One of the only pictures we took during Michelles Pregnancy! August 1988
Michelle’s birthday is today. She is 18!
On that cold december day in Michigan eighteen years ago today Paul and I were working hard to birth our daughter.
I had taken a Lamaze class and fired the first doc I hired because he struck me as being a real control freak. The second doctor I hired was an Osteopath, and somewhat more natural in his approach. He did a pretty good job. Was mad at me for refusing…well…everything, but mostly he rolled with it and allowed us to have the natural birth we desired. The thing I am most grateful for is that as Shelly was being born, the doc grabbed Pauls hands and put them on our daughter and so Paul helped to catch her as she was being born.
When I think about that birth, I just cringe at how unprepared I was and how it felt like we were in the most unnatural situation possible for a natural birth.
I had chosen to give birth at the hospital where I was born simply because I thought it would be neat to have my baby at the same place. Later on I learned that the hospital had an alarming 50% C-section rate as it was the regional high risk center for most of the Detroit area.
Three weeks before Michelle was born I was at a library across town and discovered two books that changed my life. Robert Bradleys Husband Coached Childbirth, and Susan McCutcheon-Rosegg’s Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way.
I felt the mixed emotions of complete excitement that I had discovered these materials which I knew in my heart were the ticket to the type of birth I wanted to have. But also a sense of fear and overwhelm that I had chosen the wrong hospital, OB, and set up for the type of birth I wanted to have.

Over the three weeks before our daughter was born I read Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way three times to fully aquaint myself with the relaxation techniques. I was greatly helped by my Yoga and movement background as a musical theatre performer as I attempted to quickly master the relaxation and deep breathing accompanied by visualizations and belief that my body could do it.
Five days before Michelle was born I started to have gentle contractions that came every fifteen minutes. These five days were crucial to our success with the Bradley Method because Paul and I spent hours practicing the relaxation techniques that helped our child to be born without any medications.
We ran to the hospital twice that week thinking I was in true labor. Both times we were sent home. I appreciate the fact that the hospital staff was educated enough to know that I was not in real labor and unlike today were willing for me to be in true labor with real dilation before they admitted me to the hospital. These days if a woman shows up in a pre-labor situation, the hospital is more likely than not to induce labor with Cytotec or some other unnatural labor inducement that will bring the baby out very fast, with horrifying results for the mother and the babe.
The third time we went to the hospital I was finally in real labor with actual dilation going on. But I had a fight on my hands with the hospital staff. They wanted to monitor me continually with the electronic fetal monitor, which if you have not had a baby in the past thirty years has become the “God” of the delivery room. I wanted them to monitor me for ten minutes every hour and then have the freedom to get up and move around, use the bathroom, and take showers etc while I was in labor. Several different people came in to try to convince me to use the monitor and I just kept telling them to leave me alone.
The breaking point came when my Doc showed up and was mad at me for not caving to the pressure. He broke my water without my permission, and labor became very intense. It was about this time that he as God of the situation gave me permission to drink the raspberry tea that I had prepared before we left for the hospital.
After I drank the tea, I felt my body shift into high gear and it was only a short time before I was through transition and felt the baby dropping into position to be born.
Michelle was born at 10:00 PM on December 1st, 1988, after a 24 hour labor, with five days of pre-labor and several confrontations with medical personelle. I gave birth with no drugs, no episiotomy, and only a first degree tear. It was the most empowering moment of my life to that point and we were so excited by how things went, Paul and I decided to become Certified Bradley Childbirth Educators the next year when the American Academy of Husband Coached Childbirth had an Ohio teacher training in 1989.

Jenny with Michelle – Ten days old
The many classes that Paul and I taught and the four additional babies that we birthed using the information we had gleaned from our natural birth education has been one of the greatest blessings of our marriage.
And now our little girl is embarking on her adult life and we are just overwhelmed by how quickly the time has passed. She has been busy filling out college applications and working hard to research the various scenarios. I was thrilled last week when she informed me that she was applying to some local colleges, yes even CU, which is ten minutes from our home. She said that it would save her $8,000.00 a year if she lived at home and went to school close to home. I just melted when she said she was going to consider doing that.
I have been increasingly overwhelmed at the thought of being out of contact with her. We mormons have a long and serious tradition of sending chidlren to Utah and Idaho for higher education. I attended BYU back in 1986 and although the memories of that experience are still a wonderful part of my past life, it was very diffcult to be in an apartment with five other girls who were constantly going home for visits, or had family and friends dropping in. Traveling so far from home for school is great, but it does come with a cost.
I would love it if Michelle would live at home for a year or two while she gets her GE stuff done.

Paul and Shelly when she was two years old.
I have not talked to her about this yet, but for the past year or so, I have been thinking of a list of books that I want her to read before she starts higher education. I have even been thinking of tying it to any money and support she gets from us. ie, you want to attend university and have mom and dad help you financially, you need to read these books first.
Top of the list would be David Horowitz’a Radical Son. Then the Case for Democracy by Natan Sharansky, as well as The Naked Communist by Cleon Skousen.
Especially if she decides to attend CU, I would think the balancing effect of reading these books would help to act as a shield for any indoctrinating that may take place in the classroom.
I have a friend who attended CU’s Music School to become a Music Teacher. She summed up her experience by saying that she did not learn much about how to teach music to children, but if she had a homosexual child in the classroom, she would be fully prepared to nurture that child, as that was the thrust of her education classes. I’m not knocking sharing with educators how to deal sensitively with a child who has been sexually traumetized, but if that is the ONLY thing being focused on during education classes, it would seem to me that education teachers are being sold a sorry bill of goods in exchange for a proper music education.
Anyway, I plan to come up with a list of books that I want Michelle and all of our kids to read the summer after they graduate from high school. Books that will innoculate them from the propaganda and false educational principles that are based on Marxism that lurks in the various classrooms of America.

Happy Birthday Michelle, I love you so much!
Jenny Hatch