Cervical length as C-Section indicator.

Sorry I don't have time to reflect on this. Mainly I find it interesting and am, as yet, without opinion...

Penny Simkin ROCKS!

Whether you know Penny as a friend and mentor or have never heard of her, you'll appreciate this profile of her life and her work as founder of our doula movement.

I had the honor of attending one of Penny's sessions at a DONA conference several summers ago. She is amazing. I find myself wishing I could have her combination of gentleness and strength. She is the sweetest, kindest person. But when she talks about the rights of laboring women, you hear ferocity in her voice. I have no doubt she'd be a graceful and effective advocate.

It was such a welcome, upbeat read on this Monday morning. I hope you enjoy it too.

Charity Ad in Lieu of Content

It's been so unbelievably busy that I haven't had time to post. Fear not. In the hopper, posts on: a recent birth I attended, doula mentoring, knitting updates.

For now, however, let me offer you all the chance to win an afghan, hand-knitted with beautiful Briar Rose Fibers' yarn. Here's a teaser:



photo courtesy of Kniterella

I knitted the army green box in the lower right corner and 3 others like it. Seven others supplied their own squares. Kniterella is seaming them all together into one masterpiece.

The finished product is being raffled to folks to make a donation to the Grand Rapids, Michigan Hope Lodge, a support center for families of cancer patients. More info on Hope Lodge, the afghan and the raffle is available here.

It's not so much the 10 years as a parent...

Yes, my elder living son turned 10 today. Around 1 this morning, to be exact.

A few years ago, my friend Bookworm wrote about how she wasn't as freaked out about her son's turning 10 as she was at the notion she'd been a mom for ten years. [She was also more positive about the experience than I am, but that may just be genetics. Mine, hers, our sons'.]

That's not what gets me. What squeezes my heart is the thought that in all likelihood I have fewer years left with him in the house than have already passed with him in the house. We're on the downhill side of sharing a roof.

That is a sobering thought.

Even when we start most mornings with him antagonizing his brother. Even though he can take 20 minutes to tell a story and at the end one still isn't sure what the point was. Even if he cannot be awake without waking the entire household.

I'm sure when he's moved on, I'll miss him. Tonight, over the cake of his choosing, we'll celebrate him.

The Good Enough Blog Mother

I am trying to be a good mother to this blog. It is hard to do at times, isn't it, fellow bloggHers? But then I remember that bit of therapy: You don't have to be The Good Mother, just be a good-enough mother. I think I can do that.

Hence, today's post is in the vein of old skool blog posts: collections of links, web logs of visited sites, articles, etc. I want to comment on them,but each would take more time than I can spare at the moment (work is threatening to crush me, our house is for sale as of this past weekend, I have a client due any day now, my elder son turns 10 this week and the younger one has strep...). So I give you these:

1. A documentary I had not heard about, A Walk to Beautiful.

2. An article on the present state of 70s feminists' families and family lives, including Sheila Kitzinger.

3. The annual article giving doulas a bad rap, this time in the New York Times.

4. A support group for "other mothers" in the Bay Area. If you're interested in some good first-person reading on the subject, I recommend, Confessions of the Other Mother: Non-Biological Lesbian Moms Tell All by Harlyn Aizley.

Birth on!

quick update

The internet service is out at home and has been for 5 days, so this is a quick post from work. I also want to keep it short so we don't lose sight of the previous post, which is generating such a fabulous set of birth stories. Each and every one is touching and dear. Thank you all!

I have a client due in 2 weeks and another just signed on for the end of April. That may be it for a little while as May and June are nutsy with the end of (the boys') school and the start of (the boys') vacations. Plus, we are putting our house on the market this weekend. I won't go into the details here, but we've pumped more energy, time and money into our wee bungalow the past 10 days than we did the previous 7 years we've lived there!

More soon.