"Pregnant in America": My post-dates reaction

A Facebook friend just watched the documentary "Pregnant in America", and asked me if I wouldn't mind elaborating on my thoughts on the film. Who, ME? Mind elaborating? Have we met?

I'm not going to really do a formal review, per se, of the film because it's been about a year since I saw it myself, so I'll just share some impressions.



No, I didn't care for it at all. Maybe it's because I've been spoiled for all birth documentaries by "The Business of Being Born", which is not a perfect film but it IS a very, very well-crafted one. On top of presenting the information well, they manage to include just enough of the personal narratives to make it relatable without tipping the balance. It's entertaining, it uses humor without going over the top, it's paced expertly.

In my recollection, the couple in "Pregnant in America" - or rather, the filmmaker and father, since he is the central figure - don't achieve that kind of balance in any area. It is about them/him. This in itself could be compelling, as there are plenty of films out there that document a person's life or a particular personal story, but I found the director (and star!), Steve Buonaugurio, to be completely unsympathetic. He's abrasive, contentious from the get-go, and even downright combative at times: he seriously ambushes hospital personnel in the parking lot and tries to interrogate them. He's clearly fancying himself Michael Moore, but with none of the perspective and humor. Say what you will about Moore, he's a talented filmmaker (I happen to be a fan, but I understand if you're not crazy about him or his politics or both).

In one segment, Buonaugurio literally has "The hospital is the enemy" written on a flip chart. Let me take this opportunity to state that he does NOT speak for me, nor for many and I would dare say the majority of the birth advocates I know in real life and online. We have major, major problems in this country's maternity care, but the hospital is NOT the "enemy". I do agree that we overmedicalize many things, including birth, but there are times - yes, including some births - when the hospital is not only not the enemy, but the hero. Most of us know people who have been saved by hospitals in one way or another. A statement like that is an insult both to the people who have been saved and to the many people who work in hospitals and DO care very deeply, and have made their life work out of that caring.

So let's battle about policies with which we disagree, absolutely. But alienating the hospital altogether is a boneheaded, belligerent move. I found him so incredibly abrasive that I found myself wanting to disagree with him on just about everything he said, even though I'm ostensibly on the same "side". And yes, I keep referring back to him and him alone, because his wife, Mandy? Merely a bit player, a backdrop for his big opportunity to create a shocking expose.

There are some positives in the film. I really appreciated some of the interview footage, especially that of Joseph Chilton Pierce, along with mainstays Ina May Gaskin and Dr. Marsden Wagner. And . . . that's about it, really.

I'm most floored by his reaction to his own baby's hospital transfer. The couple did have a home birth that went well, until the baby's heart rate started deviating enough that the midwife advised transfer. The baby is kept for observation, but nothing is ultimately found to be a permanent problem. We're left in the dark as to the details. Buonaugurio is furious about the whole thing, and acts as though he is being persecuted by the NICU stay. I can understand being frustrated and scared, but I will always believe in erring on the side of caution. Can you imagine if the midwife had ignored these signs and it DID turn out to be something serious? The outcome could be tragic. But no, it's all about him.

There are so many other far superior films about the same topic. "The Business of Being Born" is the mack mommy of them all, of course. Again, it has its flaws, but it's worlds apart on a technical level, and it manages to maintain an even-handed demeanor despite coming from a clear bias; some opposing views are represented (even if minimal), and the film's perspective comes from clearly presented facts (some would say oversimplified, and they have a point) as well as from multiple personal testimonies. Buonaugurio just bludgeons you over the head from the start and never lets up. And I think he makes us all look like a bunch of narrow-minded, humorless zealots in the process.

There's a lesser known film called "Born in the USA" (not to be confused with the Marsden Wagner book) that is quite good despite being somewhat dated at this point - overall, though, it's still very relevant. I liked that part of the film focuses on a CNM struggling a bit within the limitations of a hospital setting. There's also a scene where a group of OBs and residents all get together for a peer review session that is quite the eye-opener; I'm actually surprised they allowed cameras in. Give it a watch, just keeping in mind that it's not the most current. I would even recommend "Orgasmic Birth" over "Pregnant in America", despite having some reservations about it.

Finally: Also? WORST TAGLINE EVER. Are you ready for it? "Pregnant in America: A Nation's Miscarriage".


I mean, really. I can't make that kind of crap up.

Weekend Movie: Supply & Demand

Another documentary on breastfeeding in the works! I blogged about "Formula-Fed America" before, but hadn't known about this one until Best for Babes posted about it. Doesn't it look promising?

Soo, anyone have any tips for getting these movies shown in podunk kindsa places? Not everyone can hop on the subway and catch a matinee at the Angelika (anymore).

*If you haven't read about the new BYOBoobz Party concept from BfB, check it out.

Weekend Movies: Mother's Day Special, Adoption Edition

If you're the kind of person who reads this blog, I'm sure you already know that the highly anticipated documentary "Babies" is opening this weekend. I posted the trailer a while back, but had to share it again, of course. I'm really happy it's getting so much press and exposure (I mean, if it's actually coming to teeny little Erie, where I currently reside, you know it's major). I've read a couple of critiques that, to me, seem to miss the point of the film, but I'll save that matter for my own review.


So of course I'm excited to see "Babies", but I'm also eager to see another mother-related film opening this weekend: "Mother and Child" (the above poster links to the trailer - they've disabled embedding). It's a fictional portrayal of several different adoption scenarios, a topic that's close to my heart as an adoptee. I must say that in the past, I've been pretty disappointed with most films dealing with adoption. They tend to fall into very limited, morally simplistic narratives where the birth mothers are varying shades of tragic and the adoptive parents are the heroes who save the day. "Secrets and Lies" and "Juno" were both excellent films, probably the best of the ones that deal with adoption, but I still found the treatment of the actual issue lacking. Not "wrong", just . . . missing something. But what?

Well, I just happened to read a blog this week that shook me to my relinquished core. It was written in response not to the above movie, but to the recent scandal wherein an adoptive mother "returned" her behaviorally difficult child to Russia, with the note: "To whom it may concern: After giving my best to this child, I am sorry to say that for the sake of my family, friends and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child."

The blogger, Fugitivus, talks more specifically about international adoption, but also about the larger issues that accompany any adoptive scenario, and tackles them with insight and anger and empathy and perception and pulls no punches whatsoever, including 'polite' language: Adoption Sometimes Gets All Fucked Up 101 (consider yourself warned on the cussin').

This is NOT an easy read (in content OR length). But it's an amazingly, *brutally* honest one, full of difficult truths. But I am so grateful that someone is willing to lay some of this stuff out there, stuff I've never seen anyone acknowledge before. And simply as a person who has sometimes thought some of the very things that she reveals to be privilege at work, I am humbled and all the more grateful for having had that privilege called to task. I can own up to it. One snip, though I encourage you grab a coffee and read the whole thing with an open mind:

For our modern, legal concept of adoption to exist, families must be broken. Adoption is not, and can never be, a best-case scenario. It relies upon the worst-case scenario having already come to fruition. From there, you’re working with what is instead of what should be. That should be will never go away. For the entire lifetime of everybody involved in adoption, that should be exists, and it hurts. What is can still turn out to be wonderful, beautiful, incredible, but what is will never be what should be. It is that should be that necessitates education, sensitivity, and trigger warnings, because it never goes away.

When a story like this arrives, the impulse is to compare it to the opposite and compare it to more of the same. The news drags up stories of other Families Gone Wrong, and Families Gone Inspiring As Hell. A false dichotomy is implied: there are adoptions that go right and adoptions that go wrong. But the truth is, behind every adoption is a family that went wrong. . . . My main point here is to warn everybody against coming up with – and expressing out loud and in public – black and white assumptions about how good or bad adoption can be. Adoption is not easily judged as good or bad, because adoption itself is a symptom of something else. If the origin of adoption is the destruction of a family, then nothing that comes from that can be explicitly good. At the point where adoption is a viable option, we have already failed to do our best, and all alternatives are an equal failure of the village that should have been raising this child.

To be more concrete, avoid sentiments such as, “You would rather zie should have…” As in, “You would rather he stayed in the orphanage?” or “You would rather his adoptive mom be arrested?” or “You would rather he be in American foster care?” There is no perfect option; they are all painful, and they are all wrong, because none of them should have to be options.

This really resonated with me. There's an incredible pressure that many adoptees feel to only express gratitude for their situation, with the implied belief that their birth parent was an undesirable person from whom you have been rescued (open adoption is changing that somewhat, in many cases). Expressing any feelings of grief or loss marks you as an ingrate, an "angry adoptee", as Fugitivus mentions, and is seen as questioning the benevolence of one's birth parents. Sometimes even curiosity is unacceptable. Identity is the very definition of multi-faceted: biology is certainly not the only thing, but it is a very real piece of it, and absence of its knowledge can be felt as a loss. Yet wondering about the biological piece of your identity is often viewed as a slap in the face to the adoptive parents. How dare you want to know about these other people? After all we've done for you. Nurture is the only thing that matters, nature plays no part. We're your real family now.

She's not saying that adoption never turns out wonderfully, not at all (she addresses that further here, in a post about the above post); my own story has MUCH that is wonderful, make no mistake - but she's talking about it in ways that step outside of what have become the only acceptable storylines about adoption in our culture:

I also understand the desire to keep adoption a positive narrative. There are so many kids in the world who need homes, and putting some of the uglier sides of adoption out there diminishes their chances of finding any home. Of course, I don’t believe in any home for children — I believe in the right home, the permanent home, and I don’t think that home can be found if the pill is sugared so much it’s not a pill anymore. So, it’s a perspective I understand, but now that I’m not a member of the adoption industry anymore, it’s not a game I’m willing to play. There are plenty of other people — too many, I think — who are willing to do that. This space isn’t.

In light of all this, I very much hope Fugitivus shares her thoughts on "Mother and Child", if she sees it. I'm especially eager to see how this film portrays these adoption stories, if they're willing to look at some of the nuance and injustice and fundamental trauma, or whether it's going to be another sugary pill.