#Mamavation Monday: Changing Lives

First let me apologize for not blogging for Mamavation for so long.  My doctoral classes have been kicking my butt and when it is not kicking me, I'm just so brain dead I feel like I have no brain power to blog.  Anyways I'm here!

So the question of the week is what have I done to positively impact my family?  The number one thing I did was have a homebirth.  This isn't an ad for homebirth or about one type of birth being better than another.  Simply put it was the single most life changing decision I've made that still has a positive impact today.

What about that decision has been so impactful?  It spiraled my life for the better.  I know having a child in general can do that but if I reflect back on my life and my attitude toward life before my homebirth, I almost don't recognize myself.

The homebirth led to breastfeeding.  The breastfeeding led to discovering my daughter's wheat allergy.  That lead to going gluten-free which led to eating better then to being active in label reading and finding information on GMOs and trying to go green.  For me it all started with being welcomed into the "crunchy" community via my homebirth.  I wasn't green or hippy-ish before the homebirth and the homebirth community opened my eyes to the importance of the what goes into my body.

The homebirth also changed my outlook on myself.  I felt stronger afterward.  I felt like I could do anything since I had pushed a baby out in my living-room.  I felt more like the woman I was always meant to be and as a result I feel like I live stronger.  As the mother of a daughter, I want my daughter to see being a woman is about being strong and that we can do anything we want.  I don't want to be the do as I say not as I do sort of person so I must show her strength and not just talk about it.

To me this is were Mamavation fits into my life.  I learn about strength, both physical and spiritual, from my fellow Sistas!  Mamavation has given me tools for greening my life as well as working out.  I love that I can turn to the Sistahood when I'm feeling weak.  When I need extra support or just a safe place to bitch.  I love the Sistahood and before my homebirth I would have never reached out to join so yes, my homebirth changed everything for me and my family.

Birth goddess

I am a birth goddess.  I am tired of people telling me that I'm not. 

So where do I even start.  I had a homebirth.  I had no medication.  I had no doctor at my DD's birth.  DH almost didn't call the midwife in time because I was convinced that I wasn't in labor yet.  DD was just under 7 lbs.  I'm thinking I had about 12 hours of active labor but again the pain only got overwhelming during transition.  I am a birth goddess.

So why do people feel the need to poopoo my birth?  I tell them I had an amazing homebirth and then I tell them that DD was almost 7 lbs and then I get the hand.  "Oh well my baby was 8 lbs so I had to have pain meds."  I am not competing with you or your birth.  You feel like you had to have pain meds, okay.  Your body your choice, I have no clue what you were going through so I believe you. 

It makes me mad that people want to diminish my birth.  I had to push DD out.  It would not have matter if she was 10 lbs; she was coming out.  One way out during a homebirth so I was going to birth until she arrived.  I have met many a mom who birthed a 10 lb at home.  I remember I once asked my midwife if it was true that more homebirth babies were over 8lbs.  In her experience, homebirth babies were bigger. 

I get mad and then I feel bad for them.  Like maybe they are just trying to justify their own birth to themselves.  If they put me down then they feel better.  I don't want to feel bad for them.  I mean their birth is/was their birth.  But I feel bad because I feel like most of them didn't choose but were told how to birth.  I know TV shows birth as all pain but dude thrush was worse than birth.  My bursitis was worse than birth.  So I am a birth goddess.  Just had to get it off my chest.

It is amazing what you can do when you don't have a choice

So I've heard it so many times, "I couldn't do it.  I have no idea how you . . . "

The . . . can be just about anything in my life.  The wheat-freeness, breastfeeding a toddler, babywearing, co-sleeping, or the homebirthing.  I think in this country we have been TV fed the idea that we can't do things.  We can't wear a baby it's not safe you must have a stroller.  Breastfeeding, why would you do that when you can just give the baby formula.  Home birth, are you stupid?  Only a doctor is qualified to deliver a baby.  You'll die without an epidural; you can't handle the pain.  Why do we buy into all of those things?  It is amazing how powerful we are as humans, as women, as moms. 

Now I'll admit that I have chosen my crunchy wheatfree life.  Yes, I could have gone to the hospital and had an epidural.  Yes, I can stop breastfeeding and kill a hamburger.  Yes, she would cry but I could move Miss Audrey to her own bed.  Why not buy a stroller?  These are choices that I have made and therefore I am choosing to live my life this way.  But what about things that you don't have a choice about?

I have a friend who had PUP, which if you don't know what it is Google it.  She actually told me that she didn't know how I live wheat-free.  I am in awe of her.  She had PUP and let her baby be born on his own time.  Most women with PUP have an induction at 38 weeks, the stress on the body and the mental strain are incredible.  She ended up going for almost 42 weeks, a full month more than the norm.  She is incredible!  If she can do that she can do anything.  Makes going wheat-free seem so small.

So what can we do if we 'have' to?  People have super human strength when they need to save their child.  We are amazing creatures.  You could go wheat-free.  It's not that hard.  People are doing it for fun.  If your health depended on it, you could do it.  Don't even get me started on the crunchy life.  Trust me you can do it.  Life is all about choices.  My choices are my own and yes they are not for everyone but just because you didn't doesn't mean you couldn't. 

When you stop fighting . . .

So people who don't know me very well are always asking me about my homebirth.  "How in the world did you do that?"  My response is always the same, "When I stopped fighting the pain, the pain went away." 

Saturday, DH and I had a long talk about our current &  future wheat-less life.  He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "When you stop fighting the pain of being wheatless, it will become normal."  He's right.  Now that I've stopped fighting being wheat-less, I am finding it easier to be wheatless.  I'm actually okay with the idea of being wheatless for the rest of my life.

So I guess everything I ever needed to learn I learned during my homebirth.  Okay not really but still, there is a big life lesson.  Stop fighting and go with the flow.  Trust that everything will be okay; trust that if you let go, it can be okay.  As a friend of mine always says, "Let go and Let God."