December meeting has now been moved to December 4th instead of Nov. 27th

Hi, we had some circumstances arrive and we are moving our meeting "again" to December 4th--Sunday @ 3 p.m. @ Julie Doula's House. If you need information how to get here, please email us through our contact information on here or email trustbirthnac@yahoo.com. Sorry about the delay. Our topic is still "Blessing Way Event--What is that?"

"December" Meeting will be held last Sunday of November.....

Hi, I called up the friends that came last time and we decided to make our last meeting of the year for the last Sunday of November because we all are going to be very busy for the next month or so.
That Sunday is November 27th and we will still be discussing "Blessing Way" and "What does that mean?'

Note: We have decided NOT to hold any more meetings at Hobby Lobby on First Fridays--1. Bad Day and Bad timing....Thank you.

Location of our meetings is Julie Doula's House--if you need directions...please email her at trustbirthnac@yahoo.com--please no spam...thank you! :) 

Sunday Meeting @ Julie's House

I called up a few friends that couldn't make our Friday meeting, but they said they would try to come out on Sunday. So, we had Katrina Mark, Joy Childs, and Maggie McGrath come this time along with my kids and hubby of course.

We chose the topic of "Seduction of Induction" and went over some notes I had gotten from Gena Kirby's Youtube video about this subject. We also listened to Maggie's birth story about how she got induced the first time and decided to have a home birth the second time.

Gena Kirby's video talked about Pitocin as being the "main" way of induction. Her talk also showed us that Oxytocin is the "natural" form of this that every woman has when the baby is ready to come out. This is what usually triggers labor to start naturally. Pitocin is the artificial version of this. We went over stats that the majority of woman today are induced and it is not "informed consent". It is just kind of like this conversation below: "You are 39 weeks pregnant and looks like you are tired and ready for this baby. Would you like to come in tomorrow morning and have this baby?" This is the "seduction" part--we are seduced by our doctor to think, "Oh, great I can have the baby tomorrow or I can pick the day my baby is going to be born." Who wouldn't say "no" to this? So, the woman decides to go ahead and come in and the nurse says, "Pitocin won't hurt the baby. Everyone gets it." Well, this is "not" informed consent. Of course, the hospital is going to say it is OK. There are reprecussions to having Pitocin.

Maggie tells us her story here--"I was overdue by 7 days and the doctor wanted to do a vaginal exam. Well, I think he stripped my membranes, because my water started to break. It was a slow leak though--not a big gush. But, he wanted me to go to the hospital because of "risk of infection". Well, I went ahead and went to the hospital--not prepared at all. My labor hadn't started yet, so they put me on Pitocin and kept increasing the dosage. I had a doula and she suggested I rest and see if contractions start in the morning or not. Well, I was in labor like for 48 hours before I actually had the baby. I avoided a c-section by insisting that I did not want one--but I was kind of like "failure to progress" and I did get an epidural because the hospital wouldn't let me get up and walk around during labor. Anyway, I was able to push the baby out in the end, but felt cheated out of an all natural birth experience. The second time around, I decided to have parallel care with a midwife and doctor together. My OB wanted me to get induced "again" at same time frame 7 days later. I told him no--I was going to have a home birth. I went into labor naturally 9 days after my due date. Midwife was great support and she helped me alot. We were able to have a water birth and it did take awhile to push baby out--but he ended up being 9 lbs. 12 oz.! Wow, what a big baby. The midwife said--no wonder it took so long pushing him out.
So, I would recommend to anyone considering an induction to think about the "side effects":

1. Pitocin--harder contractions--less oxygen to baby
2. Can lead to epidural--baby can go into distress just because of an epidural.
3. Can lead to cascade of interventions.
4. You cannot move around like you want if you are induced.
5. You will have to push baby out lying on your back instead of a more natural upright position.
6. Sometimes Inductions lead to c-sections--because of "failure to progress" and "baby distress". In fact Gena mentioned when she had her baby 13 people were in their and 11 had c-sections and 2 did not. Wow! Reason? Inductions FAILED.

We also talked about "Bishop's Score" which is a term to see if your vagina is ready to have the baby and where the baby is positioned at. If you have a good "Bishop's score" you are more likely to have a more successful induction than if you have a low score. So, if you really still want to have that induction--get your Bishop's Score first. You may decide to wait a little longer and see if baby wants to come on his own instead of being induced if your score is low.


In conclusion--we had a great discussion and everyone agreed that Sundays at my house is good for now for meetings and I will still try Friday night at other location just in case someone shows up since I had advertised this.

Re-Editing this post--Friday's meeting has been CANCELLED....

Sorry, but it looks like with one car...I really need TWO CARS....so I am having to cancel the meeting today. I really need anyone who wants to come to RSVP--what does that mean...?
R--Reply
S--Sincerely
V--Very
P-Promptly

This means--please give us an email or phone call letting us know you are coming as we have busy lives and if no one is coming--we can schedule a private meeting later. Thank you. 

Scare on the Square Fliers...

Hi, I realize that I put a different time on the Scare on the Square fliers than I did up here for meetings--so in order not to confuse people--we will go with the 5:30 p.m. time to start our meetings on First Fridays at Hobby Lobby unless I say otherwise later (like if I get a job that would require me to be at the job at this time). Thank you and sorry for the confusion. (Also, if I am "on call" for a birth than I might have to skip a meeting or postpone it--but will try to let everyone know through this blog.) Thank you. :)
Signing out now...Julie Larsen

Meeting Change Location--Hobby Lobby and this is final for now...

Sorry, we had the pastor back out at Unity Church, and I really do not know why. So, I am going to hold our meetings at Hobby Lobby because they do not mind if someone uses the back rooms as long as there is not a cake class going on at the same time and we are not disruptive to the customers in the store. (Please do not feel obliged to buy anything).

Meeting Location: Hobby Lobby off North Street (almost to Wal-mart) in Nacogdoches, TX
Time: 6 p.m.-7 p.m. 
Dates: 1st Fridays of every month (unless I say otherwise). 
Note: Room is located straight back a little to left of framing department. I will stand near front to greet you as you come into the store in the breezeway area. (Look for a petite young lady with glasses and probably 2 kids and my husband in a ball cap.)
Please do not call the store and bother them (they asked not to be bothered).
If you need more information about meeting topics, how to get to store, etc. please call me--Julie Larsen--email me for my phone information (I don't want to put it on this blog).
Email: trustbirthnac@yahoo.com

We still plan to have our booth at the Scare on the Square on Saturday the 29th, please stop by. Thanks!

Meeting Location--Unity Church off South Street

We are going to have our meetings on First Fridays of the month @ the Unity Church in Nacogdoches, TX. I will post more information soon. 

 Email: trustbirthnac@yahoo.com to confirm that you are coming to the meeting. Thank you.

Meeting Minutes for October 2011--Oct. 9, 2011 Trust Birth of East Texas

Today, we had our Trust Birth Meeting of East Texas at my home (Julie Larsen Facilitator) around 5 p.m.. We had a small group--hubby, kids, and Joy Childs came to our meeting this time. Since it was small and intimate I asked Joy if she had any topic she wanted me to address to help her out about birth and trusting in birth. She mentioned that she was looking into various doula programs out there and wanted to know more about doula work and helping mothers trust the birthing process.

I told her that I just learned about a new doula training program titled "Doula Trainings International" and it sounded like a good program to look into. They have mentors that work with you throughout the process and I would like that myself. They offer birth doula and postpartum doula program. It is not all online though--you will have to go to a workshop--right now they offer them in Austin, TX, New York and Florida. However, there is an option to host a workshop in a more local region. (Joy can look more into this).

We also addressed the issue of helping mom's trust birth as being a doula. Sometimes a mother will be in a hospital birth situation and a nurse will come by and suggest "Are you ready for your epidural now?" Perhaps this mother didn't want one of them, but hearing someone just suggest it might trigger something to her mind thinking she can't do it without pain medication or epidural. This is when a doula can step in and say, "Remember your birth plan said that you didn't want an epidural. You are doing great. Why don't we think about trying a little longer before considering anything else. You can trust the birthing process." Just a little bit of encouragement can go a long way. Also, you might tell that nurse not to come back in with negative energy. Try to keep things positive. As a doula you can try to remind the hospital staff of using positive words such as "pressure waves" instead of "contractions" etc. This will help keep the atmosphere positive.

We also discussed our booth for Scare on the Square. We are going to have a free booth at Scare on the Square at the end of the month. We hope to pass out some literature about Trust Birth and come up with a flier about "What is a Doula?" just to get information out there to others. I plan to use the Trust Birth flier that Angela sent me (I might make it a one page flier to make it easier on my budget of printing things.) I will have information on how to contact me for future Trust Birth Meetings and I want to find a location before I print up this stuff for at least our November and December meetings so I can put it on the flier. So, that is going to be my goal to find a good location for meetings. And I will also decide on a couple of topics. I had some topics listed on our website...I plan to probably continue a doula discussion for next month and maybe have a combined topic of Blessing Way and Birth Plan for December. I want to talk about Interventions in January...so maybe we can get a place at least for the next three months and try to get a firm location to keep our meetings going.

Joy enjoyed our little gathering. She said she would tell some friends in Center, TX about our meetings. (That's another town over from here).

We ended our meeting after that.
Thank you! 

Nacogdoches Farmer's Market and our October meeting

I just found out that there is going to be a "Fall Fling" at the Farmer's Market on October 1, 2011, so we are going to try to get there a little bit early for our "Trust Birth Meeting" and tell people about our meeting. Since there is a going to be some music--we may have to have our meeting closer to the parking lot area--away from the music...anyway, just look for our "maroon/redish" colored Chevy Blazer and we will see what will work best. If we have to, we may just walk over to a little restaurant downtown and have our talk over there. -- Just meet me at Farmer's Market @ 11 A.M. (look for our car) and we will decide what is best for our group meeting. Thanks!

Meeting for October

We are going to have our meeting in October on October 1st @ Farmer's Market Downtown at 11 A.M. I am just telling everyone about it. I hope we can get more people out. Thanks!

Minutes for September 3, 2011 Trust Birth of East Texas.....

Today we covered the topic of "Nutrition in Pregnancy". At the last minute, we decided to hold the meeting at my house because of bad weather threatening...we had a rain forecast and it was getting real windy outside.

Attendees to our meeting: Carl Larsen, Julie Larsen (facilitator), Rosemary Larsen, John Larsen, Colleen Carson, Katrina Mark, and Mary Rose Miller.

We discussed the topic of Nutrition from four books I own. The book titles are:
1. Pregnancy Childbirth and the Newborn by Penny Simkin (and others)
2. Creating a Joyful Birth Experience (Lucia Capacchione and one other author)
3. Birthing from Within (Pam England and one other author)
4. Eat Right 4 Your Pregnancy (Dr. Peter D'Adamo)

First we went over Penny Simkin's book. We discussed most of her chapter about nutrition and pregnancy and how it is important to have a lot of protein in your diet as a mother and if someone is vegetarian that they need to include fish, milk, egg, etc. that kind of protein in their diet in order to have sufficient nutrients for their baby. We discussed iron needs, calcium intake needs, etc. Alot of people think calcium is only found in cow's milk, but that isn't true. We covered that calcium can be found in leafy greens, goat's milk, eggs, etc. A good source of yummy daily iron is found in blackstrap molasses which is alot tastier than most liquid iron supplements. We also discussed that salt should not be restricted as in the past when the doctors thought a low salt diet was necessary to stop certain pregnancy problems and this is just not true. 

The second book we discussed briefly was the book about Joyful Pregnancy. This book also has some nutrition topics. It also has some interesting exercises for spiritual "nutrition" type ideas in it. This book encourages the mother to write a food diary to see what foods might be effecting her pregnancy especially early on when there maybe nausea, etc. We also discussed the use of ginger and chamomile tea to help the mother relax and not feel nauseated so much during first trimester. We also discussed a short section in the book about "worry vs. fear" and there are a couple of worry/fear buster exercises that the mother can do from the book in order to help dispel these. 

Third book--Birthing from Within--we discussed a brief section in the book about "Eating Awareness" and I actually thought this one was interesting. It talked about eating with awareness of feeding the baby inside of you and actually sending the food down to your baby. With my second pregnancy I sometimes felt the baby quick when I was hungry and when I ate..the baby seemed to settle down and stop kicking me...it was like he knew when I was feeding him!!

Fourth book--Eat Right 4 Your Baby--We talked about eating with the blood type diet in mind for pregnancy because it could help nourish you and the baby more properly. If you don't know your blood type, then it is important to be able to find this out. 


We also mentioned that it is never too late to start eating right in pregnancy, but it is better to start out right sooner rather than later. Also, if you are thinking about becoming pregnant, then it is OK to start a pre-pregnancy type diet of eating more proteins, folic acid, etc.


We also mentioned supplements--Garden of Life makes a great "whole food supplement" that uses real raw foods for pregnancy and woman in general. I recommend this supplement because of the "whole food aspect" that most other supplements do not have. If you do not like ginger (which is in their pregnancy formula), you can just eat the regular woman's formula throughout pregnancy too.


In conclusion, we had a great time discussing various nutritional needs of pregnancy and discussed a little bit that keeping up nutritional needs will help prevent interventions at birth. 


Thank you all for attending our first fall meeting of Trust Birth of East Texas.


We also will advertise our location/time/date more for next month and see if putting up some fliers at prime locations will help us get some more attendees.


Julie Larsen, Facilitator

What days/times are good for meetings for you?

Hi, I know we are just a small little tiny group, but I would like some feedback. Please speak up and let me know what days/times are good for meetings for you? I am flexible as long as it is late afternoon/early evening or maybe "Saturdays" as I might be busy on certain Saturdays/Mondays. Feel free to email me.
Thank you!

Our Motto--"Birth is Safe; Interference is Risky"

Welcome to the new home page for Trust Birth of East Texas.