Summer is Over

This summer has gone by much faster than I was hoping it might with far less beach days and not nearly enough ice cream. Here I sit, 22 weeks and 6 days pregnant, wondering with my children where summer went.

September in the Fraser Valley of BC means clouds and this year, apparently, still smokey skies. We haven't started with the rain just yet, but I've bought some maternity jeans and I'm ready to wear long pants again. Looking back at the pictures, I can see how my desire to live a little more "in the moment" affected my photography since there aren't pictures of everything I remember doing. Now, to be fair we didn't get up to much this summer, but I wish I'd taken my camera to Mann Farms last month where we got to feed goats and ride pedal carts and jump on a giant pillow. I wish we'd taken pictures at a few campfires with cousins or on my birthday when I got spoiled by my sisters and their kids with cake and ice cream and swimming in the pool.

What I have is what I have and now we're looking forward to fall.

Backyard soccer in the springtime.

Watching the traffic go by.

Springtime puddle jumping on Mt Thom.

Early spring beach days with Tim Horton's treats.

Library books.

Breakfast ice cream.

Baby toes that turned into toddler toes somehow over the course of one summer.

Other things did happen this summer, but you'll find them over at www.honeydewdoula.com and www.honeydewhenna.com since they're related to the births I attended and the henna I did.

Plus, check it out! Two decent family pictures in one summer :) I'm not good at remembering to take those, but here's proof that it can happen!

At the beginning of summer in my dad's back yard.

On Labour Day at Stanley Park where Jo rode her two wheeler without training wheels!

Let's see what fall is going to be like!

Veronica

Photography and Videography: The Art of Crafting a Story

This morning I decided that, while I'm not comfortable with Facebook and how it operates in my life I do feel a need for a place to share some of the work I've been doing. This blog has often been a home for new passions since I am clearly a woman of many pursuits. So, I've returned again with new vigor and a different direction.

Writing is hard. When I begin writing a story I'm often held up by the details. The picture, the emotions, and the simplest gestures captivate me and I feel unable to get to the forward moving parts of action and conflict. It is a simple thing to talk about the story or to describe its setting but telling what happens exactly is less in my expertise. Describing the action of getting married and saying the "I do" and signing the register, then walking back down the aisle is boring, but describing the moment he's pulling a reluctant comb through his stubborn, but tastefully barbered curls, and the moment their eyes meet down the aisle and she can't feel her toes and this moment is stamped on her brain with the kind of elastic electricity that will continue recording this day in fragments of feelings and parcels of tastes, smells, and sounds that can only be recalled by reliving, that's my jam.

Since I was 13 and received my first diary, I've always defaulted my processing and my inner dialogue to paper. The things I experience run through a filter of words. I turn feelings and emotions into words, into something concrete. I also have a vocal dialogue and, much to my book loving husband's constant frustration it is usually required listening. Thinking thoughts doesn't seem to be enough for me. I have to tell them, even if only to myself. There is much in photography and videography that includes my favourite parts of that act of making experiences concrete. Detail photos showing how hands sit and what the lights look like. A clip of her face responding in play. These are parts of a story that come easily to me in writing and I find that they come easily to me in other media storytelling too.

In telling the story of a birth, or an afternoon hike, however I find that the story tells itself and the photographer simply has to be there to capture the story. It is the most precious parts of life that can be told in poetry, in painting, in photography, and videography. To capture a moment. To capture life's moments; that collection is how we recall our memories and that collection is the work of the visual story teller.

This website is where you'll find my story telling.

Why Hire a Doula?

In Canada, the idea of paying money for any kind of health care related cost typically meets with various forms of scoffing and questions. But what if our health care system didn't cover something that research has proven to improve outcomes drastically?

Continuous care of a doula, even more so than continuous care of hospital staff or of a family member, provides the best outcomes both for mother and baby (Hodnett et al.) The numbers are actually staggering:

• 28% decrease in the risk of caesarean birth
• 31% decrease in the use of Pitocin
• 12% increase in the likelihood of spontaneous vaginal birth
• 9% decrease in the use of any medications for pain relief

These are the kinds of results that are too incredible to ignore! Since some of the benefits of the doula lie in the fact that she remains with her client from beginning to end of labour without shift changes and is notably not on staff at the hospital, it may be a long time before Health Canada could consider implementing the coverage of doula care.

What if we want a birth experience that is more...?

The same Cochrane review referenced above indicated a 34% decrease in dissatisfaction with the birth experience. What does that mean? Well, partly it reflects the findings listed above because usually women prefer to avoid c-sections and Pitocin and medications. But it also reflects something a little more basic. During pregnancy women hear all manner of birth "horror stories" and tales of how long and difficult labour can be and it makes us nervous; we second-guess our bodies and begin to believe we cannot do it. Having a doula can counteract some of the negative you're hearing and ensure you are prepared for birth. This kind of preparedness can give you options during labour as well as change your perception of how the events unfold both during and after your baby is born.