Birth Story 1:

Giving birth in a teaching hospital
is a strange experience. Not only are there nurses and doctors, but also a
parade of interns coming through your room every couple of hours to observe
“woman in labor.” My first child was born under these conditions. We were
living in London (my husband is British) and the nearest hospital was a short 5
minute walk away. Having our baby any place else was never a question. Life,
however, is a learning process and we learn through experience. Being in labor
for 18 hours with what felt like zero privacy definitely gave me strong
opinions about what constituted the optimal birth experience. This was not it.
Adding to my disillusionment was the constant pressure to be laboring “by the
book.” Are you dilating one centimeter every hour? No? Then it’s time for the
Pitocen. Now that we are injecting Pitocen through the IV, it’s time for you to
have an epidural because the pain will be too unbearable without it. Unable to
feel anything from the waist down and pushing randomly, the next thing I did
was poop all over the bed in front of about 15 hospital staff. Still not delivering
my baby, but with his head so nearly out of the birth canal I could feel it
when the nurse guided my hand to my vagina, the doctor decided to use the
Ventouse and make an incision in my vagina to create room for the baby to come
through. Finally, my baby was out and I was covered in blood and poop and
surrounded by more than a dozen people I had never met before. Never again, I
thought. Never again like this.

Birth Story 2:

Having a friend with a positive
home birth experience helps a lot to answer one’s questions about what it is
like to have a midwife in attendance instead of a medical doctor. Knowing that
I wanted a different birth experience the second time around and with such a
friend, my resolve became to do the same. We were still living in London and I
signed up with the home birth midwifery team my friend had used. The prenatal
experience was much the same as with my first baby – regular visits, blood
tests and ultrasound appointments. There were also evening group sessions where
you could ask questions and learn from both experienced midwives and parents
who had already been through a home birth. With the towels and other equipment
gathered for a home birth, I approached my due date with an open mind.  The hospital was only 5 minutes away if
something were to go wrong. About a week before my due date and unable to fall
asleep, I rested in the living room kneeling over a big purple yoga ball and
listening to a CD of soothing music in the dark. After nearly 3 hours of this
calm drifting in and out of sleep, I went into our bedroom to tell my husband
that I was in labor. Within a few minutes I went from preparing for birth to
having full on contractions. My body took over. I quickly stripped off my
clothes and jumped onto the bed on all fours. My husband frantically called the
midwife and then, when it was obvious that this baby was coming, called 911.
The dispatcher tried to talk him through delivery, but it was impossible to
have his ear to the phone and deliver the baby simultaneously. He ended up
dropping the phone and leaving the dispatcher hanging while he attended to me.
Now we had the midwife and an ambulance on the way. None of this really
registered with me. It was like I was on automatic pilot. During every
contraction I squeezed my husband’s hand and then rested between them. I asked
my husband to go collect the towels we had set aside. While he was out of the
room I had a contraction that sent fluid in a huge explosion all over the bed.
I remember feeling such gratitude that I was alone for that one. He returned to
the next contraction and to the baby’s head making its way out. It was at that
point that the doorbell rang. My husband ran like the wind to answer the door
for the midwife (with the paramedics right behind her) and then raced back to
the room in time to catch my baby as he launched out. My husband was then able
to immediately pass the baby to the midwife who then handed him to me after
making sure all was well (the paramedics sat in the kitchen and then left when
it was clear they weren’t required). This birth experience, while nerve
wracking for my husband, was the most empowering thing that has ever happened
to me. Without drugs, I was able to feel the baby travelling down my birth
canal, which is an indescribable feeling that has to be experienced to be
believed. My body, my instincts and my soul knew what to do. Even though we
delivered him in such an unconventional way, it remains to this day the best
birth experience of any of my 4 children. On his birth certificate it says,
“Delivered by unqualified person: husband.” This may be so, but who is more
qualified than a woman to know her own body? How could I ever go back to a
hospital birth when this one had made me know with such certainty that I was
truly capable of anything!

Birth Story 3:

When our second son was 6 months
old we moved to the United States to be nearer my family. Becoming pregnant a
third time was not exactly part of the plan, but we were unscientific with our
birth control methods. Before returning to the pill I decided it was wise to
take a pregnancy test “just in case.” Indeed, it was positive and number three
was on his way. With a quick Google search I found a midwife team near me that
performed home births. This time, however, I was going to take a hypno-birth
class and deliver in the kind of hypnotic trance I had seen on Regis and Kathy
Lee. For this one we would also have the birthing pool set up in the dining
room and I would deliver in the water. One person’s birth experience is not
like another’s and, even with all the self-hypnosis training, I was not feeling
“trance-like” during labor, nor was I feeling drawn to the pool. Every time I
sat in it everything seemed to slow down and all I wanted to do was get out. My
big epiphany with this birth was embracing the sentiment, “It’s MY birth and I
can do what I want to.” The first birth had been taken out of my hands by the
hospital staff, the second had in a weird way been taken over by unseen forces
that led me to act entirely out of instinct and not normal awareness, and I had
different plans for this birth. I envisioned an ideal scenario that included a
midwife delivering my baby with my husband and best friend acting as doula by
my side, in the water and in some kind of blissful hypnotic trance. None of it
turned out that way. Yes, we called the midwife in time and my husband was
there, but my best friend had further to travel and did not make it for the
delivery. The thundering “ah-ha” moment came on the couch when it dawned on me
that if I vocalized during the contraction it would feel really good. After
that, I did and he came within a few minutes. All of my calmness had been about
someone else’s birth experience and my belief that their way should be my way.
However, my way was my way and that was ok, it was perfect in fact. This was
incredibly liberating. Now I felt empowered to do anything and I had the confidence to create my own birthing ideas. Even with
two children on the boob (yes, I breastfed all through my second pregnancy and
continued to tandem feed for another year) and one more in preschool, I was ready
to live life to the fullest. Watch out, world, Leta is here!

Birth Story 4:

After our third child, my husband
had a vasectomy almost immediately. I was a newly published author establishing
myself as a business and starting to market myself as a speaker. It was time to
focus on my professional endeavors. It came as an incredible shock when two
years later I discovered I was pregnant a fourth time (fifth if you include the
miscarriage between sons #1 and #2). Apparently, around 1 in 2,000 vasectomies
can naturally reverse when the vans deferens comes together again with the
buildup of scar tissue. It only takes one sperm and one egg to make a baby and
somehow, despite our efforts, that is what happened to us. Already four and a
half months pregnant by the time I put all the clues together, the next stage
of this journey was to transcend my resentful feelings and arrive at some sort
of peace with this new development. Again, I turned to home birth and the same
midwife team that delivered my third baby. With their help, my husband’s
support and a lot of soul searching, I began to embrace the new life coming
into our lives. It was this baby that helped me own my previously repressed
non-enjoyment of pregnancy. Just because I champion natural child birth does
not mean I must love everything about the birthing process, which includes the
9 months of pregnancy in the run-up to birth. I finally allowed myself to admit
that being pregnant was not my favorite thing to be. This self-honesty led to
an expanded feeling of personal freedom that had its foundation in my last
pregnancy and birth. Then, when the time of active labor came, I was able to
continue in that vein of self-honesty, bringing this baby willingly into the
world, but also knowing with a certainty beyond certainty that this was not
something I could or would go through again. I had been brought full circle.
From a hospital birth, where all control belonged to hospital staff, to this
birth, where I surrendered my life to an ultimate power who clearly understood
something about my life’s purpose that I had yet discovered. Owning my part in
the overall web of our existence, I have learned more than I bargained for
through my four birth experiences. I have learned that: 1) You give away your
power to those you believe know better than you do; 2) no one knows better than
you when it comes to your body and your body’s capabilities; 3) you can choose
to experience any situation in a way that is concordant with your desires and
only you know what is right for you; and 4) when you are completely honest with
yourself it isn’t always pretty, but it does lead to better understanding of
how your character is prepared for what you have been dealt in life. I am
greater than I once thought myself to be. I have my four birth experiences and
my five pregnancies to thank for opening my eyes to an appreciation for all
that is powerful and strong about me. I’ve had my tubes tied now. I’m powerful
enough without any more birth experiences. Please. Please, no more. It would
send me to another dimension of parenting and I am not prepared to go there.
The lessons from that story are for someone else to write. Power from within.
This is the lesson I learned and hope to convey through these birth stories.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFr3OvPdpb8

Many things about this interview moved me, but none more than their brief conversation at the end of the interview about how all this “spiritual stuff” applies to our day-to-day lives. What more relevent question could there be for a busy mom to four sons? Or, to any parent, for that matter. The irritations we face over the course of a day can number in the thousands! For me, here are a few…

- I don’t wake up as early as I want to or am finding it difficult to lure myself out of bed.

- I am on the couch doing my morning meditation and one of my kids interupts me before I am ready.

- My husband turns on the radio too loud in the kitchen while I’m still meditating.

- The house is a mess.

- I just did a bunch of laundry and now there is another mountain to do.

- The boys are fighting again.

- I just changed a diaper two seconds ago and NOW he’s doing his massive poo.

Well, you see the picture. I could go on, but I think I’ll stop there. Watching this video helped me to put all of these irritations into a different form, one for which I could be grateful. I don’t want to spoil their telling of this message by putting it into my own words so that you don’t have to watch it. Instead, I am going to challenge you to make a cup of tea/coffee, grab a cookie and watch. Then, let me know what you think.

As always, I would love to hear from you.

ence. I know that sometimes my two year old will cry because I won’t give him another piece of candy or whatever it is he wants. I know that there will be moments when frustration will build up either on my side or on that of my children. These things, like poop, are inevitable. It helps, however, to have a strategy in place for dealing with those times when my metaphorical “body” is attempting to flush out what it no longer needs – the residue of negative emotions that are much better off in an easily-disposed-of container, a “diaper,” if you will.
My D-I-A-P-E-R 4 Life Strategy is a six lettered acronym for those daily equivalents of “if-mommy-doesn’t-do-these-things-she-will-explode-and-it-won’t-be-pretty.” The first letter is a reminder to myself to take some Down time to reconnect with me. It is my promise that I will take whatever time I can find to breathe, to sit in silence and to shut out the existence of everyone else for just a moment or two. Sometimes my “down” moments come in the bathroom when I have two minutes to myself and I can sigh a breath of quiet stillness. Other times, I have an hour or more to enjoy the peace of my own company. It doesn’t matter how long I have. What matters is that I have a strategy that tells me to take those down moments when they present themselves, to appreciate them and to recognize that I have had them when the chaos of motherhood is giving me a headache. That reasoning has offered me a path to calmness when before my emotions had no direction to go but up. My kids benefit from a mom who has a path to inner peace in place.
Next, I take the “I” and Imagine myself in the position of my kids. Am I as tired as they are? Am I overwhelmed by a world that invites ship-loads of new information practically every second of the day? What advantages do I have as an adult other than everything!? When I turn the tables and do my best to see the world from their point of view, suddenly their antics become less problematic and more the behaviors of someone who, quite simply, has less experience in the world. It also has the added benefit of taking me out of my own head and my own story, which can spiral quickly into “victim-land.” My kids are not perpetrators of inner-peace destroying acts of malevolency; they are immature beings who have yet to learn how much there is on any mom’s plate. I can take the proactive step of imagining myself in their position to reach a middle ground of greater understanding. When this happens, I snap out of my downward spiral and greet the situation with a lot more love.
With “A,” I Ask myself, “What can I learn from this?” This question turns any situation into something lighter than it was before. Sometimes that answer requires a bit of self-inquiry into where I am at any stage in my life. Other times the answer pops up immediately as “more patience,” “don’t forget to pack extra underwear next time,” or “shopping during nap time is never a good idea.” Whatever it is, once I have asked the question, “What can I learn from this?” I immediately open up the space in my own heart and mind to grow from the experience and to become a better mom as a result. This creates a win-win for everyone. Maybe my child DID have a miserable shopping experience because he should have been sleeping, but I am making progress as a human being by proactively learning from our misery and taking positive steps that will ensure we both have a better time in the future. When I go deeper, I always find new aspects of myself to consider and to reevaluate where and how my beliefs about life are serving me or otherwise. When I find a belief that isn’t helpful, I can do something about it. I can choose to adopt a more helpful attitude. All of these things arise because I am constantly asking myself, “What can I learn from this?”
“P” is a reminder to Pay attention to the bigger picture. There is the context of their whole life and of mine. Whatever is happening, I know it shall pass. This means that I can appreciate the precious moments with even greater depth. It also means that I can treat the difficult moments with less importance. I am attached to a broader universal panorama than just the immediate chaos before me. As often as I can, I take a moment to step back and see the bigger picture for what it is – a tapestry of highs and lows that create the beauty of a life, a whole life. If I focus too much on the frustrations of motherhood right now (the poopy diapers, the tantrums, the disappointments of not always being given exactly what you want when you want it and so on), then I lose sight of the people I am shepherding into adulthood. I want them to grow up to love their lives, to treat all people kindly and to know how to participate in the world on their own two feet. If I am going to keep my eye on that ball, I must have an overlying awareness at all times of the bigger picture of their lives and my brief sojourn as chief influencer. This is more important than any amount of peas all over the floor.
The “E” of D-I-A-P-E-R is the Evocation of my inner adult. Being a mom is tiring at times. I don’t always have an endless supply of patience and goodwill with which to greet the spilled milk on the couch. It is during these moments that I must dig deep to evoke the inner adult that can handle the situations of life like an adult, rather than like a child. I want to have a tantrum too from time to time. That does not mean, however, that I should have one in front of my two year old. There is a time and a place for releasing pent-up frustrations. We teach our children how to deal with anger, but we don’t often follow our own advice. I have a chair in which I sit when I need to be present with my frustration. It is a place I go when I have to work something out in my heart before I can go forward. Still, I have three kids to take care of. If I cannot make it to the chair immediately, then I evoke my inner adult and do what is necessary until I can go to the chair. Evoking the inner adult means we recognize that we are the more experienced party in the parent/child dynamic. It means that we have the maturity to deal with situations on an emotional level that our children are still new at. My excuses for anger and frustration are many, but I am not the child who simply lashes out. I am the adult who has the tools at her disposal to handle my frustrations with constructive techniques that send the frustration back to a more neutral position. It is not always easy to keep a mature outlook in the heat of the moment, but by evoking my inner adult, I get there. I get there.
Finally, “R” is the Read your Mission Statement for Motherhood reminder. About four years ago, I sat down and wrote out a Mission Statement for Motherhood (you can read mine on page 18 of my book The Way of the Toddler). I wanted to make a public statement about my core values as a mom and as a human being. For weeks, I wrote and revised a Mission Statement until I felt I had something eternal. This was my declaration to the world of what I stood for as this mother to three (then two) kids, as a wife, as a daughter, as a sister and as just plain old Leta Hamilton. After writing it, I printed out two copies and framed them. Once frame hangs in my kitchen and the other in my bedroom. Taking the time to read them each day grounds me to the earth and sets the tone for who I want to be in the world. It is a form of meditation and realignment with what I hold most precious. Not everyone has taken the time to write out a Mission Statement for Motherhood. If you haven’t, might I suggest you do that before you end the month? It is a wonderful tool for becoming clear on what matters to you most. When you are clear on what matters, you know when to let go of the small stuff and when doing something more is required. Having set out your core values, you are ready to hone the necessary traits that will create those values in your life and those of your children. Again, win-win for all.
Together, these six steps create a “diaper” effect that allows me to deal with whatever sh** life throws my way. Yes, there may be a mess to clean up, but I have a handy little strategy to keep things light-hearted, relatively pain-free and ship-loads easier than dealing with the aftermath of emotional fallout on the cream-colored couch of family. We each have a place and a purpose in this world. With strategies to help deal with the stuff of relationship that challenges us and causes imbalance to our inner resources of calm and cool-headedness, we can ensure that those relationships remain strong throughout our lifetimes. I, for one, would like my children to want to see me in their adulthood. The D-I-A-P-E-R 4 Life Strategy I use on a daily basis gives me the confidence that they will. There is always a letter of the acronym that applies to whatever situation I am involved, that gives me a “way out” to a more centered and clear-headed approach to responding and that offers an opportunity for learning, growing and becoming more of the person I want to be. It is, in short, a great diaper for living.