This film is a few years old (2007), but I had not heard of it until Daily Buzz Moms did a feature on birth stories, along with Ricki Lake. As you may know, I am fascinated by birth stories and collect them in a blog I call MotherGather, so I suddenly felt a kinship with Ricki that I’d never expected.

When I heard about the screening of this documentary, I really wanted to attend – not just to honour the midwives I admire so much, but to see the movie. Unfortunately, it was a choice between that and an all-day retreat I was hoping to get to (MOTL), so I didn’t make it to the film.

Thankfully, there’s Netflix. I watched the movie, cried, had my eyes opened… and then made Sean watch it with me.

Here’s our li’l bullet list o’ reactions.

• The principle of the documentary is that in the United States, in contrast to the rest of the world, rates of birth interventions, especially Cesarean section, have been skyrocketing, without true informed consent from mothers. Is this damaging to women and families and society? The film argues YES. A resounding YES.
• We are more relieved than ever to be living north of the border (which I might not have, if U.S. politics had been different in the 1960s). We’re so thankful for socialized medicine – and, from my experience, much more baby- and mama-friendly hospitals that the ones mentioned in the film.
• To be honest, the very idea of hospitals being businesses that need to turn a profit – and doctors being likewise businesspeople – gives me the heebie-jeebies. The need for turnover in birthing units… The “Just section ‘em!” mentality… shudder. I, as an expectant mother, am not profitable if I take more than 12 hours to have my baby… so chances are, in a U.S. hospital, I simply would not be given that leeway to let my body do things its own way.

• It’s even creepier to imagine being sick, and being diagnosed and treated with the profit-based mindset. I have NO IDEA why there are so many right-wing Americans who are all up in arms about socialized medicine. Doesn’t it make more sense for doctors to be accountable to the system as a whole, rather than to their bottom lines? Just sayin’.
• Even if you’re a skeptic and make the assumption that all the statistics (about C-section rates, infant and maternal death rates, etc.) are biased, it’s still shocking and scary to think of how many women are being unnecessarily operated on, never knowing the empowerment (not to mention the high of bonding hormones) of a natural birth.
• You’d also be shocked at the experimental, dangerous nature of the history of hospital births in the U.S. If you’ve never heard of “twilight sleep”… brace yourself.
• If you’re going to watch this movie, be warned: you are going to see babies being born. Yes. Tiny people actually exiting the womb through the vaginas of their moms. The kinds of images that made the slackers in my Grade 11 parenting class leave the room because they “couldn’t handle it” (at least not without a smoke break).

• In case you’re wondering, yes, that means there’s nudity. Quite a bit of nudity, and not just of newborns.

• It’s rather more goopy than the above image. (I guess it’s because all these births were babies, not goddesses.)
• When that first baby came out, I’ll admit I was surprised. Whoa, they really just showed that, for real, we totally just watched that lady give birth to that kid.
• Then, of course, I got teary-eyed. Look at that beautiful, live, warm, moving baby. This woman made that inside her. It’s incredible.
• Then, of course, I got tears in my eyes for every single birth they showed – and there are at least five. It just doesn’t get more real, more raw, more human than that.
• In talking with some friends who attended the screening, I discovered I wasn’t alone. There was apparently plenty of sniffling by moms during the birthing scenes – good sniffling.
• When I watched the film a second time, with Sean, I found myself grinning during the births, for basically the same reason I’d choked up before. For the record, Sean was not unaffected either. The two of us have been through two births together, one live and one still, and we both know how momentous birth is – and that it should be treated as such. I was proud that he didn’t squirm at all during those graphic birthing scenes – though the glimpses of C-sections made him cringe.
• With this post coming quickly on the heels of my Di-atribe about Why I Love My Midwives, I feel I should include my own personal kudos to modern medicine as it relates to birth. Although I agree there’s some effed-up stuff going on in hospitals, especially in the U.S., I do not demonize the medical system. During E’s birth, I had almost every intervention possible except for a C-section, and I greatly appreciated each one. I was glad I was given prostaglandin gel that helped my contractions to begin, when I was a week-and-a-half overdue; after 20 hours of labour, I was very grateful for the shot of narcotics that allowed me to doze; after 37 hours of labour, when my contractions began to slow down, I was beyond thankful for that epidural and Pitocin; and if it hadn’t been for that, plus the vacuum assistance and episiotomy at the last moment, after 43 hours of labour and 2 hours of pushing… I honestly don’t know how I would have gotten my beloved E into the world. If I’d been birthing him 150 years ago, I’m sure I would have been one of those mothers who died during childbirth, from sheer exhaustion. So my perspective on interventions and the professionals who perform them, when they are necessary, is: THANK YOU.

So, to sum up: I declare that anyone who has been, is, or will be associated with a birthing experience (and that’s technically all of us, since we were ALL born) should see The Business of Being Born.

***

I recently overheard a fragment of conversation at kindergarten snacktime, involving one of the kids I like to call “pop-up children” (teachers, you know the ones I’m talking about). This is what I heard:

“…and then she punched me! In the face! My mom!”

Wise little boy beside him, wisely contemplating his crackers: “Your mom would never do such a thing.”

In this case, wise boy is right. I’ve met the mom in question. In my school community, there is a preponderance of very attentive, highly invested moms – and parents in general. You can just tell by the quality of the snowsuits, the shoes, the lunches, and the attendance at school concerts.

But there are moms out there who do hit their kids.

With my second group of kindergartners, a different declaration reached my ears: “It has to be true, because moms don’t lie. THEY DON’T.”

Ooh. If only that were the case. I think we try hard not to, but as A.J. Jacobs illustrates in The Year of Living Biblically, parents end up lying to their children all too often, for myriad reasons. (Example: “Sorry, honey, we don’t have any more batteries for your obnoxiously smug talking ride-a-car.”) (Plus, there’s the Santa thing.)

But there do exist moms out there whose lives – with their children – are fraught with dishonesty.

A few weeks ago, I watched a mom become a good fairy. I saw her sneak into the classroom while I was teaching and put something in her daughter’s cubbyhole. Shortly thereafter, the daughter, who had been asking for weeks if she could have chocolate milk at lunch even though she wasn’t in the milk program, magically found chocolate milk in her cubby.

I couldn’t resist suggesting, “It must have been the chocolate milk fairy.” (This is a child who regularly tells her peers, “I have fairy dust on me, so I can fly – it just won’t work until I’m a little older. IT’S TRUE.”)

This girl is a little drama queen, but for once she was genuinely shocked – speechless, in fact. The look of dumbfounded joy on her face was just… the best. I wish I could have snapped a photo for her mom.

One of my tiny, elfin JKs knows more about the nuts and bolts of motherhood; she noticed that my belly was round and asked if there was a baby in there. When I said yes, she declared, “I grew in my Mummy’s uterus.”

So all this got me thinking about what makes us Moms, Mamas, Mummys, Mothers. What do we ALL have in common? It’s a harder question than I was originally thinking.

It’s not gestation or birth, because lots of moms don’t do that. It’s not even being the technical or legal mother of someone – because I know quite a few people whose “real” moms are actually their grandmothers or aunts, or someone else who mothers them (more effectively than their biological or even custodial mother).

What do moms do, then? What makes them mothers?

What’s “mothering”?

My dictionary says that to mother is “to look after kindly and protectively, sometimes excessively so”.

That seems fair. After all, if you don’t look after your child kindly and protectively, are you really a mother? If you get pregnant and give birth to someone you don’t care for properly, no offense, but I’m not sure the biology alone qualifies you.

There are lots of different ways to be a great mom. My mom is one – the mother of four. When she had us, he quit her job to take care of us full-time. In fact, she was also my school teacher from Grade 2 through Grade 8. She could find the learning in any situation. She is the kind of mom who sang to us a lot; she taught us to bake cookies; she made raisin faces on our peanut butter crackers; she trusted us to play and explore without her (from a reasonable age) as long as we were together; she drove us all over the place, to birthday parties and field trips and so many different kinds of lessons that I don’t honestly know how she kept her sanity some years. She got angry with us when anger was warranted. We never wondered whether she loved us or would protect us – we took that completely for granted. After all, she knew everything and could do anything.

I’m sure that she must have second-guessed herself often enough, as we all do. But we could never tell.

As for me, I try my best to snuggle my kid so much that he becomes addicted and seeks out snuggles for years to come. (E napped on me yesterday for the first time in ages. Priceless.)

Love and Happy Mother’s Day, to all mothers and to all of us who have been mothered. Please share – what did – or does – your awesome mom do for you?

***

But it looks more human.

The ultrasound technician was very young-looking. She asked if this was our first ultrasound at the hospital, and I told her we’d had a 12-week scan and an ECG.

I don’t know if these technicians know how nerve-wracking it is to be lying there in the half-light, listening to them take pictures as they probe around your belly with the slimy apparatus, their faces impassive… and never saying a word. I mean, I suppose I could have chatted her up, but I didn’t want to break her concentration. After a long string of minutes like this, ANYTHING they say is a relief. Anything to indicate that there are normal things going on in there.

I found this process difficult even before Sebastian, but obviously it’s worse now. It didn’t help when the tech said, in measured tones, “You said you had an ECG… What was it for?”

It was the second time I’ve explained to a medical professional, “We had a stillborn son last summer whose heart was too big.” She nodded but didn’t comment.

Then, after forever, she got up and said, “Okay, I’m just going to have another tech come in and take a look, and do a few more pictures.”

At least she had let me go pee near the beginning of the ordeal. Otherwise I might have wet myself at that point. The tech who did Sebastian’s final ultrasound had to leave the room a few times to “consult” with people… so now, for about 30 seconds, I was totally convinced something was wrong.

Then the other tech came in, and identified herself as Lisa. (I’m not sure I’ve ever been offered a name by a tech before.) I must have looked pale or something, because she immediately said, “Did Christine tell you why she called me in? She’s a new grad. We just have to make sure we check everything. Nothing’s wrong.”

Whew would be an understatement.

Lisa was positively animated, compared to most ultrasound technicians, as she talked with Christine about the pictures they were trying to get. She commented to me, “Nice baby to scan,” which I took as a compliment even though I can take no credit. I even saw her smile a few times, which I really appreciated.

Finally they called Sean in. He started grinning as soon as he saw the screen. I guess there’s lots of movement happening that I still can’t feel, because this kid was doing all kinds of tricks unbeknownst to me.

Baby did not exactly facilitate the detection of genitalia… but I guess Lisa found a way in between the legs. She said, “I don’t see anything there… so I think it’s a girl.”

I was genuinely surprised. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been assuming it would be a boy, just based on previous experience.

[Just a few days ago, it must be admitted, I said, "Wow, I hope it's a girl!", but there was a silly, bizarre reason for that. My mom was just telling Sean and me a story from the last time she took E swimming, when they met a little boy whose baby brother has E's name. (This is always a little bit vexing, because we tried really hard to find an original name that wasn't too popular but wasn't weird or hard to spell or hard to pronounce or spoiled by someone I once taught...) The freaky part was that she told us the name of this older brother, and his name is the one we'd already decided to claim if Baby #3 were a boy - again, a name that is quite unusual but totally solid. My mom didn't even know about our decision. We were dumbfounded... and I was crushed, because I was like, "We can't have two brothers with the exact same names as two other brothers in the same city!!" SO STRANGE.]

I am still not totally convinced, because mistakes are made in identifying fetal sex often enough… but this will not be our last scan, so we may get a better look at some point. For now, we are happy to refer to our baby as “she”, and to start thinking about the unplumbed other half of the baby name book. It’s exciting.

(I hope E will/would not be disappointed to have a sister instead of a brother. I hope she would enjoy playing cars and dinosaurs and Lego with him.)

We also got to see a cool moment: baby’s tiny jaws opening, and baby’s even tinier thumb actually going in her mouth. We all got a kick out of that. In fact, Lisa crossed paths with us in the lobby shortly afterward and stopped us to say, “You know, I’ve been doing this for 22 years, and you almost never see that! Lots of parents think their kids are sucking their thumbs, but they’re not really. That was the real thing.”

So… hooray for hand-mouth coordination! Way to go, baby.

When we followed up with Dr. S. afterward (she’s great – such a difference from that other doctor), I was also told that fluid levels look great, all the parts look just as they should, and my cervix is long and “lovely”. The news can’t get much better than that, for the moment. So all in all, it was a good appointment.

By the way, in case you were hankering for a bullet list… here you go. When people ask why we want to find out the sex of our baby, this is basically what we tell them (it has nothing to do with stocking up on clothes of a certain colour):

• There are plenty of surprises surrounding birth (like when it will happen, how long it will take, what the baby will look like, etc.) – we just don’t feel the need for another one;
• We like to be able to narrow down the name list;
• We are uncomfortable calling an unborn child “it”;
• Suddenly, when you know, the baby seems so much more real and relatable;
• 40 weeks is a LONG time to wait to find out something so important, especially when you’re a naturally nosy/curious person;
• We were really glad that we knew Sebastian was a boy – that we could get to “know him” better, that we’d already chosen his name, that he was not just our baby but our son – before we had to say goodbye to him.

Of course, we are all in favour of waiting for the surprise, if that’s what floats your boat… but for us, it’s a no-brainer.

***

It’s worse than being sick yourself. You would do almost anything to take it away, and be the one to suffer instead.

E has been “under the weather” – coughing, runny nose, whatever – many times (and even then I get nervous), but he has rarely been sick. I guess that’s why I get a bit overwrought when he does.

On Sunday he woke up in a fine mood, then halfway through breakfast refused to eat any more. This is not like him.

Then we played in his room for a bit, until he decided he’d rather just sit on my lap, quietly. For an almost-3-year-old boy, this is seriously out of character. For my own motor-mouthed son, it’s positively disturbing.

Then he just wanted to lie down. I could tell his skin was too warm. He was too silent, too docile. I lay down beside him and looked into his beautiful blue eyes, so unfocused, as he drifted off to sleep – only a couple hours after getting up. Normally, he doesn’t nap at all anymore.

He got worse before he got better. His fever got up to 102.4 (or 39), his face overly rosy; his breathing was shallow; his heart raced even as he slept; and he never stopped trembling.

The worst part was how sweet he is through it all; I’d say, “How are you feeling?” and through his shivers, he’d say, “Good.” I’d tell him I loved him and he would say it back, “I love you,” but so faint I could hardly hear it. It broke my heart.

Thank goodness for the nurses at Telehealth. They always put things in perspective. Your child is breathing fine, can move all his limbs, has no blood in his stool, is drinking and peeing, is not crying inconsolably… he’s fine. He’s just fighting off a common infection.

Even with that reassurance, I will admit to getting pretty emotional as I struggled not to imagine the worst. My robust little boy just seemed so fragile. Small children die, suddenly and mysteriously, often enough. Their parents are left with countless what-ifs, and thoughts like, “If I’d only followed my gut instincts…” I know I was overreacting, but I guess since last summer, my gut instincts are all messed up. It was really hard to leave his side, even when he was asleep. When he was awake, I carefully wrapped and stored in my heart every word he said.

Thank God, he was fine this morning. A bit quiet for the first hour, and then… it was like he wanted to make up for the lost time, and basically didn’t stop talking for the rest of the day. He was full of beans, actually. It was such a relief that I didn’t even mind the ENDLESS “Why?” questions. (I guess it’s the rule: you don’t get to skip the “Why?” stage. Sean was wondering if francophone children have a “Pourquoi?” phase, etc. I can’t see how they wouldn’t.)

Anyway, everything is fine. My kid is amazing.

I am one lucky mama.

***

I’d like to dedicate this blog post to my midwives, because they simply rock the casbah, on so many levels.

The Myths of Midwifery

I have a good friend who is a doctor, married to a doctor. We once had a long discussion about midwives, because he confessed that he was worried about the anxiety he and his wife would feel when they decided to start a family; they know too much, and have seen too many nightmarish situations.

Oh-so-naively, I said, “You guys should get a midwife. They’re really practical and reassuring because they see their clients as parents, not patients.”

Hahahahaha. I can see, in retrospect, that this was a silly thing to say to a doctor. Still, I’d like to think that our conversation was somewhat enlightening (for him), because he was full of misconceptions about midwives. Actually, it was enlightening for me too; I appreciated hearing his perspective, because I’d had no idea.

He got some of his feeling about midwives from personal experience. The midwives he’s been in contact with have fit a certain granola-hippie stereotype (Birkenstocks, hairy legs, patchouli, blah blah) that some would consider “unprofessional”… but more importantly, they are apparently militant to the point of obnoxiousness in the hospital setting. I’m told that they yell at doctors to get out of the room… They hate doctors and rail against them… They don’t remotely attempt to foster good relations. And then, if a birth goes terribly wrong, who gets to fix things and clean up the mess? The doctors. So basically, the belief is that midwives get all the easy births (because they are only allowed to work with low-risk pregnancies) and they get paid the same amount for less work. AND they don’t even have a College (like the College of Physicians in Ontario, keeping doctors accountable).

Luckily, we were Skyping so I was on my computer. I was able to Google-and-rebut.

• Hippie midwives. First of all, I have never met a midwife who fits - at all – the stereotype mentioned above, despite living in a city with a high “granola” factor. (Okay, there is one on my team who wears Birkenstocks… but as a woman with weird-shaped feet, I’m all for comfortable shoes. We should all be taking better care of our feet. Amen.)
• Doctor/midwife smackdown. It’s true that my midwives do not speak highly of every ob/gyn. They are always professional in terms of what they say, but I was warned about a particular doctor at our local hospital before being induced with E – one who acts like the C-section is the solution to everything. “He will probably tell you, ‘You don’t want to do all that work, let’s just operate,’ but you can say no.” Midwives know as well as anyone that there are times when a C-section is, indeed, the best option; what they can’t abide is doctors who make expectant parents feel that invasive, expensive (to taxpayers) interventions are necessary when they are not. (My labour with E was brutal, but I was still thrilled not to have my abdominal wall sliced through.) For the most part, the local midwives and doctors in my city seem to have a very functional, mutually respectful relationship going on. (If that’s all a facade, I am none the wiser.) As a mom who has had two transfer-of-care births, I’m really glad for this functionality.
• Their job is easy. So it may be true that midwives have the lion’s share of “easy” births. (Hey moms, let’s have a li’l chuckle at the word “easy”.) You could look at it that way. My response is: a) any job where you have to be in top form, at the last minute, at an unscheduled hour of the night, for an undetermined amount of time is NOT EASY; b) Ob/gyns are completely overloaded with patients – do they really want all these ones too? c) Midwives go above and beyond. Please see below.
• The $ Factor. I’ve been doing quite a bit of research, and the answer is: hells to the NO, midwives do NOT get paid the same. I checked the Public Sector Salary Disclosure, and the number of midwives in the Association of Ontario Midwives making over 100K/year is exactly… ONE. And Ontario midwives are among the best-paid; Canada-wide, the average midwife makes 65K/year. The figures I found on ob/gyn salaries, on the other hand, made my jaw drop. (Not that I’m saying they don’t earn their money – especially because they begin their careers freakishly deep in debt. But I’m trying to set the record straight: NO ob/gyn works for 65K.) You can read here that midwife pay hasn’t gone up significantly in seven years – and before that, there was a 10-year pay freeze. That’s ridiculous, especially considering their services tend to cost the province far less.
• Accountability. Yep, they do have a College. They’ve had one since 1993. (Three seconds on Google, folks.)
• Home births. Just a word about this touchy subject (not that my doctor friend mentioned this). Lots of people think that if you have a midwife, you must give birth at home (or in a barn or something). That is not true. Of course, the situation varies depending on the hospital, but midwives have privileges in most Ontario hospitals, so are able to offer the choice. Even if you do give birth at home, it’s not like they come armed only with swaddling clothes; they bring emergency equipment and medications – plus, two of them are required to attend every birth, so that one can tend to the mother and one to the child. Both my births were planned for the hospital (which was just as well – if I had planned home births, I’d be 0 for 2), but it was reassuring to know that if I’d been unable to get to the hospital for some reason, my midwives were ready to travel, and experienced in home birthing.

What My Midwife Can Do For Me

In a previous post, I mentioned our appointment with the ob/gyns at the out-of-town hospital, coinciding with our 12-week ultrasound. It was kind of a funny appointment. The doctor we’d gotten to know (in discussing Sebastian’s pathology) was on vacation, so we were dealing mostly with a resident. He was very nice, young, likeable, and soft-spoken. He did the EXACT same questionnaire with me that I’d done at the midwife’s office three weeks earlier. I also peed on the EXACT same brand of pee-stick. We did the physical exam, the weight, the blood pressure, the Doppler. In our conversation, he indicated that the clinic would be doing all our appointments for this pregnancy.

Near the end of the appointment, an ob/gyn came in to follow up, and confirmed this. She, in contrast, was loud and abrasive, and talked as if our being here were somehow a result of us being dumb. She said they would be taking over our care, so she wasn’t sure what our midwives could really do for us.

We countered that we were hoping to continue with the midwives if possible, and she was all like, “Why? Where do you want to deliver?” Well. It takes an hour to get to this hospital from our house. I would not take that ride in labour unless there were NO other choice.

“So, you want your care with us to last until when? Thirty-eight weeks?” she said, in a tone as if she were boggled by our confounding indecision. I allowed myself to get a bit snippy at this point, and informed her that it was Dr. S. who had recommended “shared care”.

When she told us our 16-week appointment wouldn’t involve a scan, I asked what exactly it would involve. Guess what: Doppler, blood pressure, weight, pee-stick. You want me to drive an hour – and pay for parking – for THAT. She acknowledged at this point, “Well, I guess ANYBODY could do that. You can have that appointment with your midwives, if you want.” Gee, thanks.

I wonder what her marks were in empathy class.

Don’t get me wrong: 5 out of the 6 ob/gyns I’ve been in contact with have been lovely, competent, professional. They work hard. They do the best they can, considering the number of patients they have. I have full respect for them. But it burned me that this woman clearly thought so little of midwives.

What can my midwives do for me?? What can YOU do for me, lady?

Are you going to give me a half-hour or more of your time per appointment, to anticipate my questions, educate me on possibilities and options, and allay my worries? (Statistics from my mom friends would indicate NO, you are much more likely to give me 3-5 minutes per appointment.)

Are you going to come to my home to check me when I’ve been in labour for sixteen hours, so I don’t have to get in the car only to turn around and come home again?

Are you going to attend my birth for support, even when you’re no longer in charge?

Are you going to do six weeks of post-partum care for me and my newborn?

Are you going to get there in time when my stillborn son makes his appearance hours earlier than expected? (The answer to that is NO – the ob/gyn did not deliver Sebastian. He missed the birth by a mile, but my midwife met us in the parking lot.)

When I’m grieving my lost baby, are you going to come to my home to visit me for that post-partum care, so that I don’t have to come to the clinic and sit among the glowing, expectant moms and garden-fresh, living newborns?

Are you going to have deep, empathetic conversations with me about baby loss?

Because my midwives did all these things. They are AWESOME.

So… I did have my 16-week appointment with my midwife – the same one who delivered my angel baby.

I’ll be honest: it made my day. While completely validating my stresses and fears, this wonderful woman also managed to reassure me more than anyone else has so far. In spite of the tragedies she’s faced in her life (and there are many), positivity radiates from her. Talking matter-of-factly about this baby as a person, and referring comfortably to its arrival as a given (when for four months I’ve been catching and holding back my every assumption)… she made me remember – and even feel, for a while – the joyful, vibrant expectation that characterized my pregnancy with E. She reminded me how it felt to be truly, deep-down excited to meet my child… who is going to be fine.

***

E: I have a baby in my belly, too. She needs to eat my food.

Mama (noting the “she”, when last time it was a “he”): Is your baby a girl, today?

E: No, it’s a boy.

Mama: What’s his name?

E: I already told you, it’s Daffodil See-Too.

(No, he hadn’t already told us.)

Mama: His name is… Daffodil See-Too??

Daddy: Wow, that’s a wonderful name! Where did you get that name?

E (as if it were the most obvious thing ever): It’s a Spanish word.

Mama (thinking she gets it): Ohhh, the baby’s name is from Diego?

E: It’s not a baby, it’s a boy.

Mama (chuckling): Oh, so it’s just going to be born a full-grown boy.

E, to Daddy: Do you have a baby?

Daddy (ruefully patting stomach): No… it just looks like I do.

Mama: Actually, the baby in here is partly Daddy’s, so he is having a baby.

Daddy (glancing at his empty Corona bottle): Daddy’s baby’s name is… Cerveceria. That’s a Spanish word too.

***

Update: E has, since this conversation, decided on another name for his baby, and this one has stuck for over a week: Tree Shepard.

***

During a discussion about Mama’s baby bump, and whether it’s a boy or a girl in there:

Mama: If you have a sister, what should her name be?

E (thinks for a moment): Biden. Nn. (After a pause) Is the baby happy?

Mama (all heartwarmed that he would ask such a sweet question): Yes, of course, it’s very comfy in there.

E (smacking Mama’s belly): Now is she angry?

***

Papa took this photo and had fun tweaking it in various ways. This is the most beautiful version. (Slightly less beautiful, but no less endearing, is the one where he pasted E’s head onto the body of his stuffed sloth.)

***

And you were right, for the moment at least: all good on the uterine/fetal front. I was gonna say “all quiet”, but it wasn’t quiet at all, THANK GOD.

My mama not only came with me, she also helped me avoid underground parking by arranging for us to park in a nearby friend’s driveway.

We had our appointment with a cardiologist in the children’s clinic. He was slender and soft-spoken with salt-and-pepper whiskers and a name that’s apparently Romanian. He was more personable than almost all the ultrasound technicians I’ve dealt with. Plus, we got to have the scan in a room that was full of wall decals: jungle/savannah animals, fairies and butterflies, Spiderman, Cars, Little Mermaid, bugs and flowers, fish, princesses… you name it. It was awesome – except for the pang you get imagining small children in this room, having to have their hearts looked at.

It always puts a big smile on my face to see a tiny person on the screen, wiggling around. I’d say this was a bigger smile than usual, after all that apprehension, because this baby was definitely wiggling. In fact, it was making punchy motions with its hands that reminded me of the way E dances when we put on his favourite song (“Let’s Get it Started”) in the car.

The scan took a long time – most of an hour. With this machine, the doctor could zoom way in on the heart. He would press a button and turn on the rainbow colours that show the flow of blood: blue and green going away from the heart, and red and yellow going towards it. (I think – it could be the opposite.) Part of the reason it took so long, the doctor explained, was that one of the blood vessels he was looking for is only a quarter of a millimetre thick at this point. Sheesh, no wonder.

He had me worried for a few minutes, when he gave a big sigh and looked kind of grim – and then asked me, “How far along were you at the end of your last pregnancy?” But I guess he was just concentrating and trying to get the info straight.

I was glad that he was able to tell me, right on the spot, that everything looks fine so far. When I started to get a crick in my neck from looking at the screen sideways, it was good to be able to look over at my mom’s smiling face. (She had a much better view than I did.) It made me smile again when the doctor commented, “Very mobile.”

Of course, Sebastian was also very mobile. He also looked good at 12 weeks, and even at 20. But today, I am just gonna be glad that we’re good so far. My imagined scenario was way off the mark, so for that, I do feel a lot better. And now I know for sure that I can feel this baby move, because there were at least three flutters I felt, and then saw the corresponding gyrations on the screen.

We will have another ECG at 32 weeks. And we have the anatomy scan three weeks from now. And I have a midwife appointment on Thursday. We’re so fortunate to have such good care.

Here’s a song my mom thought of while we were staring at that screen – one Bruce Cockburn wrote after seeing his own child via ultrasound.

And now it’s time for bed. Last night was not the best sleep, but I think tonight will be better.

Before I go, I just want to say again: Merci mille fois. So much love to all of you.

***

I’m freaking out a little bit.

I mean, I’m not hyperventilating or feeling faint or anything. I’m pretty sure you can’t tell by looking at me (unless you catch me at very specific moments).

Tomorrow, baby-in-progress is scheduled to have a fetal ECG (echocardiogram) at the hospital. Which is great – it’s part of the shared, extra care we’re getting with this pregnancy and I’m not complaining whatsoever.

The problem is, I can’t shake the dread. I’m NOT normally a paranoid person, nor even much of a worrywart, compared to lots of people. I’m used to being my laid-back self. I was fine when Sean and I went for the 12-week ultrasound at the hospital – a little antsy, maybe, but not fearful. I don’t have hospital-related anxiety (even if I should, by now). I have been doing pretty well, I think, at keeping this pregnancy separate from my last one.

Here’s the situation: our furnace has been on the fritz for almost two weeks now, so Sean took the day off school today to oversee the installation of a new one. It is not a good idea for him to take two days off from school in a row, in his new program – but I was fine to go by myself tomorrow.

Then suddenly, lying in bed last night, I was seized with apprehension. I could picture exactly the circumstances in which I would undergo the procedure, and then be asked to go up and see Dr. S. at the clinic, who would then tell me that something was wrong with my baby’s heart; it’s not the right size. Or worse, it’s not beating. It was so clear in my head.

I vividly recalled Sebastian’s final ultrasound, and the technician asking me, “Is that your husband out there in the waiting room?”

(It’s really not good for me to go back to that awful day right now. Unfortunately, I don’t get to decide when renewed grief will pounce on me.)

I tried to imagine getting myself home from the hospital alone after receiving bad news, and I felt panic. (Especially getting out of the underground parking; even though I don’t fear hospitals themselves, underground parking gives me the heebie-jeebies – it’s a claustrophobia thing. Unthinkable if I were otherwise upset.)

Then there’s the unease about my fluid levels. Those of you who have been pregnant will know what I mean when I refer to the, um, humidity of undergarments that occurs (due to hormones trying to prevent infection). This week, I can’t stop worrying that I could actually have a slow leak of amniotic fluid and not realize it. Sebastian was born with NONE. It had to have gone somewhere, and we have no idea where.

One of the big problems here is that I can’t just pat myself on the head and tell myself I’m being irrational… because I’m not. I know, it’s highly unlikely anything will be wrong, I have no good reason to fear, the odds are very slim that something bad will happen to this baby… but all that reasoning doesn’t really mean anything. Odds are for sh*t sometimes – just ask A Mourning Mom. And if I don’t know why things went wrong last time, how do I know it wasn’t me? How do I know there wasn’t something in my body that shifted or busted, say, during the 45 hours I spent working to get E into the world, that now doesn’t work properly? This idea seems all too plausible to me.

I don’t know. Maybe I am being irrational. If so, please tell me. That would be great to hear.

In any case, I am lucky because my parents thought of this, and my mom offered to come with me to the hospital, so I won’t be alone. Everything will be fine. (Everything will be fine, everything will be fine…)

Week 16:

Baby is the size of an avocado. It’s moving a lot. It can make faces (squint, frown). It’s got ear-bones, so now it can hear me. It’s got fingernails, and is growing eyelashes, and taste buds. Holy cow.

A couple times this week, I was pretty sure I felt movement – but so small, I could never be sure.

On a semi-related note:

Last week I spent a resource period with ten Grade 2 students doing guided reading in French. We read a story – at their request – called “Avant ma naissance” (“Before my Birth”), all about the growth of a baby in utero. One student raised his hand and spoke in English.

“I have a question. When a baby is born… why does the mom… need a male?”

Oh, great. I stalled. “Do you mean at the baby’s birth, or to make the baby?”

“I mean to make the baby.”

Awesome. I pointed to the illustration of the spermatozoides reaching the ovule. “Because these come from the male, and this comes from the female, and you need both parts for anything to happen.”

“Okay. But how do they get all the way to the…”

At this point, a bunch of the other kids started protesting. “You don’t wanna know! It’s NOT a cool story! It’s GROSS!!” Obviously some of these kids have already had The Sex Talk. I told the student I would be happy to talk with him about it another time (which I honestly would, if I had time to prepare) – or he could always ask a parent.

I thought it was a really good question, actually. There are three different kids in his grade who come from two-mom families, and all the Grade 2s are aware of that. It makes perfect sense that he was wondering where the “male” comes in.

After the hubbub died down (or was squelched by me, actually), and we wound up our discussion of embryos and fetuses, one of the other kids said unexpectedly, “One of my sisters died when she was in my mom’s belly.”

Whoa.

I said, “Wow. So you have a sister you never got to meet. That’s tough. My son has a brother he never got to meet, too.”

You just never know the things people have been through.

***

Just before Easter weekend, I went with Skye to see the movie Titanic in 3D. I remember I saw it twice in theatres when it first came out, and maybe once on video since then… but it had been at least a decade since I’d seen it. Certain scenes I still remembered perfectly, so deeply did they affect me at the time. (I know a lot of people call it a bad movie, but I’m sorry. They are just haters, and they are WRONG. The dialogue may be banal, but it is an incredible, monumental story, portrayed with obsessive attention to detail and accuracy. It’s an amazing cinematic accomplishment.)

I think I can honestly say that, although I’d seen many movies involving death before, this was the first film that made me really confront the idea. So many different ways to die with the Titanic, most of them inevitable. It is such a mind-blowing moment in the film when Mr. Andrews, the ship’s designer, tells the captain and others that it is a “mathematical certainty” that the magnificent, so-called unsinkable vessel will founder. Very, very soon. With lifeboats to accommodate only half the people on board. Human brains do not want to believe such things.

Who would you have been? If you made it to a lifeboat, you were probably a First or Second Class passenger. You were probably also a woman or child, because of the “women and children first” protocol – and about to be bereaved. (You were also rare: there were only 710 survivors out of 2,223 people aboard.) If you were in Third Class, chances were good that you never made it past E Deck. If you were a crew member working the boilers or in the kitchen, ditto.

Do you think you could have managed not to panic, when you realized the truth? Would you have prayed, climbed higher, jumped ship, or sought out the best place to go down with her?

Would you be the man saying goodbye to his wife and telling his child, “Don’t worry, Daddy’s getting the next boat”?

Would you be Benjamin Guggenheim, sitting by the Grand Staircase with a brandy and a cigar, waiting to meet with death as if it were the opposing army general, declaring “We’ve dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen”?

Would you be in your bed, holding onto your spouse and waiting for the water to engulf you, knowing it was better to die together than live apart?

Would you be the mother in her steerage cabin, understanding that survival is a lost cause, lulling her children to sleep with beautiful stories, in the hopes that they would be spared the fear?

Would you be the crew member organizing the lifeboats who knows he’s going down with the ship – or one manning a lifeboat who will live to be haunted? And if you were the latter, would you go back to seek survivors, as only one actually did?

Would you be one of the musicians, playing lighthearted tunes with seeming serenity as chaos erupted around you?

It’s impossible to know for sure how any of us would react to death staring us in the face. Especially for the men standing on the upper decks as lifeboats were filled. Survival instinct would tell you to fight for a seat, but would you? Could you give your child over to the care of a stranger, if it came to that?

In my Hubbibi’s perspective, part of becoming a man is accepting the responsibility of being ready to lay down your life ahead of those of your wife and children. It’s the basis of chivalry, but if you are a parent, it’s also a biological imperative: protecting your offspring (and potentially their primary caregiver), even at the expense of yourself, is the surest way to see that your genes are passed on. (I guess for J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, no such conflict of interest existed, since his five children were not aboard Titanic. Hence his inviting himself onto a lifeboat.)

I think that’s what fascinates people about the story of RMS Titanic. It’s been said that humans show their true colours when they’re about to die. Would such a sudden, terrifying demise reveal us to be cowards, or first class humans?

***

“Distinguished physician Izzeldin Abuelaish MD, MPH was the first Palestinian doctor to receive a staff position at an Israeli hospital, where he treated both Israeli and Palestinian patients. He is the author of the bestselling book I Shall Not Hate, which chronicles his life growing up in Gaza and the development of his outlook on life, health and peace in Israel and Palestine. Dr. Abuelaish’s three daughters were killed during the War on Gaza in January 2009, minutes before he was to speak live on an Israeli TV program. Having his resolve to live without hate affirmed, he has dedicated his work to health and wellbeing in the world. He also established “Daughters for Life Foundation” in his daughters’ honour to promote the education of young women scholars.”

That was enough to make me want to hear him speak. It’s not often that I’ve had the chance to hear from someone who has an actual grasp of what peace should mean. Quakers talk a lot about peace, but in Canada there are not many of us (thankfully) who have personally experienced real, actual… NOT peace.

At the talk, we were given a more thorough introduction, including excerpts from the video below. (The first five minutes will tell you a lot.)

Dr. Abuelaish took the stage as our ears still echoed with the sounds of his own sobbing, originally heard via cell phone on national Israeli TV three years ago, only moments after Israeli bombs ripped through his own home, killing three of his eight children and one of his nieces. His composure, when he reached the podium, was remarkable – but not, I think, completely intact.

He spoke to us for about 70 minutes. He told us about what had happened to his family and why the number 16 is emblazoned on his memory: his wife died of leukemia on September 16th, 2008; and four months later, on January 16th, 2009, three of his daughters, 21-year-old Bessan, 15-year-old Mayar, and 13-year-old Aya, died in the bombing. It was two days before the ceasefire. Although his voice was very strong, he had tears in his eyes some of the time, and had to blow his nose occasionally. (He was not alone.)

He spoke of his deceased daughters – as well as his living children – with love and pride radiating from him. His life now is lived in their honour.

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish is an amazing example of humanity. He was born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza, and somehow managed to make an enormous success out of himself, studying medicine and obstetrics/gynecology in Egypt, England, Israel, Italy, Belgium, and the U.S. (Harvard). That is an extraordinary story in itself.

His unprecedented position as the first Palestinian doctor at an Israeli hospital was even more inspiring, showing the public that he was serious about building bridges between warring factions, and working in the best interests of his fellow humans.

But really, his position now is even more astounding – I’d even call it revolutionary.

Watching the above video, you may have noticed that even when he conveys great sorrow, even though you can tell he acutely feels the injustice, he doesn’t show anger. If anyone has earned the right to be angry – at Israel, at God, at Hamas, whoever, take your pick – it would be this man, this widower who was violently bereaved of three daughters in one day.

And yet, he really, honestly does not seem angry. Determined, yes. Grieving, yes. Angry, vengeful, hostile – not at all. Not toward anyone.

The more you think about this, the more amazing it is.

It’s not that he’s naive or uncritical. He understands the politics at work, and knows there is blame to be laid in the appalling Israeli-Palestinian situation. He’s just decided that forgiveness is a worthwhile pursuit – and hate is not.

He had several messages to impart – some of which we should all know, but probably need reminding of; some of which are big ideas that need to take root all over the world; some of which are his own opinions that reveal his wisdom; and some of which came from his children – and reveal similar wisdom. Here are some ideas worth thinking about:

Most suffering is man-made.

The first step of failure is to reject yourself.

The way to fight injustice is with education.

*No-one should be killed.*

{This one seems like a no-brainer. It’s the most famous commandment, isn’t it? But just think about how often the human race ignores it. ALL THE TIME. We are seriously failing that commandment.}

The antidote to hate is not revenge – it is success.

He spoke a lot about hate, having clearly spent a lot of time contemplating and discussing it for his book, I Shall Not Hate. He sees hate as a “darkness”, a “shield” through which it is impossible to see clearly, “the fire which eats the one who carries it”. It is the biggest weapon of mass destruction. He chooses not to hate because – besides its being a way to perpetuate suffering – he doesn’t accept being a victim more than once. If you turn to hate after a tragedy, you become your own victim as well as someone else’s.

He spoke about people, governments, leaders “waking up” and realizing what peace really means. In his words, the key to peace is remembering each other’s humanity, and discovering how similar we all are. It is shameful to think of humans as anonymous statistics or “collateral damage” (his daughters were referred to as such). We are all somebody’s loved one. We all want the same things. So, obviously, it’s not okay to kill. This is one that gets illustrated worldwide over and over again, but we still don’t seem to get it.

The other thing he talked about a lot was women. He has been profoundly affected by the women in his life – his mother, his wife, and his daughters in particular – and he credits them with much of his success. This picture is of one of his surviving daughters, Shatha, whose eye was severely injured in the bombing. She has an amazing attitude, like her father: “If I can’t use my right eye, I can use my left.”

In speaking of his wife’s death, he admitted the realization that “the orphan is not the one who loses the father, it is the one who loses the mother. The mother is the one who loves, who sacrifices, who gives. She IS love. She is the one with the big heart.” He believes women are “the balance of the world”, the “key indicator of development” in any country, and the reason we have progressed as far as we have. It is time, he said, for women to take the lead in the world.

There is a part of me that has always thought along these lines, but since I became a mother, I believe more fiercely: if women were in charge, there would be a lot less war. I’m not saying that female leaders would solve everything all of a sudden, or that they wouldn’t make mistakes, but maybe Dr. Abuelaish is right: the world could really use a break from ruthlessness. Some feminine empathy, some mercy for humanity, some mama-love. It irks me that so often, the women who are considered good leaders are the ones who demonstrate the most stereotypically “male” qualities (for example, the whole “attack” mentality is considered strong and decisive, and remorse appears to be a weakness). Patriarchy is so ingrained that we forget about the gifts women could offer.

There have often been peace movements initiated by groups of mothers, because mothers don’t want war. They work damn hard to create and raise their children, and it is a criminal waste for those children to meet death at the hands of other mothers’ children.

Let’s repeat this: killing = NOT OKAY. Because people matter.

One of the clips in the above video is of a mother who lashes out in anger at Abuelaish during a press conference, for denouncing the actions of the Israeli military. She says her (Israeli) son is in the parachute regiment, it’s necessary to bomb places they think are weapons depots; in his protest, the doctor is disregarding the safety of her son.

Once again. Why should any mother have to give her child to war?

Why should the most precious product of a mother’s life be expected to kill or be killed?

To mothers, it makes no sense, and it’s not fair. (Many fathers too… but not enough, it seems.) Even mothers in societies like Israel, where military service is mandatory and normalized, live in mortal fear of losing their sons and daughters to war.

And speaking of mothers.

There was one thing Dr. Abuelaish said that stuck with me more than anything. In fact, it was his 12-year-old son who said it. The two of them were talking about the sisters/daughters they had lost, and the son was explaining why, although he missed them, he was not sad for them. He said, “They are happy there. They are with their mum. She asked for them.”

At those words, I felt myself exhale collectively with the audience as, in the midst of this harrowing story, a modicum of sense finally clicked into place. That was the point when I got tears in my eyes.

The Abuelaish family, against all odds, seems to be doing well. Three years ago, they moved to Toronto, where they and the neighbouring family decided to dismantle the fence between their yards on the very first day in their new home. In fact, they are in the process of buying a new home now – we know, because our esteemed speaker deigned to take one five-second phone call during the question-and-answer period, and then sheepishly explained it was his real estate agent. We all applauded for him, happy to hear there are reasons for this family to celebrate.

I wish I could have found a photo of Dr. Abuelaish’s real, full-out smile – which he finally showed us at that moment – because it is absolutely brilliant.

Time for me to read this book.

***