belize

recently, rachel had the privilege of shadowing mianh for a week in the life of a midwife. shanno and i were excited to hear about her experience so we planned to get together the three of us last night. shanno invited us over to her place. i'd planned to take éamon along with me, but it dawned on me that he'd just end up sitting in his chair upstairs and he could just as easily sit in his chair downstairs with b. i decided to just leave him at home, because b could call me if éam got hungry. i really enjoyed my time with the girls with undivided attention, and when i got home (back downstairs), he was as good as could be. b said he was fine all evening and was all swaddled tight, in a deep sleep ready for bed. i was really proud of him, and i'm looking forward to more evenings out on main street and beyond.

i've been reflecting on how it feels to discuss birth now that i've had a baby – especially since his birth didn't go the way i'd pictured. i'm still very excited about birth. it's a beautiful, amazing and mind-blowing event. the one thing that's changed is i feel more open-minded that i used to be. i think my beliefs about birth were much more narrow before. i knew that birth was unpredictable and couldn't be planned, but i had a subconscious belief that i was insusceptible to complications. so i feel humbled. to be fair, i had no reason to believe i would be high risk, but i was probably naive too.

i've also been thinking about the phrases "hospitable birth" and "home birth", and i want to re-frame them as "birth in a hospital" and "birth at home". if i'm honest with myself, i know that before my birth the term "hospital birth" was always a dirty word. for home birth advocates (i include myself in this), a "hospital birth" is the worse case scenario. since i've given birth in a hospital, i know it's not nearly as bad as i imaged, and the hospital staff were not my enemies. birth is birth wherever it takes place. it can be good or bad wherever it takes place. and i'm going to be intentional to not use labels, especially labels that can diminish or undermine. i would challenge anyone who might trivialize my experience or imply that it was sub-par because it took place in a hospital. not that anyone has, but i believe that pre-baby lesley probably would have without meaning to. so out of courtesy and out of respect for birth, i want to take this new, more inclusive approach.

moss grows fat on a rollin' stone,
but that's not how it used to be.