churning

Hi Maggie,

I don't remember why, but it seems to me that your second was hospitalized after birth.  Did anything similar happen to the youngest?  Mine, who was hospitalized, had problems with anger control.  I did a lot of reading about that...about the effects of separation from mama, from that lack of touch, and what it does to brain chemistry.  My son's wife had a brother who was hospitalized frequently after birth, and who reacted much the same way as my son - so the pattern is familiar to her.

We know that allergies get worse every generation, and have a lot of unsuspected effects on sufferers - knowing or not. 

The poisons in the environment affect our babies before they are even born.  Then we have poisons in our breast milk, or who-knows-what in formula.  I saw a study that reported every mother has jet fuel in her breast milk. Every single one...

It must go for bovine mothers whose milk we steal also...

And I have a suspicion about the use and overuse of ultrasound. I have read that it causes hot spots, that sometimes it is medically used to cause hot spots...who knows what that does to a fetus.  I saw data once showing the increase of autism connected directly to the use of ultrasound.  I think that it will be like X-rays.  Sometime in the future, we're going to regret the overuse.  I had a Friend, an older man, with skin cancer...right where the doctors used X-rays to cure his acne when he was young.

How do we trust and support parents from the beginning?  Everything about birth and pregnancy is monitored and forced to conform to norms.  We do not trust our bodies.  Two weeks late - induced.   Failure to progress at an acceptable rate - Cesarean.  Then babe is whisked away and has drops that burn put in the eyes.   Vitamin K injected.  Breastfeeding is controlled, and if the babe is not successful enough to meet norms, then supplements...already mama knows she is not good enough.

As long as we make decisions based on money - where money is prominent and dominant - kids will come second, even if we are doing it for them.  As long as mamas get six weeks, unpaid, then must return to work...bonding becomes impossible.  It seems impossible...Not that parents fail to bond, but compare the effort of a newly delivered working mom, to someone who is still home recovering and being supported.

Maybe a first step is to fight for extended, paid parental leave for all mamas and dads.

An herbalist I always looked up to - Juliette di Bairiclai Levy - I got to sit at her feet once, and listen to her;  she had a story, I think in one of her books, about raising dogs.  She spoke about breeding dogs, overseeing pregnancy and nutrition. She described the healthy litter of puppies.  But one of her dogs controlled her own mating, and made a den, in the ground, then raised her own puppies.  She described those puppies - can you imagine how different they would be? Self-sufficient, knowing, capable, truly dog.

Could we even raise real humans anymore? We don't know attachment parenting...we know cute basinets and strollers.  In some cultures, mama and babe are tucked into bed and tended to until the umbilicus detaches.  Can you imagine? Staying put and resting, being taken care of for 10 days or so? I was always up and functioning within a day or two - good, strong, uncomplaining woman. I was never taken care of...part of my pattern...

I don't think we can be human until we reestablish our family, extended family, neighborhood, village, clan...our groups. Who do we belong to?  Who do we take care of? Who takes care of us? If my sisters had been nearby when I was birthing, I would have been taken care of. More than just having help at the birth and a few days after.  I would have been quilted into a group where I mattered, and I would not have had to struggle alone.  And when I was having a really hard time with my marriage, which was triggering all of the poisons from my childhood, someone could have stepped in and looked me in the eye, and seen me.

Writing this is bringing tears.

Instead I chose to distance myself from all of you, and practice our family pattern of being especially quiet when things were the absolute worst, when pain was almost unbearable, when I needed family the most.

But I distanced myself in order to survive. I think of a wounded animal that must hide from the predator if there is to be any chance of surviving.  I feel way over-dramatic writing that, to acknowledge that was in my mind, but it feels like truth.

I  guess I am on a roll, too...

I'll have to churn with this for awhile...

Love and hugs from Clare