Happiness is health (a post I wrote to enter a blogger contest).

Happiness is health. I made a very conscious decision to enjoy my life and be grateful for what I have. For me, my emotional health is my priority. If I feel good then everything else falls into place. Or, it would if I had the time to clean and make space for it to fall. Napping with my baby, playing with my three year old and meal planning with my six year old all make me happy. I feel rested and emotionally connected when I've snuggled the baby. I feel fit and full of energy after chasing my three year old on her bike or playing Just Dance. And sharing healthy and decadent meals sith my family that I've planned and cooked with my oldest brings me utter joy. A glass of wine or freezer-cold Ciroc with my partner are nice too! It is all about moderation, and not at all about "balance" but rather capitalizing in pockets of time to get what needs to bedtime started even if it can't be completed.

It's a cliche but it is true: if you don't take care of yourself you can't take care of others. But I also like to take care of myself. I can't spend half a day at the spa for a massage and pedicure anymore but as a cook, I love to grocery shop. As an avid reader I love to browse books in store or online.eaching my girls that sometimes Mama needs a few minutes isn't telling them they are unimportant but teaching them to know when to take some "me"'time. And when I hear my six and three year olds say to each and and to me "I need to read (or play) by myself for a little bit." I know I'm doing the right thing.
Capitalize on those pockets of time! What can you get done in fifteen minutes while all three kids are occupied. Don't worry about the most important thing, don't worry about what someone else gets done in that time. I use my iPhone to write out reminders and lists at night just to get them out of head. That way I'm not paralyzed for the first few minutes trying to figure out what to do. And make sure yiu prioritize your children. You will regret it at night when things have finally quieted down if you don't.

Six Tips For A Cranky Cold Car

Apparently, it's a Canadian trait to talk about the weather. I'm not sure if it is or isn't but it is cold out there! I'm not a wimp about winter, but my truck was acting a but cowardly. And so I present a few tips courtesy of my Dad, a professional mechanic and man of little patience when it comes to lack of logic. So all of this should be fairly obvious.

1.Warm your car up. But not the inside. The point of starting up your car more then fourteen seconds before you pull out of the driveway is two fold and neither is about a warm tush. You want your engine running smoothly so it doesn't stall and you want your windows to stay defrosted. Which leads me to...

2. Turn the defrost function on for the front. Take care of the outside of the car. Then turn the back defrost on. Once you can see out the window, switch to heat but don't run everything at once. Unless you want it to stall.

3. I don't need to tell you to clear all the snow and ice off you car: top, middle, sides, bumpers, lights and most importantly under and on top of your wipers before you turn them on.

4. And let's jump ahead and state right now: turn your wipers, heater, defrost OFF before you shut your car off. You don't want all of that to turn on when you turn the key in -17. Because if it does start with your wipers on, that little piece if plastic is going to snap in the cold and the motor that controls it is going to burn out.

5. Don't even think about opening your windows while its this cold. You will hear a click, it won't open and you won't think about it. Meanwhile, the motor that controls it will be buzzing and running and burn out. Awesome. Not really.

6.If you can avoid it, don't lock your car. Auto locks, little button, click and...nothing. Much easier to open a slightly frozen door if it isn't locked.

7.Don't drive with your heels or slick soled shoes on. Key word "slick". You don't need your foot to slide off the accelerator or brake at the wrong time because of the slush and lack of grip. And along with this tip, use the winter mats in your car. No they aren't pretty but they help-just keep them as clean and dry as you can in between.

8. Give yourself lots of time and space. Leave with spare time or realize that your office won't fall apart without you there for ten more minutes. Keep ample space between you and the cars ahead of you. Drive cautiously but go with the flow of traffic. If you are too scared to drive at an adjusted speed, you probably shouldn't.

9. And to my midwifery friends-all of this applies doubly so to you! You are of no help to your clients if you wrap your car around a light post. Make sure your clients know to give you plenty of notice in the winter months and take a pillow. It is better to sleep on their couch then endanger yourself racing to get there.

That's all I can remember right now. Good luck, stay warm, drive safely.

Pockets of Time

I'm sitting here typing this from my phone as my netbook takes forever to start. This ongoing battle with my netbook spurred a discussion yesterday with another parent about trying to function within little pockets of time.

You see, it is not exclusively because I'm used to operating on my iPhone and so all other modes of technology seem snail paced. It is that when I only have fifteen minutes to check my work email because L is watching the one show I allow her watch a day and C is rolling around playing, then I can't lose five minutes to a reboot, motherfreakin' java update, ultimate windows explorer fail followed by Google Chrome being unresponsive. (Don't even tell me I should switch to a Mac! Because I really want an iPad but I'm not sure I can work off of one full time.)

But the bigger question is, why can't I-we-lose those five minutes? Is it instant gratification withdrawal? I don't think so. I think it is the parent in us.

Most of us are accustomed to taking super fast showers, peeing with the door half open, eating while standing, and cooking meals that we prepped during a precious pocket of time.

Those pockets of time need to be capitalized on! They cannot be wasted waiting for my netbook to wake up and not god or anyone can save my partner if he forgot to plug it in overnight to charge after staying up too late watching "YouTube".

Pockets of time must have been the motivator behind text messaging. Ever try to have a conversation on the phone while your child naps or plays? Exactly. Nothing says "I need mama/daddy" like a phone. But a text? I can take all day to respond to that!

And in my case, I work from home with only sporadic day care. i I need to be able to reply to a dozen emails in less time them it takes for the end credits to roll on Dinosaur Train or Sid the Science Kid. I need to fit an hour's work into the twenty minutes I have while C naps and L paints a picture. Because ultimately, the email has to wait. As parents, we are all too aware of the horrors that emerge if someone's sugar crashes mid-spreadsheet update. We have experienced the mid-project update interruption from an early nap wake up.

And we'd rather be hanging out with our kids. So these pockets of time become precious and when they are taken away by technology failures it is destructive to our entire plan! It feels like an insurmountable obstacle that makes me want to hurl my netbook across the room and cry.

So I guess the one benefit of the reboot nightmare is that I can fully and completely relate to my one and three year old. And if you are wondering why I don't spend pockets of time on myself, it is because last week when trying to workout on the Wii, C rolled over and bit my toe-just for fun.

An interesting pre- Christmas gift: the flu

Christmas is in one week and I feel like I've been hit by a truck. Headache, chills, fever, hacking cough, stuffy nose- my whole body hurts. Mark is just as sick and the girls have various symptoms with R bearing the brunt of it.

And through it all, the frequent night wakings, the bottles of ibuprofen, the bowls of soup, I can't help but feel a little blessed.

Crazy right? But I can't help but think that being this sick is keeping us from powering through the week running last minute errands, organizing our house, cleaning, and shopping. Because with the exception of groceries we don't need to leave our house and now we can't by virtue of occasional dizzy spells!

Instead of the usual flurry of activity, I get to spend the week snuggling my girls and Mark ( who is delightfully smuggle- prone when sick) drink tea and watch Christmas movies. I have the honour of reading aloud various Christmas stories and chapters about Christmas from our favourite books. I get to light Advent candles and watch all three of my girls become mesmerized by the rotating Nativity scene. And I have an excuse to break into the box of Ferrero Rocher that shockingly has remained sealed for two weeks.

I know we will be healthy again by the big day but in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy this rare opportunity to relax during the lead up. I hope you do too. Without the chills!! Merry Christmas!

Out with the new, in with the old. Getting back to basics at Christmas.

Back in the summer, when job prospects were looking a little glum, I cheerfully broached the idea of an old fashioned Christmas with my girls and Mark. Yes, it seemed a touch early to be talking about Christmas while we were swimming outside in 35 degree weather. But I'm a bit of a planner, and I thought resetting expectations way in advance would be better. Mostly, it is because I'm a planner though as my girls are easily pleased with the simple thoughtful things in life.

It's mid-November now and Operation Old-Fashioned Christmas is about to launch. Here's three steps we are taking right now.

Firstly, despite Mark's love of watching cartoons with the girls on Friday nights and Saturday mornings ( and I'm often right there with them because I too love superhero cartoons!) I'm going to request a moratorium on that. Simply to avoid the bombardment of ads. R and L don't know we have cable because we didn't for two years. So most of what they watch is on DVD or PBS or Food Network. Hence, no barrage of awesome new toys they couldn't possibly live without. But, when we do have the TV on to, say, Cartoon Network all I hear is their fascination with the commercials. No tv, no commercials, no requests for stuff.

Secondly, despite my love of shopping, especially when the shopping centres are all fancified up for Christmas, we aren't going to the mall until after the holidays. We will go see the window displays if there are any, but avoiding all the new "essential" stuff is easier if you don't see it. And I'm not just talking kids stuff. I'm so guilty of seeing things I come to believe I need. Also, this way, Mark won't be forced to cockpunch someone for being an ignorant a-hole and slamming into us or exhibiting any other belligerent behaviour.

Thirdly, we aren't going to do Christmas lists. I've never perpetuated the Santa myth. Which frankly is odd because I grew up in a house where if you believed, your stocking would be full so we pretended for a long tone. And, I love the book The Polar Exoress (it's a book people!). Maybe it is my love for that story and the boy's simple request for a sleigh bell that influences my lack of Santa requests. Now, I can't do anything but bite my lip and sit on my hands when the dual sets of grandparents repeatedly ask what my girls want from Santa and have they written a letter yet.

But I can redirect their energy and focus to: what should we bake? What should we eat? What should we read? What should we watch? Whom should we visit? What street should we drive or walk along to see the lights. And most importantly, what church should we take Baby C to for her first Christmas mass?

I will write more about how our plans for an old-fashioned Christmas are coming along soon. And about our favourite traditions ( spoiler alert: revolves around food). But for now, I'm wondering, is there anything you might try differently this year to take the emphasis off the gift list? And any advice for neutralizing the grandparents effect?

Birth from the perspective of a midwifery student (conference presentation)

A month ago I had the honour of making a presentation at the Ontario Student Midwives Conference at Ryerson University.  As a midwifery student, currently on maternity leave, it was a great opportunity to reconnect with old friends, and meet in-person virtual friends.  It was also a tough place to be given the tenuous position I have as an actual student (more on that another time), and given my topic.  I had submitted two proposals and both were accepted.  One, was an editorial piece I've been working on for a while but a presentation I didn't actually get a chance to make due to a mini family crisis when my 3 year old dislocated her elbow! The other, was this piece below, one that I cried when writing but somehow managed to get through without crying.  Though, I made many of my fellow classmates tear up. Keep in mind, this was written to be spoken, and to be listened to for about ten minutes so it is long and the tone may be a little different from my "blog" writing.

Being a midwifery student is hard work.  Maybe harder then we thought it would be.  Maybe not.  Those of us who are mamas have so much to re-learn, how to see things from the other side, how not to interject every five minutes with “During my births…in my pregnancy…when I was breastfeeding’  and those who aren’t mamas have to learn that they are not at a disadvantage so stop feeling like that and move on!  I do remember, in my first year, during With Woman actually, thinking, how amazing it would be to have all of this information before having a baby.  To be able to tap into all of these extra resources, and wealth of knowledge.  Um, yeah, not so much.

As I was preparing to write this presentation I spoke (aka, Facebook’d) with a few mamas from the program.  They had vastly different experiences from me and from each other.  Planned home birth.  Planned hospital birth.  Things went according to plan.  They didn’t feel like they’d had any amount of pressure or expectations as an MEPer.  Maybe it was just me then? And then I read an amazing paper by one of my classmates.  She had looked into the experience of giving birth as a birth professional.  Of the women she had surveyed, all of them a birth professional of one kind or another, many had felt that there was a certain expectation around the kind of birth they were going to have, felt that there knowledge both helped and hindered them, and that it was hard to not be in control. 

Now, I’m a planner.  To a fault.  But I had worked really hard at not having a birth plan, though every one does to a certain extent.  I felt I had learned a lot about myself, my body, the way I give birth, and my babies during my first two pregnancies and births and during this pregnancy.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, I would come to learn a lot more about myself.

My girls...and Mark like to dress up as Superheroes. And as a mama you feel like one. I obviously have an innate power, two really: the ability to incubate and nurture a human life inside my very own body and the awesomeness that is lactating boobs!

So when things went a little sideways with my planned home birth I felt like Supergirl faced with kryptonite. Actually no, I wasn't on the ground squirming in pain, I was more like WonderWwoman being harnassed by her own lasso. In case you don't know, that's her main weakness.

  

I initially though of this analogy to bring some humor to my story, keep myself from crying, but the more I thought about it the more accurate it seemed. As a mama-midwifery student aka Wonder Woman, it was my own knowledge that was tying me up and forcing me into the ambulance and to the hospital. From a midwifery student perspective, that was the ultimate villain's lair. But from a regular mama perspective, it was the extra knowledge, the extra help from fellow students, the "extra" that was tying me up and imprisoning me in my decisions.

You see, non midwifery types, still amazing mamas of three, Breastfeeding, baby wearing, loving their kids mamas, they did not understand why I was so defeated at having given birth in a hospital and having stayed there for 23.5 hours. They understood that it had not been part of the plan; but these women, whom I didn't know all that well, simply said " but you made the right decision for your baby. You didn't really have a choice. Not one where one or more of the outcomes would have been acceptable.". My friends, the students, they all had a lot of different things to say. Sympathy instead of empathy, sorrow instead of support, shock instead of agreement.

So why didn’t I have a homebirth? Poop.  I suppose the more appropriate way to say it, is that there was meconium.  A lot of it.  Thick, pea soup sludge seeping into the birthing pool. 

And the reason I had to stay at the hospital was a GBS positive screen with insufficient amount of antibiotics administered prior to delivery. And here’s what I have to say to my fellow midwifery students:  Stop.  Stop thinking about the odds ratios, the research, the facts, the myths, and the alternatives.  As your classmate, I know now, and knew then all of that information. But what I also knew, was that the institution I gave birth in had a mandatory 24-hour stay policy for mamas and newborns with a GBS positive screen or they would call CAS. 

CAS.  These three little letters.  Letters every parent – good or bad – dreads hearing.  Imagine, if you will, having just given birth to a beautiful, perfect little girl.  A beautiful birth.  An emotional high.  Conflicting emotions – the “wrong” kind of feelings are bubbling below the surface but you are pushing them down as you stare into the eyes – are they hazel?  Are they brown? – of your daughter.  Your midwives doing post partum things.  Your partner, leaning over you and your babe, kissing your head, pushing back your hair.  And all of a sudden arrangements are being made for you to stay overnight.  It doesn’t matter that the odds of your baby being affected by GBS are 1 in 300 to 1 in 1000.  It doesn't matter that you had some IV antibiotics.  You are free to go.  But if you check your beloved newborn out against medical orders, you will awake to Children’s Aid Society at your doorstep.  Now, consider again all of the informed choice, research, self-rightousness, strength, mama-bear protectiveness of not just your two older girls sleeping soundly at home, but of this new life you have never been away from.  And imagine, for a full minute, the idea of a stranger holding that baby and seriously considering that you are unfit.  

Being a midwifery student can really screw with your head and your heart sometimes and this was one of those times.  I knew my baby was fine, and safe.  I knew what to look for.  I knew the odds.  I knew my rights.  And I knew that my girls were going to wake up and be surprised at best, heartbroken at worst, that I wasn't there with the new baby.  But none of that compares to the even the most remote possibility of having to deal with CAS bureaucracy within the first 24 hours of my newborn’s existence.  I mean, honestly, I wasn't planning on letting the grandparents in the door!

As I prepared for this presentation I was searching for images and I came across the cover for a children's book about homebirth. And I came across gorgeous waterbirth photographs including ones of mamas with all of their children clambering to look at the newest sibling. And looking at these images, breaks my heart.  Every. Single. Time.  And there is no excuse for it.  When I speak to my partner, when I go over my story, when I speak to other mamas who aren't in the midwifery circle, it’s not really a big deal.  I had a beautiful labour.  I had a beautiful birth.  But most importantly, I had a beautiful baby girl.  But the fact that I read that damn book every single night for months, watched homebirth videos, and practiced birthing sounds and positions with my girls – all for nothing, that breaks my heart.  And, you can argue that they are young so they are fine.  To which I say, my middle monkey, she had to be reminded that we got to keep our baby.  And my oldest monkey who saw the middle one born, was also heartbroken and angry and we had a good long cry about it together. It’s hard to hear about other people’s wonderful water births with their children present because I didn't get that.  But that’s the midwifery student in me.  The mama in me, is grateful for having three healthy daughters.

 Sometimes I think that I’m not going to ever fully get over disappointing my girls by not having a homebirth for them.  And then, Mark reminds me that my girls are six and under and that sometime much sooner than I would like I will disappoint them in what appears to be a frivolous way to me – like, saying no to an Abercrombit Fitch sweatshirt, or to party they want to go to – and that will be the moment that sticks with them not that they missed Baby C’s birth. So, while many mamas probably dread the conflict of the teen years, I say, bring it on, it will totally  help me heal!  

So what does it mean to give birth while an MEP student? And what doesn’t it mean?

• Maybe because I wasn’t in Clinical Skills with my peeps, it didn’t result in numerous belly palpations, pulse takings, fundal measurements or fetascope listenings.
• It did mean that during Bruce’s lecture when he put up the graph of oral contraception – the one explaining why you have to take your pill at the same time every morning – even if you just hosted the end of the year party and your children aren't home to wake you up - that 50% of the class will turn around to shoot you a knowing look, and laugh.
• It does mean that at least twice you will be told you are huge and you will wonder how a future midwife feels like that’s an okay thing to a pregnant woman
• It does mean that you have a plethora of information –far more than even a well educated mama
• It means that you have expectations of being with a midwife, most likely a doula, that you will not freak out, that you will not request pain relief,
• It does mean when you go for your ultrasound and the technician makes assumptions about your sexual orientation, your desire to have the baby, the man in the suit being your husband, you hear Nadya’s voice in your head gently reminding you how you should never ever make those assumptions.
• It may or may not mean that you will cook and serve a delightful vegan meal for a dozen or so of your closest friends and family who all invade your house immediately.  Personally I came home and crammed my belly full of braised pork shoulder curry and rice.  And a Strongbow. And didn’t let anyone in the door for 48 hours.
• It means that when you are stuck in the hospital bed checking your facebook, one of your school friends will notice that you are at the same hospital she is making rounds in and will be the first to visit you.
• It means you can argue with the pediatrician and convince her to let you leave the hospital early.
• But it also means the L&D nurse will call you “one of them” for not letting her bathe your baby.
• It means that when you are forced to make a quick decision, it’s no longer impulse nor even informed choice that is guiding you, but information overload, and graphic visuals, anecdotes,  facts and figures clouding your brain.  And that no matter which way you lean, someone you go to school with, will offer their unsolicited opinion telling you that it was a misinformed decision.  And they do so because of the information in their head, not as a judgment, but it comes out very much as a judgment and a sentence “Guilty of not fulfilling the MEP student edict of perfect home birth!”  "Guilty of allowing the institution to dictate what you could do!"  "Guilty of submitting to the will of non-midwives!” 
• It doesn't mean that any of your decisions would have been different. Because you are a mama first.
• It doesn't mean that you are at a disadvantage.
• It doesn't mean that you are being judged.
• It doesn't mean that you failed in some way.  Unless you know, you actually failed.  But despite my hormone addled brain, I managed to pull off decent to hey-not-bad grades in my courses!
• It does mean that you will receive lots of love from wonderful women who will make the trek all the way to Mississauga just to visit you and your girls.

Baby C is my baby Hulk.  That is to say, she’s a happy baby, until she's not.  (And you don't want to make her angry.) Which is to say she is perfectly healthy.  Ultimately, there is no guarantee that she would have been had I stood my ground and not gone to the hospital.  But just looking at her, while she nurses, or laughs, or yells at the floor for not letting her defy gravity, I can’t say that I would make any decision differently except for – and this is the most contentious issue – maybe, just maybe, planning on a hospital birth.  If I’d planned a hospital birth with my girls present then they would have been there for the birth.  But, that wasn't really the images and experience I wanted for them, for me, for us.  R has one homebirth under her belt already, and while L will never get to see a sibling being born at home, neither will Baby C just by being the baby.  But, I figure most of my friends and classmates are younger then me and a few of them will probably have babies of their own one day – so hopefully, they can witness that.  You don’t mind do you ladies? 

An open letter to Deb Matthews, Ontario Minister of Health

This past Friday marked two years since Ontario Midwives started negotiations for a new contract with the Ontario government. They started talks almost six months before their contract expired. The end date of the contract came and went at 11:59om March 31, 2011.
Did the midwives abruptly stop catching babies? No.
Did they transfer care of their clients? No.
Did they stop taking clients due after that day? No.
Have midwives, in fact, gone on to catch 25,000(!!!) babies and care for them and their mamas? Yes.
Have midwifes rallied to support refugee healthcare? Yes.
Have they faced obstacles and red tape when trying to gain practice privileges in hospitals across the province and yet continued to care for as many pregnant women as their limited numbers allow? Yes.
Have midwives rallied and successfully petitioned for birth centres in Ontario because that is what their clients need and want? Yes.
Have midwives saved the provincial government thousands of dollars in healthcare costs by supporting low risk births at home; supporting women and their families in successful breastfeeding; providing postpartum care to mothers and babies? All proven methods of health cost savings measures and long term positive effects? Yes.
Have midwives cut back the number of clients they accept or their 24-7 availability? No.
Have midwives changed their model of care to support more clients for more billable hours in order to manipulate the system? No!
Midwives in Ontario continue to provide care to women, newborns, and their families at the utmost professional level with knowledge, compassion, and integrity.
Midwives do not bring to the table the personal costs of their profession, their passion; but rather, they are asking for a fair and just evaluation of the work they do, the positive impact they have, and in politico speak: the effect they have on the bottom line!
On Friday, a social media campaign was launched to ask you, the Ontario Minister of Health to resume negotiations and come #backtothetable with @ontariomidwives. Photographs of babies born without a contract, pregnant bellies due without a contract, and midwifery students getting ready to enter the workforce without a contract were sent to the minister via twitter. Over 140 retweets plus 130 original tweets were sent in addition to countless emails, Facebook messages, and the viewing of a photo gallery video peaked at over 1000 by the end of the weekend.
And your response, which can only be interpreted as trite at best, passive-aggressive at worst, was a tweet sent late Sunday saying "Thx 4 tweets.Midwifery is catching.Birthing centres and even more midwives providing care to moms, dads, and babes."
Really? Really? You (Deb Matthews) take two minutes to send a tweet that your PR team probably drafted and then resent because it promotes midwifery in some lame backhanded way and point out that birthing centres are coming? Did you even read ONE of the messages that was sent to you? I mean for pete's sake they were 140 characters or less!! And they all said more or less the same thing, which was, to reiterate: GET BACK TO THE TABLE and renegotiate the long expired contract for Ontario midwives. This is your domain is it not? Mr.McGuinty's resignation is not a factor here, because let's be honest Deb Matthews, you are not the Liberal party's next provincial leader. And if you were, perhaps having 500+ midwives, their clients, their partners, their clients' partners (and FYI, that's partners not just "dads"!), and families, and all of the current and hopeful midwifery students...having all of these people on your side because you managed to finalize a new contract, might be a good thing. I'm just spitballing here, but that seems like a significant number of people to have on your side, or the side of the Liberal party in general. Or, maybe you thought it was ok because those 25,000 babies born since the contract expired can't vote yet. But that's a pretty significant number of babies who won't be there to kiss for an election photo op!
Get back to the table Health Minister. You wouldn't work under uncertain conditions, our doctors, nurses, orderlies, and administrators don't. Ontario Midwives deserve the same amount of respect and compensation. Passion and dedication motivates midwives to work; please, show a modicum of both for your ministry of which midwives are an essential part.
Oh, and for the record, sending a tweet on a Sunday night isn't going to fly under the radar. Technology is odd like that, it's available 24-7. Much like midwives.