Room for Change?

Good morning! Yesterday was an okay kind of Tuesday. Mostly low key. This morning has been interesting. I got up at 5:00 and made sure Amena was getting up and woke Cedric up. He told me to pour water on him but there wasn’t anything upstairs to put water in and I wasn’t going to go downstairs to get something so I said, “Here’s some pretend water,” and I pretended to sprinkle water on his head. Then I went back to bed which is what I usually do.

I had an interesting dream in which all of my family was somewhere on a beach and we were camping, sort of, out of a trailer and storage building. There was a shelf of books and one of the books dealt with economics and I knew there was something in this particular book that I could see that would put an end to an ongoing argument we were having with someone. When I went to get the book off the shelf, it disappeared. I went back to where I had been to see if I could see it and I couldn’t. I went to where it had been and felt around but it was gone. I even pretended to take it off the shelf thinking it might have some spell on it or something, but nothing worked.

Then I woke up because my alarm went off at 5:55 which is when I usually get up to make sure Amena actually got up and is getting ready and often Cedric will actually get up then. This time I closed my eyes thinking how good the bed felt (in spite of a certain 7-year-old sticking his knees in my back) and apparently fell back asleep.

This time I dreamed that Paul and I had gone to the Dusty’s and that they had moved to a different condo that was similar to the one they’d been in but slightly different and slightly smaller. I was going to help Karen with a quilt. I’m not quite sure what I was going to help with but it was going to be a regular thing and I suggested renting a storage unit for classes and such. Then I needed to count some squares so we’d know now many to cut out because we were going to make a new quilt based on one she had. I counted 12 one direction and kept getting to the end the other direction and forgetting. The squares were small, about 1 ½ inches, and made up a boarder around the entire quilt. I just needed to figure out how many were needed for the top and bottom boarders and for the life of me, I couldn’t keep the number in my head long enough to multiply it by 12. I counted something like three times and then woke up.

I looked at the clock and it was 6:18—holy cow! How did that happen? Amena was almost ready to go so I hurried downstairs and got her lunch ready. Then I fed Kitty and Scooter and Amena left. I roused the boys, made rolled oats for Joseph and Cedric. Cedric got dressed before he came down and Seth got dressed before he came down to eat (I’m not sure what’s up with that). Joseph was taking his time with everything. I got lunches for the boys together and fed the goats. Joseph was still eating. He still needed to get dressed. At 7:30, he still needed to get dressed so I went upstairs to hurry him along a bit.

He came downstairs and I got a different coat for him to wear. He’s been wearing this brown jacket that really is just a lined sweatshirt. It’s getting old and worn and really is too small for him now but he loves it and only wants to wear it. The one I made him wear this morning is too big but still wearable and is fluffier and ought to be warmer. So, he’s all ready to go and the bus is at the end of the driveway waiting and he takes off up the stairs. What the heck!? He wants his brown jacket which I had already taken downstairs. I told him there was no time, the bus was waiting and he’d just better get out there. He did but one of his shoes hadn’t gotten put on so he had to do that. What fun!

Yesterday I did some laundry in the morning and took a shower. I need to do more laundry this morning to help the house warm up a bit. I built a fire because it was cold and then my mom and I went to PJs diner in Hubbardston to meet Liz who is a fellow doula for lunch. Lunch was nice and I’ll get to the gist of our conversation later. After that, we went to Walmart to get some yarn needles because it’s hard to darn socks without a yarn needle.  Amena got home shortly after we did and brought in enough wood to do three more burns plus there’s a little bit left. Not enough to start again and I think I’ll build another one this morning because it is not warm.

When the boys got home I made them do their homework which really didn’t take long. Seth’s consisted of a lot of division and redistribution. Redistribution is fine sometimes but generally I think it requires too much extra thinking to get the problem figured out. I am not in favor of all the extra crap they have to learn in order to learn how to multiply and divide. Once we got into a groove, Seth got his work done fairly quickly but it took a couple of problems to get into the groove and I think he’d have been done sooner if he just divided 81 by three rather than figuring out how to break 81 down to make it easier to divide by 3. I don’t hold back my feelings about this stuff either so I really hope that my boys don’t give their teachers a hard time because I realize it isn’t the teachers fault—it’s the ridiculously stupid system which is run by idiots who don’t even have degrees in education and were probably raised by idiots who don’t have a clue how the real world works.  Wow, a bit off topic there but I won’t apologize for a badly formed paragraph. I can probably blame it on my education, anyway.

For supper we had corned beef sans carrots because I didn’t realize we were out. Still, it turned out pretty good. We had a cocoa cake with mint frosting for dessert and I need to make some cupcakes today for Seth to take to school since his birthday was Monday and I keep forgetting to make anything. He wants the glass cupcakes. Off topic again. Anyway, the boys were well-behaved during most of supper and didn’t start acting up until sometime during the cake eating. More or less. When we were all done, it was time for bed which made the transition relatively painless.

So, visiting with Liz. She and I have a lot of the same thoughts and feelings. It seems that most of the women who have been in labor when she’s been there are induced. This means that they are tethered to an IV pole for the Pitocin drip. They’re already tethered to the IV pole because it seems to be hospital policy to hook up the IV in order to keep them hydrated. Sometimes cytotec is used for induction. If contractions have started already, Pitocin is used for augmentation. Either way, now they are tethered to the monitor continuously as well because with an induction, medical staff have to have a constant stream of information from the baby. What good is a doula in such circumstances? It is possible to unplug from the monitor for a time in order to use the bathroom or to do a few laps around the maternity ward but otherwise, they’re plugged in. Once pain meds have begun, they have to stay in bed and can’t even get up to use the bathroom (maybe this is only with an epidural and not with other forms of pain meds—have to keep my eyes open on this one).

The last three times I was in, I stayed in the room almost all the time, I stayed in the room almost all of the time, I checked in every half hour. For the first one I was able to collect warm blankets, ice and juice for mama but was only able to give her said ice and juice when grandma wasn’t there because grandma likes to be in control, I’m thinking. Mama didn’t want me to touch her—I offered. For the second one, I really didn’t do anything. Mama’s husband was there and he was doing a great job. It was fun being in the room seeing them interacting but I did feel like I was so much extra baggage most of the time. For the third, I offered to get things but they really were under control and really didn’t need anything while I was there.

I mentioned to Liz that I think the doulas should be paired up with the pregnant women in order to get to know them. It’s really hard for some of us to help someone when we don’t know them. It’s hard for some women to accept help from someone they don’t know. Liz mentioned that not everyone can do that; some of the doulas (a lot, actually) have regular jobs. I am aware of that but in the real-life midwifery world, there is this thing called continuity of care. The midwives don’t go off-shift. They’re there for the long haul. Not only that but you get to develop a relationship with your midwife. I don’t think you necessarily become best friends (although it could happen), but you get to know them; they aren’t aloof and I haven’t met one yet who has a condescending attitude (well, maybe one but I don’t know her very well and will reserve judgment).

Maybe I’ve been spoiled because even when I went to the hospital, I was there such a short time that there wasn’t time for the doctor to go off-shift. Other than that, I’ve had midwives, and a doctor, who were there. I saw the same person throughout pregnancy and the same person during labor and the same person for post-partum care. How can nurses and doctors changing shift be better than what I have experienced? In light of this, wouldn’t it be nice if at least the doula were a constant presence that didn’t change? Is the medical world so steeped in ‘the way it is’ that there is no room for change? I don’t know.

Have a great day!