Adventures in Mama-Land

  Last year, I wrote a book , just before I found out our older daughter was pregnant. It's a book all about the way families grow - through birth, through adoption, through fostering, and how all the ways are magical and lovely. AND HERE IT IS!!! But the process wasn’t as straightforward as with other books I’ve created, in part because I felt so, so strongly about this one. This is a book I have wanted to create for a while, after knowing people who had either adopted or fostered children and seeing that there weren't really many Jewish books to support these also-miraculous ways of growing families. As I have seen from other aspiring writers, however, the more strongly you feel about a project, the more likely it is to come out very, very badly. Because you are so passionate, you write garbage – overly sentimental tripe - and send the book out into the world LONG before it’s ready. I didn’t want that to happen. Yet I had big dreams for this book. I pictured a ...

Maybe you’ve seen this PopSugar article in which a mother denounces her homebirth experience.  Everyone assured her that she was low risk, but she had a painful, long labour which ended in a floppy oxygen-deprived baby who had to be transferred to a hospital NICU.  She ends her article begging, “I do not want to be the poster girl for home birth. Please don't make the same mistake I did.” According to the mom, Ashley Martin, nobody should have a homebirth.  She says , bitterly, “I was misled, lied too [sic], and manipulated. Informed consent? Hah. I wish.“ “Worst day of my life is a huge understatement:  My baby almost died. I almost died.” I’m so, so sad for this mama.  And I am relieved that her baby made it.  That he is a spunky 16-month-old today.  But, as she says, “just because my son is okay, does NOT mean that my home birth was okay.” Still, I wonder if this is really about homebirth at all. Birth, as normal as it is, and as much as w...