It’s finally here! Chapter Two of the Offerings Book on Women and Birthing Now and Ever More… As with Chapter One, I was involved at various stages in the development of this chapter, “The Evolving Family,” but when I saw it finished – the personal narratives, the stories, poems and musings, graphically designed and festooned in artwork and photos – WOW! It’s beautiful!!

Please take a look! Read what women (and men!) have to say about FAMILY – what it was, what it is, how it has evolved and will continue to evolve in the future. From Angeles Arrien’s insightful article on what it will take to sustain Family in the future, to “Send Me,” Robin Rice’s delightful poem about the difference between being a good “birther” and being a good mother, you will find a great deal in this chapter to question, to ponder. Dr. Rhonda Hull and Lowell Brook write lovingly and thoughtfully about birthing in their own families, across generations, and Susan Lankford talks honestly and soulfully of her decision not to birth. The artwork by Jeannine Chappell, Carole Hagin, Lowell Brooks, Dana Anderson,  Suzanne Arms and Adrienne Robinson is stunning and provocative, and Joanne De Nobriga’s photography is, as always, breathtaking.  

I can’t say enough! But then again, I probably already have. Please come see what our contributors have done, and then visit the Birthing blogs (click on “Chapter 2: The Evolving Family” under Categories on the left) to join in our ongoing conversations!      

It had been almost a week since my once-husband Tony died from a 7-month bout with the auto-immune disease called scleroderma. (see my blog “The Chosen”, June 2008). I had never lost someone so close to me and had never been so close to someone crossing the veil to death…till Tony. I felt my heart breaking with deep emotions of sadness, love, beauty, connection and re-connection as each day and each minute progressed towards the end.  On that last morning, while he lay in bed making his departure with the grace with which he lived his life, we circled around him in song and prayer, celebrating him on to his next voyage Home.

My partner Brad and I offered to create the slideshow of Tony’s life for the family and community to be played at the memorial services. I realized soon after having made the offer that it was exactly what I needed to grieve.

So, I poured my heart over the photographs that came in from Tony’s friends and ones I retrieved from the easier-to-reach boxes of photo albums in my friend’s closet. Each photograph resurrected a sweet and poignant memory of this man who loved his family and his friends, dogs, sports, the San Francisco Giants, singing, Italy, trees, hiking, Broadway musicals, his wife and her children, and me…and of how I too loved him. And yet, after days and nights of working on this project, and of wonderful memories and storytelling with friends and family whom I hadn’t seen since his wedding to Denise nine years ago, I couldn’t seem to shake off the heaviness that came with my grieving.

What I realized was that my grieving was mostly anchored in the fact that I had no idea what I personally truly believe about death. I had been raised Catholic and went to several funerals of distant family and friends in my life. I have friends who are Mormon, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist…many are nuns, priests, ministers, monks and atheists, too. I felt I had heard it all, honored it all, about death. And yet, when I felt the presence of Tony close by, I despaired to know whether he truly was close and I just couldn’t see him, or was I simply clinging to a memory of him. I wanted to know where he was now and what was our relationship and connection to him now. Now that he’s on “the other side”. I longed to reach out to friends who had lost someone close and dear to them, to re-listen to their stories of loss, but mostly of how they were thinking of where their beloved departed were. My friends obliged my deep-seated curiosity….and it helped…a little.

One morning, two days before the day of the funeral, Brad had left very early to catch a flight to LA and I had not been able to go back to sleep. In my half-awake state, I once again felt a loving and listening presence close by. I said out loud, “Please, show me a way to let me know where you are and what’s happened to you. I have to know.”

Not too much later, I decided to get up and fix myself a little breakfast. As I was soaking the breakfast dishes in soap water, I started to sing one of the songs I love to sing to 3-month-old Brennan, my dear new friend who entered the world as Tony was leaving it. It is “The Rainbow Connection” that Kermit the Frog sang. (You know that sweet children’s song, I’m assuming.)

Just as I sang the refrain about finding what’s on the other side of a rainbow - where lovers, dreamers and we meet -, a montage of scenes from past conversations, events and dreams did a fast playback in me. Scenes flashed of friends dying and babies being born, a message from my dead grandparents and ancestors, and soul contracts to come back and dreams about connecting with babies and young children.

It was there, standing over the sink, my hands in soap water, I felt deep in my body – the rainbow connection.  The connection of one spirit to the next to the next to the next in this long chain of spirit connection…all a part of one glorious being, one Self. In that moment, that very “someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection” was found. From that moment on, the grief has lifted. While I cried during the services, the funeral and the reconnecting with old family and friends…and I still cry during sweet moments like this moment now, the heaviness and restlessness that come with the tears are gone.

In its place is this newly found quiet, peaceful, sometimes even happy sense of being in connection, being one with Tony and all.

There are now no other words to describe the knowing, the feeling, the truth I know deep inside me. That Tony is alive and well and among us, as many of our soul mates are, whether in body or in spirit. This, I believe. And, with this belief, I am reborn.

In a comment to my earlier blog “Another Opportunity Ahead” (see further below), Eloise asks: “So what is the difference between a ‘midwife’ and a ‘doula’?”

Although not always the case, it could be said that a doula attends to the top half of the birthing bed and the midwife attends to the bottom half.

The midwife primarily focuses on the physical birth and the mom and baby’s physical well-being, but, their roles are much bigger that merely that. Often their support overlaps, like a silent dance, and when these two vital care-providers work in synchrony it is truly beautiful and makes for a meaningful and memorable birth.
The doula attends to mom’s emotional well being and helps to create the sacred field around mom so that her birthing experience can be as positive as possible. She coaches and attends to mom’s every need. Ideally, the midwife (or doctor) and doula work as a team to provide an overall powerful experience for the mom and facilitate the welcoming of the new baby into it’s family.
The word, “doula,” comes from the Greek word for the most important female slave or servant in an ancient Greek household, the woman who probably helped the lady of the house through her childbearing.

The word has come to refer to “a woman experienced in childbirth who provides continuous physical, emotional, and informational support to the mother before, during and just after childbirth.” (Klaus, Kennell and Klaus, Mothering the Mother)

A doula is a non-medical assistant who provides physical, emotional and informed choice support in prenatal care, during childbirth and during the postpartum period.

A birth doula is a continuous care provider for labor in many settings, also assisting the parturient woman during transport from home to hospital or birth center.

A postpartum doula may begin care in the home (nutritious cooking for the mother, breastfeeding support, newborn care assistance, maternal-child bonding support, errands, light housekeeping) the next day after the birth, providing services through the first six weeks postpartum.

In some cases, doula care can last several months or even to a year post partum - especially in cases when mothers are suffering from post partum depression, children with special needs require longer care, or there are multiple infants.

Although a doula often knows as much as a midwife about the birthing process, she leaves that responsibility for the actual birthing of the baby to the midwife. The doula stays completely focused on mom’s general comfort and emotional well-being.

It is a very intuitive skill to be a doula, and for me always a sacred experience to be welcomed into the aura of a birth.

In a span of about three days, I received two very clear and momentous calls.

The first one was from one of my dearest friends who, with his wife, was expecting their first child. He was calling to say, “We think the baby may be coming in a day or two, are you around and ready?”

The second one came from my once-husband’s wife saying, “Tony’s been taken to the intensive care unit of the community hospital because his kidneys and lungs have collapsed. Can you come?”

Two extremely different situations that carried very intense emotions - the first one of excitement, anticipation and giddy nervousness; the second one of shock, sadness and anxiety. Both instances were ones I’d never been in before and I felt myself in over my head. Yet, the common theme in both instances that I hold dear to me is that I had come to a knowing with them that I was part of “their family” — through thick and thin, in sickness and in health. Neither folks are my blood nor marital relations, and yet I felt as integrated into their lives and into their situation as if they were my blood family. This is Grace to me — the experience of intimacy, deep connection and mutual concern by our acknowledgment and choosing.They choose me and I choose them…or perhaps it’s more like we have been chosen to share this life together, up close and personal. Somehow, there’s something very sweet and strong and poignant about this knowing or realizing that keeps true to my way of being in community.

 I think there is such a natural way of knowing and choosing family that is in the hearts of many women of the younger generation. In the article “What We Mean When We Say FAMILY” that is in Chapter 2, three young women share their warm and insightful perspectives on the process of shaping their families. My dear young friend, Reena, describes the rough terrain quite well in her piece that follows - “P.S.! Building Our Chosen Families” - in which she says, “Many of us struggle with the tension between those family members we have chosen and those who ‘come as part of the deal.’ The family we have chosen sees us and loves us as the adults we are today. But our relations with our childhood family members are rooted in the past, and do not always grow with us as we evolve.”

How might our greater freedom and willingness to choose and be chosen and, with that, our commitment to BE family with each other - with mindfulness, consciousness, responsibility and Grace - shape and evolve the world community we live in today?

How are you being family today?