. There are LOTS of good things in the works for Lily and I, lots to give us hope and the gumption to stick it out - but the day to day present is quite difficult most days. Alas, this means blogging here is something that falls by the wayside during more strenuous times, which, again, bums me out because it's something I find very satisfying. This is my internal soundtrack* many days:
Point being, I'm not going anywhere, and as ever, hope to be able to produce more frequently in coming weeks and months. Just forgive the sporadic-acity and check in on me once in a while.
*Moment of teh fun: I managed to get out for some grown-up fun last week, and entered a pub trivia contest that was ALL JOSS WHEDON! And our team, Big Damn Heroes, won by a landslide.
(Note to self, make sure I don't accidentally post this on my food blog . . . )
SECOND WARNING: This is going to be graphic.
I've been touting the potential benefits of placenta consumption, specifically in the form of encapsulation, which is by far the most palatable means of so doing for most, myself included. Check out the site Placenta Benefits for tons of information, including articles on its benefits (such as reducing bleeding and lochia, helping to prevent postpartum depression, and aiding abundant lactation), how to get one's placenta released from the hospital if you birthed there, collected scientific research and so on. I missed out on the chance to do this with my own placenta, sadly, but I'm currently working with a postpartum client who was not only game to give this a try, but also gave me permission to both write about and share photographs of the whole process. DID I MENTION THIS WAS GOING TO BE GRAPHIC?
P.S. This is going to be graphic!
Ready?
I was alerted to the happy birth of her second daughter within hours of the happy event, I hightailed it over to her house to pick up the goods as soon as possible, and set to work.
And here's the healthy specimen. I like my Culinary Institute of America logo on the cutting sheet there, don't you? Anyway, her midwives had already removed the umbilical cord and wrapped it up neatly, storing it in the refrigerator until I could get there to pick it up. (This was a home birth, so we didn't have to worry about obtaining it from the hospital.)
I donned gloves and got down to business. The process involves three major steps: steaming the placenta, then drying it either in a dehydrator or an oven on a very low setting, and then grinding it into a powder. First it was thoroughly rinsed, then cut into several pieces in order to fit manageably into the steamer.
I then steamed it with a sliced lemon and a few chunks of ginger, for both preservation and odor. The scent of this has been remarked upon; it's not unpleasant. One friend of mine found the scent disturbing specifically because she thought it actually smelled quite tasty; like, she kept thinking "Mmm, pot roast," and then remembering immediately what it actually was. Others have described it as rather gamey, like cooking elk or deer, if you have experience of that. I wonder if it might not be best described as the scent of offal cooking. Big game offal. With Asian flavor profiles, due to the citrus and ginger.
OKAY, if you're still with me, after steaming the placenta for 15 minutes on each side, I sliced it into smaller strips and placed it into my preheated low oven. There it remained overnight, and because it wasn't quite done yet in the morning and I had to depart for work, on the advice of my friend Justine (who you might remember from our placenta playdate), I cranked the oven up for just a few minutes and then turned it off altogether. Perfect.
And there it is! All that was left to do was grind it up. Lucky for me, I have a Vita-Mix blender, the Cadillac of blenders, but a good food processor would do the trick just fine. It pulverized it in about 10 seconds.
I then made the mistake of not letting the dust settle before opening. Clouds of placenta dust poofed out the top, and I couldn't help inhaling quite a bit, then having a huge coughing fit. Suddenly I knew exactly how Buffy feels when she dusts a vamp and accidentally gets a lungful.
That's all there is to it! I filled a few capsules just to get her started, but there's no need to do all of them at once, and I'm told they can actually get sticky if left too long. The rest went into a ziploc baggie along with some fenugreek and blessed thistle (not a huge amount of either), and I brought it right over to mama, who has been taking them regularly ever since!
I'm so grateful to her for allowing me to have this experience, as it's definitely something I want to be able to offer to all my clients in the future, and I'm also glad to have been able to share it with you! (If you made it to the end of this, you're officially a member of the birthgeek club. Check your inbox for the secret handshake and exclusive decoder ring.)
Hello, my name is Brittany and I am 17 years old. I am passionate about birth, and it is something I would like to study more, I think I would like to become a childbirth educator. Is it possible to give me any info on where to start?
And I thought it was well worth sharing a response with y'all, especially since I've been wanting to do another book recommendation post. SO:
Hey Brittany! It's so heartening to know there are young women out there like you. (And saying that makes me feel positively ancient, by the way.) I would definitely check out CAPPA's trainings. In particular, I think you'd be FANTASTIC for CAPPA's Teen Educator Program! Did you know there was such an awesome thing? Well, there is. And it needs passionate young women just like you. Look here! You do need to be 18 to become certified, but no reason why you can't get started on the preparation now - especially the reading list.
I can recommend a zillion practical, informational books - but before I even get into my favorites on that topic, I'm going to recommend you start with one of my two favorite memoirs of all time: "Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife" by Peggy Vincent (the other is the poignantly hilarious "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year" by the poignantly hilarious Anne Lamott -not much about birth, but everything, oh, everything to do with becoming a mother). "Baby Catcher" has tons of great birth stories, and is a fabulous glimpse into the life and evolution of a midwife, from hospital to home. Full of humor and so engagingly written. It's the perfect prologue.
My other top recommendations, getting into the nitty-gritty: A great one to start with is "Your Best Birth". It's a very user-friendly breakdown of all the options a laboring mother faces, peppered with great birth stories. Taking it a step further, the most recent edition of "The Birth Partner" by Penny Simkin is thorough, authoritative, well-organized and loaded with great information and suggestions. For a book that covers the whole of pregnancy into birth, my favorite is "The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth" by Sheila Kitzinger. And if I could get every woman in America to read just ONE BOOK, it would be *drum roll* "Pushed: The Painful Truth about Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care" by Jennifer Block. It's less about the breakdown of the labor process (though you glean plenty of info along the way as well) and more about politics, but anyone entering the field should find this gripping and galvanizing.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I have over seventy titles in my ever-expanding library, and yet I still haven't gotten my hands on "Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering" by Dr. Sarah Buckley. I have a feeling once I do, it will rise to the top of the heap. I think it's fair to give it an unofficial recommendation. It would be a good idea to get some basic info about breastfeeding as well. Any of the books in this post are fabulous. I also know there's a brand-spanking-new edition of La Leche League's classic "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding". I'll fess up: I haven't been crazy about past editions. But the buzz about this latest edition is overwhelmingly positive. I know some lucky bloggas have gotten review copies (any ideas on how to be cool enough to get one of those?), and I eagerly await their $0.02.
How about some just plain birth stories? The classic, of course, is "Spiritual Midwifery", which is chock full of amazing stories, dated as it may be (you just have to look at it as a historical piece, in a way, though one that still has relevance). The more recent "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" has plenty of them too. I really liked the collection "Adventures in Natural Childbirth", which compiles natural births in all possible settings, home, birth center and hospital. And finally, the locally produced "Birth: It's Positive" has inspiring stories from many mothers, with an emphasis on VBACs. My own story is included, too. Proceeds go to our local chapter of ICAN, but I bring up the book not just to plug it, but because the stories are well-worth it.
Non-reading preparation: I'm betting you've already seen "The Business of Being Born". If by some chance you haven't, hie thee to Netflix to put it in your queue, or hey, as of TODAY it is currently half off on Amazon - may as well add it to your arsenal, since you know you'll want to later anyway. I think "Orgasmic Birth" has its strong points as well as its weak ones, but either way, it's a worthwhile watch for you. ("Pregnant in America", I'm sorry to say, was a major disappointment. I should have known by its subtitle, possibly the worst subtitle ever to actually make it onto the cover of a DVD without someone putting a stop to it: " . . . A Nation's Miscarriage". Seriously.)
And you know, I was about to write And whatever you do, stay away from "Birth Day", "Maternity Ward" and "A Baby Story"! but actually, for your purposes, I do think they're useful to watch, after you've started to read the books on the list and watch the other movies. Watch them in balance with the above, and with the plethora of glorious natural, home, and/or otherwise empowered births available on YouTube now. Soon, like me, you'll be shouting at the screen like a World Cup fanatic.
Brittany, I'd love it if you kept me in the loop about how everything's going for you, should you pursue this teen certification, or any other trainings. Right on.
Make it so.
[I'm really not a Trekkie, actually, but in order to geek up a "next generation" reference authentically, I'd have to get into the whole Slayer lineage, and which is probably a bit too obscure. But for any Buffistas out there, I'd say Brittany is quite the promising Potential.]
My feelings about the Duggars are mixed, admittedly. There's much to appreciate along with the things I might view more critically, but in the best, most thought-provoking way.
I won't digress into the pros and cons of the Duggar phenomenon here, but, like the Duggars as a whole, the episode of "19 and Counting" which features Anna Duggar's home birth leaves me a little befuddled as to where I stand. I finally got to watch the big event on YouTube (we haz no cable, or any other direct source, so have to download, use DVDs or watch things online; it keeps life simpler while still allowing for marathon Buffy festivals when needed).
Here we get to see Josh (the eldest Duggar child) and his wife, Anna, attending Bradley classes; having a baby shower, at which I was pleased to see they did the melted-candy-in-the-diaper game that I insisted my friends include at mine, which pretty much says it all about me; and eventually giving birth to Mackynzie Renee (breaking out of the J's) at home with a doula. More on that in a moment.
Check this out. I'm embedding the last of the 6 that comprise this episode - you can get to the other links in the "related videos" sidebar when you pop out the video into its own YouTube window or tab. The first ones includes some backstory about their budding relationship and then young married life, which should fulfill anyone's quota for wholesome viewing for at least a year or so. (The birth nitty gritty starts in part 6, if you prefer to skip the shower footage, and I would hardly blame you.)
So what's your problem, Dou-la-la? Isn't it so nice to see something other than the standard medically-overmanaged affairs of "A Baby Story"/"Maternity Ward" et. al. on TLC? Well, yes, it is. And yet . . . I still have some mixed feelings. Purely from what we are told in the show, the birth was, as I mentioned above, attended by a doula. Note, not a midwife and a doula, but a doula. In the video, Josh clearly says to Jim Bob on the phone the morning Anna went into labor that they were "considering a home birth" , and that they asked their doula if she would be cool with attending them if they stayed at home.
Now, this very well may be poor editing on TLC's part. The woman who attends them may in fact be a trained midwife who had previously been engaged to act as a doula if they were in the hospital, and the fact that she is seen wearing gloves, weighing the baby with the standard midwives' hanging scale, and has cord-clamping tools on hand SEEMS to imply this, but we just don't know. If she is only a doula (and I don't mean "only" in the pejorative, of course), then she is going WAAAAAY beyond the scope of practice. Josh mentions that Anna was "completely dilated" when she started to push. Doesn't that sound to you like somebody was doing internal exams?
AHEM! Note to possibly alarmed readers: this is not part of DONA's training! Even ALACE/toLabor's workshop, which includes the option of both giving and receiving a pelvic exam as a learning experience, in no way endorses ever performing them on clients, and has nothing to do with assessing dilation.
So. One of two things is possible: perhaps the doula actually IS a midwife, and TLC just bungled the information, which should really surprise no one. Or, they essentially had an unassisted birth. I have yet to address "freebirthing" here, and have been stalling on doing so for a while. I won't get into that now, but I do feel the presentation of this birth was confusing, for all its positive aspects (and there are plenty of those too - I love that they showed Josh catching his daughter, I loved her laboring in the tub, I loved the Bradley classes, and just generally loved the emphasis from everyone, including new grandma Michelle, on how peaceful and beautiful the birth was).
Anyway, true to form, another Duggar moment leaves me dazed and confused and unsure of where I stand, seeing both sides, not bearing them any ill will, yet having serious reservations about what is being represented and how.
That right there, in what we're apparently supposed to think is Stuff You Find In Jewel's Bag, is a copy of Babywise. No doubt about it. See?
