29 May 2007
Time passes so quickly and so many changes are happening for The Pink Kit and Birthing Better. However, the continuing conversation with Sonya who works as a Doula is important.
In listening to discussions about birth, I often hear the need to improve the care providers and increase their skills. From the view point of Common Knowledge Trust and The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better® we focus exclusively on getting us as expectant parents skilled.
As we increase the skill of professionals, there is a tendency to rely on them more. Also we can feel totally unable to ever feel as skilled or feel we need formal training to be skilled.
Childbirth is different. We do need very skilled professionals who make certain our birth is safe. But a birth professional can't do the birth for us. Certainly having a planned or elective caesarean is pretty close to having someone else do the birth but that doesn't mean you aren't giving birth. To feel more connected and involved, you can use your Pink Kit skills.
If you are going to labour then having a good set of birth skills: breathing, relaxation, staying open, find the best positions, working with your birth partner and helping your baby be born is our role.
So, here is more of the long correspondence between Sonya and myself.
Jan 19 2007
Wintergreen responded to Sonya's personal birth story.
'Gee Sonya:
If only we could short form everything we're discussing that would be great, but in reality it takes these long dialogues and a consciousnes about the words we use in order to understand how The Pink Kit skills fit into birth stories.
I had a funny thing happen while I was in the States in Sept. My dearest friend and her husband (both of whom I've known for 30+ years) were having heaps of trouble. He kept using the word 'vulnerable'. He wanted her to be vulnerable and didn't think she was.
They split up while I was there and she and I were talking and I asked her if she knew what the word vulnerable meant? She gave her understanding of that word and I said I thought it meant ' to feel totally safe so a person can let down one's guard.'
Then we looked it up in the dictionary and it meant 'to be wounded or to wound'. Far cry from my understanding of the word and certainly not a 'bottom-line' for a positive relationship.
So, given how the word 'responsiblity' is used in birth (making Birth Plans, being angry at how we felt treated or other people's behaviors ), I decided to look it up in the dictionary so we could discuss it. Below are the dictionary definitions from Encarta.
Reading these definitions made me more certain it's a crappy word for the issues in childbirth and we have to use some other word. My experience as trustee to Common Knowledge Trust has taught me that ALL women and men take responsibility for every action in their lives. I've never known anyone who doesn't or hasn't or isn't. Everyone is making choices all the time even if they aren't making choices, they are so they are taking responsibility. So let's find another word.
re·spon·si·bil·i·ty n
1. the state, fact, or position of being accountable to somebody or for something
2. the blame for something that has happened
3. somebody or something for which a person or organization is responsible
4. authority to make decisions independently
Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
re·spon·si·ble adj
1. accountable to somebody for an action or for the successful carrying out of a duty
2. conferring the authority to take decisions independently and requiring conscientiousness and trustworthiness
3. being the cause of something, usually something wrong or disapproved of
4. expected to deal with something or take care of somebody
5. able to be counted on owing to qualities of conscientiousness and trustworthiness
6. capable of taking rational or moral decisions, and therefore accountable for your actions
7. having the authority to take decisions independently
8. having adequate means to meet financial obligations
Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc..
So. Here's what you probably noticed about your comments when you interpreted this woman's birth.
1) You used 'how-to' a lot. This woman (and you and gadzillion others) tell their story by saying 'I didn't know how-to.' With the PK we are much more likely to say 'I knew how-to.' So are dads.
2) She actually 'owned' both births. We always own them. They are ours. What you actually mean is that in the first birth she didn't know how-to and in the second she did. When women don't know how-to we use expressions like 'I got lost', 'I didn't know where I was', 'I couldn't get on top of it' , 'I didn't know what was happening'. When we know how-to then we are in a state of acute awareness and know what to do about what we're aware of. That's what feels really good.
3) Actually start/stop labours have nothing to do with being a vbac at all. We can discuss this later. Often start/stop labours actually resolve into a prompt one as long as the woman hasn't worn herself out by trying to get it going. Keep in mind if no one has told you, 30% of us don't dilate until the very end of labour although our contractions change, intensify etc.
4) What was cute about the VBAC story shows the power of these universal skills. That woman told you (admitted) that she hadn't done the internal work enough and she knew that the lack of having done it made a difference. If she has another baby, she will do it for herself. This is the power of these skills. We learn really quickly if we are using them and whether we've done enough internal work. And then we do more next time. We self learn. Often after a PK birth a woman will immediately tell everyone what she could have done differently. Often the midwife or staff will say 'no you did great.' That's not the point. We know what we could have improved on and telling everyone is important, we're self learning. It's not a denial of what we've done. It's a refinement of our consciousness.
5) don't worry about the midwife's role. She was doing her best to see and hear what the woman was doing.
6) You make a statement that is one of the ones we want to see changed. So with the PK they choose to as much or as little as they want. 'Choosing' to do as little .... is like saying if you want to learn to drive a car and pass your driver's test then it's ok to choose to do as little .... as much or as little as you want.' We've got to change that. It's like saying 'oh you have a newborn and you choose to do as little....' Well, that doesn't work either. So choosing to do as little to prepare for birth really needs to go by the wayside. Being skilled at giving birth needs to be right up there with these other things. But you'll hear all the reasonable reasons why not to spend the time. And we'll talk about that at the Pink Kit Presenter training too. So once again the rest of that paragraph has that yukky word in it several times. I wonder what's a better word?
7) You said: 'This is the problem. Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't the PK about just that.The parents taking on that birth responsibilty?' We've got to come up with a clearer, less confusing message. CKT won't ever use this statement but I hear it used often and thank you for doing so. Everyone is taking responsibility all the time. Everything points to the fact that people just don't know they need to know how-to birth. In fact they are told they don't need any skills through lots of direct messages.
Good information about doulas in Melbourne but that is not uncommon. Pregnancy is so filled with professionals that we want to know what they can do for us. No wonder we have been trained to overly rely on them and why it's been so hard for CKT to work with independent midwives and doulas who project much more of that 'savior' relationship.
Imagine a couple faced with these two choices: do the internal work or work with someone who can suture you if you tear. What will they go with? The latter 95% of the time. That has to change.
None of the doulas or midwives are asking their clients 'what skills are you bringing to the party?' No one is asking 'what are you going to do when you have lots of pain?' Most midwives/doulas believe that the 'responsibility' of people is to make choices. Choices are being promoted like they were menu items or wish lists for Santa Claus rather than goals. And goals require small, discreet steps of action over a defined time in order to be achieved. It's the small, discreet actions (skills) over a defined time (16 weeks) that are what actualize choices and then using those skills through the whole process of labour and birth. And the added benefit is that they adapt when plans change. Now that's 2 for the price of 1.
And coming to the end. You are right if only you had had these skills, yup your experiences would have been very different. Probalby not perfect births but certainly very, very different and surely more conscious. And each birth you would have learned how-to do it beter. Cute that you've had a bunch of kids and still aren't certain you 'got it' because many, many midwives/doulas believe that after the first birth women know what to do. There are women who have had 10 kids and held their breath through all the births until they taught themselves the PK skills.
You won't learn how-to present the PK, you'll learn how to give a PK Presentation which is a very defined script. That feeling you are developing of removing yourself so the women and men can do their own work with a great teacher (PK) in their home will get even stronger when you go through the script. The Presentations does not promote a teacher mentality more like a cook book or something. And in many ways, my job is to get people away from being seen of as a 'professional' and as an 'introducer'. But that will happen.
It's correspondences like these that we need to help take other people down the steps and down the path to understanding The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better®.'
Well, that's enough for today.
Sponsors
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
Doula Pink Kit Presenter dialogue #8
6 May 2007
We're going to get back to the conversation I had with Sonya who works as a doula. After the Conference in Australia it becomes even more important to help women who work as birth professionals to create a clear boundary within their practice.
If birth professionals continue to absorb one skill after another at the expense of the necessary skills expectant parents have then they create a dependency which has huge implications for our society.
Women used to criticize the 'Doctor, I love you and couldn't have done the birth without you.' Yet that same adulation is going on toward women who work as midwives and doulas. This clearly shows a lack of birth and birthing skills.
Pink Kit women often say this: 'I knew more about what was happening inside me then anyone there.' They say this about their husband or partner: 'He was right there for me and knew exactly how to help me throughout.'
Pink Kit men say: 'I could tell exactly when she needed help and I had the skills that worked. And they say about their wife or partner: 'She was amazing. I could see her using her skills all the time.'
This correspondence with Sonya continues on:
19 Jan 2007
Wintergreen's comments: Sonya's experiences are so typical of the birth stories we wanted to change for ourselves way back in the 1970s ... so we did and those birth and birth coaching skills have become The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better®. Sonya will become a Pink Kit Presenter, hang the Pink Kit sales flyer around her town. Marketing new concepts does take time when the conventional route can't be taken. But look at Tupperware and Avon ... direct sales does work. You can join us!
Sonya writes about her personal experiences:
'My first experience with birth was my Aunty's hospital visits soon after she had had her babies. It consisited of gruelling stories of how differcult thelabour was, stapped to a bed legs up in stirrups. Birth was extremely dangerous and you didn't leave anything up to chance, the Doctor was god and you needed to listen to him as your life and your babies life depended on it.
So you could imagine that I wasn't looking forward to having a baby for a very long time, I had even thought that maybe 38 was a great time to have a child.
At the age of 18 they discovered some really big gyno problems that threatened my ability to have children. It was imperative that I started on treatment asap if I ever wanted to increase my chances of conceiving a child.
So my partner at the time (now my husband) decided to take me to a naturapath and we got better together and after 7 months we concieved our first child.
Well I never wanted to have children early but it felt like our hand was forced a little. So my mother told me nothing about birth other than to get to hospital and have it there.
I remember reading heaps and heaps of books but nothing could prepare me for the natural birth I was expecting to have. So I went there, only to be told after 24 hours of labour that my baby was breech and that I was too small for a breech vaginal delivery. I laboured on my back the whole time withl ittle to no progression. I became distressed and no one was there to hold my hand, no one showed me how to get my baby down on the cervix. I assumed that I would have a midwife to support me and make suggestions for my labour. I was very wrong. We eventually ended in a c-section. I had a bout of Postnatal Depression. Something else my mother never told me about.
A year and a half later my partner and I found ourselves pregnant again and this time we were going for a natural birth, minus the zipper in the uterus and the 6 weeks hell recovery.
I didn't know about VBAC I just wanted to have a natural birth. So I uped the anti with relaxation techniques and meditation, I got accpunture and studied new active birth.
I spontaneously went into labour at 37 weeks and got to the hospital only to find I was only 4cm dialted and they were short staffed and had said that we don't have much time, if you don't progress we will be sending you home.
Well that made me feel really important, about 5 minutes later my waters broke and my contractions kicked in at 2 minutes apart. I was left pretty much on my own, my partner really sucked at this 1st stage stuff. I suffered through for about a hour and then just feel in a screaming heap demanding pethidine.
So I was given pethidine at 5cm and preceeded to fight through every contraction in the next four hours. I remember coming to, as the effects of the pethidine wore of I asked to be checked again. I was only 7 cms and the midwife said look you will be hours, were going for a cuppa and we'll be back in 15 mins.
My partner in all his wisdom said "picture your cervix opening up to 10 cms"then he left me. I was desparate for anything at this STAGE. I wanted a cuppa, i wanted a hot shower, I wanted this bloody baby.
I went inside and pictured my cervix, whatever that was.(I still didn't get what it really looked like) I'd only ever seen it in half before in books and posters.(thank heavens for pelvic models knitted uteruses and baby models)
Low and behold I could feel my body doing somethimng really strange and there was no way to stop it. I had the incredible urge to push, so I rang the buzzer.
The midwife came through with cuppa in hand,"what are you doing?"
I need to PUUSSHHH, NO YOU CAN'T (looking beneath the sheets, OH yes the heads right there) she buzzed the other midwife and my partner were there in record time, to see our second daughter being born very quickly. The sintocinon was administered placenta whipped away before I could blink.
Now I observed that a natural birth wasn't hard to achieve, if you call hospital birth with drugs and fetal monitoring natural birth. I felt I didn't have it naturally unless I did it with out drugs.
Baby number 3 my boy, my waters broke 38wk, augumented contractions with sintocinon strapped to a foetal heart monitor, to appease staff. Hard and fast labour, no drugs or gas lasting four hours. Luckily this time I enlisted a doula. Someone to show my husband what to do in 1st stage and provide some extra support for when my husband disappeared.
All went well but felt it was way too fast. I felt like all was on fast forward.
After the birth of my son I was asked to be a support person/doula for a friend, single mum. She didn't want to be left alone by staff and felt she would do well to take her own support.
My eyes were opened up to so much on that night, I saw what an environment is like that is medical and very clinical. The midwife was very harsh and judging of my friend and as a result the mother ended in complications.
As a support I felt powerless to say anything in my friend's defense, I didn't want to be kicked out of the room. So I bit my tongue and focused on supporting my friend and blocking out the rest.
That night I learned the importance of woman's choice, advocacy for the client and professional conduct and basic human rights. Many of my friend's rights were violated and she sufferd dearly as a result of her treatmentthat night her baby was born.
I believe that women and men need to be supported to have their babies, in a non-judgemental relaxed environment, surrounded by love. Their support supports them to make choices how they wish to bring their babies into the world and how to better facilitate the process. Giving them all the tools to be more responsible and actively envolved in the process.
In my antenatal training for clients I teach the importance of knowing your own birthing body and how you can work with it to achieve results. We focus on utilising your own body chemistry to achieve your best birth. We promote that everyone has this very similar birthing body structure. We introducethe PK as a self taught body-birthing awareness tool for expectant parents.We discuss their ideal birth and any previous births if any? We don't offer advice and we don't tell them what to do.
We are big on personal responsibility and what our role is in the birthing environment.We don't push any religious stuff, we are open minded enough to support the birthing couples beliefs and opinions with out feeling like we will be condemned for supporting another with beliefs different to our own. A belief system we adhere to is that the body can birth effectively with compassionate support, a little knowledge and understanding of the process and grounded earth mother stamina.
What I have learned regarding birth through my own journey, is that if a women believes in her core beliefs that she is going to tear in labour she will. If she believes that birth is unsafe she will need to be at the hospital to feel safe. If a woman believes that she can birth than she will. Determination and a will to succeed is the prerequisite for birth. The rest is preparation and tools, time and skills. The parent decides as to how prepared they want to be and the level of responsibility they want to assume'.
Wintergreen's comments:
Sonya's personal stories and how she moved toward becoming a doula is very typical. She didn't feel she could cope on her own, her husband was useless and therefore someone else had to help her. In the next blog, my further comments discuss these issues.
We're going to get back to the conversation I had with Sonya who works as a doula. After the Conference in Australia it becomes even more important to help women who work as birth professionals to create a clear boundary within their practice.
If birth professionals continue to absorb one skill after another at the expense of the necessary skills expectant parents have then they create a dependency which has huge implications for our society.
Women used to criticize the 'Doctor, I love you and couldn't have done the birth without you.' Yet that same adulation is going on toward women who work as midwives and doulas. This clearly shows a lack of birth and birthing skills.
Pink Kit women often say this: 'I knew more about what was happening inside me then anyone there.' They say this about their husband or partner: 'He was right there for me and knew exactly how to help me throughout.'
Pink Kit men say: 'I could tell exactly when she needed help and I had the skills that worked. And they say about their wife or partner: 'She was amazing. I could see her using her skills all the time.'
This correspondence with Sonya continues on:
19 Jan 2007
Wintergreen's comments: Sonya's experiences are so typical of the birth stories we wanted to change for ourselves way back in the 1970s ... so we did and those birth and birth coaching skills have become The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better®. Sonya will become a Pink Kit Presenter, hang the Pink Kit sales flyer around her town. Marketing new concepts does take time when the conventional route can't be taken. But look at Tupperware and Avon ... direct sales does work. You can join us!
Sonya writes about her personal experiences:
'My first experience with birth was my Aunty's hospital visits soon after she had had her babies. It consisited of gruelling stories of how differcult thelabour was, stapped to a bed legs up in stirrups. Birth was extremely dangerous and you didn't leave anything up to chance, the Doctor was god and you needed to listen to him as your life and your babies life depended on it.
So you could imagine that I wasn't looking forward to having a baby for a very long time, I had even thought that maybe 38 was a great time to have a child.
At the age of 18 they discovered some really big gyno problems that threatened my ability to have children. It was imperative that I started on treatment asap if I ever wanted to increase my chances of conceiving a child.
So my partner at the time (now my husband) decided to take me to a naturapath and we got better together and after 7 months we concieved our first child.
Well I never wanted to have children early but it felt like our hand was forced a little. So my mother told me nothing about birth other than to get to hospital and have it there.
I remember reading heaps and heaps of books but nothing could prepare me for the natural birth I was expecting to have. So I went there, only to be told after 24 hours of labour that my baby was breech and that I was too small for a breech vaginal delivery. I laboured on my back the whole time withl ittle to no progression. I became distressed and no one was there to hold my hand, no one showed me how to get my baby down on the cervix. I assumed that I would have a midwife to support me and make suggestions for my labour. I was very wrong. We eventually ended in a c-section. I had a bout of Postnatal Depression. Something else my mother never told me about.
A year and a half later my partner and I found ourselves pregnant again and this time we were going for a natural birth, minus the zipper in the uterus and the 6 weeks hell recovery.
I didn't know about VBAC I just wanted to have a natural birth. So I uped the anti with relaxation techniques and meditation, I got accpunture and studied new active birth.
I spontaneously went into labour at 37 weeks and got to the hospital only to find I was only 4cm dialted and they were short staffed and had said that we don't have much time, if you don't progress we will be sending you home.
Well that made me feel really important, about 5 minutes later my waters broke and my contractions kicked in at 2 minutes apart. I was left pretty much on my own, my partner really sucked at this 1st stage stuff. I suffered through for about a hour and then just feel in a screaming heap demanding pethidine.
So I was given pethidine at 5cm and preceeded to fight through every contraction in the next four hours. I remember coming to, as the effects of the pethidine wore of I asked to be checked again. I was only 7 cms and the midwife said look you will be hours, were going for a cuppa and we'll be back in 15 mins.
My partner in all his wisdom said "picture your cervix opening up to 10 cms"then he left me. I was desparate for anything at this STAGE. I wanted a cuppa, i wanted a hot shower, I wanted this bloody baby.
I went inside and pictured my cervix, whatever that was.(I still didn't get what it really looked like) I'd only ever seen it in half before in books and posters.(thank heavens for pelvic models knitted uteruses and baby models)
Low and behold I could feel my body doing somethimng really strange and there was no way to stop it. I had the incredible urge to push, so I rang the buzzer.
The midwife came through with cuppa in hand,"what are you doing?"
I need to PUUSSHHH, NO YOU CAN'T (looking beneath the sheets, OH yes the heads right there) she buzzed the other midwife and my partner were there in record time, to see our second daughter being born very quickly. The sintocinon was administered placenta whipped away before I could blink.
Now I observed that a natural birth wasn't hard to achieve, if you call hospital birth with drugs and fetal monitoring natural birth. I felt I didn't have it naturally unless I did it with out drugs.
Baby number 3 my boy, my waters broke 38wk, augumented contractions with sintocinon strapped to a foetal heart monitor, to appease staff. Hard and fast labour, no drugs or gas lasting four hours. Luckily this time I enlisted a doula. Someone to show my husband what to do in 1st stage and provide some extra support for when my husband disappeared.
All went well but felt it was way too fast. I felt like all was on fast forward.
After the birth of my son I was asked to be a support person/doula for a friend, single mum. She didn't want to be left alone by staff and felt she would do well to take her own support.
My eyes were opened up to so much on that night, I saw what an environment is like that is medical and very clinical. The midwife was very harsh and judging of my friend and as a result the mother ended in complications.
As a support I felt powerless to say anything in my friend's defense, I didn't want to be kicked out of the room. So I bit my tongue and focused on supporting my friend and blocking out the rest.
That night I learned the importance of woman's choice, advocacy for the client and professional conduct and basic human rights. Many of my friend's rights were violated and she sufferd dearly as a result of her treatmentthat night her baby was born.
I believe that women and men need to be supported to have their babies, in a non-judgemental relaxed environment, surrounded by love. Their support supports them to make choices how they wish to bring their babies into the world and how to better facilitate the process. Giving them all the tools to be more responsible and actively envolved in the process.
In my antenatal training for clients I teach the importance of knowing your own birthing body and how you can work with it to achieve results. We focus on utilising your own body chemistry to achieve your best birth. We promote that everyone has this very similar birthing body structure. We introducethe PK as a self taught body-birthing awareness tool for expectant parents.We discuss their ideal birth and any previous births if any? We don't offer advice and we don't tell them what to do.
We are big on personal responsibility and what our role is in the birthing environment.We don't push any religious stuff, we are open minded enough to support the birthing couples beliefs and opinions with out feeling like we will be condemned for supporting another with beliefs different to our own. A belief system we adhere to is that the body can birth effectively with compassionate support, a little knowledge and understanding of the process and grounded earth mother stamina.
What I have learned regarding birth through my own journey, is that if a women believes in her core beliefs that she is going to tear in labour she will. If she believes that birth is unsafe she will need to be at the hospital to feel safe. If a woman believes that she can birth than she will. Determination and a will to succeed is the prerequisite for birth. The rest is preparation and tools, time and skills. The parent decides as to how prepared they want to be and the level of responsibility they want to assume'.
Wintergreen's comments:
Sonya's personal stories and how she moved toward becoming a doula is very typical. She didn't feel she could cope on her own, her husband was useless and therefore someone else had to help her. In the next blog, my further comments discuss these issues.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Developing automatic payments online
26 May, 2007
Well, here we are about to get a new shopping cart and our dear webmaster and I have no idea how to get automatic authentication up and running. We found several groups but they only work with US businesses. How interesting and complex the internet is.
The Pink Kit Package is just moving from strength to strength. This is a typical story of how fast word is spread. I was on a flight on my way to the US and a couple asked me whether I was the older woman on The Pink Kit DVD?
They were from Germany and said: 'There is absolutely NOTHING like this there and it should be.' They then told me the birth story of their son. They had loved learning the skills and only had the original Pink Kit and not the whole Pink Kit Package. She had had a wonderful labour until the last moment when 'the baby turned suddenly' and 'I needed to have a caesarean.'
Then her husband went on to say 'but we continued to work together during the surgery'. To them the greatness of these skills is the adaptability and joy of using them in all births.
It's great when we hear birth stories like this. The Pink Kit skills have a huge part to play in healing childbirth experiences for everyone because we all feel more empowered when we use skills. The 'outcome' and what happens doesn't leave the shame, blame and guilt. We know we've done our best and know we worked with our baby's effort to be born.
This couple would not have chosen to have a caesarean but they good and positive about their birth experience because of the Pink Kit skills. As the father said: 'The Pink Kit helped me understand what was happening and how I could help.'
Well, here we are about to get a new shopping cart and our dear webmaster and I have no idea how to get automatic authentication up and running. We found several groups but they only work with US businesses. How interesting and complex the internet is.
The Pink Kit Package is just moving from strength to strength. This is a typical story of how fast word is spread. I was on a flight on my way to the US and a couple asked me whether I was the older woman on The Pink Kit DVD?
They were from Germany and said: 'There is absolutely NOTHING like this there and it should be.' They then told me the birth story of their son. They had loved learning the skills and only had the original Pink Kit and not the whole Pink Kit Package. She had had a wonderful labour until the last moment when 'the baby turned suddenly' and 'I needed to have a caesarean.'
Then her husband went on to say 'but we continued to work together during the surgery'. To them the greatness of these skills is the adaptability and joy of using them in all births.
It's great when we hear birth stories like this. The Pink Kit skills have a huge part to play in healing childbirth experiences for everyone because we all feel more empowered when we use skills. The 'outcome' and what happens doesn't leave the shame, blame and guilt. We know we've done our best and know we worked with our baby's effort to be born.
This couple would not have chosen to have a caesarean but they good and positive about their birth experience because of the Pink Kit skills. As the father said: 'The Pink Kit helped me understand what was happening and how I could help.'
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