"To sleep/Perchance to dream"

I love the drive from a client’s house to the hospital. I’m following my clients, watching the labouring woman’s hand reach up to the roof of the car during each contraction. For me, it’s an in-between time of quiet watchfulness, similar to that “out of time” feeling I remember while feeding a baby in the middle of the night.

Last night, we had a long drive from Surrey to Burnaby General. So, I turned on the radio to CBC Ideas and heard an amazing piece by Jeff Warren called "While You Were Out" about the changes in sleep patterns over the last three hundred years.

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On Memories

"So much of our early gladness vanishes utterly from our memory: we can never recall the joy with which we laid our heads on our mother's bosom or rode on our father's back in childhood; doubtless that joy is wrought up into our nature, as the sunlight of long-past mornings is wrought up in the soft mellowness of the apricot; but it is gone for ever from our imagination, and we can only believe in the joy of childhood."
George Eliot, Adam Bede

Conscientious parenting begins before our children are born. Writing a pregnancy and birth journal can help to create wonderful memories for our babies. My own children loved it when I read my journals aloud at bedtime.

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Mail sampler (to encourage new mums)

Dear Jacquie,

Sam is 10 months old now, and doing really, really well. She is a very mellow, happy baby (and she sleeps through the night which makes life SO MUCH EASIER).

My birth experience has stayed close to me through everything - to be expected, I suppose, but it has become a memory that I draw on when I'm having one of those tough days (i.e. not enough sleep, Sam teething, Sam not eating her peas, all of the above in combo with PMS - I *so* didn't miss my menstrual cycle...). My memories are overwhelmingly positive, and much of that has to do with your calm presence throughout. You set the tone, you guided me to that place where I knew that my body would - and could - do what needed to be done. That strength and confidence has made all the difference, particularly during the early months when everyone around me seemed to think they knew what Sam needed better than I did; whenever I've had doubts, I've gone back to that basic trust in my body, and it has so far given me the best advice.

My trust in my intuition, and in my body's ability to take care of itself and my babe, is at the very core of my mothering. I think that your guidance through the birth helped me find that - and for that I thank you. I hope you're available when we do this again! I'm really looking forward to it. How weird is that? I must be ovulating... ;-)

I hope all is well with you and yours!

Maureen