Last night I went to a friends house to bring her a meal and give her a post partum massage. Her baby is one week old, a beautiful little girl, and mom is doing well. As I applied the essential oils to her back and used hot water bottles to warm up her muscles to make the massage more effective, I thought how this was such a better use of my time and energy than just sitting at home watching 24.
We watched the opening of season six on sunday night, and that night I read on Drudge that a potential nuke might be deployed on monday nights show.
As I worked on my friend, whose back was a mass of knots after a long and hard labor, I spent some time thinking about our future life as wives and mothers. She is the mother of three young daughters. My oldest daughter is preparing to graduate from high school, with adult life just around the corner. More and more babies are soon going to be coming into our lives, as the children of friends and my own grandchildren are born. Family survival and healthy living are often on my mind.
I have written quite a bit about family survival here on my Blog and at other sites.
Go Here
And Here
And among the first videos I posted on You Tube were those that dealt with family survival.

I do not have a fatalistic fear of end times events. Rather I have taken a pragmatic approach to preparing for everything that can possibly be prepared for, and then just live my life believing things will pretty much stay the same as they are now in terms of modernity and the comfortable living that we in America enjoy.
When thinking about the potential problems that could crop up for us as individuals, bigotry does have an effect on our lives.
It was thrilling to read this piece today by Hugh Hewitt
It was a powerful piece of writing defending mormons and especially mormon theology.
Here was the best quote in my opinion:

“But now that Romney appears the most conservative Republican in serious contention for the White House, it is open season on Mormons.

In mid-November I addressed a session of the Evangelical Theological Society, an organization of more than 4,000 evangelical scholars. I used the time to warn the theologians that the secular press would soon be approaching them to harvest anti-Mormon quotes for use in profiles of Mitt Romney, and to recognize that to the extent they cooperated in the project to chase Mormons from the public square, and to legitimize the sort of private religious test the public counterpart to which is specifically forbidden by the Constitution, they would be building their own pyre.”

I can easily say that I have experienced mormon bigotry first hand. New friendships cooled and even stopped as soon as the other party realized I was LDS. Harassing phone calls made to my home after I made a plea to the local school board requesting they slow down the “value” endoctrinating going on in our local Boulder Classrooms regarding sexual orientation. I simply stood and shared my heart felt beliefs in regards to sexual morality in front of our school board, and some members of our community, when they read about it in the local paper, felt the need to call and harass.
But worrying about future events, terrorism, bigotry, heck even being beaten up for my beliefs and religious practices, none of these things concern me the way that what is happening in our hospitals to new mothers overwhelms and frightens me.
My friend did not talk about her birth. She simply said over and over, “it was so painful”.
The fact that the C-section rate in America recently topped out at 30%, (rising 4 % in one year) didn’t merit much of a mention in the press. A few naturally oriented chat rooms had some threads talking about it. But mostly it was ho hum, no big deal.
As I worked on my friend and shared with her some tips about how to more quickly heal from her birth, I had to wonder about the care she received from the local hospital. During hospital birth the whole focus is on the birth event, which can cost upwards of thousands and tens of thousands of dollars depending on wether the baby ends up in the NICU or not. We generally spend very little as a society on post partum care, and yet so much can be healed during the post partum if the mother has the six week principle in her mind.
The six weeks following birth are a sacred window of healing:
Quotes from the healing the black hole in health care article:

“Cultures in which mothers and families statistically do not have these problems all do similar things after childbirth. Most commonly, they recognize a 42–day reclusive healing time as key for recovery.

Ayurvedic and Midwives and childbirth educators, who give strong recommendations to their clients to take it easy during the first few weeks, and to arrange for help, know what they are talking about. Chinese, Indian (Ayurvedic), Vietnamese, Sikh, Colombian, and Native American cultures, to name a few, have traditions which (when followed – the last two generations show great loss here, too) take very seriously the care of their women after childbirth.

6,000-year-old Ayurvedic medical texts explain that because a woman’s psycho-physiology is in complete transition for six weeks during the postnatal period, a rare opportunity exists to reset all systems for ideal health. Chinese health professionals agree that the quickest way to help a postpartum mother become a better mother is by taking care of her physiology, and letting her do what comes naturally emotionally, which is to take good care of her baby.

Changing all systems over to normal functioning, recovering from the work of childbirth, being up at all hours, and lactating – which is nutritionally alone like running 10 miles a day – all put heavy demands on a mother’s body and emotions which are already fragile at this time with the tremendous invisible work of recovery from birthing.

Postpartum “Doula” care, which can include cooking, lactation support, house cleaning, shopping, childcare, and massage for baby is offered by many doulas around the country. AyurDoula care is an advanced doula profession trained in the wisdom of the long proven tradition of Ayurvedic medicine. United States AyurDoulas are available in Colorado, California, Iowa, New Mexico, Vermont, North Carolina, Florida, and occasionally include traveling live-in service.

AyurDoula care includes education about and cooking for the rare digestive needs of newly delivered mothers which make a tremendous difference for avoiding both infant colic and maternal depression. These factors are largely unknown by both allopathic and complementary medical models.”

My friend did tell me that her doctor had encouraged her to “take it easy” for six weeks, and I hope she takes this advice. I wonder how things would change in our society if instead of putting all of our resources as a nation into sickness care, by making birth a pathology that a woman needs to be “delivered from”, if we put more of those resources into post partum mother care, and helped the women to heal in the most holistic and natural way possible.
The post partum black hole has the biggest effect on marriages. From the same article:

“A professional report at a Denver International Childbirth Educators conference reported sadly that 40% of divorcing men felt the beginning of the break-up of their marriage was during the first weeks after their baby was born.”

Many men, overwhelmed by what has happened to their wives, who feel economically and emotionally unprepared to deal with the problems that crop up during the first weeks after the baby arrives, simply leave, feeling completely helpless to know how to help their wives recover from what has just happened to them during the birth.
I see the wreckage all around me in my day to day life.
Michelle and I watched last nights taped episode of 24 this afternoon when she arrived home from school, and as I watched that nuke explode on the screen, and observed the helplessness of the people on the show, I felt a sense of sadness wash over me, knowing that this is a distinct possibility for America in the near future.
But as I consider the “nukes” going off in marriages around the births of babies, I have to wonder where true terror exists in our society. When women are cut, drugged, brutalized, and then sent home to “recover” from a completely disabling experience, while having to care for a helpless little person 24 hours day after experiencing such trauma, the effect is going to be family fragmentation.
Sure I’m concerned about terror, and I believe it is prudent to prepare as much as possible for any contingency.
But I am a thousand times more concerned about the new mothers in our society. I’m concerned about what they are feeling, what they are experiencing, and am wondering when we as a society are going to turn things around to make birth more holistic, more natural, and what it is going to take for us to embrace the important work of healing families by healing birth.
I was praying about this topic years ago, and I had a prompting about the future come into my mind. I know we are heading towards Socialistic Medicine as a society. And I had the thought come to me that Heavenly Father would withdraw his spirit from the hospitals when we became completely socialized in America.
I know birthing miracles happen “in spite” of the traumas and toxicity of hospital birth. I have experienced those miracles in the past during my three hospital births.
But how would it be if the Holy Spirit decided that he could no longer abide in that environment, and then suddenly withdrew, leaving the mothers and babies in the diabolical hands of “Current Medical Dogma and Practice”.
A Terrorized feeling washes over me when I consider that harsh reality. My only prayer when considering the future is that those I love will choose to run to Zion, to experience the wilderness safety that is available to all who seek it as they give birth.
I was talking to my best friend Susan during the Christmas Holiday and as we shared our lives and stories, I told her that I was emotionally preparing myself for my children and grandchildren to reject my beliefs about birth.
I explained to her that I would be thrilled if my daughters and daughters-in-law came to these conclusions about holistic living before they welcomed their babes into their homes, but that I was not going to shove my hard won beliefs on those of my posterity who may be skeptical and even suspicious of the way Paul and I have chosen to live our family life.
She agreed that it was going to be very difficult for her if her children chose to bottle feed, vaccinate, or bought into the whole chemical model of parenting. I reminded her that during my first pregnancy, I only considered giving birth at home once I was in true labor. And that it was not even an option I was willing to consider during my whole pregnancy.
I told her that I believed my children would be attracted to people who had been raised similarly, but that I was not the one who would be picking out my childrens spouses. I expressed my deeply held belief that we must allow our children their agency and personal growth with parenting. She agreed, and we both promised to pray for each others children as they enter this phase of adult life in courting, marrying, and then welcoming the grandchildren!
Just thinking about my own husband and how he has evolved into an alternative healing guru these past 18 years after being so medically minded gives hope for just about any person to make the change of heart and belief so needed to live the holistic life.
Paul just came in from the chiropractor as I was typing. He went to California last week on a business trip and was completely chemically saturated after a week living at the residence inn. Our chiro had given him some nutrients to help shove the chemicals out of his system, which were making his kidneys toxic, and Paul had a healthy glow about him from the adjustment and good advice.
I love my husband. I love him for his honest heart. I love him for supporting me while I have been doing the work of welcoming our children into our home. I appreciate him for honoring his priesthood. I love him for delivering our last two sons in the sanctity of our home, and I love him for his integrity and faithfullness in living the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And as the angel said of Mary, I call myself most blessed among women.
Jenny Hatch

Jenny practicing Yoga during Bens pregnancy summer of 2002