Ivy is 11 months old!

Eric, Ivy and I just arrived in Seattle last night to visit my sister and to go to the AWP conference, while my mom watches the other kids. It's the first time we've left our children and gone somewhere together. I'm looking forward to good food, warmer (if wetter) weather, lots of fun sight-seeing, and best of all one-on-one time with Ivy during the day. Thanks to all my blog readers who sent in suggestions of things to do!

She does this funny scrunchy thing with her face when she smiles

Having only one child is SO EASY in comparison to four. Only one little person to get dressed and feed and clean up after and buckle into carseats/strollers and get in and out of the car...

Ivy's fourth tooth popped through yesterday, right in time for turning 11 months. She hasn't been cranky or drooly, so it took us by surprise.

Ivy's new tricks this month:

• She says "papa" and we're pretty sure it's intentional
• She grinds her upper tooth with her lower 2 teeth and it sounds like she's chewing on rocks. All my kids have done this
• She says "psssss" when I bring her to the potty or make the potty sign. She's still a bit hesitant to go pee, though. When it comes out, she startles and stops peeing and look around as if to say, "uh oh, I don't think I was supposed to do that!" 
• She can turn around and climb down the stairs by herself
• She loves music and starts dancing any time she hears a tune or a beat
• Her favorite thing to carry around is a tube of chapstick. Not sure why, but you'll always see one in her hand. 
• When she's done eating, she starts throwing her food onto the floor. Then she lifts up the tray of her high chair and throws that down, too. 
• Sleeping in her own room

Look who got into the cocoa powder and was eating it by the fistful...

I was about to say that she's sleeping pretty well. She wakes up twice a night, usually, around 2 am and 5 am. But then I realized that I'm still getting up every 2-3 hours and that's not much of an improvement over a newborn! She does have that first long stretch, but I don't really benefit from it. Ah well...some day she will sleep all night long and I will feel amazing. Some day, right?

She's tricky to get back to sleep when I nurse her at night. I usually have to nurse for a good 30 minutes or more to get her tired enough. Even then, she often wakes up and cries when I leave the room. I may be the only parent who does this, but I often crawl out of the room so she can't see me as I leave. Yeah, the things you do when you have a baby...

Ivy's other "mama" Leilani--she and her family stayed with us for 3 months

Read more ...

Seattle

Are there any Stand and Deliver readers in Seattle? If so, please send me an email :)

Read more ...

First-time mom looking for in-hospital breech catcher

I received a request from a first-time mom looking for a CNM or OB willing to attend a vaginal breech birth. She lives in Pittsburgh but is willing to relocate, if necessary, if her baby remains breech at term. Please email me if you have any recommendations!

~~~~~

I am 33 weeks pregnant (first child), and the baby has been breech since 23/24 weeks. I'm doing all of the spinning babies exercises, and planning to do acupuncture, as well as seeing an OB whom my midwives referred me to to discuss an external version. (I am seeing a group of CNMs with a freestanding birth center, but they don't deliver breech or VBAC, and neither does anyone else in the city do breech deliveries voluntarily, as far as I can tell.)

However. This baby is stubborn. Nothing has made an impact on him/her so far, and I'm concerned that it will continue to be breech. I'm hoping that you can point me towards some providers who will accept a primip trying to have a breech vaginal delivery. I live in Pittsburgh, but my husband and I would drive or fly virtually anywhere and stay there as long as necessary if the external version fails. I just don't want to find myself at 38 weeks (especially not *in labor* at 38 weeks), and have no option other than to go to the OBs, who will insist on a C-section.

I'm especially looking for CNMs who can deliver in a hospital, or OBs who are ok with breech, as I'm concerned enough about the risks of the situation that I don't really want an out of hospital birth at this point. (At least for the first one; subsequent ones, I'll be much more cheerful about "accidentally" waiting too long. ;)

I would deeply appreciate any information you can give me.

Read more ...

We do it just to ruin your day

We lactating mothers just can't wait to bare it all. Because we're all exhibitionists at heart. And we want to ruin your day.

Sparrow-Folk have a go at breastfeeding in public in this song  "Ruin Your Day" from their debut album The Fox and the Lark.



About Sparrow-Folk:

Jules and Catherine first performed together in an improvised show and went on to play a fully improvised gig at a Chalk Board Tent in The Canberra Folk Festival in 2012. It was there the dream was hatched to start Sparrow-Folk. They began performing in backyards, at family events and even had a couple of small appearances at local venues like the Hellenic Club, and Smith’s Alternative Bookshop.

Recently, Sparrow-Folk was named the ACT winner of the ABC Exhumed competition for 2013, after playing to a packed crowd of 300+ at the Woden Southern Cross Club. They played live on 666ABC Canberra radio, and their songs have also been played on Triple J, though their premiere performance was under southern stars and a Hills Hoist.


Sparrow-Folk are passionate about music, women, fun and of course their fans, the ‘Nesties’. Their quirky style is aimed at bringing a smile through songs and commentary on the world around them.

Sparrow-Folk’s experience of the world comes through in their music; they bring whimsy, giggles, fun and sunshine through the ability to laugh at themselves and provide a real commentary on what it’s like to be women in 2013. They are both ridiculously serious, and seriously ridiculous.

Read more ...

Birth in the caul

I want to share these two stunning photographs of babies being born in the caul. The first is from a twin birth by photographer Leilani Rogers of www.photosbylei.com.*

The second photo was taken during a cesarean section and shared by Greek obstetrician Aris Tsigris.

I feel such a sense of awe and mystery when I look at these pictures. Even though I've had four children, I still wonder how they folded up inside. Seeing a baby born, yet not fully emerged, gives me a fleeting glimpse into the hidden life of the unborn baby.

This is me trying to figure out how Inga managed to fit inside of me.

*You may share this photo if you give credit and include a link to Leilani Roger's website www.photosbylei.com. 

Read more ...

Things I didn't expect (when I was expecting) by Monica Dux

I caught a nasty bug yesterday and have been stuck in bed (or lying prone on the floor with 4 children climbing all over me). I started reading Monica Dux's recent book Things I Didn't Expect (When I Was Expecting) to keep my mind off the fever and chills and racking cough.

This book is hilarious. I laughed out loud every other page. I gave up highlighting my favorite passages, because about about half the book would have been marked. Not only is Monica Dux spunky, irreverent, and witty, her observations about all the crazy s*** pregnant women put up with are also spot-on. (Yes, there is an entire chapter about poo. It's fantastic.)

I've been searching long and wide for a book about pregnancy and birth that actually says something new/interesting/useful. This is the book. Here's a synopsis:

Pregnancy is natural, healthy and fun, right? Sure it is, if you're lucky. For others, it's an adventure in physical discomfort, unachievable ideals, kooky classes and meddling experts.

When Monica Dux found herself pregnant with her first child, she was dismayed to find she belonged firmly in the second category. For her, pregnancy could only be described as a medium-level catastrophe. So, three years later and about to birth her second child, Monica went on a quest: to figure out what's really going on when we incubate.

Monica explores the aspects of baby-making that we all want to talk about, but which are too embarrassing, unsettling or downright confronting. She also looks at the powerful forces that shape women's experiences of being pregnant in the west, the exploitative industries, and the medical and physical realities behind it all.

Along the way, she fends off sadistic maternal health nurses, attempts to expand then contract her vagina, and struggles to keep her baby's placenta off her hippy brother's lunch menu.

Available in Australia at MUP and Random House. and Amazon(Australia). Readers outside Australia can purchase ebook versions, including Kindle, Kobo, ibooks, GooglePlay, and more. It is definitely worth purchasing.

Read more ...

Ivy is 10 months old!

Ivy turned 9 months on Christmas, and that seems like just last week! Wow. Ever since we came home at the end of that terrible cold spell affecting much of the US and Canada, I've been preoccupied keeping our house and our rental properties warm and dry. We've had several frozen and burst water pipes, despite taking every precaution to prevent them. I've had to call our HVAC guy close to 10 times for various things. We've been outside multiple times in below zero (-20 C and colder) weather thawing frozen air intake pipes to our boiler. I am so ready for this cold weather to end!!! We have another cold wave hitting tonight through Wednesday.

Ivy got her first hairdo today...the kids were so excited. Dio proudly wore a matching topknot to church until the elastic fell out.

New developments this month:

• Clapping her hands
• Making fish lips


• Mimicking everything we do
• Learning to laugh when she's being tickled, rather than just squirm and grunt
• Clicking her tongue
• Blowing raspberries on my chest or belly...she loves to do this when she's done nursing
• Sitting on her knees (well, she's been doing this for about 2 months now). She still doesn't ever sit down on her bottom. 
• 2 bottom teeth! We had a rough time with the second tooth. She had a fever for 5 days. The tooth came through after the first night, but she still slept horribly all 5 nights. I had to keep her in bed with me in order for us to get any sleep...and now she's cosleeping much of the night. I never, ever thought she'd be back in bed with us. But I'm being pretty Zen about it. I love cuddling with her--even though half the time it's more like pinning her down so she'll stop wiggling or crawling in her sleep--and I know this time will pass too quickly.On the up side, this past week she's slept nice long stretches at first, from 7 pm - 2 or 3 am. Then she's up quite frequently and mostly in bed with me. 

Ivy is a little jokester. She loves to be in on the action when her siblings are laughing about something. She'll join in and do something funny to get them to laugh at her.

She loves to be with her papa. More than me, often. If I'm holding her and he leaves the room, she cries and throws herself towards him.

She spends hours pulling books off the bookshelf and then reading them.

And I love this picture of Inga.

Read more ...

Currently reading

Memoirs and biographies

Finding Lina: A mother's journey from autism to hope by Helena Hjalmarsson. The subtitle ends with "hope," but I'm not sure I felt that hopeful at the end of the book. It was exhausting to read of this mother's efforts to help her daughter live with autism. I was struck by how much privilege Hjalmarsson had: her financial situation allowed her to live in New York City, hire nannies to help with her children, and devote herself full-time to intensive play and therapy with her daughter Lina. What happens to all the people without the resources or time for a myriad of therapies? Who can't afford innovative private schools? Who can't spend 8+ hours a day of floortime with their autistic child?

The World's Strongest Librarian: A memoir of Tourette's, faith, strength, and the power of family by Josh Hanagarne. Thoroughly enjoyable read by a librarian with a very, very bad case of Tourette's.

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a woman by Robert K. Massie. I had no idea what a fascinating, complex woman Catherine the Great was. Massie quotes extensively from Catherine's own memoirs. His translation makes her seem very much alive and relevant today, even though she lived over two centuries ago.

Orange is the new black by Piper Kerman. I haven't seen the Netflix series, but the book was quite fun to read.

Childbirth

Cut It Out! The C-section epidemic in America by Theresa Morris. Absoutley fantastic. While much of her subject matter is well-known to me, the way she put it all together and made sense of this huge mess that we call maternity care was brilliant. You realize that physicians are just as trapped and constrained as pregnant women are in navigating American obstetric care. You must buy a copy and read it right away!

Born At Home: cultural and political dimensions of maternity care in the United States by Melissa Cheyney

Misc

What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise Of Collaborative Consumption by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers. I loved learning about all the ways we're figuring out how to share our time and resources. (Of personal interest since we're currently sharing a house with a family of 10.) Felt a bit long for a book...would have been better as a long article, I think. I'd love to have a neighborhood tool library, for example, so we don't have to buy and own so many tools. At least we put ours to good use! I love the idea of car sharing, especially with all the smartphone technology that simplifies logistics.

Death, American Style: A cultural history of dying in America by Lawrence R. Samuel. Just started. Seems quite interesting.

Religion/Spirituality 

When we were on fire: A memoir of consuming faith, tangled love and starting over by Addie Zierman. A memoir of growing up Evangelical, of finding and then losing (and finding again) her faith.

Sarah the Priestess: The First Matriarch of Genesis by Savina Teubal. The Abraham/Isaac/Jacob stories make SO much more sense if you read this book and realize that Sarah was likely a priestess in a competing matriarchal culture and religion. 

If the church were Christian: Rediscovering the values of Jesus by Philip Gulley. Written about Christianity in general, but definitely applicable to Mormonism as well as other Christian denominations.

A Cultural History of the Book of Mormon (multi-volume series) by Daymon Mickel Smith. I have to admit, it's been hard going wading through the first volume. His thought processes and writing style are tortured at times, yet I'm sticking with it because I hear that it gets better in subsequent volumes and because his ideas are just so fascinating (I only wish they were easier to follow!).

The street-legal version of Mormon's book by Michael Hicks. Hilarious. Puts a fresh face on the Book of Mormon narratives by retelling the stories in modern-day language and syntax. I'm cracking up over how uber-self-righteous Nephi is. (Shout out to Michael Hicks: you need a better cover!)

By the Hand Of Mormon: The American scripture that launched a new world religion by Terryl Givens. An eloquent counterpoint to Daymon Smith's brilliant but very meandering history of this religious text. Givens looks at how various groups inside and outside the Mormon church have used, interpreted, understood, and viewed the Book of Mormon.

Fun reading

Thea Gallas Always Gets Her Man by Kristen Panzer. Loud-mouthed, pregnant lactation consultant meets murder mystery. The first of its kind, and highly entertaining.

Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs (7 books out so far, 8th forthcoming next year): Moon Called, Blood Bound, Iron Kissed, Bone Crossed, Silver Borne, River Marked, and Frost Burned. Fun series with a spunky mechanic-shapeshifter heroine who's likely to be beating her foes with a tire iron, when she isn't having (mis)adventures with her vampire friend or her werewolf neighbor/lover/husband.  She'd probably laugh at the cover illustrations--she's more likely to be in a greasy t-shirt with dirt under her fingernails than lounging around looking alluring.

Circle Trilogy by Nora Roberts: Morrigan's Cross, Dance of the Gods, and Valley of Silence. Great fun. It's like Lord of the Rings, but sexy and very woman-centric.

Read more ...

Birth control / controlling birth

Yesterday I was musing on the idea of controlling birth. Along with accusations of being selfish, narcissistic, irresponsible, horribly misinformed, or tragically brainwashed, home birthers also are accused of wanting to control their birth. Women submitting hospital birth plans get accused of this, too. You can't control birth. Birth is [fill in the blank...dangerous, unpredictable, chaotic, messy, etc.] Thinking you can control birth is delusional. Labor & delivery nurses have a common lore that the longer and more detailed the birth plan, the more likely the woman will end up with a cesarean.

Being in control was very important to me. It was probably the primary reason I chose to have all four of my children at home.

But here's what I mean when I speak about being in control:

The control comes in setting up my birth environment and the people who will be with me so that once I am in labor, the only task I have to focus on is working with the contractions. Home birth gave me the freedom to let go entirely during labor and just be in the moment.

I didn't have to fight any battles over monitoring or what I was allowed to eat or drink. I didn't have to wonder if the nurse or doctor would understand, let alone allow, my style of birthing. I didn't have to worry about any strangers coming into my space. I didn't have to be constantly vigilant to be sure my wishes were respected.  I didn't have to argue, negotiate, compromise, refuse, or accept. I just labored in peace. Being in control let me give up control entirely once labor began.

Control => autonomy

Control => freedom of thought, movement, time, and space

Control => the ability to let go entirely and to allow labor to unfold spontaneously

Read more ...

Moving to France!

Now that Eric has tenure, we are making plans for our Sabbatical year. We'd like to move to France, but our plans are otherwise open-ended. Our favorite city is Nice, ideally in or close to vieux Nice. But we are open to other locations...maybe you can persuade us to stay somewhere else :)

We're open to either renting or buying a place. We'd like at least 3 bedrooms for our family of 6, but if need be we can squeeze into 2 bedrooms.

Zari, Dio, and Inga will be all in French public schools. I'll have mornings with just Ivy--such a strange thought to only have one child at home during the day!

If you have any leads or suggestions, please please let us know. We're flying into Nice on August 1st and hope to stay through August 2015, give or take a few weeks.

Read more ...

Merry Christmas and 9 months for Ivy!

A cold, snowy day in Minnesota made a lovely Christmas.

Ivy turned 9 months old today. Her biggest milestone this month is eating solid foods. She began with little tastes a few weeks ago, and now she's an enthusiastic eater. We do solid foods the lazy way and feed babies little bits of whatever we're eating. No mushing or pureeing, no nasty flavorless prepared baby foods. It's easy and exposes young children to a large range of flavors right away.

Here's a peek at what she ate today:

Breakfast: homemade waffles, strawberries, pineapple, cantaloupe, blackberries, grapes
Lunch: vegetable chowder, homemade bread, clementine, lebkuchen (German spice cookie)
Dinner: bell pepper, cracker, pomegranate seeds (I popped them inside her mouth to get the juice out), homemade macaroni & cheese, roast beef, sparkly grape juice (because it's Christmas!), more fresh fruit

She loves having cousins and grandparents around. She's super mobile and cruises the furniture very quickly. We don't have smartphones or tablets at home, so she's enthralled with all the electronic devices her relatives have. Touchscreen technology is amazing and so intuitive. Maybe some day we will get a tablet or a fancy phone...maybe...

Read more ...

Looking for people who attend outdoor births

I've been corresponding with a documentary producer who would like to feature outdoor births. They're looking for people with some experience attending or facilitating birth outdoors--midwives, doctors, birth centers, etc. More information below:

~~~~~

I work in project development Matador, a television production company in Los Angeles whose founders have produced series such as NBC’s The Biggest Loser, Discovery’s Storm Chasers and Dual Survival. We are primarily focused on creating documentaries and unscripted television series for a wide variety of cable channels and media outlets, and have funded series and projects with A&E, Discovery Channel, Lifetime, CNN, and NBC, amongst other networks.

We're currently developing a documentary series with a female-skewing cable channel about DIY birth practices- most notably, outdoor births in unique locations. We're currently looking for experts in this field to potentially consult on the project, or help offer guidance on production. Be it midwives, physicians, doctors, birthing centers, etc, anyone who has some experience with outdoor births, we would love to speak with them. We're still formatting the arc of the documentary series, but the basic idea is to follow the journey of one mother/father team as the prepare to have a child in their 3rd trimester of pregnancy. Wanting to get away from the confines and experience of giving birth in a hospital, we would document their experience of taking on this process themselves, and eventually having the child outdoors. Documenting this in a "fly on the wall" approach, we would be very hands off, and attempt to simply follow and respectfully document these expecting parents as they take on this incredible journey in unique settings that much of America hasn't experienced before.

In order to take this project to the next level, we need to identify some experts in this field and speak with them about how to go about this. If there is ANYONE who has experience with this practice, and would be willing to chat briefly, I would LOVE the opportunity to connect. My contact information is below.

Happy Holidays!


Sam Brown | Director, Development| Matador

—————————————————————————————

1041 N. Formosa Ave., Writers Bldg. Suite 11

West Hollywood, CA | 90046 | 818-261-5689 OR 323-850-3100

sam@matadorcontent.com | www.matadorcontent.com

Read more ...

Recovering from varicose vein surgery

My right leg 5 days post-op:

This leg had EVLT on the top half (see the line of bruises going towards the groin) and ambulatory phlebectomy on the bottom half.

My left leg doesn't look as bad. I had some sclerotherapy behind the knee, which is much less traumatic than pulling out the veins with a hook or zapping them with a laser.

I've learned that ibuprofen is my friend. I've been more tired than usual and have to avoid jarring/jumping/vigorous walking.

Read more ...

Post-surgery fun

I'm recovering from having my varicose veins removed yesterday. I had EVLT and ambulatory phlebectomy one one leg and sclerotherapy on the other. My legs are wrapped in layers of bandages. I have to wear them for 3 days and then I can finally take a shower. So excited for that shower tomorrow night!!! I also am curious to see the battle scars...

Anyway, I found a few things of interest:

Home Birth Dads Calendar

A fun article in the Huffington Post explains the origins of the Home Birth Dads 2014 calendar, produced by clients of InnerBirth.

New version of Home Birth: An annotated guide to the literature

This bibliography, authored by Saraswathi Vedam and colleagues, is offered as a resource for clinicians, researchers, educators and policy makers, who must, within their own context for work, assess the quality of the available evidence on planned home birth. This may be for the purpose of clinical decision making or policy development in response to the international debate on safety, access, ethics, autonomy, or resource allocation with respect to birth place.

This is an open source document.

The bibliography is updated annually and the most recent version (as well as the document saved in booklet format for printing) can always be found at the following website: http://midwifery.ubc.ca/research/research-activities/home-birth-an-annotated-guide-to-the-literature.

Read more ...

Mama Midwife: book review and giveaway!

Author and illustrator Christy Tyner has written a new children's book, Mama Midwife: A Birth Adventure. It's about about life when mom is a midwife. Christy's partner Michelle is a homebirth midwife, and their two children ages 4 and 5 are used to birth talk.

Why write a children's book about when mom is a midwife? Christy explains:

Growing up with positive messages about birth will hopefully reduce the fear created by the flawed model I grew up with. I was exposed to birth the same way most people are - through movies and television, where unfortunately most birth scenes are excruciating emergencies in a hospital that requires intervention. By contrast, my kids hear stories firsthand about whole families that participate in birth, where siblings are woken up in the middle of the night to come witness the birth of their baby brother or sister. They hear stories about the mom reaching down with her own hands to guide her baby out, about birth by candlelight in a warm birth tub, about babies that are placed immediately on the mother’s chest, and about dads and partners that provide amazing support, catch the baby and stay by the mother's side. And of course a perfect birth isn't always the case, but we talk about the transfers, too. I think they have a more realistic sense of the spectrum of birth experiences that are possible. Every time a baby is born, Michelle texts me a picture of the baby with his family. I show the kids, and we all celebrate. Their association with birth is joy.

Mama Midwife is populated with charming, whimsical animal characters. Miso the Mouse has a midwife mother. Miso watches and learns and plays midwife. She even gets to come along with her mom one special night. Here's a sample page from the book:

Zari was really excited to help me with this book review. In this short movie, she reads the first few pages and then gives her thoughts about the book. (Isn't it amazing that this grown-up girl was once a tiny baby...and now she's reading? sniff...)



To learn more about Christy Tyner, the book's origins, and Christy and Michelle's birth stories, visit the "About the Author" page.

Mama Midwife is available in both hardcover and paperback in English, Spanish, and Finnish. Click here for a complete list of distributors (US, Canada, UK, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy).

Now for the fun part...a giveaway!

To enter, visit www.mamamidwife.com and read more about author/illustrator Christy Tyner. Then come back here and leave a comment.

Open to U.S. residents. Giveaway ends at 5pm EST on Saturday, December 14. 

Read more ...

Jim Gaffigan on home birth and life with 4 kids

This had me laughing out loud:



"We had all our babies at home, just to make you uncomfortable."

Read more ...

Blessing Ivy

My mom visited us this October. Right before she left, we remembered that we still hadn't blessed Ivy, who was 6 months old at the time. We called the bishop of our local LDS (Mormon) congregation to let him know we wanted to bless Ivy at home and to see if anyone else needed to be present. He checked and said: "the manual says that 'normally' another priesthood holder is present, which I interpret to mean that it isn't required. Go ahead and do it."

So we gathered in our living room. I held her in my arms while my husband blessed her. One of the advantages of doing a baby blessing at home: you can do what you want and don't have to ask permission! Little Ivy was super wiggly. As soon as the blessing started, she tried to escape and see what was going on.

Luckily, I had a secret weapon: The Boob. Out it came. She latched on and nursed through the whole blessing. She popped off a few times to check out the action, but mama's milk was just too good to pass up.

(Yet another benefit of doing it at home. I have no problems nursing in church, but I imagine some people in the audience might have passed out had I "Whipped It Out" in front of them all during the blessing).

After everyone was in bed, Eric and I were talking about the blessing. At one point, he blessed Ivy to find joy in the body that her Heavenly Father had given her. He told me that as he was saying this, he felt an overwhelming impression that her body was also a gift from her Heavenly Mother. But, for some reason, he hesitated in saying it. He wasn't sure why--maybe because my mom was there? (To be fair to my mom, I don't think it would have fazed her.)

He had a definite impression that Ivy possessed a powerful intellect and intelligence, something he doesn't remember the same way with our other children.

When he gives our children baby blessings, he gets glimpses into the people that they are, something he otherwise doesn't have through his day-to-day interactions with our children.

I'm glad that we can do baby blessings at home. I've done two at home (Zari and Ivy), one at church (Dio), and one at a relative's house after my sister's wedding (Inga), when all my extended family were gathered together. I definitely like non-church blessings the best.

It was really lovely nursing Ivy while my husband blessed her. I was pouring all my love and heart into her through my breasts while he poured his love onto her through his hands.

~~~~

Now a brief explanation of how Mormons do baby blessings.

At church, the father or other male friend/relative gives the blessing, surrounded by any other males invited to participate. It looks like this:

Or like this:

In some congregations, women are allowed to hold their babies during the blessing. In others, they are forbidden from doing so. It depends on how the local leadership interprets church policy manuals. Many of us wish women could have a more active role in baby blessings. Maybe some day they will look like this:

This is why I do them at home.

Read more ...