Last week I was forced to pay a visit to my doctor. Well, it is quite an happening to me because I am always fine - thank God! - and I really do believe in the old saying: “An Apple a Day, Keeps the Doctor Away!”. Anyway, perhaps the Apples are not what they ‘re used to be, so… I was caught by a virus that works on our psychologic system and it seems that make us feel fragile as if we were sad or going through an emotional pain… Quite weird, actually!

So, there I was, trying to explain to my Doctor - who rarelly seems me - my “je ne ces’t quois” symptoms, feeling awkward for not knowing very well what was happening to me. On that day, there as a trainee doctor with him and he was explaining - during the time it was with me - what he was doing, why, and the decisions he was taking. But, on the other hand, he included me on the training…

My doctor was explaining to the trainee and to me that he had been on a Conference the day before, doing a presentation to students of the 9th grade to whom will be asked to choose a career path, by the end of this school term. So he explained the positive aspects of being a Doctor but he also preapared themselves - without scaring but encouraging them - to the less positive ones.

In Portugal, a Family doctor - the so called general medical practitioner - has 12 minutes for a Patient Visit. Can you imagine? How do you listen, examine, talk to and specially explain a Patient the reasons why he does not feel good and the reasons why he has to see the Doctor?…  How do you explain and prepare a patient that is about to know that has a Cancer? Ou that he or she has Diabetes and that the daily routines are going to change for the rest of the patient’s life?… How do you deal with feelings and fragile minds on particular moments in… 12 minutes?…

Well, this is not very sexy for an young doctor due to the stress caused by the amount of patients a doctor sees per day, in general. Quick responses in such a short period and controled time is just simply terrible when it comes to human lives. But my Doctor - whom I did not see very often - surprised me with such an emotional inteligence to deal with these situations while he was telling the trainee his experience in dealing with Time trying not to scare at all but confronting him with the naked  reality of these times where the Healthcare Systems are now ruled my Managers instead of Doctors.

Even being highly experienced and emotionally able to deal with these and even other higher stressfull situations, mistakes are expected to happen. And when it comes to human lives… there’s no Time for escuses!

Slow Regards from Lisbon,

Birdie

As a doula, I promise my pregnant clients that I will always tell them the truth about what’s happening to them during pregnancy and labour. But, I must admit that I do downplay things during prelabour. Now, this is only to help them make it through the crazy unexpected early stuff that really, REALLY, isn’t labour.  You see, pregnant bodies don’t know that we have a 21st century brain that’s trying to analyze, predict, and time this whole thing.  So, that’s why I just ask clients to shut that part of their brain down. Slow it down.

I call this the slow denial phase of labour.

Too often, people have a TV image of labour - your water dramatically breaks SPLASH! in a grocery store, off you speed to hospital, get the expensive drugs, and the baby is born (in a compressed time-frame) on the bed (surrounded by gowned and gloved anonymous people and beeping machines). This may be what 90% of births are like, but they’re not the kind of births that I see. Honest. My clients dare to think in an old-fashioned “head in the sand” kind of way. They live in denial. This is Slow Birth at its best.

Grandmas-to-be call and inadvertently pressure their children, “Why aren’t you at the hospital yet?” Friends call and say, “I had my baby last month, and it was hell. Just go in now and get the drugs!” Labour will never progress with all those phone calls coming in. So, save yourself the stress, and record a new voicemail message that says, “No, we haven’t had the baby yet, and yes we’ll record the great news as soon as we have our baby!” Then, turn off the ringer, and live in denial. (Oh, and you can strap on your TENS machine at this time, if you like. Here in Canada, it’s just starting to catching on, but in Britain, it seems part of the birth package deal!)

Yep! Denial works! One woman had her mum over for lunch when she was in early labour, and didn’t even tell her. Then she headed out to rent a DVD, and planned to watch it that evening - and didn’t even believe it when I showed up and said, “Okay, let’s not deny this any longer - you’re really in labour. You’ll have your baby in the car if we don’t hurry!” (She had her baby a couple of hours later.) Denial worked so well for her (too well!) that we didn’t have to play that game when she had her second baby.

G had her baby the other week. Her “denial phase” started on Monday night. She called to say she was having mild cramps at 8:15pm. Now, I had a feeling that this might morph into labour, but I wanted her to be able to have a good night’s sleep. So, I said that this could become labour, but it also could just be part of the normal changes that occur in the last few weeks of pregnancy. “Deny it, have a lovely bath, then climb into bed,” I said. “This might stop, and the baby might not come for another week.” She answered, “I do denial well! Sounds good to me!”

The next morning, she called to say that she’d done a great job of denying the contractions through the night, and managed to sleep quite well. Yes, the contractions had come every 10-15-20 minutes, but she pretended that this was totally normal, and she didn’t waste any emotional energy on the contractions. By morning, she was feeling good, sounding bright and energized. Denial had given her a good night’s sleep.

To make sure that she didn’t have to do another night in labour, I suggested a good long bath after lunch. Her husband turned on music, and she had relaxed in the tub and chatted and laughed with her husband and sister. They made a great memory. They were living outside of time. “The bath was a turning point,” said her husband. They didn’t have to deny the labour any longer. After the relaxing bath, the contractions were 5 minutes apart and getting stronger and longer.

Have you noticed that this is a Slow Birth story? By playing the “denial game”, these women didn’t focus on time, and allowed the body to rest and do its thing at its own pace. These women were able to connect with their families, and rediscover that it’s okay to trust the body’s rhythm.

After the bath, after becoming so relaxed and soft, G’s labour began with strength and power. It wasn’t long before we all headed to the hospital. The denial phase had lasted about 18 hours. We didn’t count that as part of her labour. We started the official labour clock at 2pm. She started her labour happy, rested, emotionally strong, thanks to slow denial.

For the remaining 9 hours, denial changed to complete acceptance. She could just inhabit her labour and let it advance slowly, at its own place. She danced, bathed, lunged, yoga’d, bounced the ball, stomped her feet, and sang. She only had one medical assessment during all that time. No one declared her “fully dilated”, no one offered drugs, no one made her get on the bed - she just WAS in labour, without time, without judgement.

And her baby came with joy, her two feet planted on the ground. She was lovingly supported by one proud and amazed man, and four smiling women. Yes, she stood to have her baby, and clutched this little girl, called Lily, to her chest, laughing, “I don’t believe it!”

Slow Denial had worked its magic!

One thing that I love about working in the ‘birth business’ is that I don’t have a structured schedule. Mine is more like a feast or famine schedule - no babies for two weeks, then BAM! four babies in three days. It certainly makes for an entertaining life.

Babies come whenever they like, and they always seem to come in a clump. Yes, a clump. “Group” would be the wrong word. A group feels orderly, predictable. But a clump - well, that sounds like just the right word for how babies arrive in the world. They seem to get a signal that NOW! is the time, and they all come in a clump, all jumbled together, jostling for position.

I attended five births the other week - five glorious, slow births. These babies didn’t watch the clock (neither did their mums and dads and caregivers), and certainly didn’t concern themselves about my lack of sleep. These babies came in their own time - one gently in the water, one with her mum’s feet firmly planted on the ground, and a few with grand flourishes. But, they all came at their own pace - slowly, deliberately, safely. These babies taught us patience, and more than a few hard lessons.

So, when this recent clump had all arrived, I jumped at a chance to go with my husband on an impromptu visit to a small island close to our home. I didn’t have any babies due for a week or two, so I could breathe easy, and run away.

We walked onto the ferry as the sun set, and, fifty minutes later, walked off the ramp into the darkness, carrying our backpacks. We didn’t know exactly where the local Inn was, but the clerk had said, “You’ll find it.” We followed a woman who was pulling a suitcase on wheels, jittering over the rough road, hoping that she was going to the Inn. We might have been following her to her cabin, but we didn’t mind. We were living slowly.

Sure enough, she drew us through wrought-iron gates to the Galiano Inn, complete with cedar shakes, tall tree posts, and, through the door to a vaulted space with a stone fireplace. We had arrived.

The next morning, we woke up to see the sun rise over Mount Baker, watched the large ferries plough through Active Pass, and laced up our boots for the day’s walk. We had left our car, and our bikes, at home, opting for an even slower pace around the island. After breakfast, we walked to the Bluffs, explored the cedar forests, waved at llamas, watched the eagles soar, checked out the local organic food store, and, 15 miles later, returned to the Inn for a good soak and a read (about the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.)

The other people staying at the Inn spent their time in the spa having hot stone massages and facials. But, that’s not our style. So, we told the clerk that we’d be hiking to Montague Harbour. She had a quick intake of breath, “Oh, there’s some wicked hills! You’re walking? Really?” Being a mapmaker’s daughter, and daring enough to interpret those lines on the map, I took a guess and said, “Let’s head clockwise. I bet there’ll be less hills that way.”

Boy, am I glad we didn’t go the other way!!!

As it was, the hills were still a challenge. But, we just kept in mind that we were on foot, and not grinding our way up those hills on our bikes (or on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage!) We had time to stop, think, listen to the wind in the trees, watch the misty rain fall, feel it on our faces, wrap our scarves more tightly, gaze at the sandstone cliffs and the erratics at their feet. It took two hours to hike to the harbour, where we ate caraway cheese and stone fennel crackers on the shell beach. We didn’t meet any other pilgrims on our trail, just a lone cyclist on a 40 degree hill, pretending to be Lance Armstrong on Mont Ventoux.

After four hours on the hike, we could feel each muscle working to keep us going. No pain, just good hard work. Our legs seemed to work independently, keeping pace with each other. We held hands at times. We tucked out hands in our pockets when we needed. Then we saw the rain heading our way. It came as a mist bank, white and blanketing the hills. We knew there was a pot of tea close by, at the Market Cafe, and reached the cafe just as the downpour started. A roaring fire, four throbbing legs, two cups of tea, and chocolate. Slow hike rewards!

An hour passed, and the rain softened. We ran across the street to the locals’ trail to Sturdies Bay, only two kilometres away. This was our third passage of this trail, so we felt like we knew its secrets already, knew where the fern grove was, where the boggy sections were, where the people were gathering firewood, where we needed to take small steps to easily climb the steep sections. We felt like we belonged.

At the end of the trail, and around the corner, we treated ourselves to a visit to the local bookstore. It’s one of those places that has reviews glued to the shelves - “John’s pick”, “Jennie’s favourite”. I bought “French Toast: eating and laughing your way around France.” My husband bought “The Wisdom of Donkeys: finding tranquility in a chaotic world.” Two slow life books.

Later that night, after we’d left the island by ferry, and arrived home, fully refreshed, the stragglers of the baby clump decided to arrive. Two babies came over the next three days, one after the other. We’d only been home for five minutes when the first phone call came. “Jacquie, I think the baby’s coming!”

I smiled, changed out of my hiking boots, put on my birth gear, and headed out into the night. I loved our Slow Escape, but I also love Slow Birth (and those unpredictable clumps of babies!)

- Jacquie Munro, Slow Birth

My first flash-bulb memory of my dad comes from the day we moved into our family home in 1962. I remember sitting in the moving truck, looking at my legs, looking at the driver’s legs, my dad’s leg, then back to my legs. I willed my legs to grow long enough to hang over the edge of the seat, just like them.  I wanted to be as tall and big and strong as my dad. I was two. 

I’m as tall as my dad now (I passed my mum’s height in elementary school), but, I’ve sadly realized that I’m probably stronger than my dad.  I never thought of myself as stronger than my dad, until this week.

I have to be the one with the strength now…both physically and emotionally.

I can’t believe that it was only a week ago that I was researching the Slow Movement, and discovered a few references to “slow medicine”.   Ah, interesting, I thought - sounds a lot like what I’m doing with birth - focusing on reclaiming the rhythm of life, honouring the needs of the body, honouring the wishes of the family, and saying “No” to expensive, unnecessary procedures. 

Thanks to the researchers at Dartmouth Medical School, physicians are now being encouraged to practice slow medicine, by educating their patients and their families about the high risks and low rewards associated with high-tech medical care for the elderly.  Slow medicine can help families avoid the trauma of 911 calls and emergency room visits.  Slow medicine is more about comfort than cure.

Slow medicine allows the elderly to journey gently to the end of life.  Slow birth asks people to consider the autonomy and dignity of undisturbed birth or home birth.  Slow medicine asks people to consider the autonomy and dignity of home death.  Whether entering or leaving this life, the slow movement helps us to make these transitions with grace.

So, it was quite ironic (or perfect in its synchronicity) that, only a few days later, I sat with my mum and dad, the most amazing and loving couple that I’ve ever met, in the Krall Centre (a gift from Diana Krall and friends in memory of her mum), and listened to the hematologist say, “I’m sorry…acute myeloid leukemia…weeks to months…” He told us that, because the disease is so advanced, he wouldn’t suggest any aggressive treatment, but would offer supportive care.  I placed my hand on my dad’s knee, and felt him suppress a sob.

“Slow medicine?” I asked quietly.

“Yes.”

I don’t know if the doctor knows what slow medicine is, but he was gracious enough to follow my lead.  ”We really don’t know how long it will be. Live fully.”

“Can I still garden?  Paint?” asked my dad.

So, rather than undergoing any chemotherapy, which would make him so ill, my wonderful, strong dad is up in his studio today, working on a new watercolour.  He looks so young at 83.  His eyes sparkle with tears.  He calls himself Peter Pan - “I will live to 100.”

With the help of slow medicine, we will be able to help dad make this transition with dignity - telling stories, gardening, dancing, kayaking…and we will all be strong.

During our initial phone call, many first-time mums nervously giggle, then ask me if I can just order them a fast birth “and one epidural in the parking lot, please.” It sounds like a drive-through order.

“Why?” I ask myself. Really fast births don’t allow the body to churn out all those wonderful pain-relieving endorphins (boy, do you want them!) Fast births don’t allow any time for the brain to keep up with what the body is doing. Actually, my least satisfied client had a 45-minute labour and birth. She said, “I waited 40 years to give birth, and THAT’S IT??? It was so fast, I missed it!”

Fast births may increase your level of fear, resulting in a greater likelihood of heavy bleeding, and many other complications. And fast births certainly don’t allow any time for your order of “one epidural, please”, even in the parking lot.

So, what to do? Wouldn’t you rather have a birth that’s just right for you? Not too long, not too short, just right. Kind of like the chair, or the bed, or the porridge in The Three Bears. Just right.

Isn’t a lovingly prepared meal that’s simmered on the stove much better than fast food? It’s harder work, there’s some prep time needed, it takes more time to cook, but it’s SO worth it.

We’re given nine months to prepare for birth - a good long prep time. But so many people just fill that time with classes and shopping and renovations and new cars and new homes, and paint (always paint.) All this, for one tiny being who just wants a warm body to hold him, and a couple of breasts!

Women often forget to take long slow walks on the beach, doing the inner work of pregnancy. Old fears, habits, and family dynamics bubble up as each week progresses, and need to be addressed. After twenty-one years of attending births, I see that unresolved issues can often stop a labour in its tracks.

One woman made it easily to the pushing stage, then everything stopped. No matter what she did, there was no urge to push, nothing, for two hours. After a while, the doctor said, “We’ll just leave. You might be worrying about something, or have something to work through. Why don’t we leave you alone with your partner for a while? Just come get us when the baby’s coming.”

We were called back half an hour later. She had been holding onto a secret since the age of 15. Once she released the secret to her partner, the baby came in just a few pushes.

The hormones at play during late pregnancy and labour have taken millions of years to develop to perfection. Hormones soften the body, making the joints feel like they are attached only by elastic bands. The uterus becomes more responsive, letting each woman know if she’s done too much that day, or not had enough water to drink. Women start to wake up more frequently in the middle of the night, in preparation for those moonlit nights with the baby.

The baby is an active partner in the birth, burrowing and stretching. One woman the other day said that she kept imagining a cartoon mole, pressing and wiggling deeper. Other women have said it feels like a pearl diver, pushing off the side of a rock, diving deeper.

Each labour takes as long as the body needs. Time is needed to allow the hormones to work, in concert, undisturbed. If there’s a slow beginning to labour, the body has its own reason, or the mind is keeping a lid on things.

Yesterday’s birth was another amazing story of trust and slowness and, ultimately, surrender. (Months earlier, she had been interested in that epidural in the parking lot, but she had educated herself, and now she wanted a slow birth.) She started to feel things a few days before the baby finally came. With the help of long phone calls to me, pep talks, warm baths, lots of distraction, and good food, she made it through the days.

“This is not labour yet,” I kept reminding her. “Think of these infrequent cramps as your new normal.” She used her hypnobirthing techniques of relaxation and fear-release to accept the pace of her body and baby. We talked about the logic of the body, what to expect, how endorphins work, how all the hormones work in concert to move her through to the birth. She leaned on her loving partner to lift her spirits. When he needed a boost, he called me. “Jacquie, what do I do next?”

Then, in the afternoon of the second day of prelabour, she called again. “I’m getting discouraged.” She was finding it hard to surrender to the process. I encouraged her to move, to crank up the salsa music and dance, swirl her hips in the shower, to let go. I encouraged her to trust her body, to release any tension, and let the baby come.

An hour later, I called back, because I had the feeling that something new was happening. She said, “Something’s happening!” (Yay ESP!) So, I drove over quickly. She was really in labour now.

I found her at home, smiling and calm. “I’m at peace.” Her dancing and swirling had moved her into active labour. She was finally able to accept and surrender to the “surges” that were coming every three minutes. Within an hour and a half, we were at the hospital. She was already 8-9cm, and ready for a lovely soothing bath.

“Gotta get one of these tubs,” she said, as she laboured in the water. “I feel confident. I feel safe. I feel secure,” spoke the hypnobirthing tape from the corner of the room.

Four hours later, the baby was born. Quietly. Slowly. Gently. A lovely pink bundle of a baby girl.

I was in a local “lifestyle” store the other week, standing stock still, looking at a phone that reminded me of the lovely, heavy black “old school” phone that we had when I was little. You know, the one with the rotary dial that, when you dialed 911, took such a long time for that 9 to rotate. No wonder North America didn’t stick with the British emergency code of 999 - the emergency would have been over before the dialing was done.

So, there I was, in a trance (yes, I’d been up all night at a birth), thinking about my low-tech childhood in the ’60s and ’70s, how I skipped to elementary school in my skirt and walked through an old door marked “Girls”, and how my parents decided that it was totally unnecessary to have any of the new high-tech things that were starting to come into the stores (they made it through the Manchester blitz in WWII, so they could do just fine without, thank you very much). 

I remembered that we shared a party line (Watergate for kids), had no answering machine, no voicemail, no calculators, no computers, no videos or DVDs, no recording devices, dishwasher or washer/dryer. We just had one little black and white TV with rabbit ears, a clothes line, and a hand cranked mangle to make life easier. Our car was so slow that we had to have a police escort whenever we drove through our local tunnel. Mine was truly an “old school” childhood - life was slow, and time was our ally.

I finally realized that people were starting to notice me, staring at the old black phone.  But, I didn’t care.  I was in my post-SlowBirth zone.  I walked out of the store, and started to remember the birth that I’d been at through the night, and the day before, and the day before.

Seeing the phone had triggered a memory-tumble, which ended at some multi-coloured cut-out letters pasted onto a window at Women’s Hospital - “I DO IT OLD SCHOOL - ASK ME HOW”. I had kept those words in my head as I helped a client through an almost 48-hour unmedicated, uncomplicated “SlowBirth”. After 31 hours at home, hours of showers and dancing, walking the dog, giving/getting back rubs and marching the hallway, we had finally headed to the hospital. 

At the labouring mum’s request, the tools at hand were our hands and eyes and ears and wisdom (other than me, my client and her husband, “we” also included our nurse and the family docs who had the guts to turn their eyes away from the clocks, and go “old school”). Time, on this day, was our ally, for we needed a lot of it to accomplish this woman’s goal. The high-tech equipment didn’t seem to know how to behave with us. The blood pressure cuff kept pumping itself up even when no one was there, and that brand-fangled-new monitor didn’t work as well as the older doptone, so it was turned off.

Things were kept as simple as possible. We left linear time. The mum was dancing in the shower, rocking and rolling on the birthing ball, just one contraction at a time, one breath at a time, listening to music. To get rid of a puffed-up cervix (kind of like a fat lip) at 9 centimetres, we had her lie on the bed with her feet higher than her head (no epidural necessary) and gave her LOTS of encouragement. We used hip squeezes, hip shakes, swirling and spiraling, visualization, trance-inducing techniques, foot rubs, squatting, kneeling, walking, tears, hands, eyes, and love, liberally (then repeated). Her body’s endorphins helped her to sleep and dream in between contractions.

This amazing labouring woman drew on all her past life experiences (with the aid of a few sherpas), and did what all women have the power to do, climbed the highest mountain ever, and birthed her baby with arms outstretched to touch his body.

And when that baby came, it was pure joy! No exhaustion, just sparkling laughter and smiles and a giggling shout of, “I’m as high as a kite!” (love those endorphins) and an eager, wide-awake little boy who came out with his meaty fist stretched to the sky. Ahaa! That was the culprit! His little hand had slowed things down.  By taking it slow, and using time as their ally, this little man and his mum had worked it out.

When the bustling pediatrician came later to say “Hi”, she actually bowed down before the new mum, saying “I am not worthy.” The doctors all agreed that, if any drugs or technology had been used, it would have been a different story.  Mum and baby would have been in the OR, having a cesarean. All the nurses on shift that day were in awe, knowing that there’s a new initiative in our local hospital to reduce the intervention and cesarean rates by encouraging low tech/high touch birthing, and wishing that they could have seen how it was done.

I am in awe of the couple at the centre of the whirlwind, this vortex of birth. I thank them for trusting in birth, for trusting in the body, for trusting their baby, and for trusting me to calm their spirits and their wild eyes, whenever I’d say, “It’s fine, it’s normal, you are safe, you can do it, just take it slow.”

On this day, I think all three crossed the portal, the “Old School” way. They had discovered SlowBirth.