Almost 9 Months

I can't sleep.

It's nearly 12am and here I sit. Holdyn is asleep beside me after a long time of getting him to sleep. He is teething, and it seems to be effecting his going to sleep as easy as he had been. Even "wearing him down" to sleep takes some time. Alas, he sleeps.

So, my brain is fixated on the birth of a new baby, a baby born at home. A baby who safely made it's way into the world without the use of intervention, without the use of a sharp knife because it's life was in danger.

I am not going to hold back. I am jealous, and I am sad. I am trying very hard to just be happy that this baby lived, and happy that this family is not having to live in the dark shadows that we lived in (and that still linger, even though you can't tell by looking at me).

The truth is that I am terrified for any family that I may know, or hear of that is considering having their baby at home. How can I not be right? At the same time, it is not my place to say anything, but I can write about my terror here. I can pour it all out here onto this page for you to read all about how it feels to have your innocent little baby die, and specifically perhaps because of homebirth.

There is also something else that I hadn't really thought about too much because maybe I have tried to turn a blind eye is the way other new mothers see me. If they don't already know about my dead child and they find out are they then cautious of me? Does it make them uncomfortable every time I talk about my daughter and how she died (the circumstances that may very well caused her death?). Am I too bold to speak out against homebirth? Seriously, can you blame me? I don't give a fuck if I scare people with what I have to say about this. I am eternally pissed off that my child is dead perhaps because of this fucking decision that I made. I know that I have gone off here about this before, oh well, I don't fucking care! Here it is again, the shit that is the baggage that I will carry with me until my time comes.

Here is what homebirth looks like to me:

Homebirth = Emergency C-section = Dead baby.

OR

Homebirth = Death.


Perhaps some might think me crazy, you know, I'm that woman who's baby died. Who still talks about her dead baby all the time, and it's weird.

Maybe I am a little crazy, but who wouldn't be after having their baby die? Just because more than 2 years has gone by doesn't mean that I am healed of her death. It doesn't mean that I stop thinking about her and what happened, no, the pain is less but I carry it with me ALWAYS. The pain is ALWAYS there, it lingers and hovers over me and continues to entangle itself around my heart.

I am forever mama of a dead baby, a babylost mama.

Yes, I am that mother, the one who thought she made a wholesome "choice"...and now I am the women who every time I hear of a "successful" birth at home I feel as though I have been slapped in the face. I can't help this, it is just how I am reacting. It's just hard to hear the news, it makes me feel a lot like "I am the only one" who's birth ended in tragedy. It's defeating and it hurts. The jealously mixes with anger and I feel like I could explode.

Still I am thankful for those who "succeed" and have a living child. I think they are the lucky ones, and I only hope that they realize really and truly how lucky they are, and how easily it could all be so very different.

It is very hard for me to not speak my mind when it comes to most things. Ever since I met I.na M.ay at the conference in May, and heard her speak about you know what I have been feeling a sense of anger, but also jealousy.

I cannot deny that every time I hear of a "successful" homebirth that I piece of me feels jealous, and also a little hurt.

If only I could just be OK, with the fact that just because the world stopped for us when our "homebirth" ended in tradgedy, that for many others the world has gone on and so many other babies are not dying as a result of a choice.

It's just not that simple for me. Still, I sit here, feeling jealous, envious and my heart hurting for those that I know who have had the luck to succeed in the births of their children at home.

Am I being hypocritical? I don't think so...but so much was stolen from me because of what happened to Birdie.

Not only did I lose my child, I lost my innocence, I lost who I used to be, I lost my ability to trust my body (for a time), I lost my heart, I lost my soul.

I feel heavy today, heavy with loss, heavy with sadness and although I DO NOT regret the manner in which my beautiful miracle baby was born...I do feel a little sad that I will never know what it is to push a baby out of my body.


I am sad, I am angry and I am MAD AS HELL that my baby girl is not here.

Then there is he, who is asleep beside me, quietly breathing...in and out...in and out. His heart beats, his chest rises and falls, he is here, he is alive.

My Nearly 9 Month Old Miracle (Part 1)

There are really and truly no words to express how deeply I love my son.

Since the day of his birth, I have been blessed to spend and every hour of every day with Holdyn. To be able to witness his life in every moment is something that I cherish so very deeply. To be a constant witness to his milestones, and to the simple nature that is he is, this is all I want from life right now. I have been given this beautiful gift, this miracle, this sweet and already empathetic child and I cannot even think to be without him for more than a few minutes. (might sound hard to believe to some, but I just can't get to that place that says it's OK to leave him for an hour or 2)

Everyday is such a blessing. Everyday, I awake to my son beside me...to his bright, beaming beautiful smile that says, hello Mama!

Sweet, sweet Holdyn.

His personality is strong. A very serious boy, a very tender boy, a happy little boy who gently rests his hand upon my breast as he nurses. He is just so beautiful, I am so damn smitten with him that it makes me cry.

He is my light, he is my guide. This little child of mine is guiding my new path in life. He guides my way as his Mama and friend.

I love being able to watch his delight in life. He loves nature, trees, flowers...birds. I am proud to share in his fondness of these things. I hope that the wonder of nature to be an ever present and continuous interest in is life.

Sweet, sweet Holdyn.
My dear son, I love you so very very much.

Holdyn is ON THE MOVE!!!

At just about 8 1/2 months old, Holdyn is on the move. He is nearly crawling now, as you will see in these pictures.

12 Copies Of "Your Best Birth".....or A Giant Bitch Slap To My Face.



I have much to say about this (right now Holdyn is sleeping in the sling so I can't type too much), for now I just had to post that I mysteriously received 12 copies of "Your Best Birth" in the mail today...why? I have no clue. I will tell you though, it feels like a giant slap in the face, 12 times over.

Your Best Birth
Your Best Birth
Your Best Birth
Your Best Birth
Your Best Birth
Your Best Birth
Your Best Birth
Your Best Birth
Your Best Birth
Your Best Birth
Your Best Birth
Your Best Birth


OUCH!!! That fucking hurts!!!

I don't (personally or via blogging) know who the sender is (though I know what her name is, and what her address is via the packing slip) or why these were sent to me. I don't know what to do with them. I could read the book right? I know it will make me angry, so I don't think I want to go there.

By the way, there is no chapter about stillbirth via homebirth.

AND how did this person get my mailing address?

My Beautiful Boys

Photo Essay

This is a re-post from Rixa's blog...


"My whole heart is in that incubator"

The Motherwear Breastfeeding blog recently featured a fantastic guest post by a woman whose son was born 3 months early and weighed less than 3 pounds. She writes about how breastfeeding was her and her son's lifeline. Here is an excerpt from her post, My whole heart is in that incubator:

I was 37 years old. I thought I knew what love was. I thought I knew. But I have never loved anyone, anything, so fiercely, so terribly, so wonderfully, so achingly, as I did my little son, my only child, struggling in that incubator....

I loved and still love that boy with all I have. Because I couldn't hold him much, and felt terrible guilt for not being able to 'hold him in' for the entire 9 months he deserved, I was determined to breastfeed. I pumped every 3 hours for weeks on end. That pump and the milk that came out of me was my lifeline. It was somehow the way I was going to make it up to him for giving him such a lousy start in this world. So when I read stuff like "The Case against Breastfeeding" I get so angry. I believe that my breastmilk, and the good care we got at BC Children's, saved my child's life. It saved my life. If there is anything in this crazy, crazy world that is really is a gift from God it is the babies we can create and the milk that comes from our bodies.

If anything is pure and natural, and real and true, it's breastmilk. It made me feel like a mother when my baby was all alone inside a machine when he should have been inside me.

Anyone who dismisses breastfeeding so casually, or by their attitude or indifference creates an environment that doesn't hold up and encourage and cheerlead a new mom into a successful breastfeeding relationship, has lost touch with something. They've lost touch with a sense of what it means to be a mother, what feeding a baby is all about, what it means to nurture, how significant that breastfeeding can be to both mother and child.



It wasn't my intention to upset anyone with this post.

When I read this woman's full story on the Motherwear blog, I was moved. I was moved and reminded so strongly of how I felt when my milk came in after Birdie died. My breasts were swollen,leaking and overflowing with milk. Despite best efforts to stop it, the very milk that was intended to nourish her newborn body came forth. So, in some ways I can relate to the passion that this woman had to breastfeed her very tiny infant. She could see her child's life hanging in the balance, and she was lucky enough to be able to pump her milk for her baby. By re-posting this, I was not intending to speak as if breastfeeding always is able to work for everyone, I know of Mama's who have struggled very hard to make it work, and I love and respect them for this.

I can only speak for myself, and my breastfeeding experience. That said, I have been blessed and fortunate in my breastfeeding experience thus far. Breastfeeding has been a gift for me to be able to nurture my miracle baby in this way. Of course this is only one of many ways to love and nurture my son. Breastfeeding is a source of comfort and healing, it is a second chance, to nourish and grow this child in the way I would have with Birdie. For me and my babe, it is a connecting experience, and I feel that it brings us closer together, skin to skin and heart to heart.

Again, I am speaking only for myself and from my experience as a breastfeeding mother. I can speak for knowone but myself.

Giving Birth On The Fa.rm

I know that I mentioned in my last post that I have much to report. Before I do that, there is something that I have to write about, as it has been so heavy on my mind.

Last week I was blessed to attend the Par.tner.s In Per.i.natal Conference with my dear friend Carol. We were there attending as a SHARE exhibitor representing our local group "Empty Arms". We were there with lots of information to give, support and listening ears. The response to our presence there was tremendous! Some folks had heard of SHARE some had not, and perhaps for some they had never even heard of stillbirth...or maybe they had only ever heard stories of stillbirth happening in hospital.

I considered that there might be a strong presence of the home.birthing community there, and as it turned out I was right. It's kind of hard to describe how this made me feel (disgusted/pissed off/bitchy/jealous). It was obvious though, after over hearing numerous conversations that these people were absolutely oblivious and naive to anything bad happening during the attempt of a home.birth. To those folks I wanted to scream out loud! (after all my pregnancy had been so perfect, I was a perfect candidate for a home.birth)

For those who have NEVER heard of anything bad happening when it comes to home.birth, lend me your ear, let me tell you a story...it's a long tragic, awful, nightmare of a story. Would you like to hear it?

This conference featured a very well known speaker/advocate (of the home.birthing community), can you take a guess who "she" was? That's a big hint my friend! Well, it was none other than, drum roll please.........In.a M.ay!

I felt pretty sure that I knew just what her speech/talk would be about. Of course home.birth, natural childbirth, and how bad hospitals are for babies and moms. I sat there with my ears open and my eyes glued to her as she spoke passionately but also ignorantly. I could feel my body seizing, and my eyes welling up as she ranted about the ease to give birth that so many woman had found on "The F.arm". Then there was a story that she told of a woman who's labor had been difficult and long:

Here is an excerpt from Carol's blog...as she re-counts the story so well:

"So the story goes like this, she relays it, it is early in the life of her delivering babies, and a mother comes to her with a long and difficult labor, and the baby eventually emerges with the cord wrapped tightly three times around its neck, blue. While efforts are being made to resuscitate the baby, the mother begins to hemorrhage. Ultimately, the baby is resuscitated and the mother's bleeding slows down to a normal rate. Ina explains that everything did end up fine, because she knew what to do. Our friend Ina, in recalling the story, asks, "Who writes this stuff?" Like as if it's just this kind of cool war story to tell, with a happy ending that had nothing to do with really unbelievable timing and luck."

As you might imagine, this story pissed me off. It pissed me off because, well it could have VERY EASILY have been a VERY DIFFERENT outcome. I don't give a flying (excuse me) FUCK if you think that you know what to do. How about the babies cord was wrapped 3 times around the babies neck, AND the cord at some point during that long and difficult labor was compressed...and SHE HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING? That baby would not have survived that labor, then what? Would she be telling everyone in the world how wonderful and "safe" home.birth is then? Remember, when things start to go very wrong during labor, they start to go VERY, VERY wrong VERY, VERY fast. My dead baby, my daughter is proof of this fact.

I am very concerned and skeptical about the truth behind that statistics that she brought to brag about. She did not even mention a hint of fetal loss, and as Carol reminded me, those statistics are 1/100 births. Thousands of births have taken place on The F.arm, so you know that there has been fetal loss. There has to have been, The F.arm is not spared from such tragedy simply because it puts out such a pristine reputation. Why are the losses there not spoken about? Do they not want to scare the home.birthing community as a whole?

Did you know that I.na M.ay herself had a stillborn child? Did you know that she went into labor prematurely while traveling in the caravan on their way to Tennessee?

"It was common knowledge that I.na M.ay – one of Stephen’s two wives – was expecting a baby. The due date was sometime after our anticipated arrival in Tennessee and people were curious to see who would deliver since I.na M.ay had been the midwife for the babies born on the Caravan. But on our second day driving across Nebraska, we pulled off the road surprisingly early in North Platte, parking in a large lot in the early afternoon. This was not the kind of place the state troopers would have arranged for us. Word went around that Ina May had gone into premature labor. Anita was worried; it was way too early.

The next morning there was no routine drivers’ meeting. Instead, someone knocked on the door of our bus and somberly informed us that I.na M.ay’s baby had been stillborn and would be buried there in North Platte after all the legal paperwork had been taken care of. The Caravan would stay put until after that, then would beeline south into Kansas.

We were stunned. Somehow, the good karma of Stephen’s family and the Caravan seemed to have failed. I understood little to nothing about the magic held by the group – I’d naively believed there was such magic and that it would protect us from this kind of tragedy. The death of a newborn was so far beyond my experience and comprehension that I half expected the Caravan to disband or at least regroup under a new mission. But as we gathered with others who’d been with Stephen since the early days of the Class, we found more grounded perspectives.

This was simply the way life was. Death was a certainty for all of us. It came way early for I.na M.ay’s child, but it wasn’t an issue of fairness or deserving or bad magic. It just was. Grief was an inescapable part of life and we would move on. If anyone would understand this, it would be Stephen’s family. We couldn't’ allow ourselves slip too far out into sadness for the loss of one infant because there was so much life still left in the rest of us. Our lesson should be to love and support one another even more, especially the few children who were traveling with us."

The whole post that I excerpted from can be found HERE.

I can't believe that I found this, I mean the irony that I have been experiencing surrounding my "meeting" this woman (will tell you about this in another post) is beginning to really disturb me.

I feel so sad for her baby. Maybe, just maybe her pre-mature labor could have been stopped if she had gone into a hospital? Maybe that baby would not have made a still entrance into this world. I also feel so sad that the caravan just kept on going, literally and emotionally. I have to wonder, did I.na M.ay? Did she allow herself the space to grieve her loss? My hope is that she did, that she allowed herself the space to do so, even if she had to hide it from the others in the caravan.

I also feel that I need to be careful not to judge her about her loss, I want to respect the memory of her child. However, why wouldn't a pregnant mother who has gone into labor too early go to a hospital? Yes, they were on the road, but they had state troopers following and leading them on their way, so perhaps a distress call could have been made? Couldn't something have been done to rush her to a hospital to try to save her baby?

Still, there she was going on and on about all the intense, primal, beautiful and perfect births that take place on the farm. There wasn't even a whisper of fetal death, only the mention of maternal death, because the death of a mother who has given birth is so much easier to digest? WTF?

I feel deeply disturbed and sickened by all of this.

More to come when I can collect my thoughts.

33 Weeks Old

My boy is over 7 1/2 months old! HOLY SHIT!

I have lot's to report to you...but I can't type too much just now. Lot's of exciting news, and lots and lots more photos to share. Perhaps this weekend I can post some up. For now some photos of Holdyn and I from this morning.




And a few more from a few days ago...because they are so adorable.