A birth story by B.R.C.

An old friend and high school volleyball teammate graciously shared her birth story with her blog followers. It's a truly amazing recount of her perspective of the birth of her first baby. Check it out! http://bushbabycolvin.blogspot.com/2012/04/birth-story-2-weeks-post-delivery.html

"Where I live, there are rainbows..."

"Where I live, there are rainbows..."
By B. Wong

I am an 80 year old grandmother of a dozen precious grandchildren ranging in ages from 4 days old to 27 years reflecting a rainbow of ethnic backgrounds – Chinese, Hawaiian, Spanish, English, German, Korean, Norwegian, Italian, and French. I was born in Paradise – in Honolulu on the island of O’ahu when Hawai’i was still a territory of the United States of America.

As a child, I lived on the beach at Paiko Drive, gathering seashells and catching tiny fishes. Every summer was spent on a ranch in Upcountry Maui. My spirit was able to expand by the sea, the sky and the wide-open spaces. There was time for dreaming and watching clouds by day and counting stars at night. I was introduced to the best of Portuguese culinary arts by Godmother Santos who bakes the most delicious bread in her outdoor brick oven. I was also introduced to Japanese cuisine by the Goyas, a family I lived with.

I was fortunate to have inherited the rich traditions of the Chinese, the Hawaiian and the Spanish from my forebears whose adventuresome spirits impelled them to come to our islands by sailing vessels from China and Spain. The Chinese brought their shrine of Buddha and the Spanish, the cross of Jesus Christ.

From the Chinese, I inherited their work ethic, their industriousness, love of study, deference to elders, a reserve, and an appreciation of the creative delicacies of the Chinese cuisine. My father, respected physician, worked 7 days a week for 26 years without ever taking a vacation.

From the Hawaiian, I inherited a love for the aina, for the ohana, family & children (my maternal grandmother cherished each of her 15 children), for the music and dance, for the unhurried way – time to listen, time to laugh, time to talk story, time to relax, time to enjoy simple things in life – ho’omanawanui (after my maternal Chinese grandfather died, my maternal grandmother reverted to her Hawaiian culture – language, dress and food – back to fish & poi).

From the Spanish I inherited a passion for God, a deep and abiding faith and love from His Church. Forever etched in my mind is my favorite painting of Jesus – El Prendimiento by the premier Spanish painter, Goya, which may be seen in the El Greco museum in Toledo, Spain.

From the American, I inherited my educational and spiritual formation. The Maryknoll sisters and priests from the East Coast – mostly Irish, nurtured my soul and brought me into a deeper relationship with God. As a child of 7, I was taught to sing ‘Jesus, Jesus, come to me, all my longing if for Thee’ – a simple hymn that would precipitate a momentous personal encounter 36 years later.

The Ursuline Sisters in Westchester, New York (an order founded by an Italian) completed my Higher Education in Fine Arts and led me into a deeper contemplative life.

An incomparable year at the Sorbonne in Paris, la plus belle ville du monde – an introduction to La Vie en Rose, a taste of the finest in French culture and the culinary arts, as well as the extensive subsequent travels around the world (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Israel, Greece, Egypt, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, the Samoas, Fiji, Tahiti, BoraBora, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, Guatemala, Canada, and the Virgin Islands) enlarged my horizons and deepened my appreciation of all cultures. I was enriched by the best of every culture & since I was very adaptable by nature, it was easy to heed my mothers very wise counsel – “When in Rome, do as the Romans”.

So many people have touched my life and I have been shaped by their love – a love to transcends all cultural barriers – love, beauty and truth are universal, I am eternally grateful from the memories which continue to sustain and nourish me.

Now I have come full circle and am content to live a quiet and peace filled life bless by the sounds of silence in my garden by the Bay in Hawai’i Nui – for I live, there will always be rainbows. Grace a Dieu.






Beautiful vignettes from Mrs. Wong...I am so lucky to reap the benefit of my grandparents doing a favor for a couple of 18 year old girls over 30 years ago. So I share her vingettes that she wrote to help me with a project in college for my mulitcultural education class. I have learned more from her than I ever will in any class.

"It's better for the baby..."

I just got home for a local bar where I ran into an old elementary school friend. I had heard that his brother just had a baby - his 1st - so naturally I wanted to say congratulations and hear how they were doing. We talked briefly and he didn't give many details because after all it was his sister-in-law who gave birth. He said they were elated and that all was well. So I asked, "is she breastfeeding?", and he said "No...they are formula/bottle-feeding" and I said, "Oh, really? Do you know why?" and he said "I don't really know...I think because it's better for the baby."

At that point I kind of just laughed. I didn't really know how to respond to that. After my momentary laughter, I said "Better for the baby?, how?" and he said "well I don't really know." I proceeded to throw a few questions at him to see why he thought or "learned" formula might be better than breast milk. After a few q&a's he finally confessed that he had no clue, and that he was just playing devil's advocate and that it did make sense that breast milk might be healthier for a newborn but that it wasn't "his place" to say anything to his brother or sister-in-law.

Is it ever our place? I don't know. All I know is that our job is to educate each other and if that means talking about why it is SO important to understand that breast milk is healthier for an infant than formula, than so be it. I feel it is my duty, whether it makes an immediate difference or not, to teach other what I have been so lucky to learn.

So finally, if we are talking about what is BEST for baby...I think we can all agree that breast milk wins.

See how it compares for yourself by clicking this link!



"(American Academy of Pediatrics, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, World Health Organization, American Dietetic Association) recommend breast milk as the best infant nutrition for the first year of life."

A Story

Unnamed

by A.K.

I found out that I was pregnant with the second one in October 2008. My parents happened to be visiting us in Honolulu, so I was thrilled to break that news when they landed. My partner and I were excited to have a sibling for Isato, our son, and everything felt right.

But one Friday as I was preparing to go to a meeting, I noticed that I was bleeding. First I thought nothing about it, but then started to freak out. In panic, I called my OB/GYN whom I just met for the first time several weeks before. She called back and told me casually that "well, there is nothing we can do about it. When it passes, you'll know" and told me to come on Monday if bleeding continues and then hang up. I was left to myself, trying to understand what she meant by "passing," and shuddered when realized that she meant a miscarriage. How could she be so unsympathetic?

I spent next two days not knowing what to do. Bleeding continued, and the slightest change in the amount of blood in the pad made me hopeful in one moment devastated in the next. I googled the web looking for information and tips, and found that 15-25 % of all pregnancies end up in what doctors call "spontaneous miscarriage." I could not believe how high the ratio was, and thought back about my oblivious carelessness during the first pregnancy when I did not even think about a possibility of losing the fetus I was carrying.

Monday, I called and demanded the appointment with the doctor. She squeezed me in and my partner and I were in the room by 8:30. She pulled out the ultrasound machined and looked for the heartbeat, but it was not there. My miscarriage was confirmed. She then went on to talk about three options of removing the "pregnancy." (1) wait until it naturally "passes," (2) surgery, and (3) off-the label use of pills. She did not recommend (1) and suggested (3) to which I simply nodded. But I decided to wait to take the pills until after I go home, as I was warned of possible side effects.

I had to teach a course two hours after that bad news. I am not sure how I lectured, but students seemed not to notice my swollen eyes, and I managed until the last 5 minutes of class. As I was showing a clip from a video to demonstrate some points I was making earlier, I felt a strong contraction in my lower abdomen. It brought back the memory of my first son's birth-- painful, but powerful urge that I had forgotten. After several seconds, I felt the gush between my legs.

I somehow managed to finish my lecture as if nothing happened, ran out of the classroom hoping that the pad was able to hold for a while. In a lavatory, I saw the tiny pink object on the pad. It was so small, shining like a creature from the sea. The doctor instructed me to put the "pregnancy" in the plastic container to bring it to the lab, so I put my little dead fetus in it.

After crying while in my office, I walked down the University Avenue to the lab with my container. The bright sunshine of Hawai'i made me even sadder and the walk felt terribly long. When I finally found the lab, I was glad that I was wearing sunglasses to hide behind it and simply wanted to get the business done without bursting into tears again in front of strangers. I wanted to do a minimum conversation, so I handed one of the receptionists the paper work from my doctor and the container in a brown bag. The woman took the form but then yelled "what is this? I don't understand this order form. What did your doctor say?" and summoned another woman in the office "can you read this? I don't understand..."

As I tried to utter the word "miscarriage,"another woman grabbed my brown bag from the other, opened it, took out the container, and (I swear she said this) "yikes! It's a baby!" At that point, I had no use of these insensitive people and ran out of the door crying.

After that incident, I dreamed about my pink fetus. I did not understand why I was able to leave it with those people. I wanted to bury it properly, and I regretted not thinking through what I was told by the doctor. At the next appointment I asked whether I could take it back, but the doctor did not think so. I needed some closure, a tangible evidence that it was there, even for a brief moment, for us. I took crayons, wrote the pink creature from the sea, and burnt with flowers in the back of our yard. The unknown lavender flowers were blooming and it felt like a perfect place for the fetus to rest.

I had told some of my students about my pregnancy, and hearing the news, Laura lent me a book by a midwife and one section of the book was about miscarriage. I was glad to see that among many stories of happy births in the book, miscarriage was given a space.

When I told people that I had a miscarriage, it was surprising how many said "oh you know, I did too." Miscarriage is an unspoken, yet a natural part of pregnancy. With baby magazines and advertisements emphasizing rosy and cheerful sides of childbirth, we do not have words to talk about it. Yet birth and death are together and inseparable. Life is sacred, yes, but fragile.

Now I am pregnant again. I approach this pregnancy with more acute awareness about possibility of going wrong and greater appreciation of normalcy. I am going to Japan in a week, and there I plan to visit a temple famous as the guardian for the unborn and aborted babies. My mother had gotten me a small jizo (small Buddha) after the miscarriage. The thought of my small one among thousands of cute jizos comforts me-- at least it is not alone. I will be praying for it and the safe arrival of the one that I am carrying.