Show Me a Beauty.filled Birth

What is possible for you to experience in the realms of Birth?

What are your earliest images of the birthing process?


I remember sitting alone in front of a TV at about age seven and watching a Cesarian Section procedure on '60 Minutes'.  I was fascinated and horrified all at once.  In my little seven year old mind I put together that ALL babies must come in to the world in that way.  I remember feeling afraid to have a baby when I grew up...yet I assumed that surely I would.  This made my gut ache with worry in the deepest places.


When my awareness around 'how babies came in' shifted I can not really pin point.  


Our media most often portrays birth as a 'big volume emergency intensive medical procedure'.  A women is screaming with her head thrown back - being whisked by a team of highly trained professionals in white coats into the emergency room...her partner distraught and unempowered, not knowing if in fact their woman and child will survive.  


Just for the record ((even though I know this does happen in some cases)) I have never seen, in my seven years of being with birth, quite as dramatic a scenario unfold.  Yet, I am aware in talking to women and families that these images do live somewhere in our  deep psyche.


I know that pain free birth is possible.  I know that orgasmic and tantric birth is possible.  I sense, on a spiritual level that our birth experience is somehow, perhaps, exactly what we need ((regardless of how it looks)) to unfold into our deeper soul growth work and more fully claim who we are as a human BEing in this Earthwalk - and I wonder.....


"WHAT IF the only images that lived inside of us around birth, were centering...power.full...deeply gorgeous...reverent...awed and honored?"  


How then might our birth consciousness and experiences align with what we carried inside of our selves?


Let's start a collection of our most inspiring birth videos and images and begin to vibrate these blue prints into the collective.  This is possible!  Let's begin here and now.  I've included a link to one of my favorite birthing videos "Naitre Enchantee".


I'd love for you to share the images that most inspire you here.
Thank YOU.


http://magalidieux.free.fr/page_naitre/video_naitre.html


En.joy!

Video Blog - Palpating an Unborn Baby - Can you FEEL it?

 Palpation w/ Itiyopiya Ewart ~ twins!!

"Touch is the first language we speak.."

Though routine and very socially encouraged in our modern day culture, many women and families chose not to participate in routine ultrasound and Doppler diagnosis.  

How then can they be certain that their babies are OK and that things are progressing as 'normal'?  Often a mother will assure you that she just knows, and she does.

"Touch is the first language we speak.  Most mothers have talked touch with their unborn babies by poking and patting them when they kick inside their bellies." -Ina May Gaskin

The simple art of palpation can speak volumes to a parent, midwife, or birth caregiver.  

Through well practiced palpation we can:

• discover if a woman is carrying more that one child
• understand the baby or babies positioning
• determine how 'far along' (estimated date of birth) a mother is by measuring her fundal height 
• and listen to the babies heart tones

Regardless of how a self directed family choses to utilize todays technology in support of their pregnancy, palpation is a wonderful way for a woman and family to connect with their unborn baby.  As well, for many women, this is a sweet time of getting to receive nurturing touch while affirming what they might be sensing or wondering about in regard to their babies position, well being and size.

A woman, her partner, and children can easily learn and practice the art of palpation.  This is a wonderful experience for a midwife/caregiver and families to share together.


I've included a video of a simple palpation sequence that one can practice. I filmed this at La Matrona, the midwifery program I am currently immersed in. My teacher Whapio Diane Bartlett, shown here, is the also the Director of La Matrona and a previously practicing Independent Midwife of 30 plus years.  


Thank you Whapio.

En.Joy