Birthday, Basses, Birth & Babies Bed & Breakfast!
1. November 16 was D's 41st birthday...happy belated birthday, dear (old) husband!
2. November 18 Baby L's first tooth finally poked through. Interesting fact about the Bass Babies' first teeth: C's poked through at exactly 6 months; E's at 6 months, 1 day; and Baby L's at 6 months, 2 days! How weird is THAT?
3. November 15 I flew to Illinois to attend my friend Rixa's BBBB (Birth & Babies Bed & Breakfast). Since most of my readers were also there, I won't go into great detail...but:
A few "real life" friends and a few "blog buddies" all converged at Rixa's gorgeous house and spent the weekend discussing birth, babies, breastfeeding, friendship and more. The "royal we" hosted a viewing of the Business of Being Born, the much anticipated documentary by Ricki Lake. My take on the film? Disappointing. I really enjoyed the first half - it shows some great out-of-hospital and birth center births, using upright positions; it interviews families, experts, and attendants; the overall feeling is light-hearted and informative. Some of my favorites are included: Marsden Wagner, Michele Odent, Ina May Gaskin...
Then the last half hour completely changes tone. If you want to see the film and not have it "spoiled," stop reading now.
The producer of the documentary, Abby, gets pregnant during the course of the production. She half-heartedly plans a home birth with parallel care from an OB. We see her ultrasound, some discussion about transferring if she changes her mind, etc. Then a few weeks "early," she goes into labor. The CNM shows up, determines baby is still breech, and a hectic trip to the OR ensues. So we have a C-section breech 3 lb baby born. Eight months later we get a wrap-up and Abby says something about how good the C-section was, since baby was "not strong enough for vaginal birth," and the "cord was around the neck." Baby is shown being bottle-fed, and Abby says something about breastfeeding being difficult. So my take on the whole movie? It starts going somewhere good, then covers its own rear by reverting to stereotypical, misinformed standard American birth. She can't know whether baby was "strong enough" for vaginal birth. A nuchal cord (around the neck) is hardly a disaster - C and L both had nuchal cords - it's quite common. To avoid rambling on, I just thought the movie ended up being a little mini-documentary on Abby's birth, and left me with the same ol' "thank goodness for my doctor and my C-section" vomit taste in my mouth.
Aside from my dislike of the film's ending, the weekend was fantastic! Many thanks to Rixa for hosting and keeping us all fed in gourmet style. And thanks to her kind husband for picking me up at the airport in the middle of the night, and for putting up with a LOT of estrogen and birth passion invading his house all weekend!
Including babies currently in utero, between the five of us, we covered kid numbers 1-5:
Rixa - 1; Judit - 2; Me - 3; Kelley - 4; Joy - 5
So there was plenty of baby, birth, and breastfeeding talk to go around all weekend long - and hopefully enough extra to spur on another little one soon (*wink*)!
We not only talked birth, but also had a craft night. Rixa and Kelley shared their respective experience in silk painting and jewelry making:
Rixa downloaded the fetal image and I traced it on the silk, then added the squiggles and color. She has a picture on her blog of some of the other paintings done.
The bracelet has the birthstones from D, me and the kids...from the bottom, amethyst (me), diamond (C), blue topaz (E), emerald (L), and yellow topaz (D).It was wonderful meeting new friends and catching up with old. I wish I'd taken more pictures though! I hope this can become a yearly event...
Left to right: Kelley, Erin (blogless friend - hint, hint), and Joy! Not pictured are Rixa and Judit.
5 comments:
Such a blast! This will definitely have to be a yearly event. :)
I'm so delighted to read of your fun weekend with your friends. Our friendships are priceless. Love to you all. And have a blessed and bountiful thanksgiving!
I agree that the segment about Abby Epstein felt kind of...added in after the fact. I knew about how the documentary ended before I first watched it, so I was already expecting that part. I felt that Abby used the film in part to process what happened.
I don't know if her wishy-washy-ness was just her personality, the way the film was edited, or if it truly was the way she was. I agree that she didn't come across as very committed to her own home birth.
The reality of cesarean sections is that they do tend to disrupt breastfeeding, so I think it was good in a way that the film mentioned that. Not good that she had troubles of course, but at least it did show the ramifications of surgical delivery.
I agree that it's good to mention the effects of C-sections...but I thought this film pretty much glossed over it, since it's not like breastfeeding was highlighted. I think "mainstream" viewers wouldn't necessarily connect C/S with trouble nursing...especially because they showed her initiating in the NICU. It's an easy leap for us, but I'm afraid just another bottle to most. After all, bottles are the new norm :(
Hey Jen! SOrry so late to catch up to your blog, but awesome re-cap of the movie. I am still unsure as to how I fell about it. the first time I saw it, at the house, I was really bummed out and pissed off that they "threw in a bummer c section". I didnt get it. Then the second time I saw it, in the auditorium, it felt like part of the truth, part of the circle of life, part of the small number of things that "can go wrong", a very premature labor for instance...but then as I was enjoying my loooong drive home, I thought that it most likely was just 2 women who made a film, and the one, Abby, started off including her pregnancy into the story, and this unfortunate thing happned to her. Whether or not it was some sort of internalized fear of committing all the way in her plans to birth at home, or whether she just had a tough break, her baby had undiagnosed IUGR, pretty badly, for being not that "early" and still so teeny weeny, and for me, it actually highlighted the ineptitude/uselessness of the OB's and their big fancy machinery. I think her bottle feeding stood our starkly in a film with otherwise 100% breastfeeding.
I wish it could have stayed all upbeat and powerful, and there were several parts of the movie where I was whispering "Stop! End it now! End of movie!" and of course it was not the end of the movie...but there it was, the producer herself, going into labor way before it was time, and her "no breeches" midwife telling her "LEts go! Its time to go to the hospital!" What was she gonna do? she was so afraid of homebirth anyways and here is her midwife telling her "lets go".
I am wondering if it was some little thingy to kind of "prove" that yes, midwives do transfer, in such instances as ___ insert "perfect example".
I still can't wrap my head around breech being so deadly. Ive seen 'em on YouTube all the time :)
It was fantastic to meet you, and hope we can do it again!!!
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