Why Homebirth, Part I

So I'm pregnant. Very exciting news, isn't it? Even more exciting is the news that it's sticking (for now); we're officially out of the first trimester, making it much easier to grin and announce the coming baby with gratitude and joy. That trepidatious sense of impending doom recedes a little more each day, and as my tummy begins to grow (only the faintest hint right now), so does the thrill and anticipation. Soon I'll feel movement (the quickening), and soon after that, Mark and Burgundy will be able to feel it from the outside. I'm making a baby.

Given how long and dearly we've wanted this child, some people have asked, all incredulous, why we would take the risk of a homebirth attended by a midwife. After all, isn't a hospital safer? Isn't a doctor more knowledgeable? For those who have been in my home, there's the gingerly asked (and possibly quite valid), "Um, is it sanitary enough?"

In a word, No, No, and NO. I mean Yes. The answer to the last question is definitely YES. No Freudian slips here; move along.

I want to spend several posts exploring these questions and the scientific evidence in favor of midwifery care (as opposed to obstetrical care) and home or birth-center-based labor and delivery. Childbirth is one of the most important rites of passage in our culture, and the way we approach care for this event in a woman and family's life has implications for safety, maternal and infant morbidity rates, cultural assumptions and attitudes toward life and toward the value of people. Childbirth is a fine example of the interconnectedness of life, love, science and progress. Childbirth is my soapbox, my love, a saving grace (for me). Healthy, normal childbirth is a passion, its promotion almost a mission for me.

These posts might be far between because I want to present them in a way that demonstrates the interdependencies of the childbirth process (for example, the well-documented "cascade effect" of our technological advances that has lead to our inexcusably high Cesarean rate in the US). I often find that when a person asks me about one thing, for example, electronic fetal monitoring, I don't do a very good job of presenting the big picture, the whole argument.

I begin discussion logically enough. Unfortunately, as I connect the dots mentally, I get a little rabid. I stumble over my own words; I get "Libertarian Eyes" (a term for the slightly wild-eyed look of a zealot in full-on Preach-the-Gospel-of-My-Cause mode coined by my friend Hannah in discussion of, um, excessively passionate people), and apparently, I lose my ability to form a coherent sentence.

When I come back to my senses, I'm out of breath, spluttering, and whomever I've just assaulted with a vitriolic denunciation of anything short of squatting in a rice paddy backs away slowly and refuses to return my calls for a month. As they back away, I follow them, saying things like, "And that's not even the half of it! I once discovered a coven of obstetricians mired in a Ritual Cesarean chanting insurance codes! I DID! And they are the reason that our society is crumbling! It’s the Demonic Obstetricians of DOOM! You must birth [spittle flies on the heels of birth; I pronounce it like a televangelist] NAKED! Do it for the CHILDREN [I begin to shout because they're running now]! JESUS WANTS YOU TO RECLAIM YOUR FEMINIST POWER! WHEN YOU BIRTH YOU BECOME A SUPER WOMAN; YOU ARE CAPABLE OF ANYTHING!"

So yes, I want to write something coherent and accessible. I want to write something that friends can read without thinking, "Christ on a cracker, don't tell her you're pregnant!" Most of all, I want it to be effective. I want people who read me, who stumble on my journal, to understand that there is a better way than epidurals, episiotomies, and cesarean sections. A safer way, a gentler way. A loving way.

Oh No! The day that slipped away

Well, last night we did not get to work on the room at all. A surprising irony, because Burgundy had nowhere to be and a lot of free time. On the other hand, I had plans to meet up with some friends, and by the time I helped her finish her critical issues (homework, study time, preparing for science fair), Mark had come home. He and I spent a little time together catching up on our day, and my ride arrived before I had a chance to work further with Burgundy.

 

Meanwhile, I stayed home from work Monday, and we’re traveling next week, so I’ve been working longer hours than usual this week in order to stay caught up. The result is that I’ve only barely stayed on top of my core daily housework: making the bed; doing a load of laundry daily; the dishes, etc. This week I haven’t swept at all. I did vacuum Monday, but I think I need to do that twice a week at minimum. That dog is so nasty.

Our spring break plans are starting to get me fired up (in a good way). We won’t leave until Sunday because Burgundy has Houston-area Science Fair Friday with the awards ceremony Saturday afternoon. I also have a baby shower to attend. I’m making the gifts for her; I can’t wait to see what she thinks. Sunday morning, we’ll load up and head over to San Marcos.
Hill Country always offers a lot of options for us:

• Shopping in San Marcos (woo outlet mall)
• Pick your own fruit and vegetable farms
• Visiting a dairy farm
• Bike riding
• South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin
• Visiting with little brother and his wife in San Antonio
• Shopping at a couple of “famous” are yarn shops (especially the Tinsmith’s Wife)

I also plan to take my spinning wheel and sewing supplies with me. They’ll take up a lot of space, but I am really excited about early-morning spinning on the front porch. I never get to spin anymore, and I have several batts I can’t wait to spin.

 

As for the sewing machine and supplies, I have five “vintage” style patterns that I’ve wanted to glom together for a while. I have several different bodice options and only one real skirt option. I don’t like skirt and blouse combinations because skirt bands pinch and blouses ride up; I want to make a dress.

 

I plan to modify a blouse pattern to use the neckline and collar from a reproduction mid-20th century apron pattern. I then plan to modify that blouse pattern with the bodice pattern I like from a reproduction 60s dress pattern and to integrate the resulting bodice with the skirt pattern from a second reproduction 60s dress pattern for a final result dress that actually fits me. The bodice will take the longest because I’m short-shouldered with a large bust and a long waist. I’ll have significant modifications.

 

Happily, I have a plethora of fabric that I will never, ever wear. It is cotton, country (in the worst possible way), and screams, “Look at me! I’m homemade!” So I’ll use that fabric to tweak everything to perfection, and once I love the dress and the way it fits, I’ll go to fabric stores until I find the perfect fabric to make exactly what I want.

 

Tonight I have to make cupcakes and find time to work with Burgundy on her room. And I really need to vacuum and sweep. Happily, I will be able to leave work at 2:00 or so; that should give me plenty of time to get everything done.

Procraftination

A few years ago, I took up quilting.  My first two quilt tops were nine-patches arranged into a neat little optical trick. The design is called an Irish-something-or-other; I've forgotten now. It took three years to lay them out, sandwich them with their battings and backings, and pin them together for true quilting. In that time, I did most of the piecework for another quilt in beautiful peach colors, and I made a snail's trail quilt for my daughter our of all blue fabrics with a bright yellow mariner's compass in the middle.

Burgundy's quilt should have been a masterpiece. And to be fair, Burgundy thinks it is. But my piecing was so poor that my inexperienced self was afraid to lay it all out and machine quilt it. And I was WAY too lazy to hand quilt it. So I tied it with pieces of blue yarn (God bless knitting; it saves me yet again), and she put it on her bed and loved it.

I should add here that I gave Burgundy the nearly-complete quilt top for Christmas in 2007. I gave her the "finished" quilt the following August. Procrastination, I am thine. Love me for my devotion.

Meanwhile, I made about 76 stupid snail trail squares, didn't need most of them, and they've been sitting around in the craft room, taking up space ever since. So earlier this week, I decided that my craft project du jour would be to make and quilt a matching pillow sham for Burgundy's quilt. I finished piecing it yesterday, and I zoomed through that ugliest quilting job ever attempted on a machine yesterday for about 45 minutes before deciding to stop for the day. It's about 1/3 quilted.

Today I plan to finish quilting it, cut out, hem, and sew on the back of the sham (in that overlapping envelope style), and have it on her bed before she gets home from school. Wish me luck!

Planning for Christmas

We always fill our weekends with way too many activities, plans, and goals. This weekend was no different; however, I accomplished so many things that I’m beginning to feel giddy. I finished making the jam two weeks ago, and I made three loaves of bread and a batch of yeast rolls Saturday. I finished another Morsbag, and we took the girls to Houston Grand Opera for the second weekend in a row, this time to see Lohengrin. We really enjoyed it, but I don't think I will see live opera two weekends in a row again anytime soon. Especially not when one of them is Wagner. Holy cow.

I’ve now completed six out of twelve Morsbags for our Christmas project. Basically, I'm going handmade this Christmas. For all our parental and sibling sets and for our close friends, I'm making each family a Morsbag. So far, I've made one bag from fat quarters I had, four from a large-ish scrap of cloth I found in my craft room, and one from an IKEA pillowcase. The remaining six probably will be made from the rest of the IKEA sheet set. It cost $1.99, and I bought it to use in place of fabric on a different project.

We'll stuff each bag with a jar of homemade local jam, a bar of homemade soap, a hand-packed beer bread kit, hand-dipped chocolate spoons, homemade hot cocoa mix, and a mini-loaf of my homemade bread. If the girls feel like it, they can bake cookies or brownies or cookie bars and add those to the gift bags.

The Morsbags are by far the most time-consuming aspect of the gifts. Each one takes about an hour to make by myself, and neither of my girls knows how to sew or how to iron precisely enough for machine sewing. Of course, after a while, my ironing isn't terribly precise, either.

In the spirit of the Under $1,000 per Month blog, I calculated the cost of our gift bags vs. their value. The fabric for the bags themselves I consider free for two reasons. First, I already had the fabric in the house; likely, I've had it for a few years. Second, by using up the fabric, I'm saving on the cost of a decluttering professional to save me from my crafty hoarding tendencies.

• Reusable grocery bags are usually on sale 10 for $10 at the grocery store, so I'll call it $1/each. My cost: $0.
• A half-pint of homemade jam probably could fairly cost $3. My cost: $1.88/jar (including the cost of the jar)
• A bar of homemade soap from Miss Hannah's Handmade Soap would cost $5 - $7, so we'll call it $6 even. My cost: About $2 (and many thanks to Miss Hannah herself for her kindness and generosity in teaching me.
• I last saw beer bread mixes sold at a craft fair for $7 in a baggie or $10 in a beer bottle (a cute gimmick to be sure). I'll call that $7 because I won't be using beer bottles. My cost: $0.25
• A six-piece chocolate spoon set was $6.50 on Etsy. My cost: $0.60
• I found a three-serving set of hot cocoa mixes on Etsy for $6. My cost: $0.31
• Finally, it disturbs a bit to say, but I found homemade bread on Etsy for $12 a loaf. Mine are mini-loaves, so I'll call them $3 a loaf. My cost: $0.34

So I will spend about $5.38 per family while giving each family a gift valued at $32.50. My family will love receiving these handmade gifts that they can eat and enjoy. Most of our family and close friends are very green-conscious and will love having their own Morsbag. And noone has to coo over another Christmas figurine that they didn't want and now can't re-gift.