Last night my dear friend Lauren and I attended the Boulder screening for the new birth film, Orgasmic Birth, in Boulder.
I was able to chat with my friends Laura Shanley and Sarah Clymer, who have been part of my birthing life for many years, and meet Lauras Daughter, Joy Shanley, who is a model and more beautiful in person than she is in print.
My friend Lauren is not a birth junkie like so many of us who attended and it was so fun to watch the film through her eyes. She just wept as each child was born, and at certain points in the film grabbed my arm, and just looked into my eyes with eternal understanding in the depths of her being.
We have had several conversations about birth over the years and I have tried to explain to her several times why I am a birth activist. Most of our birth chats ended with me feeling somewhat frustrated that she was not really hearing what I was trying to say, and her kind, but firm dismissal that home birth was fine for me, but it was not really her thing.
Our friendship is tied up in our love for Jesus Christ, music, and a deep desire to see high quality musical theatre produced in Boulder County. Lauren was one of the few who attended my 40th birthday party where I had obtained and shared a copy of The Business of Being Born with my friends. Although I had invited many, many friends to this party, most were not interested in hearing what Ricki Lake had to say about birth, and Lauren left early before the movie was even half way over.
I was thrilled when she said she would attend the Orgasmic Birth Screening with me. She did admit that she and her husband had a few good laughs before I picked her up. Greg said to her, “What ELSE don’t I know about Jenny???” He is a lovable liberal, and she has not shared with him my political conservative activism and I’ve been vague about my political views when we get together socially. I’ve learned with new friends over the years that I have to be somewhat gentle and a little bit circumspect as I share with them my political and activist sides.
Certain people have warmed to my birth activism but shudder in horror when they realize I am a Neo-Con. Others have loved my political involvement but don’t get why our family eats organic food and stay away from doctors, drugs, and hospitals.
I figured Lauren was grown up enought to “get” the movie and understand the implications of how truly revolutionary and threatening it is to the medical status quo.
I was unprepared for her sheer emotional and spiritual response as she continued to weep when we went out to the car and drove home. She told me that she was the most touched by the mother in the film who was a sexual abuse survivor, who shared the fact that her home birth helped her to heal from past hurts and gave her a new focus and view as a woman and as a Mother.
Because I have also experienced the tremendous power that fills a womans heart when she thrusts off her abusive past and grasps her spiritual strength as a woman capable of birthing a child without anyone telling her how to do it, that portion of the movie also touched me deeply.
I particularly enjoyed meeting Debra Pascali-Bonaro, the director and producer of the film. And hearing the back story of how the film was produced and directed, as well as how it is currently being promoted. I took a couple of pictures with my digital camera.

Debra spent some quality time explaining why she chose the title that she did, and also shared how the film is being received by film festivals around the world. She will be on The View, 20/20, and Dr. Phil has been calling – so we should see some great birth information in the media over the next few months. I have no doubt that ACOG is freaking that yet another popular film is making its way around the globe and expect a full frontal assault from the pathetic losers who make up that organization. Debra shared the fact that the AMA has bumped the outlawing of home birth up to number two on their list of legislative goals.
Can anyone spell DESPERATION???

The most touching story that Debra shared was when she was talking about people who had been touched by the movie who were not a part of her original target audience. She said she made the film for young people; seniors in high school and college students. But when a obstetrician from South America asked to show the film at a medical conference for his colleagues she readily agreed to let him. He told her that when the movie was over the audience was silent, no applause…nothing. Then he turned up the lights and realized that the doctors were crying. He told her that they all felt a deep desire to normalize birth on a continent that has some of the highest c-section rates in the world.
I wonder if the bullies and assassins of the New World Order will let them try to change the birth machine with its various tentacles and webs of deceit and control infesting every corner of the globe. I guess if a whole group of doctors make the decision to dump the medical birth model, they can’t kill/discredit/threaten all of them… can they???
After Deborah was finished with her presentation, Laura and I went up to talk to her. I took this picture of them meeting for the first time.

Then I handed the camera to Laura and she took a picture of Debra and I:

As we left the event, Lauren took a picture of Laura and I in the lobby:

Laura and I thought it was fun that the Business of Being Born came out on my 40th birthday and this movie was shown in our home town on her 51st birthday. It was fun to celebrate our birthdays with these two amazing and timely films. I look forward to many wonderful films in the future that will help educate and inspire the mothers and fathers who will be birthing the next few generations of babes during these perilous times when the power is so strongly grasped by those doctors who earn the money, reputations, and control off of the wombs of the innocent in our society.
It will be fun to watch that whole behemoth come crashing down as truth floods the earth.
Jenny Hatch