a doula story

I'm watching this movie right now, and my internet is slow so I have to keep pausing and waiting for it to load - so I'll take the time to pass it on here.

It's the story of a doula working with black teenage mothers in Chicago. While I wouldn't choose the birthing options that she does (hospital birth, medication), I can relate as a teenage mother myself. Unlike a lot of the young mothers in this film, I had great family support and my mom was with me through the whole experience. Rather than having a doula support me and go with me to the hospital when labor began, I had my wonderful midwives who met me at the birth center and took care of me throughout the entire process - acting as doula during labor, catching my baby as she was born, staying with me until I was ready to go home, and coming to my house every few days afterwards to check on us.

What runs through the film is that what young pregnant mothers need is love, trust, and most of all just being - being with them when they need it, not leaving when they're scared, listening when they need to talk, and talking when they need to listen. This is what teaches them how to be a mother. The word 'midwife' means 'with woman.' When you are with the woman, you are not only helping to bring a baby into the world, but bringing a mother into the world as well.

winter's here

Yep. Solstice is still... 19 days away, but I guess mother nature doesn't really take that into account anyways. This morning it was 23 degrees out, and it didn't seem to get any warmer during the day either, Sophie and I had to run some errands and it took me about 5 minutes to pry my frozen car door open.

After we managed to get the windshield scraped and the doors open, we headed over to the library where we found this book -

<--- (that's it)

which I think is super cool and which Sophie shows minimal interest in. She did like the page with the fish (FISH! FISH!) though. All of the illustrations are made with food - very cool.

We spent almost a whole hour at the library - it's just about the perfect place to spend a winter day, I guess. Sophie took all the puzzles off the shelves and took all the pieces out of all the puzzles. She took all the stuffed animals off of their chairs and rearranged them. She unstacked all of the shopping baskets (why does the library have shopping baskets?). Then she started pulling all of the bookends off of the shelves and making the books all fall over, but that's where I draw the line. Then we had to start the whole process over; as soon as I had all the puzzles put back together and put away, and started on the stuffed animals, out came the puzzles again. Finally I distracted her with the HUGE stuffed dog in the corner, which she loved. She took off her coat and snuggled right up to it... I think she was happy that it didn't get up and walk away like Daisy always does.

In other news, everyone's been sick around here - it seems like a never-ending thing lately. I haven't taken either dog for a walk in weeks, poor babies. First, a few weeks ago now, I got the flu; and then I developed reactive arthritis in my hand; and then Sophie got hand foot and mouth disease; and then both my parents got this horrible chest cold; now I have it; and now Sophie's acting like she's getting it too! Ah, well. This too shall pass, right?

This semester is almost over and I'm so, so looking forward to having a break. I've already registered for next semester's classes and even though I'm taking less credits next semester than I did this semester, it seems like it'll be a heavier class load, especially since all three of my classes will be on campus. I'm definitely going to need to find some child care, but I'm excited because after this next semester is over, I'm all set to enter the nursing program in 2010 - that is, if I get in. They only accept the top ten students. Fingers crossed!



In spite of it being finals next week and having term papers to write and finals to study for... I've still been making time for knitting (staying up way too late, mostly). It just feels so good to curl up with a mug of hot chocolate, yarn, and needles. And a dog or two.

I just made Rachel Iufer's Robin's Egg Blue Hat today, it knit up super fast. I'll have to take a picture soon and put it up. I will definitely knit at least one more, but probably a lot more than that! It went by super fast, and it's really cute. For this first one I used cream-colored yarn of unknown origin and fiber, but I've got some of her recommended Paton's Shetland Chunky in the stash to knit it up for gifts.

Can you believe that it's almost Christmas already?!

happy obama day!

Thank you, America! I think I'm almost proud to be an American again... now we just have to deal with Senator Stevens.

hey sarah palin

I couldn't have said it better!

birth stories

check out www.birthdiaries.com - i totally got sucked in last night in the homebirth section.

10,000 b.c.

we went to a movie last night with some of dwaynes friends - 10,000 BC. it was pretty good... it started at 6:30 so it wasn't too late for ms. sophie even though she was a little bit fussy. the previews for it made it look different, with more prehistoric cool creatures and stuff. but it was still good.

i think the time change has really thrown sophie for a loop. it's only an hour so you wouldn't think it would, but she refused to take any naps yesterday and i just put her down for a nap but i can hear her in there talking. she has been sleeping through the night again though, thank goodness! i'm so tired lately that i couldn't handle it if she kept waking up.

yesterday we went on an adventure at seven falls - it was pretty cool, but most of the trails were closed for the winter still. we went up some stairs to the waterfall and it was hard work! my legs are sore today! i made dwayne carry sophie :)... here are some pictures:




well i just went and got sophie out of her crib, she wouldn't take a nap. but she just now started waving at dwayne!! it's so cute!