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When you remember, you remember...Sounds a bit like Yogi Berra in a TV commercial. But for me, the words ring a profound truth. In the autumn of 1998, right after I began therapy for incest, I attended a conference for survivors. I felt so jealous of...
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My mother left my father, my little sister and I when I was 5 years old. It’s very hard for me to separate the damage that was caused by sexual abuse from the damage caused by my mother’s abandonment (especially when it comes to my mothering journey)...
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This is what I want to say to every young woman in the world: your birth is the most important event in shaping your life as a mother. It is imperative that you be properly cared for, nurtured and, in this culture, educated. You need a loving midwife...
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I'm only 36 now, but I have shared my story with so many groups and people that the trauma has been diluted by the years and retellings. The pain associated with the original events has been replaced by insight, understanding, and reframing. I have...
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My one recurrent prayer in high school was to live long enough to move out of my parents’ house. Every night at bedtime I had wanted to kill myself. Images of me dead, ways of dying, and an overwhelming sense of oppression invaded my nighttime thoughts...
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A mother’s birth is first a physical event, but if the psychological aspect takes over it may be impossible for the birth to proceed as a straight-out physical event. In this case, the mind needs to be cleared in order to fall into the primal brain...
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Mother’s Law I do not know why my mother Chose to hurt me; How her life was twister Or why her love so painful. I only know that by every law Sacred to all mothers She betrayed her daughter. My mother broke my heart. Perhaps her mother also betrayed And...
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I’ll tell you right from the start that this is a story that has a good ending. Well, a good enough ending. “Super mom,” I’m not. But my child is eight now, and, by my standards; I’d have to say that he’s having a normal childhood. And he seems to think...
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"THE FOUND TREASURE, MY VOICE" I grew up in an alcoholic home, the second of four children (three girls and one boy). We were all one year apart in age. My father was violent and abusive, my mother extremely needy and passive. As a little girl...
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In our birth practice, we always had so much trouble saying goodbye to the mothers we served. You know how accustomed you get to seeing them weekly, by the end of the pregnancy? Prenatal visits often happened with a lot of laughing and information flying...
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Midwifery is the answer to the question, “how can we afford national health care?” If every motherbaby were attended by a non-interventive but knowledgeable midwife, a national health care program would save billions of dollars on the four...
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I was horrified when I read the American College of Nurse-Midwives’ (ACNM) declaration of opposition to federal recognition for the CPM, or Certified Professional Midwife. One of my most recent blogs was on unity within the midwifery profession...
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A Rhyme This survivor took an axe and gave her father forty whacks. As he lay there on the floor She gave the b%^$#@ forty more. Even now, she wasn’t done she cut his hands off one by one Now the b%^&$# won’t be able to fondle me under the table or...
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Guest Post by Lynn Baptisti Richards (Lynn Baptisti Richards, BS, Ed, LM, is a performing and visual artist, a midwife and a writer.) I thought I was the only one (or nearly the only one) who feels that midwives have been sold a load of crap. The desperate...
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I think it was Virginia Wolfe who said, “If one woman told the truth about her life, the world would explode.” I don’t know if my writing will articulate what it is that I would like to communicate, but I will try, as I tend to ‘disassociate’ whenever...