So I hitchhiked out to the coast with my good friend The Doctor this week, for a variety of reasons for both of us. He's been high on heroine and glue and drunk for about two weeks straight...that's right, he's a junkie, but he's also my good friend and part-time lover, so I agreed to try to help him stay sober. Part of our plan to help him achieve sobriety was for him to leave the city at least for a few days to get away from the people he's been getting high with. So far so good.
For myself, I also needed time away from Portland, both to think about what I want to do with my life now that I'm no longer in midwifery school, and to just get away from the madness that Portland has temporarily descended into, probably because of the heat and a recent influx of easily accessible drugs. I wanted to clear my head and really prioritize what I want in my life; it was difficult to do this in a communal house of temporarily miserable people. So we left together.
I'll probably write a few articles about our trip, but in this one I want to focus on one woman in particular who I met who inspired both me and The Doctor greatly. Her name was Liz, and despite her young age of only twenty-three, she seemed to have her shit together in ways that really really impressed both of us.
Liz had an eight month old baby in the backseat named Magnolia. Liz is a single mom, but she definitely isn't your average young single mother. She said she typically does construction for a living (she was buff to prove it,) and her baby Magnolia was born at home in the water. But that isn't all. Whenever Magnolia made certain sounds, Liz would pull the car over and whisk Magnolia from her car seat and pull down her pants (Magnolia wasn't wearing diapers,) and hold her over the ditch so Magnolia could pee or poop. It was truly amazing to see the synchronicity between this momma and her diaperless baby.
Mag (or June-bug, as her mom called her,) also had certain cries to signal her mom to nurse her. I was also amazed to see this young woman relish nursing the way nursing should be relished. Liz had this to say about parenting, birth and breastfeeding "it has all been so easy, I can't believe some moms say they have a hard time....she's my little side-kick and I love her...."
I realize it isn't so easy for most moms, but I think Liz's matter-of-fact attitude about everything helped tremendously. She said that although little June-bug was unplanned (Liz never desired parenthood at all,) there was no thought in her mind once she found out she was pregnant other then having the baby and being the best parent she could be. She said she knew as soon as she found out that she was pregnant that the baby would be a girl, and that she needed to get as fit and eat as healthily as possible, in preparation for her birth. As a construction worker, she worked hard right up to her daughter's birth, and therefore had an easy time of it (or at least that is what she contributes her easy birth to.)
Anyway, she was a great inspiration to me; I told her of my internal conflict as of late about having a baby or not; she turned to me and said "oh, if your body is saying having a baby, then you should have a baby...having a baby is the most wonderful thing, and afterward you get this whole new wonderful body...." (I almost never hear post-pregnancy moms loving their bodies like that, even in midwifery school...)
Anyway, this morning on the way home I saw a woman on the MAX train smacking a baby of about the same age for whimpering (I should add that this baby was sucking on a very unsatisfying looking plastic bottle,) and I was struck with the sharp contrast between the parenting styles of these two women...if only we could all be Liz if we chose to parent...
Love ya,
Carrot
