Reclaim

It's hard to believe that it's been almost three weeks since I last published a blog post. It's time to reclaim this space for my writing and my voice.

Anyone would think that I'd been off having a nice quiet holiday, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. While it was school holidays for the past two weeks, it didn't mean a break for me (even when you take out of the equation the fact there is no downtime from small persons!) I have been writing, but it hasn't been for public consumption. I completed my section of the Chapter Seven story that Write Anything is hosting. It was my first effort at really having a go at sci-fi and I felt very challenged by it - however I was pleased with the outcome. And the last blog post - with all the reminscing, I actually did conceptualise a story, but it refused to come out. It turns out it will be back story for my NaNo project

I haven't been hitting my three pages a day goal but I will be soon with NaNo looming in the foreground - getting closer with each passing day. There's also some Captain Juan to get cleaned up and scheduled. Reclaiming my writing space- that three pages every day is such a challenge. I still maintain my practise of writing my morning pages, as per The Artist Way, so even if I dont get around to writing three pages of fiction or

In the past week, on the back of Annie designing and refitting a new template for the Reclaim Sex After Birth site, I've configured all the navigation for the site and rebuilt it from scratch from the exisiting information and articles we had. It's meant getting my head around all manner of linking protocols that I thought I would never have to know and being back in the driving seat of layout and design - which for me is a wonderful, though at times, infuriating, creative outlet. While the site isn't entirely finished, there is still information to be bought over, the majority of it is there. It feels good to see it alive and brilliant - easy to navigate and all our information there at the click of a button.

I asked the Universe a few weeks back if it would send us a webdesigner to help out ... and it did send help, in the most unexpected way. It sent Annie and I the ability to say 'we can do this' ... and then just do it. I may never be able to totally get my head around a style sheet - I'm thankful that I do now have the ability to put a navigation framework in place. Who says that women can't read maps!

Just as I think that I am getting closer to the bottom of my 'to do list' the list keeps growing - I'm certain now that the tasks at the bottom of the list are breeding, or I'm falling back into old habits of being unable to say now. I'm in the process of writing two articles for Down to Birth on women's experiences of their post birth body which is challenging and liberating at the same time. I've never written up an article from an interview so this is a first for me. And of course it's not just one interview, because that would just be too easy. The transcript is of four women talking and then there are the 10+ experiences that women sent me via email. I thought it would be a matter of just weaving them into an old article and updating it, but it seems to have become more than that. Yes - I am such a grey ox. It seems that I can't help myself.

The liberating part of being shackled to this writing project is that I have cleared the space below our home and Friday I help my first women's circle. We got together to talk about our post birth bodies. It felt good to be connected, holding the space for my women folk and to be in their company and wisdom. How blessed I am. The crisis of connection that I realised I was having with my writing was probably a far wider crisis .. and crisis of connection with my community. This year has almost been like a Saturn Returns year for me - moving away from those friends and support structures that have supported me over the past few years. It's been like going to a dark place, of being Innana making her descent through the seven gateways of hell, and at each point having to shed some part of her regalia. I'd like to think (hope) that I've hung on the meat hooks for three days and now it's time to go above again. I always feel though for Innana's love who comes to take her place in hell. Perhaps it is a reminder to us, that even when we're on top, there are often those we love and hold dear that are in a darker, harder place than us.

Out of Friday and knowing I need to remain grounded and in connection with my women folk, I've organised to host three more circles in the coming months. It is a side project that piggy backs off the Reclaim project - and is something that's always been at the periphery of my creative consciousness but now it is a reality. It's been (what I think) aptly named Women's Wisdom Circles and it's just that - about reclaiming the lost traditions of sitting in circle and talking - sharing experiences and wisdom. The next three will have do with reclaiming your personal space and reconnecting with yourself (which is part of the topc that we're talking about a the All About You Expo on the 19th October), sex after birth (because everyone was itching to talk about it last week) and back to women's experiences of their post birth body. December is undecided with birthdays, christmas and general holiday madness.

Having just purged that - it's time to go swimming. It may be a little chilly before 10am, but you haven't lived unless you've been purple.

IMAGE BY EVAH FAN found at Wired Magazine

Sitting in Circle: Coming to terms with caesareans

Today was homebirth support group day. In one of my inevitable hand putting up sessions, I agreed to coordinate the Brisbane group at the beginning of the year, to take some of the work off our association's convenor. It's an honour to help organise such a gathering of women. We all sit on blankets and rugs in a park, in a circle, with a little ones being passed around, or finding their own way around the circle. The bigger kids are off on the play equipment - a little homebirthed posse. This is living, breathing community in action.

Those that come for the first time are often pleasently surprised ... after all, sitting in circle, sharing wisdom is what women do best.

At our meetings we share a birth story (today was had an amazing homebirth after previous caesearean story), then have discussions around a set topic, or a guest speaker. There was lots of discussion today about healing from a traumatic birth and why some births, even though the details may be almost exact, are considered by one woman to be 'bad' and another 'woman' good. It all has to do with how she feels about it. This was an enlightening moment for me, as a hardcore natural birth advocate, and homebirth mother of one, I've found it hard to support my sister through her births. Her first was an emergency caesarean as a result of fragmented care through the hospital system and my nephew was in intensive care for 12 days. My neice was born this year by an elective caesarean, two weeks early on the birthday of her paternal great grandma.

For me a caesarean would have been devastating, it was my ultimate worst fear when planning my homebirth. It took a long time for me to be able to get to a place and understanding that would allow me to be able to bridge the experience from 'perfect homebirth' to 'imperfect everythings fucked up royally caesarean' but I did it - with the very wise words of a friend Cara, who I was doing yoga with at the time.

Birth matters - even if we think that it doesn't. How we are born, impacts on our lives forever ... it's not just a 'one day event'. I was born by Caesarean after a botched induction, at 28 weeks gestation. This was 33 years ago and I'm still angry about it. I wasn't able to choose when I was ready to come into the world. I've spent most of my life struggling with being able to make decisions, trying to find my purpose and path in life ... I maintain it is all due to the fact my birth right, to choose and initiate my entry into the world was stolen - by a stupid man who wanted his Christmas holiday to be an uninterrupted affair. What does this tell the unborn baby - when we choose their date of entry into this world - that they are incompetant and unable to make decisions for themselves?

Yes - I feel like woman interrupted ... but Dylan's birth helped set me on a path to heal. And now the discusions today have given me much more food for thought, to continute this healing process. My neice is now a second generation Caesearean born baby and I can only hope that things will be different in this country when it is her time to birth.

Birth is not dangerous, it is as safe as life gets. What is dangerous is the way in which birth is over managed, measured and forced to comply. It is dangerous because women are no longer nurtured and supported by midwives they know and trust. It is dangerous because we have lost sight of the fact the birth is a social and spiritual rite of passage for women.

Tomorrow is National Caesarean Awareness Day in Australia. Please take a moment to pay hommage to all the women* and their families whose lives have been touched by a caesarean birth and the journeys that they are all on.

*In Australia the offical caesarean rate is twice that recommended by the WHO - 1 in 3 women in Queensland will have major abdominal surgery to end their pregnancy.