This was our first time taking our Lou outside, two chilly December mornings after his quiet water birth in our kitchen.
Our midwife (a quality she will never lose when given an introduction) is retiring after this year. I just couldn't feel any more honored to have been one of the many families that Birthroot Midwifery helped (for both sons' births.) Jennifer Creel is a sassy lady, with endless invaluable knowledge (she's kind of a science genius) of pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding that she now pours into her natural parenting store, Terra Tots. She will be moving on from doing the tireless service that midwives provide for expectant families, to providing this really amazing community place where people can learn and shop and be supported. Where not only can you purchase high quality tried and true cloth diapers, baby wearing apparatuses, non-toxic toys, organic apparel, and herbals from the apothecary, there is an abundance of information that is vital for new families. Education is really at the heart of this lady's life work. Without her, and without the care she gave us surrounding the birth of our family- and does still today, she taught us SO. MUCH- we wouldn't be the parents we are today.
If you had told me 10 years ago, "Nico, you are going to give birth twice at your house and go on to breastfeed for a collective 54 months (and going)" I'd have asked you to share some of whatever it was you were smoking.
I didn't see a lot of breastfeeding growing up. I had a lot of younger siblings who were all born at the hospital (one of which I witnessed at age 12, at a birth center.) It wasn't until I un-expectantly became pregnant for the first time at age 22 with a guy I had not been with for very long, that a nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood (who would 8 years later, attend the birth of my second son) told me about midwives, home birth, and la leche league. The care for that pregnancy was very limited. The situation wasn't ideal, and I was very unprepared and overwhelmed. I felt terrible: headaches, cramps, malaise- not the typical pregnancy symptoms- like something wasn't right. I sobbed to nurses at an OB clinic, begging to let me see a doctor and they would not see me until after the first trimester because I was using state insurance, and was sent away. I miscarried at the Emergency Room just before the end of that first trimester and even then, no one could tell me that that was what was happening. They said "threatened" "take advil" "come back in a few days" "bloodwork." Years later, I found myself researching and deducted that what had occurred was a blighted ovum, wishing the medical workers might have offered more information. When I returned to the same OB's office where I had begged to be seen, I was encouraged to use a birth control that led to some pretty adverse emotional side effects and when I asked the doctor about the risks of taking the prescription, he told me pointblank that "the biggest risk to you, right now, is a healthy pregnancy." I never returned.
Somehow, through friends, I learned that the nurse practitioner, Paula, that I loved to see at Planned Parenthood had started independently caring for women out of Birthroot Midwifery, which would be where I would eventually receive prenatal care with, Jennifer, for both of my sons' pregnancies.
The office was referred to as "the Hut" which always evoked a very primitive image, but when I began to visit for lady-care, I found that it is, in fact, a small professional clinic. When you enter, the room is open with a large comfy couch, a rocking chair and a recliner, communally arranged in the center of the room with a kitchen area stocked with every kind of herbal tea you might desire, and that brightly colored post prandial test glucose beverage. There is a tall shelf of lending library of books, next to a child's play area of wooden trains. There are belly casts on the walls, a few potted plants, and a local artist's tribute to Jennifer's second child, Elleya, who left the physical world at age 4. There is a layer-chicken coop just outside the sliding glass doors. There are two exam rooms with certificates hanging on the walls, alongside black and white images of birth scenes and beautiful postpartum bodies. There is a phlebotomy station and there are biohazard containers. There are fetal heart dopplers and ultrasound transmission oil, as well as fetoscopes and stethoscopes. There are finger pricks for blood glucose and hemoglobin monitoring, and there is a microscope with wet mount slides. There is a full bathroom with a scale and urinalysis reagent strips, there are latex gloves and charts and blood pressure cuffs, there is experience and knowledge and love and care within those walls, and in the corner of the open room are hundreds of photos and cards of babies and families that Jennifer has helped over the 16+ years that she has served as a midwife.
The Midwife Model of care is a very family centered, empowering one. In essence, the family is encouraged to have an active role in the outcome of their birth experience. No question is turned away, and the midwives do their best to listen, educate and to honor the wishes of the family. We were always encouraged to learn about the birth process as well as the postpartum period, and make preparations for both the best possible and the least ideal scenarios, an area obstetrician backing it all. Our visits were the better part of (and sometimes exceeding) an hour and we were provided natural childbirth classes that were immensely informative. (They actually offer natural childbirth classes at Terra Tots, now!)
Midwives leave their families and are sometimes gone for days at a time helping women welcome their babies. They miss birthdays, and Christmases and school plays and soccer games, they sleep on floors and don't bathe for days. They stay for the hard parts, and see the best and the worst, all while putting the mother and baby before themselves. They have to be their best selves when they are teetering on the edge- and they have to reel it in and push through, and go home to their families who miss and need them too. Their hearts break when things don't go the way everyone imagined, and do their best to support however they can. They are people who are expected to be faultless, and they dig deep, and they do incredible things. They serve their communities while educating, empowering families, and changing lives. Lives like mine.
Thank You, Jennifer. We Love You.
Happy National Midwifery Week.
xo~ N
