The Family Journey wants to grow and we’re looking for individuals to help us plan special events, meet new people and interact with more of the community.
Meet us at Catalyst Coffee (1003 W. Horsetooth Rd. Unit #2 FC 80526) at 10:00am on Thursday, Jan. 31st.
A story from mothering.com about coping with miscarriage.
Here’s a site for a movement created to make midwifery advocates.
If you are interested in improving your communication skills for personal or professional benefit, please consider attending these workshops being offered through LLL of Colorado/Wyoming. Be assured that the cost is well below the value for these life-enriching sessions.
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LLL of Colorado/Wyoming’s Communication Skills Department is pleased to announce that a full Communication Skills series will be offered in Longmont! CS 1 will be held on Saturday, February 16, CS 2 on a Saturday TBD in March, and CS 3 on a Saturday TBD in April. All sessions will begin at 9:15 AM and end at 12:15 PM. We will have a “soft landing” available at 9 AM for those desiring it. Please bring snack to share and/or an item to add to our Stone Soup.
CS Course Descriptions
Communication Skills 1: Listening from the Heart will be offered on February 16, 2008. This session focuses on the skills of attending behavior, reading body language, and identifying feelings and the meanings behind them. It also offers practice in making empathetic responses conversational. Attending CS 1 is recommended before taking CS 2 and CS 3, since CS 2 and CS 3 build on the skills practiced in CS 1.
Communication Skills 2: Offering Information for Change will be offered in March. In this session, we use effective summarizing to help move a conversation along. After practicing this skill, participants learn to impart and obtain information in ways that are responsive to the speaker’s needs. Participants learn to evaluate the effectiveness of various kinds of responses. CS 2 is no longer a prerequisite for CS 3, although CS 3 does build upon CS 2 skills.
Communication Skills 3: Developing Skills for Harmony will be offered in April. This session focuses on giving the helper the tools to respond empathetically during conflict, determine who owns the problem, state one’s own needs, set limits, and problem solve.
Communication Skills Session Fees
First time participants:*
Leaders $10
Leader Applicants $10
Members $10
Non-members $12
Repeated sessions:
Leaders $5
Leader Applicants $5
Members $5
Non-members $6
*Discounts are available for first time participants when sessions are paid for as a complete series (CS 1, 2 & 3 for $27 for LLL Leaders, Leader Applicants and Members or $33 for non-members).
Don’t miss this chance to take Communication Skills sessions in Longmont! These sessions are open to anyone, including LLL Leaders, Leader Applicants, members and non-members. Please note that attending CS 1 is recommended (but not required) before taking CS 2 and CS 3.
For more information, please contact Kim babycatcher@comcast.net
Exciting news about upcoming insurance law changes.
Seeing positive things like this makes me have hope for our grandbabies!
Just a reminder that The Family Journey is having their first anniversary party on Monday January 21st!!! Please find the info on the site and come say hi! We will be unveiling our new vision for the future and it is an exciting vision! We also want to hear YOUR vision and share it with us. Let’s make 2008 the year of better births for families. Let’s get the information out and make the support available.
See you then!
Please help Barbara Harper keep waterbirth alive.
Waterbirth International may close doors. Here is a note from Barbara
Harper of Waterbirth International.
Barbara Harper wrote:
I cannot yet imagine a world without the voice and work of Waterbirth
International – we get calls and emails every day from women who need help
convincing one hospital or another to let them labor or birth in water. If
we die – a big part of the movement dies. Waterbirth has shown us all that
women know how to give birth and babies know how to be born. Waterbirth
gave us “hands-off”, sit back and let the baby out. I see waterbirth
mentioned on Blogs every single day, not to mention Baby Story on the
TV. I took Waterbirth International to ACOG two years in a row – and was the
ONLY booth showing birth films to obstetricians and especially to student
physicians. There were tears, laughter and outrage – just the thing to
stir up those young crop of doctors. I am finally realizing a life’s dream.
But now I am faced with letting this dream go. Perhaps I have done enough.
Perhaps it is time to quit.
About 18 years ago, maybe it was longer, when Mothering Magazine was
facing bankruptcy Peggy did a heartfelt plea asking their readers to consider
ordering a Life-time subscription. I think the subscriptions were $1000 or
$1200, I can’t remember now. I do remember that I couldn’t imagine not
reading my Mothering. So, I bought two and gave one to my obstetrician’s
office.
How can you help us stay open to take the next phone call? – to
convince the next obstetrician to incorporate waterbirth into his/her practice – to
work with the nurse midwives to install pools in their facilities? To
educate an entire hospital on the benefits of allowing women freedom of movement
in the water. How much is it worth to see waterbirth become the norm in the US,
like it is in the UK? I think we only need a few more years to make that
happen. Do women really want waterbirth to be an available choice in every
hospital? I think so.
Can you help us by getting the word out on blogs and lists? I had to let go
of all of the staff except one person to process orders. Miraculously, we
made payroll today, but we can’t hang on much longer. We need a miracle.
If I need to call every single waterbirth parent personally, I will. I
don’t want 25 years of work to end over a measly $200,000.
The work that we have done the last few years has been phenomenal. How God
arranged for me to teach in hospitals and medical schools around the
planet – Taiwan, Venezuela, Turkey, Mexico, Canada, Holland, Portugal, China,
Trinidad, Croatia – I’ll never figure that out. I laugh out loud sometimes
when I get up in front of an audience of physicians in a medical school
overseas – who all want to hear about waterbirth and the incorporation of
Gentle Birth practices and principles into their routines.
Think about what you can do and call me if you want to chat or if you have
some great ideas on how we can quickly move into the black and keep
waterbirth alive and thriving.
We need your help. Barbara Harper needs your help. The waterbirth/gentle
birth movement needs your help.
Blessings,
Barbara
Barbara Harper, RN, CLD, CCE
Founder/Director
Waterbirth International
www.waterbirth.org
503-673-0026 -office (out of US or in Portland)
800-641-2229 – toll free
503-710-7975 – cell phone
We LOVE helping women get into Hot Water!!
And have been doing it for 24 years!!
Inspired by a separate list I’m on…I’d love to see an ongoing list of what we’ve learned from birth – either our own or those attended as support people or professionals.
I’ll give it a go:
1. Women are INCREDIBLY strong. I am too.
2. Going minute by minute is an effective way to get through 22 hours of labor.
3. Mother Nature should have considered putting the baby’s exit a little further from the butt. 
4. Some misinformation is perpetuated based upon fear. Some upon naivete. Some upon laziness.
5. Setting my sights on a goal makes it that much more achievable.
6. Doing what everyone else does might be easier, but it’s also not as rewarding.
Please, add your own!
Link to story (with pictures). Author of this post was there also- it was a beautiful birth! (Well, they all are)
Loveland’s first baby of new year arrives during homebirth
By Douglas Crowl
Loveland Connection
Loveland’s first baby of 2008 was born at the home of Don and Sheila Damborg, a unique homebirth New Year’s baby in the Sweetheart City.
Abigail Joy Damborg was born at 3:51 p.m. Tuesday at the Damborgs’ north Loveland home, the Damborgs’ midwife Carrie Blake said.
The 8-pound, 12-ounce girl edged a child born at Medical Center of the Rockies at 4:23 p.m. Tuesday and one at McKee Medical Center on Wednesday to be the first baby of 2008 in Loveland.
“It was so nice to have her at home,” Sheila Damborg said. “Last night, I was at home with my family right away. We were never separated from our family. It was just really nice.”
Abigail is the Damborgs’ third child, behind David, 1, and Judah, 3, both of whom were born at hospitals in other states.
The Damborgs moved to Loveland six months ago and couldn’t find a doctor they liked, so they looked into home birthing.
They met Blake, of Loveland, and went for it.
Babies born at home are in a minority, but they aren’t rare.
Usually between 500 and 600 babies are born at home in Colorado each year, according to the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.
The practice is outlawed in some states, the nearest being Wyoming and Nebraska.
Colorado passed a law in 1993 legalizing midwives to perform homebirths to mothers consider a “low risk,” such as not having high blood pressure or blood clotting problems, said Karen Robinson, president of the Colorado Midwives Association.
But there’s still risk involved, even for the healthiest mothers, she said.
“The bigger fears that people have are sometimes quite valid,” Robinson said. “The biggest risk is immediate access to care when they need and we don’t have it.”
She said the need for immediate care is a small chance to take, but the mother and father still must take that chance seriously.
Don Damborg said he considered the chances. But Sheila had their two sons without the use of drugs and without complications, making them feel secure about their decision.
“But if something were to go bad, we’d call 911, just like any other emergency situation,” he said.
A comprehensive study on home birthing, published in British Journal of Medicine in 2000, showed the neonatal death rates in North America were the same for babies born at hospitals and babies born at home with a midwife.
“Homebirth with a midwife is not unassisted birth,” Blake pointed out, who delivered 35 homebirth babies in 2007 in Northern Colorado.
Midwifes are certified by the state and can provide some immediate care to baby and mother, Blake said.
Also, a hospital visit is only just a drive away. Of the 35 babies she delivered in 2007, three of the moms were taken to the hospital and one had a C-section, Blake said.
Blake said her clients come from all walks of life. They are usually college educated, have studied the birthing process and share a desire to have a natural, drug-free birthing experience away from a hospital atmosphere.
Money can also be a factor, Robinson said.
“Somewhere around $3,000 will get you a homebirth,” she said.
That includes prenatal and post-partum care, which is a fraction of the costs in a traditional setting, Robinson said.
And some larger insurance companies cover part of the birthing costs, Blake said. She bills it as an out-of-network procedure.
Don Damborg, a music director for the Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fort Collins, said they looked into home-births because they believe in a natural childbirth process, unfettered by hurried doctors and nurses.
When Sheila Damborg went into labor, there was no rush to the hospital, no packing of bags and no dropping the children off somewhere.
The boys stayed at the house and met Abigail right after she was born.
“My pastor thought we were crazy” Don Damborg said admitted, though he believes they made the right choice.
Sheila said she’d do it again at home.
“I really just felt at peace here,” she said.