Alternative Parenting – Page 32 – a hippie with a minivan

new found support…

ok… a few things I forgot to blog about…

A few weeks ago I went to my first homeschooling support group meeting and it was pretty nice.. the problem though is that it is a bit far (about 45min/1 hour away)… At the moment that doesn’t matter for me though.

The group seems to be a eclectic bunch… a few the lean towards unschooling or unschool, a few that are a bit more school-at-home… It will be nice to have some planned activities, To get out with other homeschoolers and meet up with other parents that homeschool. I think that the kids will like that also, especially seeing that other kids don’t go to school and it is not only him…

I told my friend Isabelle on that Thursday about the group and how I enjoyed it and how we had planned activities for the upcoming year and how there are a few moms near here that are now HSing and how we are thinking about starting a group…

Anyway…. Her dd had told her that she didn’t want to go back to school… (she went to K last year and was due to start G1 on the following Tuesday) and when I talked to about that she again told me how much she wanted to homeschool and then asked me tons of questions and then I said that I would share some links…

Well, on the Sunday night I got an e-mail from her saying that she is taking the leap and is going to start HSing…

She was the first real friend I made when I got here, we have very similar parenting values and I find it so exciting that we will be able to support each other…

It still amazes me…

Just after my last blog post last night, Khéna woke up and I went and nursed him back to sleep.

I laid there in the dark and listened to him nurse and swallow the milk that comes from me.

I love that sound.

Lying close to him, nursing him, I smell his sweet scent. My sweet baby boy.

It amazes me that for 9 months now he has been nourished by me, and me alone. That nothing but my milk has made him into what he is today. I gave him those cheeks and those thighs.

He is the third child that have nourished in such a way but it still amazes me.

I wonder…

2 Midwives in Montreal are having to defend themselves after a coroners report came out yesterday after a baby was born still last November. The coroner said that the death could have been preventable and that the midwives were to blame. The details are not clear but there was meconium, aspiration and a loss of heartbeat before birth.

Sad, scary for me to think about but was it really because of the midwives?

If the same would have happened at the hospital (and it does) are the doctors to blame? No, of course not… Doctors make mistakes, they are humans or just don’t have any idea of the real, natural side of birth.

It is really tiring to hear peoples comments about this. If something happens out of the hospital than right away it could have been “preventable” and people should be held accountable. Why not the same for doctors? They do things to women everyday that risk the lives of both the women and the babies, yet they are never held accountable… Why? They risk women’s and babied lives by inducing labour when women are not ready (if you “have” to induce then your body is NOT READY), by managing the third stage, by just intervening whenever the can because of their cookie cut views and protocols instead of letting birth occur naturally. (I have a better post on this)

I wonder if the coroner would have said that the doctor should be held accountable, or is he just like most of the other doctors out there… scared of midwives taking over their jobs and women having control over their own health and well being…

I wonder what this will do to Quebec Midwives…

So… the Ecofest was today…

Besides it being miserably hot and humid in Montreal today the ECO fest was pretty cool and our presentation went really well… there were not too many people there but it was a lot of fun anyways and the reaction was great also…

We (Geana and I) talked about UP/UC defining it and explaining how we got to that point…

How for both of us, our negative experiences with past interventions as minimal as they may have been (from even just the presence of a mw being too much greater interventions) brought us onto the path of birthing unassisted… (well, she hasn’t birthed yet, but is getting close)

We talked about it being empowering as women an act of feminism even. Taking back the role of a woman, getting away from the medical establishment that seems to want to control a woman in pregnancy and in birth.

How for us, pregnancy and birth are just part of our ordinary life and how much less stress it brought to us and how natural pregnancy and birth can be.

It felt great to stand up in front of an audience and talk about going unassisted… I really enjoy talking about it and sharing it.

I can’t believe that it has already been nearly 9 months since I lived that amazing experience and held my sweet Khéna for the very first time…

New friend :)

A while back I was given the contact number of a fellow mama of two girls, UPer and future UCer… We talked on the phone a bit and got along great but we didn’t talk for a while after that… then we talked again and we both knew that we just had to get together…

So last week, me and the boys went to her home for the day and it was great!! It felt really good to talk to someone in person that has the same parenting philosophy. Someone who truly respects her kids as individuals and equals. Someone who believes fully in the importance of Breastfeeding, Babywearing, Co-sleeping, Consensual living and living simply and naturally. Of course, she is also a fellow unschooler…

As VP of a group that advocates natural birth in Quebec, and a vocal UP/UCer she was asked to give a presentation on the subject at the “Ecofest” in Montreal. However since she has not yet had her UC, she asked me to help. One of the reasons that I went to her home last week was to talk about what we are going to say and it felt great just sitting there, lounging and talking about the experiences and feeling that brought me to decide on a UP/UC and not only talk about it but have the other person understand completely where I was coming from and agree with it and understand it.

BTW… if you read French check out her blog here about her UP journey…