by Ecoziva (Brazil) | Apr 4, 2013 | Birthing, Brazil, Motherhood, Pregnancy, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
Today’s post is a continuation of a South American birth story from our contributor in Brazil, Eco Ziva. Click here for first part of her story on World Moms Blog.
When our son brought my husband in I said I wasn’t going to get up and asked him to put some towels underneath me. I was determined to stay as still as possible in the fear-filled hope that the intense labor contractions wouldn’t begin. I continued breastfeeding our daughter in the exact same position. Even though nothing else happened besides what seemed like endless gushes of water, I felt more and more scared.
I wanted my husband to talk to the midwife and to the doctor because I didn’t feel like communicating with anyone. Nothing else mattered except staying still. I told my fear-altered self that if I stood still enough I wouldn’t actually go into labor and would simply be whisked off to the hospital for a simple and painless C-section.
Way deep inside me, a weak little voice tried to tell me things like “Remember what you prepared yourself for”, “You give birth so fast, your baby will be born in the car if you go to the hospital”, “You don’t want to get that awful epidural for no reason”, and so on. (more…)
Eco, from the greek oikos means home; Ziva has many meanings and roots, including Hebrew (brilliance, light), Slovenian (goddess of life) and Sanskrit (blessing). In Brazil, where EcoZiva has lived for most of her life, giving birth is often termed “giving the light”; thus, she thought, a mother is “home to light” during the nine months of pregnancy, and so the penname EcoZiva came to be for World Moms Blog.
Born in the USA in a multi-ethnic extended family, EcoZiva is married and the mother of two boys (aged 12 and three) and a five-year-old girl and a three yearboy. She is trained as a biologist and presently an university researcher/professor, but also a volunteer at the local environmental movement.
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by Ecoziva (Brazil) | Mar 21, 2013 | Brazil, Motherhood, Pregnancy, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
It was not an easy pregnancy. While the pregnancies of our older son (8) and of our daughter (2) were harder on me emotionally, this time it was the opposite – emotionally I seemed to be at my best, but physically not so much. I won’t go into detail, but I will give an example to illustrate.
When I was about three months pregnant I woke up in the middle of the night bleeding heavily, and when I got to the bathroom the entire floor was soon covered with blood. We rushed to the hospital thinking I was having a miscarriage, but the ultrasound showed the baby was (thank God!) 100% fine. I had been having excruciating abdominal pain for the previous three days – first suspected to be appendicitis and then a plethora of other maladies – and to this day I have no idea what caused the pain or the bleeding.
And so it went. Every week there was a different problem, the fortunate constant being that the baby was always fine. I tried alternative and allopathic doctors and treatments and spent a small fortune on professionals that were not covered by our health insurance. In the end nothing really worked, and I just prayed I would be feeling well at least on the day I went into labor.
I also began to seek out psychological and spiritual help and finally, after a family constellation and a few sessions of acupuncture (or perhaps because of the sum of everything I had tried before), I had about three weeks of peace before the baby was born, where all I felt was extreme fatigue.
I don’t know if it was because of all of the health problems I underwent or for some other secret emotional reason, but even though this was the third time I was having a baby, it was also the time I was feeling most scared. (more…)
Eco, from the greek oikos means home; Ziva has many meanings and roots, including Hebrew (brilliance, light), Slovenian (goddess of life) and Sanskrit (blessing). In Brazil, where EcoZiva has lived for most of her life, giving birth is often termed “giving the light”; thus, she thought, a mother is “home to light” during the nine months of pregnancy, and so the penname EcoZiva came to be for World Moms Blog.
Born in the USA in a multi-ethnic extended family, EcoZiva is married and the mother of two boys (aged 12 and three) and a five-year-old girl and a three yearboy. She is trained as a biologist and presently an university researcher/professor, but also a volunteer at the local environmental movement.
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by Nicole Melancon (USA) | Mar 8, 2013 | Communication, Family, Grandparent, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, Post Partum Depression, Third Eye Mom, Womanhood, World Motherhood
I grew up in a close-knit family of five in the seventies and eighties to such popular shows that reflected our lives like The Brady Bunch, Who’s the Boss and Different Strokes. Long gone were the days of Leave it to Beaver and mothers wearing aprons around the house all day greeting their working husband each evening with a freshly cooked meal and a smile. The seventies and eighties meant more liberation for women and the family structure changed right along with it.
My mother was always my biggest advocate picking me up off the ground when I fell, wiping the tears off my checks when I’d been dumped by a boy and loving and supporting me to follow my dreams. She also taught me to stand up for what was right and wrong and to always be humble, not proud. I followed her teachings and once I left for college our friendship and love grew into maturity.
Everything was wonderful for the next 12 years until the moment when everything changed. I became a mother.
At the time, I had no idea that anything would ever change between us. I thought our bond would grow stronger once I was a mother too. But I was wrong. Instead, our relationship has become filled with tension, confusion and stress. It took me a long time to realize and understand that our relationship had permanently changed and even longer to understand the reason why. (more…)
Third Eye Mom is a stay-at-home mom living in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her two children Max (6) and Sophia (4). Her children keep her continually busy and she is constantly amazed by the imagination, energy and joy of life that they possess! A world wanderer at heart, she has also been fortunate to have visited over 30 countries by either traveling, working, studying or volunteering and she continues to keep on the traveling path.
A graduate of French and International Relations from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where she met her husband Paul, she has always been a Midwest gal living in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Chicago. This adventurous mom loves to be outside doing anything athletic (hiking, running, biking, skiing, snowshoeing or simply enjoying nature), to travel and volunteer abroad, to write, and to spend time with her beloved family and friends.
Her latest venture involves her dream to raise enough money on her own to build and open a brand-new school in rural Nepal, and to teach her children to live compassionately, open-minded lives that understand different cultures and the importance of giving back to those in need. Third Eye Mom believes strongly in the value of making a difference in the world, no matter how small it may be. If there is a will, there is a way, and that anything is possible (as long as you set your heart and mind to it!).
Visit her on her blog, Thirdeyemom, where she writes about her travels and experiences in other lands!
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by Kristyn Zalota | Feb 5, 2013 | Babies, Being Thankful, Birthing, Child Care, Clean Birth Kits, Death and Dying, Humanity, Inspirational, International, Maternal Health, Poverty, Social Good, Women's Rights, World Moms Blog, World Voice, Younger Children
This post is the third installment by Kristyn Zalota, Founder of CleanBirth.org, about her work in Laos. To read the first post in the series,click here: “One Mom’s Mission to Save Lives in Laos”. To read the second post, click here: “Small Project Big Impact: Making Birth Safe in Laos”.
As you may know from my previous posts, I am a mom on a mission to make birth safer in Laos. This month my organization, , has the goal of raising enough funds to save 1,000 mothers and 1,000 babies.
I am a doula, Lamaze educator, and advocate for safe birth for impoverished women. I was drawn to work in Laos, because women there die at a higher rate than Afghani women and Lao babies die at a higher rate than babies in Sudan.
In November 2012, I traveled to southern Laos and, with my Lao partner organization, trained nurses in the use and distribution of Clean Birth Kits. When the nurses told me that women give birth alone, I agreed to fund community education about safe birthing practices
Having completed the nurses’ training, we went deep into the mountains to visit the clinics there. I immediately sensed the grinding poverty of the area. People live on $1 per day. The life expectancy of women is short, either due to childbirth (8-12 births) or disease. Most will lose several babies.
What do you see when you walk into the villages? Naked kids with runny noses. Mothers with babies in slings. Bamboo and wood one-room dwellings on stilts. No electricity, not a single store. While a new road connecting Thailand and Vietnam is bringing change, it is mostly in the form of human trafficking, HIV, and environmental degradation. (more…)
Kristyn brings her years of experience as an entrepreneur and serial volunteer to CleanBirth.org. She holds a MA, has run small businesses in Russia and the US, and has volunteered in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Uganda on projects related to women’s empowerment.
After having children, Kristyn became an advocate for mothers in the US, as a doula and Lamaze educator, and abroad, as the Founder of CleanBirth.org. She is honored to provide nurses in Laos with the supplies, funding and training they need to lower maternal and infant mortality rates in their villages.
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by Nicole Melancon (USA) | Jan 29, 2013 | Health, Maternal Health, Sleep and Children, Social Good, World Voice
It must have been a sign of fate that I happened to be paging through the resort brochure the last night of my stay at the lovely Barefoot Cay and saw the two-page spread on Clinica Esperanza. Instantly, I was taken by the story and by a stroke of luck the next morning, thirty minutes before my departure to the United States I found myself interviewing the very doctor who has dedicated the last several years of his life to helping build the clinic.
Photo of the clinic. Photo credit: Doctor Patrick Connell.
The clinic itself started in a rather unexpected way. Peggy Stranges, an American nurse had come to the gorgeous, tropical island of Roatan off the shores of Honduras to retire. However, once word caught on among the local community that a nurse was living right down the street, more and more people came to Nurse Peggy looking for help. In a place lacking modern health care, Peggy began to see a need for providing low-cost or no-cost health care services to the people of Roatan.
Clinica Esperanza started at Nurse Peggy’s kitchen table and over the years expanded from her home to an apartment beneath her house, then occupied four rooms at a nearby church, and finally ended up in its home today as a first-class freestanding hospital in the Sandy Bay area of Roatan. (more…)
Third Eye Mom is a stay-at-home mom living in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her two children Max (6) and Sophia (4). Her children keep her continually busy and she is constantly amazed by the imagination, energy and joy of life that they possess! A world wanderer at heart, she has also been fortunate to have visited over 30 countries by either traveling, working, studying or volunteering and she continues to keep on the traveling path.
A graduate of French and International Relations from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where she met her husband Paul, she has always been a Midwest gal living in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Chicago. This adventurous mom loves to be outside doing anything athletic (hiking, running, biking, skiing, snowshoeing or simply enjoying nature), to travel and volunteer abroad, to write, and to spend time with her beloved family and friends.
Her latest venture involves her dream to raise enough money on her own to build and open a brand-new school in rural Nepal, and to teach her children to live compassionately, open-minded lives that understand different cultures and the importance of giving back to those in need. Third Eye Mom believes strongly in the value of making a difference in the world, no matter how small it may be. If there is a will, there is a way, and that anything is possible (as long as you set your heart and mind to it!).
Visit her on her blog, Thirdeyemom, where she writes about her travels and experiences in other lands!
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by Kristyn Zalota | Jan 15, 2013 | Birthing, Clean Birth Kits, Social Good, Uncategorized, World Voice
This post is the second installment by Kristyn Zalota, Founder of CleanBirth.org, about her work in Laos. To read the first post in the series, “One Mom’s Mission to Save Lives in Laos”.
Tahoy mother and 3 day old baby. Tahoy women have 8-10 babies, many of whom die.
“Off to Laos! I am really doing this!”, I enthused in a text to a friend en route to JFK for my around-the-world flight. I was headed to a remote province of Laos to provide local women with Clean Birth Kits (essential birthing supplies: picture instructions, absorbent sheet, soap, cord clamp, sterile blade that prevent infection) and training on safe, hygienic birthing practices.It took me 48 hours to get to Thailand, due to a delayed flight, and I was worse for the wear on arrival. En route from Thailand to Laos, my stomach hurt from travel-induced anxiety, malaria pills were causing another kind of digestive distress and I was sleep-deprived.
Plus, I didn’t really know where I was going: a cell phone number from my Lao partner organization, OVC, was my only information. Arriving in the Thai-Lao border town, Pakse, I obsessively dialed my contact for hours until she answered. Much to my relief, she picked me up and drove me from Pakse to Salavan, where OVC is based.
My first day in Salavan, I knew that the stress and discomfort of travel were well worth it. I saw immediately, that the directors of OVC, Nong and Nyai, were women that I could work with. They are efficient, hard-working, committed and generous. For more than 10 years, they have been providing medical, educational and agricultural support to ethnic minorities in this remote region. They believe in empowering the local people: seven of OVC’s staff of twelve live in the communities and are ethnic minorities themselves. (more…)
Kristyn brings her years of experience as an entrepreneur and serial volunteer to CleanBirth.org. She holds a MA, has run small businesses in Russia and the US, and has volunteered in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Uganda on projects related to women’s empowerment.
After having children, Kristyn became an advocate for mothers in the US, as a doula and Lamaze educator, and abroad, as the Founder of CleanBirth.org. She is honored to provide nurses in Laos with the supplies, funding and training they need to lower maternal and infant mortality rates in their villages.
More Posts
