May the fart be with you!

The sun is out,
the sky is blue,
there's not a cloud
to spoil the view...

finally, after the hail and sleet of last Monday!

Everything has kicked off into new life - just as I love it. Birth, life, greenery, hippity, hoppity ickle baby lambies...well, okay, not that last bit, that just sounds a bit barfy!

This weekend I've been at the NCT conference in Telford.

Surrounded by several hundred like minded women; mamas, doulas, midwives and educators. We were blessed with the presence of the guru of the birthing world - Ina May Gaskin. Think, George Clooney for the birky wearing, yurt livin', lentil knitting, home birthin' fans.


Friday she entertained us for the whole day with her biography...oh to be a hippy in the 60's in a bus in rural Tennessee...later leading us onto her stories of her mamas in that community who birthed whilst they were travelling.


This moved on eventually to Sphincter Law by means of:

A You Tube birth of an elephant in Sri Lanka;


A Sheila Na Gig from Ireland "tearing out her heart" - or not... probably the same guy that "discovered" the clitoris *wink*

And a story of a mole who went in search of the git that left a turd on his head...


Yes, sadly, we have incorrectly translated it for the American market (and sadly the British too) who seem to be far more reluctant than the Germans to talk about poop and farting, but somehow still seem to talk utter crap all the same when it comes to birth *see here*


Sadly, I have been trying to relive this event for poor Mr Beehive, explaining the weekend to him with great enthusiasm and gusto. I've even attempted to demonstrate Ina May's observations for birth by peering at him (yeah, didn't go down well at 6.30am in the morning), yelling at him to push when he's pooing to make it come out faster and threatening to "give him a poo-easy-otomy" to help him get the naughty little bugger out, but oddly, to no avail, guess she was right and there's the evidence *wink* - sphincter law, cos he sure ain't crappin' on my watch!

Why is it then, in the western world, we tend to walk into a hospital for our babies, don a rear opening robe (yeah, go figure!), allow the world and his mother to peer up our foofs and then shout at us when things don't fit the exact time scale or mould. I'm not even talking births that need assistance, this is often normal, low risk birth, particularly in the US, but sometimes (perhaps to a lesser degree) in the UK too - you saw it on "One born every minute".

Birth needs to be natural, undisturbed and allowed to happen with laughter abundant and the mother feeling safe and relaxed, intervening only when needed rather than routinely or without any sound evidence that it's required.

One of those, "you had to be there kind of weekends" - empowering women and sisterhood all under one yurt!

So....moving swiftly on as we are, after all British and one can't mention pooh (does that come with an 'h' or not?) or clitori (hmmm, one clitoris, two clitori?) or anything remotely sexual especially on the same blog as one featuring a lego death star...

This is what Master Beehive the elder has been working on since his birthday last month. I'm really proud of him managing to do this with minimal help - much to his Dad's disgust as I think he'd hoped for more excuses to "help out".


The jedi death star.


Oh, and Ina May again...
You're probably wondering why there's another picture of Ina May, but I feel the relevance of the Leia look and the death star was just too startling to ignore, couldn't help it!!


Finally, I just want to introduce you to this blog. I was directed this way and am in awe of this lady. Take a read, but you may want a kleenex too in some parts.

Have a sunny "Ina" May and see you again soon xx