Controversy over diet of a 7-Year-Old Girl

I want to thank everyone for their kind words of encouragement and happy birthday wishes. It was much needed on a day when my birthday caught me rather off guard. My minor anxiety attack is, thankfully, over and I’m looking forward with a more positive attitude and a plan to make life more meaningful and less mundane.

I didn’t want to leave March with only one depressing post, so I had planned on posting a recipe I tried out a while ago, but then I saw this article today about an article written by a woman discussing her fight against her daughter’s childhood obesity and felt compelled to discuss it. First, I do want to establish that I have not read the actual Vogue article. I don’t subscribe to Vogue and I don’t have time to go to Barnes and Noble and read it while chasing my crazy toddler around the store. All of my comments are therefore based on the excerpts quoted in the response to the Vogue article.

The quotes pulled from the Vogue article clearly show a woman ill-equipped to handle her daughter’s weight problem, not because she doesn’t have the financial resources, but because she herself has food issues of her own. As a result, while I don’t think that this absolves this woman of all responsibility for how she opted to correct her daughter’s weight, I do think it requires us to offer some sympathy and support rather than wholesale castigation. Let’s step back for a moment and look at the challenges she was up against.

Society tells us daily that we should all be poker thin to the point of illness, that that is the only way to be beautiful. Guys don’t have it any easier; just look at men’s magazines showing ripped guys who clearly have no other job but to spend the day at the gym. They are both unrealistic ideals, neither particularly healthy. Combine that with a convenience society that eats on the run or out of vending machines, and thinks that adding vitamins, minerals and fiber to a cookie makes it a healthy snack choice and you’ve got yourself one mixed message. Eat as much as you want, but don’t get fat. Good luck with that.

Next, we’ve forgotten how to eat and what to eat to stay healthy. Yes, we all know intellectually that we should eat our fruits and veggies, but anyone who’s tried to lose weight knows that’s easier said than done. Who’s going to pass up a bowl of chocolate ice cream for some sauteed broccoli? We don’t eat at home and when we do it’s often a prepared meal out of the freezer and into the microwave. We eat food that is most likely grown in an industrial food system rendering much of it less than nutritious, or at a minimum not as nutritious as it used to be. We live in a world where the price of things like flour and sugar make them every day commodities and modern technology like stand mixers and home deep friers make it a breeze to prepare foods that would have been special occasion foods a mere 75 years ago. I strongly urge all of you to read any of the books written by Michael Pollan or Marion Nestle and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Finally, we’re sedentary. We just don’t move around as much. For much of human history, we toiled away in fields or factories moving all day. Women, when they didn’t work outside the home, toiled all day without the modern conveniences of washing machines or feather-light vacuum cleaners. They heaved heavy loads of wet laundry outside to hang on the line and scrubbed kitchen floors on their hands and knees. Many people didn’t have cars, so they walked. And have you ever tried to drive a car without power steering? A workout by itself. And children played outside, all day till dinner! They rode their bikes, climbed trees, walked to school, had recess. Now many of us sit at a desk all day, too lazy or busy or both to even get up to talk to the people down the hall from us. Our children sit in school all day, take the bus or ride with mom to and from, don’t have recess, and come home to play basketball on the computer instead of on the court.

With all that, it’s no wonder many people have such a hard relationship with food, especially in social circles where image is everything. Now, take that same woman, who has admitted to having issues with food, and expect her to somehow know how to teach her daughter how to eat well without guidance and instruction; that is ludicrous.

I wasn’t present when her daughter’s doctor gave her the advice to put her 7-year old on a diet. I don’t know if the doctor offered instructions on how to do that safely and effectively; I doubt it, as nutrition education is not a requirement for medical doctors in this country. I would hope that a doctor telling a patient (or their parent) to lose weight would write a referral to a nutritionist, who could help that person lose weight, especially for a child who has very different nutrition needs than an adult. Maybe this woman’s doctor did just that and she ignored it. Maybe she thought she didn’t need help. Maybe she knew that if she sought help from a nutritionist that she would be forced to face her own eating issues and she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Whatever the reason, it seems to me that blasting this woman for choosing less than ideal methods for reducing and controlling her daughter’s weight is counterproductive.

What we should be discussing is how to make society one in which we all have a healthy relationship with food, where parents can seek advice, support and assistance without feeling like failures themselves. Yes, ultimately, this woman (and her husband too, no reason why dad should be let off the hook here) is responsible for her daughter’s health. But in a society with the kinds of mixed messages we get about food and body image, that becomes a more challenging job by the day. Let’s stop beating each other up and start working together to build healthier cities and towns, where walking and biking are safe viable options for getting around; better school lunch programs based on solid science and full of local, organic, properly raised produce; better physical education programs and institution of recess; let’s be smart about fixing this nation’s food issues together instead of tearing each other down every chance we get.

Happy Birthday?

Birthdays have a way of making or breaking your day. For the first time ever, I think it is safe to say that mine is breaking my day today. When I did the math and realized how old I am (36, not yet old, but not exactly young anymore), I started crying. I’ve never done that before, cry over a birthday, but I felt a profound sense of discontent. I suppose I thought life would be somehow different as an adult, more interesting, more adventurous, more carefree, more romantic. I thought I’d feel different, more confident, with a greater sense of self, of purpose, accomplishment. But in the end, for most of us it seems, life is pretty ordinary. We get up, do our chores, go to work, raise our kids, take care of our families, and repeat day in and day out. At the end, we’ve all pretty much ended up living the same life. It just strikes me as rather small and insignificant and that makes me sad. I know we all can’t be prolific writers, profound singers, inspiring artists, great humanitarians, or Nobel winning scientists. And I’m struggling with that today; I’m struggling with the fact that the mark we leave on this world is rather small and insignificant save but to a very few. Maybe that’s why I started writing this blog; it’s my way of making my mark a little bigger, striving for a little bit of immortality.

Bacony Brussels Sprouts

Just in time to keep to my resolution of at least one post a month, here’s a recipe I made a few months ago.  And of course, it includes bacon!  I happened to have my camera handy when I made this, so you get lots of pictures this time.

Bacony Brussels Sprouts

One package of your favorite bacon

a couple shallots (depending on size and your tastes), minced

a couple cloves garlic (depending on size and your tastes), minced

1 lb fresh Brussels sprouts

1 14oz can diced Italian flavored tomatoes with juice

1/2 box mini-shell pasta

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Dice the bacon and pan fry.  Remove bacon and drain on paper towel.  Reserve fat.

While bacon is frying, quarter your Brussels Sprouts.  Here’s what fresh ones look like.  Who knew?

Dice the shallots and garlic to a fine mince.  Use as much or as little of each as you like.

Mix the sprouts, shallots, garlic, and bacon fat in a bowl and spread the mixture out on a baking pan. Put in the oven and cook until the sprouts are tender, about a half an hour.

While the sprouts are cooking, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook your pasta according to the package.  Heat the can of tomatoes and liquid as well.  Once the sprouts and pasta are cooked and the tomatoes are heated, combine.  Don’t forget to add the bacon!

Bon Appetite!

PS: I suppose you could leave the bacon out and just coat the sprouts in olive oil, but why would you want to!?

New Year’s Resolutions

I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, but this year I just couldn’t stop conjuring them up.  Maybe it’s because I’m a mostly new mom, maybe it’s because we have a new house.  Maybe I just feel like I need a new me.  So here goes:

1. Update this blog at least once a month.  I know, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but given my track record so far, once a month would be an improvement.  This year should prove to be a bit less hectic, so I’m hoping to make updates even more frequently than that.  But once a month should be a realistic commitment.
2. Plan our meals for the week before heading to the grocery store.  It makes shopping faster and less expensive.  It also makes getting dinner on the table easier too.  Anything that makes life’s chores faster, less expensive, and easier is a good thing when you have an energetic, curious, impatient toddler scurrying about.
3. Organize the house.  Ideally, I would love for my house to look like a Real Simple or Martha Stewart Living magazine spread, but that might be a bit ambitious – perhaps one room at a time and we can get there, right?  In the meantime, some basic organization is required or I’m going to end up in the madhouse.
4. Finish all those unfinished craft projects and get back to making items for my Etsy site.  Yeah, I know.  This one is a little vague, but once I get my craft space organized (see number 3 above), I’ll actually see what I have to work on and can get back to making things for my Stone Penguin shop.  And Stone Penguin may be expanding to include items other than jewelry.  I’ve got some ideas; we shall see.
5. Stop yelling at Simon.  Shortly before Christmas, I found myself screaming like a banshee at my little guy far too often.  It was ugly behavior and ineffective to boot.  It also gave me a headache and a sore throat.  So my goal is to focus on keeping my temper and realizing that toddlers are toddlers and they do toddler things and my job is to instruct and redirect, not to  lose my cool.  It’s a challenge sometimes, but so far this month I’ve kept my temper in check fairly well and we’re all getting along much better.  It’s amazing how much better behaved Simon is when I am.
6. Make at least one local friend that I can hang out with and do girly stuff with.  This seems silly considering I’ve lived here now for over 10 years, but making friends is so much harder as an adult than it was as a kid.  It’s frustrating.  Between people moving away before a solid friendship can form or long-time locals who already have established family and friends, it’s been a challenge to make friends.  I hope to make a connection with someone who plans on staying in the area for a while and who would like to add someone new to their existing circle of friends.  If anyone out there is also in the same boat, call me.  Let’s do lunch.
7. Take time for myself.  Being a new mom (frankly a mom of any length of time) is hard work and it’s easy to forget to take care of yourself.  I promise to do something by myself – that is without the child, doing something with a friend counts (see number 6) – and for myself at least once a month.
8. Get out Christmas Cards.  These last two years have been so hectic and cash strapped that we haven’t had the time or money for Christmas cards.  But I assure you, there will be Christmas cards from this household for 2012.  Look for it in your mailbox in December.

Those are my resolutions.  I’ll check back in with you in December to let you know if I’ve succeeded in any of them.

Eggless-Milkless Pumpkin Pie, AKA Vegan Pumpkin Pie

As many of you know, I have a child with food allergies, specifically allergies to dairy, eggs, and peanuts. He’s still young so there is hope that he will outgrow them. I sure hope he does, because frankly life isn’t worth living without butter, ice cream, and a bacon-egg-and cheese sandwich. Sorry vegans, it just isn’t! Anyway, I digress. So no dairy or eggs for us this year. How on earth does one make a pumpkin pie without eggs or milk? Oh yeah, and with a very active 1 and ½ year old running around.

THE CRUST

This part can be made with said active toddler running about. Get an extra set of cake dishes and a rubber spatula and give them to the toddler to pretend to cook with you. Work fast, this distraction isn’t going to last very long. When all else fails, give him a cookie or two until you are done.

A while ago, I sampled one of my husbands Sweetzels Spiced Wafers, one of his favorite cookies. They are a seasonal cookie from a Philadelphia bakery. They may be available nationally, I don’t know.* Anyway, I thought as I was eating it that it would make a good pie crust for pumpkin pie. It turns out Sweetzels did too because right on the box was a recipe for making a pie crust. Here it is:

20 Sweetzels Spiced Wafers

½ C sugar

½ C melted butter

Break cookies into pieces and put in blender or food processor and pulse until all cookies are crumbled working in batches as necessary. Melt butter. Mix sugar, butter and crumbs together until well combined. Press into pie pan. Chill before adding filling and baking.

Ok. So I am a food purist. I happen to like cooking with and eating real food as much as possible. It actually pains me to know that there is margarine in my refrigerator right now. But since we’re now a no-dairy household, I have no choice. At least I’ve gone for the “healthier” Earth Balance Buttery Spread. The things we do for our children, right? So I substituted the butter with Earth Balance.

Also, I saw on one of those Food Network shows, probably Good Eats with Alton Brown, that you can use a second pie pan to press your cookie crumbs right into the pan to get a nice even layer. You also get that nice crease between the sides and bottom of the pan. For some reason, I find that crease very satisfying. But you can just use your fingers too.

THE FILLING

This was going to be a bit more difficult. I was going to have to substitute milk and eggs, in what is essentially a custard. For this I turned to the internet. I had no idea what to use for sweetened condensed milk. It turns out that Cream of Coconut (not coconut cream) is supposed to be a good alternative. It is made by Goya and it’s in your supermarket. I thought it would be with the other coconut milks, in the Asian section, but it was not. It also wasn’t with the other coconut milk and water products in the Latin section either. It was in the baking section of the Latin section with the other cow milk products. I guess that is a good sign that it meant to be used for baking.

Now for the eggs. I found in the health food store a product called Ener-G Egg Replacer. It’s primarily used in from-scratch baked goods.** I’d never used it in anything other than a cake or bread-like product although the package had plenty of recipes for “quiche” and “custard.” I figured I’d give it a shot.

Now, I’m going to admit that I do not have a recipe for pumpkin pie from my great-aunt Petunia or my Grammy Agnes. In fact, I know this is blasphemous, but I don’t even use fresh pumpkin. I use the stuff from the can and that’s the recipe I use. Frankly, I value all ten of my fingers and so I opt to use a can opener instead of a cleaver.*** This year, I used Farmer’s Market Organic Pumpkin. Here’s their recipe from the can:

1 15 oz Farmer’s Market Organic Pumpkin

¾ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp ground cloves

1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk

2 eggs slightly beaten

1 9 in pie crust

Mix pumpkin and spices. Add remaining filling ingredients. Mix slowly until just thoroughly mixed. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes; then reduce heat and bake at 350 for an additional 35-40 minutes. Thoroughly cool pie before serving.

So I sub in the Cream of Coconut for the milk. I would suggest emptying the can into a blender and taking it for a spin before adding to the pumpkin. The liquid and cream separate and despite copious amounts of stirring I still had lumps. I don’t think the lumps really caused any problems, but a blender probably would have gotten it smoother. I’m a perfectionist and didn’t want any lumps.

I mixed all the ingredients except the eggs together. Then in a separate bowl, I prepared the Ener-G as directed on the package. (1 ½ tsp of Ener-G mixed with 2 Tbs. of warm water per egg to be replaced). Then I added that to the mixture and poured that all in my nicely chilled crust. I put the pie in the oven and then waited for the magic to happen.

THE RESULTS

Here’s a picture. It isn’t pretty.

 

Photo courtesy of Steve Schuler

After 35 minutes, I checked the pie. The crust was darkening beyond golden, brown, and delicious, but the filling wasn’t set. It was still bubbling. Torn, I opted to leave it in for another 5 minutes. That, of course, finished off the crust to a slight char on the edges and the filling still wasn’t set like a regular pie would have been. I wasn’t even sure if it was supposed to be set like a custard or not.

Anyway, I let the pie cool on the counter hoping that it would set up as it cooled. And it did a little bit. We ate dinner and then I tried to cut the pie for dessert. The crust was hard as a rock. It was nearly impossible to cut. I don’t know if this was because it was overcooked or because I used margarine instead of butter. I also wonder if using brown sugar would make a difference. Alton Brown uses brown sugar in his chewy chocolate chip cookies – something about the molasses keeps them from getting hard and crunchy. Anyway, the parts that weren’t burnt were quite tasty so I will definitely try this crust again.

I was going to say the filling was a disaster, but it turned out to be not so bad. Those first slices were a bit like really thick pudding, not at all the right consistency for pumpkin pie. This filling had no body. But night number two was vastly improved. We had put the pie in the refrigerator to store and that had improved the texture and consistency to pretty darn close. There is also a recipe on the Ener-G website itself for pumpkin pie and it calls for tapioca flour and way more Ener-G egg replacer. The photo of that pie actually looked like proper pumpkin pie. I may try that too.

Now the only problem was the overwhelming nutmeg flavor. Next time I’ll cut the nutmeg in half.

What’s important is that the husband liked it and the toddler couldn’t get enough, so three cheers to the eggless-dairyless pumpkin pie.

* If you can’t get Sweetzels Spiced Wafers, ginger snaps would probably be a good substitute. You could also just use graham crackers too.

** I tried it once in meatballs, but it didn’t work, and shows a complete lack of food science knowledge on my part. Ener-G is a combination of various starches and thickeners and leaveners. It’s not really meant to act as a glue in meatloaf or meatballs.

***As it turns out, I’ve recently been informed by a friend that you can, in fact, roast, microwave, or slow cook your pumpkin whole and then dispatch it into yummy pie goodness. I think I shall try said method next year.

Update: I attempted pie number 2 for Christmas, and we ate it before I thought about taking a picture. I skipped the overly hot oven and just started baking in the cooler 350* oven and cooked it for about 50-60 minutes. I also used ¼ cup of Ener-G instead of the tablespoon before. This time the crust came out perfectly – not burnt and easy to cut through. The pie filling was still a little soft for my liking and it actually didn’t set up quite as well as the first pie did with refrigeration. I also halved the nutmeg which, in my opinion, was a better balance of spices. Overall, though, this is a pretty good substitution for traditional pumpkin pie and I’ll use it until I can go back to cooking with real dairy and eggs. If you try it, let me know how it turns out for you.

What’s for Dinner? Fiesta Rice

One of my favorite things to do is to cook. I love making yummy food for my family and friends. And I’m pretty good at it as long as I have a recipe to follow; I’m not so good at creating my own recipes. But ever once in a while the stuff I throw together in a pot turns out pretty well. I thought I’d share recipes that are worthy of repeating.

So here’s one I made a couple weeks ago. Everyone liked it, including my 1 ½ year old and spice-averse husband. I just made it again so I could get a picture of it this time. The amounts are estimates because I don’t usually measure when I cook. I just throw stuff together.

Fiesta Rice photo courtesy of Steven Schuler Photography

 Fiesta Rice

Serves 6

•  One batch of rice
• 1 large chicken breast, shredded
• chili powder to taste
• cumin to taste
• 1 25 oz can black beans
• 2 10 oz Ro-Tex Diced Tomatoes with Chiles, liquid reserved (or your favorite brand, 12oz or 14 oz cans would be fine)
• 1 red onion, diced
• 1 avocado, diced
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• A few Tbs of lime juice (or juice of one lime)
• olive oil for sauteing
• a large handful of cilantro, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste

Follow instructions for preparing your favorite rice, except substitute some of the water with the juice from one of the cans of tomatoes. Prepare one batch of rice. (I use brown basmati rice which calls for 2 C water to 1 C rice.)

Drain and rinse the black beans. In a bowl mix the black beans, both cans of tomatoes with liquid from second can, onion, garlic, avocado and lime juice. Stir to combine.

In a large frying pan, heat oil. Chop chicken into small cubes. Sprinkle with chili powder and cumin to your taste. Saute chicken in pan until cooked through and browned. Remove chicken to a food processor and process to a coarse shred. Set aside.

Add bean mixture to the frying pan until the beans are warmed through, a couple minutes. Stir in chicken. Mix thoroughly. Cook for a couple more minutes to blend flavors. Add cooked rice. Mix to combine. Remove from heat. Add cilantro. Salt and pepper to taste.

 Tips

To cut an avocado roll the avocado around the sharp edge of your knife, then twist the two halves apart. This should be easy to do if your avocado is ripe. Once open, smack the butt of your knife (the sharp part closest to the handle) into the pit and twist to remove. Use your fingers to pinch the pit off the blade.

If your store doesn’t have any ripe avocado, buy an apple too! Place avocado and apple in a brown paper bag and set on the counter. This will help speed ripening.

To peel garlic, place clove under the flat of your knife blade and smack down on the FLAT part of the blade to crush the clove. It’ll usually pop out of the skin. Bonus: you’ve already got some minced garlic ready to go!

Variations

We have a dairy allergy in the family at the moment, but I think this would taste good with some creamy goodness. When the milk allergy goes away (and it better go away), I plan on trying this with an 8oz container of sour cream and a couple handfuls of Cheddar or Monterrey Jack before adding the rice.

 Enjoy! Let me know how you like it!

The Slippery Slope to Debauchery

Unless you live under a rock, or are a busy mom like me, who always seems to be a week behind the headlines, you know that the government recently passed legislation requiring insurance companies to provide, among other things, contraception free of charge to women. This is a good thing. Time and time again, it has been shown that when women have control over their reproductive health they, their families, and their communities benefit.

But, alas, the talking heads are at it again. The anti-everything-the-government-does crowd is trying to attack this good idea with the most absurd argument one could imagine. Instead of seeing this as a way for women to successfully plan their families, they see this as a slippery slope directly toward debauchery. Their argument is that if you give contraception to women for free they will suddenly become sex-starved nymphomaniacs fucking everything in sight. Really, I’m not kidding. That’s the unadulterated version of what they’ve been saying on Fox News.

This opinion is not only completely illogical, it is also disingenuous. First, history has shown us that women can control their sexual urges even when birth control is available. Birth control has been around in some shape or form for decades now, with millions of women using it. There is little evidence to show that they are all insatiable sex maniacs. I also suspect that the women making these salacious claims also have first-hand knowledge of the effects of using birth control. It seems reasonable to think that these women have themselves used birth control of some kind, and I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are not sleeping with everything that moves.

Why don’t you just come clean and be honest about what your problem is with this; I suspect it’s a two-fold one. The talking heads hate anything that helps poor people, even if wealthy people also benefit from it. And they hate the government telling any big business what to do. It violates their implacable love of the free market and their hatred of giving anything to anyone for free, especially the poor. I wonder if the fact that this move, which may cost insurance companies something, but will be a windfall for the pharmaceutical industry, keeps them up at night. Should they be angry that government is hurting the insurance companies or be rejoicing that this move increases the profits of big Pharma? The cognitive dissonance must be the explanation for their bogus argument about increased sexual promiscuity; they just can’t think straight. But don’t worry, you can rest your weary heads. I have no doubt that the insurance companies will make up their losses with higher premiums and deals with the pharmaceutical companies. All will be right in the end.

Happy World Breastfeeding Week!

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week, I thought I’d post a little about my experience breastfeeding my little guy. I love breastfeeding. I didn’t think I would be the type to say that, but I do. It makes me slow down a few times a day. It gives me cuddle time with my otherwise free-range kid. And I’ve lost lots of weight.

It didn’t start out well. It was a struggle, but I was committed. With the help of a fantastic lactation consultant, a chiropractor, a breastfeeding counselor, and a supportive husband, I was able to establish a successful breastfeeding relationship with my son. At 15 months, we’re still going strong and I’m honestly not looking forward to the day when that relationship ends, at least not right now.

I strongly encourage all women to give breastfeeding a try. Here are some of the reasons:

1.  It’s the best food on the planet for your baby. Try as they might scientists simply can’t recreate the complex mix of nutrients, hormones and immunity-boosting substances found in breast milk.
2. It’s cheaper than formula. I was going to say free, but there are some accessories you might consider buying. A breastfeeding pillow, lanolin, a breast pump, and breast pads are all helpful items to have on hand, but combined those things are still cheaper than the cost of formula and with the recent changes to the law requiring insurance to cover breastfeeding expenses it might actually become entirely free.
3. It supports your child’s immune system while his is still developing. My baby has had 1 mild cold since he was born, and he does interact with other children and puts just about anything he can into his mouth. Science has shown that breastfed babies have fewer, shorter and milder colds, and fewer ear infections.
4. It helps you bond with your baby. Becoming a mother can be overwhelming. There are a lot of new demands placed upon you. Breastfeeding forces you to slow down and take time with your little one. Hormones are released that make you feel good and relax you. Some studies have even shown that it can help alleviate symptoms of depression. (Always seek medical advice if you are suffering from depression.)
5. It can help many women lose their baby weight. Granted this doesn’t happen for everyone, but it’s a great side-effect if it does. Why not see if you’re one of the lucky ones?

These are just the first five that came to mind. I do recommend any woman who wants to breastfeed to get recommendations for a good lactation consultant. Many hospitals have them, and I’m sure some are good, but most aren’t there to provide long-term continuing support. Much as it seems like breastfeeding should come naturally to mom and baby, it just doesn’t for everyone. A good lactation consultant is worth her weight in gold. She can help diagnose anatomical problems with mom and baby, like inverted nipples or tongue tie or torticolis that may need things like nipple sheilds, physical therapy or chiropractic. She can help you with positioning and teaching the baby how to latch correctly. She can help with supply issues and guide you in the proper use of breast pumps. She can even help you determine if you’re one of the few women who for whatever reason can’t breastfeed their babies. In short she can make the difference between a long-term breastfeeding relationship and giving up.

I can assure you that without my lactation consultant, Katie, and my breastfeeding counselor, Stacey, that we would have given up a long time ago. And I would have missed out on the most fulfilling part of motherhood so far. So thank you, ladies, for doing what you do. And good luck out there to all you breastfeeding mamas! Hooray for boobies!

Birth of a Mama and a Baby

Now that my baby boy has turned one, I figure it is high time I get around to writing my birth story. Some of you already know my story in detail, but most just have a general idea. I’ve been reluctant to write this story, because I still carry a lot of negative emotions around it. It’s not the story I wanted to tell.  While I certainly didn’t have the worst birth imaginable, it definitely wasn’t the one we had hoped for, and, thus it saddens me to tell it. I’m hoping that in the writing, there will be healing.

Let me start off by describing the birth we wanted to experience. After much research, I decided to have a natural child birth. My husband, Steve, was 100% supportive. We had a fantastic team of midwives and planned to deliver in the tub at their out-of-hospital birth center. We took a Hypnobirthing course to learn how to “remain calm during intense sensation,” as a yoga instructor liked to say. I was ready and committed and confident in my body’s ability to birth a baby. We would employ all the techniques we learned while I labored at home until it was time to head to the center. Once there I would listen to my body, “let my monkey do it,” as Nurse Katie likes to say. I’d move around, eat and drink if I wanted, get into any position that made things more comfortable, and then push my baby out into the world. After the birth, we wanted to delay cutting the cord, snuggle in bed, breastfeed immediately and savor the moment and the accomplishment. Unfortunately, this is not how things turned out.

I went into labor on Friday, although I didn’t realize it. All day long, I felt the intermittent need to go to the bathroom, but nothing would happen. Little did I know, I had gone into the early stages of labor. That night, still not recognizing that I was in labor and looking at approaching possible induction and hospital delivery, we decided to take things into our own hands and use a more natural, and shall we say fun, method of induction; that’s love-making for those of you unfamiliar with natural induction methods. Later that night I woke to a trickle and rushed to the bathroom hoping not to drench the bed in amniotic fluid. Alas, it wasn’t my water breaking; I was bleeding. A quick call to the midwife had us going into the birth center for an evaluation. Luckily, there wasn’t any cause for concern. The blood vessels of the cervix are very fragile during pregnancy and our earlier adventures cause a small bleed. The midwife cleaned me up, confirmed I was in early labor, and sent us home to get some sleep and prepare for the arrival of our little boy.

Once home, I spent Saturday eating, drinking, sitting on my exercise ball, listening to music, moaning and letting my husband press on my lower back through the strengthening contractions. We played board games to keep distracted. I took a couple hot showers and just waited for labor to progress to the point where we could go to the birth center. Around 8:00pm, I hopped into the shower to relieve the pressure in my back. While I was in there, my water broke. I called the midwife and she told us to get all our things together and head into the center.

My water didn’t break like they show you on TV; it wasn’t a huge gush. It was more of a continuous drenching trickle. I stood in the bathroom seriously contemplating how on earth I was going to get from my bathroom to the car and the birth center with a constant trickle of amniotic fluid. I remember thinking I’ve been dryer swimming! Steve suggested I just get into the car without any pants but getting from the car to the birth center without any pants would have been a challenge and quite a show for the neighbors! Anyway, I found a pair of shorts I didn’t really care about, grabbed a towel and managed to get to the car without too much mess.

When your water breaks, it is supposed to be clear. Mine wasn’t. It was sort of an iridescent yellow green. When we got to the birth center, the midwife examined me, put me on the monitor and looked at my fluid. The reason why the amniotic fluid was yellow/green was because the baby passed meconium, a baby’s first poop. This can happen for two reasons: he couldn’t wait any longer or he was in distress. The monitor showed no distress, but due to the amount of meconium in the fluid, the midwife determined we could not stay at the center. I’d have to be continuously monitored to make sure the baby didn’t become distressed.

There ended our hopes for a peaceful mother-directed birth. I wasn’t scared about what was happening, but I was angry and defeated. We had a perfect pregnancy and had done everything we could to ensure a successful natural birth. Now we were going to be on a hospital track. I wouldn’t be allowed to eat and drink. I would have to be on a monitor so I wouldn’t be able to move around very much and the midwife wouldn’t be able to treat me anymore. She would not be able to instruct me on ways that might help make labor and delivery easier or more successful other than positioning and breathing. Not to mention the raft of things that would or would not happen after delivery that wasn’t in our plan.

For the next ten hours I remember being really angry. I was unhappy being in the hospital. I was even more angry as time went on at how thirsty and hungry I was. Ice chips just don’t cut it! I remember being very tired. I was able to try getting in a few different positions to see if we could get the baby in a better position to move down into the birth canal, but the IV made it difficult to support myself and when I applied pressure to it, a stupid alarm would chime and really annoy the crap out of me. I wasn’t allowed out of bed; the midwife and I forced the nurse to get permission from the doctor, who hadn’t examined me by the way, to let me walk to the bathroom to see if emptying my bladder would help. The only time I saw the doctor was at the shift change. He said he could feel the head, but I wasn’t fully dialated yet.. He then patted my knee and told me keep up the good work.  He didn’t check to see how the baby was positioned or if there was anything I could do to get him in a better place.

I don’t remember an excessive amount of pain, just a lot of pressure. I remember some out of control contractions that made it difficult to catch my breath. I remember that through it all I had the support of my midwife and my awesome husband. In fact, he was so awesome he even tried to hide the fact that he was eating a banana behind my back. I heard him chewing, ha! After being discovered, he even offered me some when the midwife and nurse weren’t looking. I, being the good little patient refused. They both took turns pressing against my lower back and encouraging me to keep my moaning low and deep and to keep my muscles relaxed to easy the pain and pressure.

Finally, early Sunday morning I made it through transition and started pushing. After about three hours of pushing it was time for Dorinda, our midwife, to leave us. Thankfully there weren’t any other mamas in labor so Nicole was able to take over. I knew things weren’t going the way they were supposed to. I should have been able to feel the baby moving down but he didn’t seem to have budged at all. Nicole told me to get on my hands and knees. I remember telling her I didn’t find that position comfortable, really I couldn’t feel my contractions in that position; it became one continuous amount of pressure with nothing to work with. She looked at me and told me it was not about my comfort; it was about getting this baby out. Nicole has this way of making me do things just because she tells me to. It may not have made a difference, but I wish she had been with us the whole time. She and the nurse pressed on my hips hoping to give the baby more space to get out. While I did feel a little bit of movement when they did that, I think that his poor little head was already misshaped from being pushed against my pelvis and was not really going to move.

The second doctor showed up and basically told me he wasn’t comfortable letting me continue pushing. I looked at Nicole and said I didn’t want a c-section, that if I did that I’d never get a chance to deliver at the birth center if we wanted another baby. She told me not to worry about that. She got the doctor to try Pitocin to see if that would help make the contractions more effective and push the baby down. I think she really did it to buy me some time to get used to the idea that we were heading to the OR. Finally, after much effort, the decision was made to stop pushing. I was devastated. My husband was devastated and a little scared. Nicole looked me in the eye and told me that I was strong and did everything I could do, but now it was time for a new plan. I knew she would not lead me to surgery if it wasn’t necessary. They wheeled me down the hall to the OR. I cried all the way.

Nicole stayed with me the entire time. She held my hand through the administration of the spinal, which I was more scared of than the surgery itself. She supported my husband too, who was nervous about the operation and unsure about wanting to be in the operating room. She convinced him he did. During the procedure, I remember laying on my back and drowning in my own mucus. Nicole held a tissue to my nose, but since I couldn’t feel my abdominal muscles I couldn’t blow my nose! It was very frustrating. Finally, after a short time, there was a cry and I turned my head and saw my baby for the first time. I didn’t even know the doctor had gotten him out. His cry was the most beautiful sound in the world. Steve was with him and taking pictures. They brought the baby over to me. I couldn’t hold him, but I was able to kiss him. Nicole took some family pictures for us. They finished up the procedure and wheeled me to recovery. Both our nurse and Nicole told me how awesome I was. The nurse, who doesn’t usually treat many women who desire a natural birth, kept telling me how amazing I was throughout the whole experience. Nicole helped me try to nurse the baby. I was finally able to get a glass of water. They helped me sit up enough so that I could hold the baby for a while and then I tried to get some rest.

This story could continue for pages and pages, but the rest of the story doesn’t really concern the birth itself. Let’s just sum up the rest of my hospital stay as miserable. The original plan was to give birth and go home six hours later and start our life as parents. I was stuck in the hospital for three days, eating the most disgusting food ever, putting up with nurses and doctors who weren’t particularly helpful or knowledgeable about breastfeeding, and trying to make decisions that I wasn’t prepared for because I wasn’t expecting to be in a hospital.

By the time I got home I was very angry; angry at my midwives for telling us we wouldn’t grow a baby too big to birth, angry at myself for not being able to birth my baby, angry at my baby for not getting himself in the proper position, angry at the medical establishment for not having alternatives to surgery. I seriously couldn’t understand why the doctor couldn’t just stick his hand up there and turn the baby like vets do to cows and horses on animal shows; we’re all mammals! It took a while to let go of that anger. And it sometimes still creeps back in if I let it.

I also played the what-if game. What if I had let the midwives sweep my membranes when they said they could. Would I have gone into labor earlier? Would I have been able to labor at the birth center? If I had labored at the birth center, would the midwives have had any tricks to get the baby in a better position for birthing that they couldn’t suggest once we were transferred? Would laboring in the tub have made a difference? Should I have done the downward facing dog in yoga class to readjust the baby? It’s pointless to play this game. There is no way to know if any of that would have made a difference. And so I try not to go there anymore. But I’ll never feel like I gave birth to my baby.  While I come to terms with my experience, I feel less like a failure, but the egotistical part of me that wanted to be able to brag about a natural childbirth will always feel inadequate and unfulfilled.

It’s funny, I never really knew how much I wanted to feel my child slip out of me until it became obvious that he never would. It’s a daily struggle to reframe my experience in a more positive light, but I try to focus on what did go to plan. We did ultimately have a natural labor, the majority of which was at home. Don’t get me wrong. I am so happy that my baby was delivered healthy and without any problems. I’m grateful that there are doctors and hospitals to intervene when it is necessary and that neither one of us died like we would have 100 years ago. I’m just not happy that I’m one of those people who needed intervention. So as I look back upon my birth experience at my child’s first birthday, I do so with a mixture of melancholy and joy. I mourn the loss of our dream, but take pride in the effort I put into it and focus on loving my amazing little boy.

The Secret Is That Babies Sometimes Do Not Play Along

Some of you who know me may be aware that the birth of my first son did not go exactly as planned. While everything turned out well in the end, I still consider it to have been a traumatic birth experience. Someday, when I can spin the tale in a more positive light, I will recount our birth story, but this is not that day. Today I want to talk about an article I recently read in Pathways magazine entitled Encouraging Words, Unintentional Wounds written by Melissa Bruijn and Debby Gould. They discuss how well-meaning words regarding women and childbirth that are supposed to be encouraging often cause unintentional pain, especially for women who have had a traumatic birth experience.

The authors discuss Laura Stavoe Harm’s quote, “There is a secret in our culture and it is not that birth is painful, but that women are strong.” Bruijn and Gould agree that women are strong. However, they state that the secret is not that women do not know that birth is painful, but that sometimes simply being strong is not enough. They focus their arguments on the fact that strength “cannot combat inadequate prenatal education, a mediocre or uncaring practitioner, and a maternal health system that requires birth to present in a uniform fashion.” They claim that the real secret is that a woman cannot find her strength until she feels safe, supported, nurtured, and trusting her own body’s ability. While I do not disagree, I think they forgot one important detail – babies sometimes do not play along!

I had very good prenatal education. In addition to attending every class offered by my practitioners on what to expect during labor and delivery, I read as much as I could to be prepared for what was going to happen. I spent more time learning about pregnancy, labor, and delivery than most obstetricians. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but I did do a lot more research than the average Jane. I understood how labor works and what my body was supposed to do and trusted that it would do it. I took yoga and hypnobirthing classes to learn to stay centered, calm and focused in times of extreme stress.

My practitioners were amazing. I went to a local birth center and was taken care of by four fabulous midwives. Every possible question my husband or I could think of was answered. While I certainly had my favorite midwife, I felt comfortable and confident in all of them. I had no hesitation to deliver with any of them. As a result of choosing a birth center I was avoiding most of the problems associated with the modern maternal health system that assumes birth is an illness that needs to be managed and in a uniform fashion to boot. In a nutshell, unlike one of the authors of the Pathways article, I did feel safe, supported, and nurtured, and I trusted my own body’s ability.

What the authors omitted from their article is that even when a mother is well-educated, well-supported, and trusting in her natural abilities, babies do not always play along. One of my midwives renamed the birth plan sheet to Birth Goals. She did this because, in her experience, the birth of a child rarely follows the “plan” the way the mother intends. I took this to heart when writing our birth goals. They were fairly open-ended, because, having never delivered a baby before, I was not sure how I would react. Unfortunately, my baby was not privy to our birth goals. He got himself nice and cozy inside me, forgot to stretch out while there was still fluid in there to help him move around, and lodged his head sideways against my pelvis. Despite four hours of pushing and changing positions, there was no getting this kid out the natural way. He was stuck and we were going to need help. We ended up with a very much unwanted, but necessary, Cesarean delivery.

After the birth of my son, many people told me that I should be happy that I have a healthy baby and that I should be grateful that there is modern medicine to save the day. This goes without saying. I was happy to have a healthy baby, and I am grateful that there were surgeons that allowed both of us to survive that day. But I understand what the authors mean when they say the secret is not that women do not know that childbirth is painful, but that sometimes being strong is not enough. I understand their position that sometimes words of encouragement can do unintentional harm. Much as the quote cited by the authors, the well-meaning words of friends and family can cause unintentional harm because they ignore the fact that just as strength is not always enough, sometimes being well-educated, well-supported, and trusting in your own abilities is not enough either. Sometimes, despite all your preparation and hopes and wishes, babies just do not play along! So the next time a woman you know recounts her traumatic birth experience, do not minimize her experience by attempting to offer words of encouragement. Validate her pain and disappointment, because despite her best efforts and possibly the best circumstances, well, sometimes babies do not play along. And it is ok to feel bad about that.