bloody show

bloody show

For all you UK folks, I’m not cursing a sitcom here.  I’m talking about the classic sign of impending labor.  Let’s just get this all cleared up. Towards the end of pregnancy the cervix becomes ripe (as we say in the biz) meaning it becomes very soft.  It takes on the consistency of butter that has been left to sit on the table all day.  It also begins to shorten, (effacement) and open (dilation).   As these changes occur, the mucous plug situated at the os (opening of the cervix) that protects your baby from infection entering the uterus during pregnancy often falls out.  It can look exactly as you may expect, a glob of mucous tinged with blood, or you may just see some pinkish spotting.  When this occurs toward the very end of pregnancy, it is no cause for alarm and can be taken as a sign that all is well and labor is near.  Its a rather welcomed sight for mom’s who are ready to meet their babies.  On the other hand, some moms do not see this sign at all and the mucous plug releases sometime during labor.  So there you have it…all you ever wanted to know about the bloody show, except how it got that name.

I do like the idea of cursing a sitcom that way, but never can remember to do it.

art of birthing

So someone asked me why I wanted to put together an art show representing natural birth…”why art” he said, “rather than any other means”  The answer to that flowed from me so easily, but I keep thinking about it and keep adding to it.

see me

When a family learns they are expecting, there is this excitement, this indescribable feeling of anticipation, the deepest knowing that ones whole life and way of being in the world is shifting.  Its exhilarating, its sacred, its scary, and its deeply personal.

Its soul-stirring.

This shift evokes the most primal and ethereal connection to the most pure part of ourselves.  Natural, unmedicated birth at home nurtures all of it.  The connection to self, the desperate longings and the deepest stuffed away fears and insecurities.  Homebirth midwives bring out every feeling, emotion, fleeting thought, and pause on it…encouraging families to look at themselves, connect, grow and stay right there with everything that arises.  Birth brings one of the most intensely expressive moments in our lives.  Art gives us a way to connect to these moments, to communicate in a more primal way… to tap into the raw presence of human emotion exposed,  the essence of vulnerability that brings the palpable intensity of the moment.

So often, the rich, juicy, indescribably intense moments of birth are pushed aside, not honored, washed away.  After all, there’s no way to document that in the charts right? Its invisible.  Its the biggest thing in the room, but its invisible to most.  Art reaches across worlds and puts all that richness, the biggest part of birth, the soul-element, right there in front of us so we can see it.

~Art makes it visible

local families join us tomorrow for the TRUST BIRTH art exhibit https://www.facebook.com/events/314465728669165/