So my best friend in Upstate NY, Holly the glassblower and I just spent four days madly driving down the east coast to Charolette, NC to see her sister and her sister's brand new baby. It was one of those roadtrips where you vow when you get back never to make that same mistake again and only give yourself four days to drive thousands of miles there; spend a little over thirty six hours in a place; then turn right back around and drive straight back. (If you've never done a roadtrip like that, I'd recommend avoiding such a trip at all costs.) Holly and I have done this a few times to see various friends (usually, ironically, around Charolette,) because Holly is a workaholic and doesn't ever feel like she can take more then a few days off at a time, and we always end up "breaking up," on the last leg of the journey and then making up again; because at that point we are both so sleep deprived and grumpy and jumpy on energy drinks and coffee that we start listing each other's faults and things that annoy us about the other; and Holly always says something like "well lets not waste each other's time anymore by being friends then..." and it gets all dramatic, but then, we both cool off for forty minutes or so and by the time I drop Holly off at her house or her parents, we are friends again. This has happened at least twice before this trip to us.
For the most part, however, it was a good trip. I got to hold a newborn baby; which, to me, is almost worth driving thousands of miles for. I also picked up a roadkill pourcipine which is still in the trunk of my car, in a cooler on ice. I've heard that pourcipine is one of those roadkill delicacies that is rare and delicious, so I'm excited to try it. I'm also excited to try quillwork, a craft traditionally practiced by native folks here in the Eastern woodland states out to Minnesota; I've seen some amazing quillwork in a museum out in Minneapolis which inspired me to keep my eyes peeling for a roadkill pourcipine.
I also was reassured that my path to midwifery is the one I want to pursue; everytime I visit a new mom in a hospital, or help a mom labor in a hosptial, I'm reminded why I want to be a midwife. Hospitals, to me, seem like the last place on earth to give birth; besides being recepticales for the sick and the dying (not a good place to bring new life into the world,) when you get fourteen different nurses watching you and your baby, you are likely to get mass hysteria about the smallest things, leading a new mom into a sort of panic-survival mode. I've seen it over and over again. For example, the nurses freaked this new mom out by constantly weighing her baby; on day three, they announced that the baby had lost too much weight and should be put on formula. I saw several ways this whole senario could have easily been avoided; for one thing, they gave the new mom a "breastfeeding schedule" which is bound to fail, since newborns don't feed on schedules, they should feed when hungry, which is pretty much constantly at first, which leads the mom's body to make the milk come in faster and in greater quantities. If a newborn is put on a feeding schedule, the mom learns to ignore the baby's natural hunger cues and to ignore her own good momma instincts; and she begins to only feed when the nurses say she should. As a result, sometimes she tries to feed the baby when she isn't hungry, and sometimes the baby is going hungry when she should be eating. The mom's body stops making the quantities of collostrum it should, and baby gets hungrier. It becomes a downward spirial. Hospitals are good at that. Eventually, baby will be eating only formula.
Anyway, I could rant and rave about this sort of thing all day; bottom line is midwives provide excellent one-on-one care where they can see exactly what is happening with each momma-baby team and coach them from there; rather then having new care providers come on shift every twelve hours and confuse mom and baby with differening options, advice and levels of expertice. And some of the nurses where clearly pushing formula, while others wanted the new mom to continue breastfeeding, and all of the nurses where leading the new mom down the panic road.
Love ya,
Carrot
You should try selling those quills in a powwow circuit. They use it in their regalia. I'm not familiar with tribes on the eastcoast but here in the southwest we use their quills for jewlery as well. But I would look up to see if there's some regulatory law bout using their quills. It seems the government is regulating everything now. Even medicine men have to get permission to get a eagle feather and varify it's going to be used for a traditonal ceremony. They're seeping so low that they're actually barging into Native Americans homes and taking eagle feathers that have been in that family for generations under the accusation that they did not get approval from the government to have them. They have had them in their families before that law was even law! Unjust world still battering Natives.
about the eagle feathers I mean. I understand that the law(s) are meant to protect animals from poaching and whatever, but taking feathers that are family heirlooms is wrong! I think I'm gonna use the quills myself and try to learn some quilling; I was really impressed with the quillwork I saw in a museum in Minniapolis and a video showing an old Native woman doing quillwork. She said she used quills from roadkill pourcupines, so I've been keeping my eyes peeled for a pourcipine when I've been on the road ever since.
Unfortunately, I only pulled about an eighth of the quills off last night and I left the skin hanging in the backyard on a pallet thinking no animal in it's right mind would walk off with a pourcipine skin; but someone did! Some coyote or fox or bobcat is probably regretting that decision right now; I'm picturing a poor coyote out in the woods somewhere, barking and crying, trying to get quills out of his face. I got just one quill stuck in a finger yesterday while using surgical tools to pull them out; and damn, they hurt and are really hard to get out of your skin once their stuck!
Love ya,
Carrot