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Blind Science
Scientific proof - it is all we care about. We paid much time and money to learn this, therefore; it must be more valuable than anything we can learn with an investment of less time and money. It justifies the ever spiraling costs of our practice. This is ...
Having It All: Why Some People Make the Leap--and Others Don't
Kids dream of a peaceful life where people are happy and healthy. Children can’t wait to grow up to be free to do whatever they want. Kids play in a world of unlimited opportunity where anything is possible. Children’s natural passion is to live to the ...
Helping Caregivers Get Comfortable Asking For Help
Becoming a care giver might not have been a conscious decision on your part. It may have arrived quietly and unnoticed because you are the adult child of your elderly parents who now require care or you may have a special needs child that exacts your ...
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I think she must have seen that life is hard.
I was born nearly thirty years ago to a mother younger than I am now. The child my mother birthed before me had been a c-section and thus my path was set long before I ever materialized. I was a planned c-section, as was the custom in the early seventies among women who had previous caesarean deliveries. My parents picked my birthday and planned
accordingly. Their elder child was well taken care of; bags were packed and ready for the weeklong hospital stay; the house locked and pet sitters arranged. My mother was prepped for surgery and wheeled into an operating room. Conscious but sluggish, she held my father’s hand as the men in green scrubs set about their work. My mother’s body was sliced open to reveal a sleeping infant, jarred awake to the bright lights and cold hands of the ob ward. Their baby was whisked away to be cut and cleaned and wrapped in a blanket, then stored in the nursery with all the other luggage. This was in direct contrast to their plan of holding a wriggling and greasy newborn before the cord was even severed, but beyond their control. Despite protestations, I was transferred immediately to the nursery where I commenced to demonstrate my clearly healthy lungs with screams that began the moment I was born and lasted for days, until I was finally reunited with my mother.
There is a silver lining to the story of my birth, and that is the story of Ruby Jane’s birth. My mother gave birth four times before I felt my first contraction, and each time was a lesson to me. So this becomes the story of two births, a story to say how one birth grows out of another. For a quarter century I had heard my mother tell the story of my birth, cold and surgical. I had listened to her recount my days in the nursery, her heroic attempts to drag her broken body across the maternity ward and lift me from my screams. I ache to think of a mother so far from her baby. I do not remember, but I feel it in my gut. And in the collective consciousness that is me and my mother, I learned to help my baby into this world with kindness and warmth.
About the Author
Abigail Is 29 years old and lives in Southern California with her daughter Ruby Jane. Her writing has appeared in Loving Mama: Essays on Natural Childbirth and Parenting, on Mothering magazine's website and also in the periodical Growing Up In Santa Cruz.
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Plans for Woodlands eldercare centre to proceedStraits TimesThe decision to go ahead came even as a voluntary welfare organisation launched an online petition to make people aware of the need for elder-care services and garner support for such centres. The petition - 'Say yes to eldercare services' - was ... |
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Dealing with eldercare causes relationship stressSacramento BeeBy JUDI LIGHT HOPSON, EMMA H. HOPSON AND TED HAGEN Are you worried about issues related to your aging parents? Maybe you're in the "sandwich generation," caring for both your children and your parents at the same time. If so, you need to create support ...and more » |
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