Every day a search engine sends me people who are looking for more information about a blogging doctor who has run a wholesale campaign against families who choose to give birth holistically. Sometimes I get one or two hits and some days it is fifteen or twenty, but every day, a few people come sniffing around looking for more information about Dr. Amy. Or as Laura Shanley and I call her, Dr. Dumbass.
So To make things easier to research I thought I would put together a little primer on Dr. Amy from my Blog.
I was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting today for our congregation of Mormons.
We do not have a paid preacher for our sermons, the members do the teaching, testifying, and talking and every week three people are asked to share thoughts on a variety of gospel topics.
Typically the meeting starts with the Youth Speaker, who is usually someone between the ages of 12 and 18, then they are followed by an adult speaker, then a song from the congregation, ward choir, or a soloist is shared and then a final adult speaker will close the meeting.
Once a month on the first Sunday of the month we have fast and testimony meetings where anyone from the congregation, including children, can stand and testify to the rest of the group about various aspects of the gospel. All of the Latter Day Saints fast two meals and give the money they would have spent on food to the Bishop as a Fast Offering to be used to help the poor and needy.
And every few weeks a team of men from the high council show up to speak on topics chosen by the Stake President to address specific areas of need and concern in the locale where we live. Every six months we have Stake Conference as well as General Conference, which is a worldwide broadcast from Salt Lake City. All of the talking, teaching, and testifying at General Conference is done by the Apostles, Elders, and several of the sisters who serve in the presidencies of the main auxiliaries of the church.
Here is the text of the talk I plan to share on Sunday in church: (Note – I always prepare more than I plan to say so that if I have to cut it short for one reason or another, I can easily edit it down)
In 1766 Stephen Mack, the eldest brother of Lucy Mack Smith was born. At the age of 14 he was called up as part of the Militia and went to fight during the Revolutionary War. In his later years he settled in Detroit Michigan. At his own expense he built the Pontiac Trail, the turnpike road that went from Detroit to Pontiac Michigan. At his death in 1826 he was revered as the principle founder of several of the communities in the suburbs of Detroit and left his family no debts and a fifty thousand dollar inheritance. (Source: History of Joseph Smith written by his mother Lucy Mack Smith.)
In 1952 Stake President George Romney purchased 8 acres of land for the church to build a Stake Center on. I grew up on this little patch of land. So many hours of my childhood were spent ripping around the land, climbing the trees, and hiking with friends down to the little stream at Cranbrook School behind the property, that it almost felt as though this piece of land was my home, even more than the various homes I grew up in around the Detroit Area. I was blessed, baptized, and bore my first lisping testimony in that building. It was while giving a talk in the singles ward in the chapel of the Bloomfield Hills stake center when I was 19 that I looked over the congregation of mostly napping young adults and noticed the smiling face of one Paul Dean Hatch who was bathed in light from a nearby window. He was such a nice looking young man, with a countenance that glowed with the Light of the Gospel, that I did a double take and our eyes locked during the meeting. We first talked and danced at a Stake Dance in October and he asked me out for our first date on his 28th birthday November 7th. We dated quite a bit for a few weeks and we were engaged to be married on December 19th, a few short weeks after I gave that talk in Sacrament Meeting.
Our married life has always revolved around our membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
During my childhood our stake produced many plays, musicals, road shows, concerts, dance festivals, and had countless bazaars, ward suppers, and Balls (Harvest Ball, Sweetheart Ball, New Years Eve Dance etc..) Because my parents were always involved in these artistic endeavors requiring many hours of rehearsal, I spent hours exploring the various nooks and crannies of that huge stake center. I remember climbing up the tall ladder encased in the steeple with my brothers one Saturday morning while Mom was busy with play practice. We knew every hiding place for hide and seek, and every patch of ground outside for tag. All of the important ordinances of Baby Blessings, Baptism, and Priesthood Ordinations were conducted in that sacred space. Our oldest daughter Michelle was blessed by Paul in the chapel of that building when she was a few weeks old.,
My parents both converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ when they were teens, and eventually both sets of grandparents joined the church and so I consider myself a third generation Latter Day Saint. My Uncle John was the first family member on my Fathers side to join the church and he told my Dad, who was 17 at the time, that many of the young ladies at church were very pretty. So having his spiritual priorities lined up properly, my Dad attended church to “check out the girls”. He was baptized in the fifties and attended the old Detroit Branch of the church. My mothers family started out in Michigan, where Mom was born, but moved all over the country because of my grandfathers work, and it was my Grandmothers habit that she would send her seven children to whatever church was within walking distance of their home. When my Mother was ten they moved to Riverside California and the LDS church was the closest to the family home and that began our families journey to baptism on my Mothers side.
Paul and I started our life together in the Troy Ward of the Bloomfield Hills Stake and attended church at the big Stake Center referenced earlier. We sang in the Detroit Mormon Concert Choir in 1988 the year our oldest daughter Michelle joined our family. We then moved to Ohio with Pauls job and lived in Yellow Springs, Ohio for two years. We lived in a temporary situation in Omaha Nebraska for six months while I was expecting our second daughter Allison. We arrived in Boulder Colorado in the fall of 1991 and raised our family with the help of the wonderful group of saints who live in that section of Colorado for twenty years. Ally, Jeffrey, Andrew, and Benjamin all joined our family during our years in Colorado and we feel so blessed to have raised our family with the Faithful members of the church who made up our ward and stake family teaching and testifying to our children during every lesson, testimony meeting, and gathering. Our children were blessed to attend an excellent Charter School in Boulder County and we Home Schooled off and on during various years when it was a good fit for me and for our children. Boulder is an extremely liberal community and some of the public school curriculum was objectionable to us as parents. Our children enjoyed participating in Scouts, Sports, Speech and Debate, Choir, and a variety of part time job situations and Community Service. Paul and I sang with the Colorado Mormon Chorale and also the Colorado Repertory Singers and Broomfield Chorale Singers. Cultural Offerings in Boulder were often held on the sabbath, and so it was impossible for us to participate in Plays, Musicals, and other portions of the arts world. We are thrilled to be here in Cedar City where Paul has joined Master Singers and I am currently singing with four different musical groups.
In 1998 a temple was announced to be built in Michigan on the very land where the Stake Center is located in Bloomfield Hills. I informed Paul that we HAD to find a way to fly home for the dedication. Fortunately we had a year to save and plan and on October 24th 1999 we were able to be in the temple with President Hinckley and hundreds of friends who had been my extended church family for the first 20 years of my life.
From the dedication of the temple on the churchs web site:
“President Hinckley also noted that Stephen Mack, a brother of Joseph Smith’s mother, Lucy, “surveyed the first road through what became Detroit.” Many members pointed out the road in front of the temple as the one Stephen Mack built. The Prophet Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum and his father, Joseph Smith Sr., visited the Detroit area in 1834, and because of the location of the road and its relationship to the Prophet’s uncle, “it would seem likely to me that they went by the temple site,” President Bithell said.”
I was asked to choose a talk from the recent conference to share during this talk. The reason why I spent so much time outlining the church history that I was raised in during my youth in Michigan is because I was part of a Culture of Faithful Saints who as a stake made important decisions about what sorts of legacies were going to be a part of our day to day life and heritage.
During his talk he reflected on the culture of his family, ward, stake, and the community in which he was raised.
He said:
“Culture is defined as the way of life of a people. There is a unique gospel culture, a set of values and expectations and practices common to all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This gospel culture, or way of life, comes from the plan of salvation, the commandments of God, and the teachings of living prophets. It is given expression in the way we raise our families and live our individual lives.”
During the talk Elder Perry outlined five things to create a stronger family culture:
“In our remarkable parental stewardship, there are many ways that goodly parents can access the help and support they need to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to their children. Let me suggest five things parents can do to create stronger family cultures:
First, parents can pray in earnest, asking our Eternal Father to help them love, understand, and guide the children He has sent to them.
Second, they can hold family prayer, scripture study, and family home evenings and eat together as often as possible, making dinner a time of communication and the teaching of values.
Third, parents can fully avail themselves of the Church’s support network, communicating with their children’s Primary teachers, youth leaders, and class and quorum presidencies. By communicating with those who are called and set apart to work with their children, parents can provide essential understanding of a child’s special and specific needs.
Fourth, parents can share their testimonies often with their children, commit them to keep the commandments of God, and promise the blessings that our Heavenly Father promises His faithful children.
Fifth, we can organize our families based on clear, simple family rules and expectations, wholesome family traditions and rituals, and “family economics,” where children have household responsibilities and can earn allowances so that they can learn to budget, save, and pay tithing on the money they earn.
These suggestions for creating stronger family cultures work in tandem with the culture of the Church. Our strengthened family cultures will be a protection for our children from “the fiery darts of the adversary” (1 Nephi 15:24) embedded in their peer culture, the entertainment and celebrity cultures, the credit and entitlement cultures, and the Internet and media cultures to which they are constantly exposed. Strong family cultures will help our children live in the world and not become “of the world” (John 15:19).”
I am so grateful for the Family Culture and Stake Culture that I was raised in. Many hardworking and faithful saints gave of their time and talents to help me on my walk back to my Heavenly Father.
When I was thinking of the many goodly parents I have known over the years, one family stands out in particular and I would like to close my talk by sharing a little of their story.
I met Laura in a children’s consignment store in Boulder where I was shopping one day and she worked part time. She was in the Louisville Ward and I was in the Boulder ward, but I did not know that she was a member of the church when we met. As we chatted one day I was impressed by her work ethic and helpfulness and enjoyed visiting with her while I shopped for my children’s clothes.
When we bought our first house in Louisville Laura and her husband were in the ward with us and a friend told me that they had just adopted twins girls. These babies were preemies and so she was missing from church for several months while she tenderly cared for her daughters.
She and her husband had already adopted one child, but they lost the baby soon after because the grandparents wanted the baby back. She had struggled with infertility for years. Soon after the twins showed up in her life, the ladies of the ward threw her a huge baby shower and we all reveled in the joy of her children. A few weeks later we were saddened to learn that once again a grandmother desired to raise the babies, and after three months Laura and her husband had to give them up. I had three little ones myself and felt so sad for my friend. Her mother heart ached for a baby to raise and love.
A few months before I gave birth to my son Andrew in 1996, we heard the wonderful news that a little boy was available for adoption. Laura jumped at the chance to raise him. She and her husband welcomed David into their home even though he had been born premature and had so many health challenges the doctors assured them he was not going to live long. During the two short years of his life I watched in amazement as Laura lovingly nurtured this young child. I remember being in the mothers nursing room with my own baby while she gave him breathing treatments to help him breathe. He was so sick and had so many surgeries that it was just one long labor of love to care for him.
When he was a few months old he was not doing well at all and the pediatrician told her he would benefit greatly from some mothers milk. My friend Lily offered to nurse the baby and I was at the church when she first talked to Laura about organizing a group of Mothers in the ward to provide him with milk. He was allergic to everything, especially the many different baby formulas they had tried.
I never heard who all of the Moms were who donated breastmilk to David, but shortly before his death Laura stood in testimony meeting and talked about the eight breastfeeding Moms in our ward who had helped to nourish David. I was shocked that so many stepped up to help. Anyone who has nursed a child knows that it is a full time job and each ounce of milk a labor of love to create. Laura testified how powerful the milk was in easing his various symptoms and helping in his quality of life. I only nursed him a few times, but felt a deep connection to him and to all of the mothers in our ward who also contributed.
I guess the question must be asked, “why would we do this if everyone knew he was going to die?” Why bother?
Was it important to David? To Laura? To her Husband? To our ward family? For each of us to contribute a little bit to the health and happiness of one of our Heavenly Fathers children?
I would like to suggest that in building family cultures and church cultures it is vitally important to our goal of becoming true disciples of Jesus Christ for each member of the culture to contribute to those who cannot care for themselves. Whether they be infants or the aged, how we treat and care for the “least of these” in our midst is our testimony of how we live the gospel. When David died our whole ward mourned his passing as if we had lost our own baby. Laura, the pillar of strength that she is, just took it all in stride knowing that she had done her best to give him a quality of life and that would not have existed in an orphanage or foster care.
Everyone in the ward was shocked when we discovered that after years of infertility and the adoption of four children, three of whom Laura had to give back, and one lost in death, Laura was able to conceive a child naturally and was able to give birth to a beautiful daughter. Once again our ward family was able to revel in the joy of a much desired child being added to our congregation.
It is my testimony that in seeking to become Goodly Parents and attempting to set an example to our children and grandchildren of appropriate and gospel centered ways to build a strong family culture, it is our treatment and care of the young and the old in our midst that is our best indicator of how well we are doing as we seek to emulate the Savior Jesus Christ in all we say and do.
I testify in the name of Jesus Christ that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is Heavenly Fathers Kingdom on the earth.
Here are a few videos and photos from the past two days of Conference:
Life is Good…
Ben decided he still does not fit in public school, so after a month or so of trying out the local fourth grade, he is back home. School starts bright and early on monday morning. I really enjoyed the total tease of the past five years. When he started at the charter school in kindergarten, I thought, “Cool, now I will have a few hours every day to myself! But he skipped school so much that he was home all the time during kindergarten and first grade, and then he only lasted a month of second grade before he bailed, same for third and fourth grade. Each year, I thought I was finished with home school, but now will jump back in the saddle and see what sort of fun we can come up with this year.
Today I have been putting together General Conference Packets for my children, with a focus on Benjamin, who is nine. Here are links to the various places where I printed packet material.
My sister had purchased a can of Vernors Pop from a vending machine and was sipping away on it. I asked her for a slug while I was sitting in the wheelchair waiting to be taken to my birthing room.
A nurse appeared right as I was sipping the can. (For the record, I do NOT recommend mothers drink soda during labor – raspberry tea with honey is a much better choice)
The nurse got right in my face, and said, “you will not do THAT again, no food or drink during labor.”
This was 1988 and my husband and I had just watched the movie The Verdict on television the night before. (Not exactly the best viewing right before giving birth to your first baby) So I understood WHY it was not a good idea for me to drink some soda, but I was thirsty…
This was the beginning of my first effort to claw my way to a normal birth in a teaching hospital in Michigan.
As I look back at my life as a mother, the one constant is the level of juxtaposition that came up again and again as I wended my way through the maze of modern mothering. As each experience contrasted with the last, I had to chuckle over and over at the level of extremes that appeared to be my lot in life.
I did not just have Post Partum Depression. I had Post Partum Psychosis.
I did not give birth for the first time in a reasonably balanced medical environment. No, I had to choose the hospital where I was born, Beaumont, in Royal Oak Michigan, a high risk facility that catered to high risk mothers and had a fifty percent c section rate back in 1988.
Back then I did not know that I was a Freebirther in embryo, a smoldering cauldron of birth activism willing to put it all on the line for my family and the families who were also being risked into medical slavery at just about every intersection with drugs and surgery.
The idea for this essay first entered into my mind a few weeks ago as I observed a chat on Facebook between my friend Carla Harley and a few Doulas who were expressing dismay that Unassisted Birthers were asking them to attend Family Births and play the role of midwife/protector and they were not comfortable and did not feel qualified to assist these families. Carla gave them sage advice as she is wont to do, and the conversation reminded me of my own attempts to recruit people to assist me with home births.
When I was expecting my second baby I sent a copy of Emergency Childbirth to my mother and asked her to help me with a home birth. She bluntly informed me that she did not feel qualified to help. In frustration I accepted her response and let go of the idea of Mom playing midwife and dug a little deeper into my own resources as a parent. As I began labor with my second daughter I found myself wrapped in fear. I had been going to prenatal appointments with a Family Doctor. At my last appointment before labor began she told me that she believed my daughter was breech. I refused an ultrasound and told my husband that I would rather spend that three hundred dollars on herbs to help me after the birth with emotional illness. I was so bottled up with terror that upon the birth of my child I would awake in a mental hospital, that the fear of a return of emotional distress was my upper most concern.
When labor finally kicked in I stayed home for twenty hours and gave it my best shot. My mother and husband were with me, and they were very concerned that we not arrive too early to the hospital as we had with my first child. When I showed up the nurses sadly informed me that I was only dilated to one. I was so disheartened by this news that when the doc insisted on an ultrasound to check positioning, I said, “OK”. Allison was indeed breech and I spent the next three hours negotiating with the staff on how we were to proceed. I struggled to know what was best for my baby. They told me that they could give me a drug that would stop labor, then another drug to relax my uterus, attempt a manual version, then another drug to start labor and then I could birth my baby vaginally.
I managed to call Dr. Bradley in Denver during labor and ended up talking to his wife Martha. She encouraged me to just have the c section and it was helpful to have her advice during that difficult time in my life.
During my third birth I again attempted a Family Birth at home and labored for three days alone.
We had mistakenly thought that Jeff was overdue by two weeks and my doc, who I had once again hired to do my prenatal care, insisted that we be induced on a monday at ten am. Jeff ended up being born at that exact moment, and the three days of his labor were a marathon of prayer, soul searching, and overkill in terms of the help I had set up for our older children. I had an army of friends who helped with the girls, assisted us at the hospital…it was so much over thinking that when I remember it now, I just feel silly that I felt the need to give all of those people “assignments” to help with the birth. It would have been so much simpler if we had just done the pregnancy ourselves, with no deadlines, and allowed labor to kick in when he was truly ready to be born. We did all sorts of “natural” things to induce labor, and while they worked, he was NOT ready to come out.
There were so many “Nos” from my doctor during his pregnancy and labor that this experience was the final “I’ve had it” moment for me. I walked away, literally ran from them. I am so grateful for the many writers and thinkers who influenced my choices. The clarity of the many doctors and midwives whose books I absorbed during this time gave me the courage to run away and free myself from the power of those who say NO! This was in 1994, before the internet was truly up and running for the average family.
I am so grateful for the Nos.
Because the professionals in my life said no to me over and over on various issues, it caused me to dig deeper and deeper looking for answers to big perplexing problems.
There is another group of professionals, family, and friends who also had the courage to say no. And it is to this group that I would like to address this post. Dont’ feel bad or guilty to say no to Family Birthers. It might be exactly what THEY need to hear.
I am a Doula, so I can say with confidence that the thought of helping any family with an unassisted birth scares the crap out of me. I have done it, but each time it was reluctantly and when they asked me if I wanted my name on the birth certificate as “attendant”, I said “NO!” and made it very clear to them that I was only there to help with older children, clean, cook food, and generally assist the family as they welcomed a new family member.
During my fourth labor I thought I wanted my friend Laura Shanley to attend. During a moment of pre labor that occurred a week before the actual birth, I invited Laura to come over. While I contracted in my bedroom she took my three oldest children to the park, and then came in to “help”. As most in the birth community know, Laura is considered the Mother of Unassisted Childbirth, yet for some reason it annoyed me that she was in my private space. During the final weeks of Andrews pregnancy I had bouts of pre labor almost every night that lasted four to five hours. His pregnancy was a real tease because I was so large I thought I was having twins and had decided to put my faith on the line and welcome him into our home after doing my own prenatal care. These bouts of pre labor were so confusing, I thought I was going into “real” labor about a hundred times.
It was curious to me that I did not want Laura there, and as I have thought about it, I think that I was loathe to have any sort of expert around me. Although Laura would be the last person on the earth to interfere with the process of labor I figure it was my own sense that this was supposed to be about Paul and I, not my friend.
During my fifth pregnancy I watched one of my best friends marriage dissolve after she had given birth to three children unassisted. The high divorce rate in the Family Birth community has been a blight, but I believe that many marriages cannot withstand the scrutiny, rejection, and bullying that non conformist parents experience.
My friend experienced the full range of invasions into her privacy as she dealt with mental hospital lockup/evaluation, time in jail, being cut off from her older children for months during a social services investigation and unassisted childbirth was the big glaring red flag as she was investigated by every agency and busybody the county of Boulder Colorado could provide. I understand and know that all of this was done out of concern for the well being of her children and after a domestic violence situation where she punched her husband in the face, but it was horrifying to watch and because I was seven months pregnant with Ben and she was eight months pregnant with her son, the full threat and awareness of what we were planning to do in giving birth alone was constantly right in front of my face. Especially since she stayed in our home for several days twice during that difficult time.
Every night she and I would get on our knees and pray for protection and asked the Lord to guide us. I was deeply concerned that as the time for her to give birth approached that if she gave birth in my home, I would be investigated and potentially locked up if anything went wrong, or even if everything went perfectly, because of the situation she was in, I would be dragged into the mess. Through a series of miraculous events she gave birth in the hospital to a big healthy son, and I was able to “lovingly detach” from her situation to prepare for my own birth and baby moon.
It is impossible for me to find the words to describe the horror of this situation and many times I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders.
The final months of my pregnancy I was also overwhelmed by the media focus that was being shoved on the husband of Andrea Yates. Rusty Yates was being blamed for his wife’s Post Partum Psychosis and the deaths of his five children while she was in a psychotic state. The similarities between our family and the Yates family were stark; homeschoolers, five kids, religious, previous episodes of depression and suicidality, etc etc… Paul and I were so overwhelmed by the media spotlight, we had to turn off the news and cloister away from any media influence while we continued to plan and prepare to welcome our son.
During a couple of moments of overwhelm and concern I reached out to several LDS friends who had midwife training and/or were doulas and asked them if they would come just be in the house with us while I gave birth. These friends all said “no”. Again, I had to dig deeper into my own spiritual resources. Each “NO” was an opportunity for growth and strengthening.
When I was seven and a half months pregnant I decided to go see my family doctor. I had a blood test to check my iron levels and while we visited I asked him if he would come into the hospital to help me if I had to transfer during a home birth. He told me he would if I would do normal prenatal care with him, but he did not feel that it was fair to him to be pulled into another deadly situation if I did not have the courtesy to allow him to be a full participant. He also said that he knew the only reason I would show up was if there was an emergency, and again, he said it was not fair. I agreed and told him I understood. He also told me that it was terrible to expect the Emergency Room Doctors to pick up the pieces of a botched home birth because they rarely see childbirth complications. I agreed.
So again, a “NO”. A No that caused me to dig deeper, to think harder, to question everything.
Who was I?
What was the goal?
Why Why WHY did I feel to the need to grasp my Family Sovereignty and NEVER let it go?
For me, it is all about freedom.
Freedom to NOT be induced.
Freedom to choose how I will live.
Freedom to protect the private space around my child’s birth.
Freedom to hire those professionals to attend me and help me in my own space. My chiropractor and Aryuvedic Doula were both at my home within nine hours of the birth on October 25th 2002.
If I had hired a midwife two Colorado rules would have kicked in forcing me to be induced.
My water broke three days before Ben was born while I was at my exercise class. I would have been forced to transfer care from Midwife to Doctor two and a half days before the birth for that reason alone. I also went three days over 42 weeks. The midwife again would have been compelled BY LAW to transfer care to an OB.
Instead I spent those three days eating, sleeping, relaxing in the tub, and doing my normal daily schedule. I also spent considerable time praying to know what was best for me and the baby.
As each moment of those three days passed, I was GRATEFUL for the “NOS”.
Because so many people had said “No” to being involved in the situation of my fifth child’s birth, I was freed to quietly listen to my Heavenly Father and take his perfect counsel without any “professional” or well intentioned advice from friends and family.
And his guidance was perfect.
It was real.
It was all that was needful.
Paul and I were able to revel in the joy of unfettered spirit the night our child was born in our bedroom.
During transition, the most difficult time of my labor, Paul asked what he could do to help. I asked him to sing hymns. He pulled out our Mormon Hymn Book and started singing all of my favorite spiritual songs. The sweet glow of the spirit of the Lord washed over us and and spilled into our bedroom as the final hours of labor were dutifully conducted by my lover and I.
When Ben gave his first gasp for air Paul handed him to me and as I lay down on our bed, I looked over and saw my sweetheart jumping for joy.
I would not wish the emotional distress I experienced during that pregnancy on my worst enemy (weird, but Dr. Amy Teuteur MD just popped into my head).
But when I look at Benjamin, who will turn ten years old next month, I am reminded of the miracle of my Mothering Journey and it just makes me feel glad.
Every day a search engine sends me people who are looking for more information about a blogging doctor who has run a wholesale campaign against families who choose to give birth holistically. Sometimes I get one or two hits and some days it is fifteen or twenty, but every day, a few people come sniffing around looking for more information about Dr. Amy. Or as Laura Shanley and I call her, Dr. Dumbass.
