A recent meeting I had with our local Parks and Rec director was a huge success. I was delighted to discover that the director shared my passion for Lamaze.  She had taken Lamaze classes years ago while pregnant with her children who are now in their 20's.  She credited the info she learned with enabling her to have beautiful, natural births.  As the icing on the cake, (unbeknownst to me) her daughter is a doula too.  So, I was most definitely preaching to the choir! As soon as I have certification in hand I can start my teaching and between now and then I will have opportunities at their events to promote my upcoming series.  I am thrilled at the opportunity to be able to teach outside of a hospital setting.  With my focus on wellness and the normalcy of pregnancy and birth, this setting seems to be a perfect fit.

Today I attended our local monthly Mother Baby Wellness Coalition meeting.  (I don't often get to make it to these meetings as they often are in conflict with my massage business schedule.)  I've realized through many meetings with women involved in the maternal child health field that a common greeting seems to be “Hi, my name is so and so, who are you with?”  I had to laugh today when I was asked who I was with (which agency) I replied that I was with me!  (A name tag with my business name is starting to look like a great idea.)  Then, when it was time for formal introductions, I made a point of stating I was my own one person autonomous little corporation!  When I described my soon to start adventure into teacher independent out of hospital CB ed a spokesperson from a local hospital suggested perhaps I should consider sharing my innovative ideas and teaching other CB educators.  Having not yet even embarked on teaching my own first large scale class that idea seems premature but I have to admit there it is an exciting idea to contemplate! 

As I drove home I realized how lucky I am to be so autonomous.  Upon reading of Teri's endorsement in her blog for  the book Drive ; the Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink, I checked out the library's audio CD format.  Through it, I gained so much insight into motivation especially where it has played out throughout my life, and realized why I've lacked contentment in previous career pursuits and found such satisfaction when working solo.  I discovered how essential autonomy is to me.  Knowing that this is an essential key ingredient to my happiness will be a great guide in the future.  So, I now too give my rave reviews along with Teri's for “Drive” - check it out!

 

I enjoyed a bit of a break after doing my student teaching.  Upon looking at the calendar it occurred to me that I had better get my ducks in a row for the certification exam.  The application has been sent and I sat down this weekend to take a look at the Lamaze study guide.  It had been months since I had looked at it.  I am the type of person who needs to look at things more than once for information to really sink in.  So, it was nice to review  material that I had previously highlighted and to feel it really settle and solidify in my mind.  Again, I am in awe of the course that Lamaze has put together. I must sound like some kind of paid endorsement for Lamaze but I'm not – just a very satisfied student!

 

I can not wait for the opportunity to put all that I have learned to use in teaching.  Thursday I will meet with someone at our local parks and recreation center to discuss making my series as a community education offering. 

 

I noticed recently on Teri's blog that InJoy was offering  the Lamaze healthy birth practices from the mother's advocate site all together on a DVD for just $10.  This to me will be the ultimate tool for the short free presentations that I plan to offer.  I envision introducing a care practice, showing the short clip and then having a more in depth discussion and elaborating about the practice.  The DVD is 19 minutes long so I can see it nicely being part of an hour or two of learning.  Hopefully I will be able to reach women early in their pregnancies or maybe even preconception and really make a difference in their births.

January has been a month of great accomplishments as I move closer to certification.  As I have mentioned already, Lamaze certification had been something I had pondered for many years but always put out of my mind because I couldn't see myself being able to accomplish the student teaching portion of the program.  Speaking in front of groups caused me a great deal of anxiety.  The thought of speaking to a class AND being evaluated on my performance caused me to panic just thinking about the idea.  Through the years  though I noticed my phobia gradually lessening and my passion for birth, and birth education growing.

 

Recently, I did my student teaching.  I made a community education presentation.  The content centered on the six care practices.  I put heavy emphasis on labor starting on its own, pointing out how spontaneous labor would allow for a much greater chance of enjoying the benefits of all of the other  care practices.  I tried to point out how most interventions can't be used “a la carte” but instead come as packages and that inductions and epidurals can become very medicalized events.  My visual aid for cervical change was sewing elastic of various thicknesses and degrees of dilation.  I also had my Kleenex box pelvis and Easter egg/Popsicle stick baby blockhead to show how freedom to move aids in rotation and descent. Anyone who has attended Teri's training has heard her talk about the various “taters” and I did have a bit of agitater/commentator situation to contend with.  Happily though, things went very well.  My anxiety was minimal which was an amazing accomplishment. 

 

Some women give birth and feel forevermore empowered to take on the world.  I conquered my public speaking issue with a similar feeling of being empowered to take on just about anything that may feel out of my comfort zone in the future.

 

About ten years ago I abandoned the tradition of mailing out Christmas cards.  At this point I only have  a grand total of 4 relatives who don't have e-mail addresses.  The other hundred or so people I like to keep touch with all do have e-mails.  So, I have been sending out an annual holiday update letter with photos of the family and pets.  I include a paragraph on each of us in the family.  My own paragraph talks about the things I have focused my energy on during the year.  This year a great deal of focus has been on pursuing Lamaze certification.  So, I mentioned my new endeavor, the PfB program and my overwhelming enthusiasm for the whole thing.  I wrote that I would happily take great care of anyone in need of an outstanding childbirth education experience and included my website address.  I have been surprised to get such positive responses.  My son's former youth group leader who  just graduated from college and is a newlywed responded back that he wasn't aware that I was involved in CB education and that they would definitely connect with me when they start their family.  I always get very strong support from the many former doula clients I have worked with with promises of sending students my way.  Yet, it hadn't occurred to me how exciting it might be to work with young people I know personally as they start their families.  My son is just 18 so I DO NOT WANT  HIM (or any of his 18 year old friends) in my class any time soon!  But, he does know a few college students and has friends with older siblings.  How fun might that be if they come my way for help with CB education!!

 

I'm discovering that the possibilities for networking are endless in the birth business.  As I dropped off a pile of birth related material to be laminated recently, I felt compelled to warn the fifty something year old man at the teaching supplies store that he might find the subject matter out of the ordinary.  When I returned the next day to pick up my order, he commented that he was impressed with the detail and depth of the information relating to interventions and that he had increased his birthing IQ.  He reported that the classes he had attended with his wife were the type that seemed to prepare you to be a compliant patient.  We chuckled that we must have been in the same class together, since my experience had been sadly similar.  The next lady waiting to be helped overheard our conversation and agreed that an adult learning approach is what is needed.  She said her daughter's friend is pregnant and confused about her birth options, so I gave her my card.  There are several teaching supply stores in the Tucson area and I think I may do the rounds and visit each one with my future laminating needs.  Educators are keen to learn and would be an ideal population to target.

Well, 2010 began with a big accomplishment.  On Tuesday my course design went out in the mail!  What a lot of work that was.  The fact that the training I attended (actually, hosted) was at the start of November made the task of completing the course deign during the Holidays challenging.  Admittedly, I spent the first weeks after the training very excited and full of ideas, but more than a bit overwhelmed by the thought of organizing the mass of creative ideas into an intelligible course.  Finally, I took some advice that Teri had shared and took all  the wonderful visual aids, handouts, and such and spread them out on the floor.  From there, I categorized materials by topic.  Then, I took the list of required Lamaze topics, cut them up and place them in major subject categories.  Once that was accomplished, the actual writing began.  Writing is a challenge for me.  Luckily birth is my passion and the incorporation of so much creativity made the job so much more enjoyable.

 

On two occasions I breathed a sigh of relief and declared the job “done”.  Then, I would sit back and objectively read through the course only to decide that there were areas that needed improvement.  I would come across topics that made me ponder whether students ( even first time parents)  might have life experience (having heard of experiences of friends, family, coworkers) that would be conducive to discussion in the subjects or BF, PP depression,  and induction to name a few.  So, twice I went back to the drawing board.  I must mention that my work would have been completed weeks ago had I not spent so much time online in search of the perfect handouts, pamphlets, etc.  I came to the sad realization that my home state of AZ seems lacking in nifty public health resources when compared to other sites that I came across.  Washington, Texas, Illinois and Scotland had some really impressive materials!  If there was a Guinness Book of World records award to internet searching related to birth, I would be a world class surfer! My finished product is chock full of features that hopefully will lead to fun, lasting learning and most of all boost confidence in birth.