"A Grief Observed"
C. S. Lewis
89 pages, 1961
Anyone new to this blog may wonder why I am including a book review having absolutely nothing to do with hyperemesis! I will note, therefore, for the benefit of said newcomers, that this blog is also an examination of the spiritual meaning behind human suffering, from a Christian perspective.
I loved this little book. Actually, it's not a "book" per se, but a journal of notes jotted by Lewis after the death of his beloved wife, Joy. It is a precious volume that I have now read about three times and loved more each time.
This book is completely different from "The Problem of Pain," also by Lewis. "PoP" was written from an intellectual standpoint - a logical and theological examination of the purposes behind human suffering. While PoP was a truly great book which greatly advanced my knowledge, it did not really touch my heart. AGO (A Grief Observed), while much less scholarly and much more personal, helped me greatly along my journey of understanding.
The term that comes to mind for this book is "raw." Lewis wrote it while deeply hurt and grieving. He expresses doubt, anger, despair - all of the emotions experienced by anyone in the throes of great physical or mental suffering. But just as a hug means more to a suffering person than does a lecture, so does this type of book speak more deeply to someone trying to understand suffering than does a scholarly essay.
Here are a few great quotes from this book:
"Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be - or so it feels - welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door sleammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?" (pp. 17-18)
I think we have all felt like this in moments of despair.
"Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not 'So there's no God after all,' but 'So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer.'" (pp. 18-19)
I have definitely felt the danger of this temptation - not to cease to believe in God, but to believe Him to be other than Good - what a horrible thought.
"It is hard to have patience with people who say, 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter." (pp. 28-29)
Very true! And I'm sure I've murmured the same platitudes unthinkingly.
"Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand." (p. 37)
Oh, how true this sometimes feels in moments of depression and hopelessness.
"Your bid - for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity - will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high; until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man - or at any rate a man like me - out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself. And I must admit... that, if my house was a hosue of cards, the sooner it was knocked down the better. And only suffering could do it." (pp. 49-50)
Suffering is truly the great truth-teller - it reveals our faith for what it truly is, not what we thought it was because we were happy and well. We all have to go through this stripping away at some point.
"What is grief compared with physical pain? .... The body can suffer twenty times more than the mind. The mind has always some power of evasion. At worst, the unbearable thought only comes back and back, but the physical pain can be absolutely continuous. Grief is like a bomber circling round and dropping its bombs each time the circle brings it overhead; physical pain is like the steady barrage on a trench in World War One, hours of it with no let-up for a moment. Thought is never static; pain often is." (pp. 52-53)
The one advantage of mental pain over physical - that there is occasional relief from it (with sleep, with social interaction, with moments of forgetfulness). But each type of pain carries its own suffering, regardless of the pattern of recurrence. Right now, as I am dealing with the subject of physical suffering, mental suffering seems preferable. But I know that when I'm experiencing mental suffering, I long to exchange it for physical! A no-win situation.
***
I loved this book and highly recommend it. I'll definitely be picking up a copy whenever I find one somewhere. It's great to know that people (even the great C. S. Lewis!) go through spiritual struggles and times of lowness as well as oneself - kind of a brotherhood of human spiritual experience. Very comforting, and very reassuring.
Highly recommended!
Showing posts with label Book Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Reviews. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Book Review: "Managing Morning Sickness" by Miriam Erick
"Managing Morning Sickness"
Miriam Erick
2004, 412 pages
After reading this book, I felt.... confused. Yes, definitely confused. And also irritated.
I liked the book better upon rereading it. It definitely has good information. So I guess that my review is mixed!
I want to start off with three big complaints.
First - This is not a book about hyperemesis. This is a book about morning sickness - ALL morning sickness - from the slightest queasiness to the severest case of HG. I am not sure that the choice to lump all forms of MS/HG together was a wise choice. What works for one will not work for the other, and what applies to one will not apply to the other. I found it confusing to wade through oodles of advice, only some of which applied to me.
Of course, I realize the quandary. Hyperemesis is not a well-defined condition, just because morning sickness is a spectrum/continuum condition. It progresses from mild to life-threatening, and the exact dividing point between garden-variety MS and HG is not well-defined - or rather, it is an artificial division that doesn't really exist! So it would be hard to separate the conditions for separate books! Still, it was confusing.
Which brings me to my second complaint - Miriam's definition of HG. First of all, she gives several different definitions of HG:
"The technical name for moderate-to-severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy is hyperemesis gravidarum (HG)." p. 5
Although she admits that "Currently, there is no set of criteria that can delinate this spectrum," (p. 5) she later states that "On occasion a hospital stay to correct dehydration is necessary. If this happens, morning sickness becomes known as hyperemesis gravidarum." (p. 245)
She seems to stick with this definition, for the most part - she repeats it several times throughout the book. So, if you end up in the hospital, you had hyperemesis; if you don't, you didn't.
Speaking from a somewhat scientifically-trained background, this is the WORST possible way to define a condition - to define it based on the clinical action taken. Frankly, I don't know how she could even contemplate this methodology! Let's take some analogous situations to see how ludicrous this appears:
- "You only have pneumonia if you go to see a doctor. Otherwise it's just a bad cold."
- "You only have cancer once the doctors decide to do chemotherapy. Otherwise it's just your imagination."
- "You only have a broken bone if the doctor gives you a cast. Otherwise it's a strain."
- "You only have a bad cut if you get stitches. Otherwise it's just a scratch."
Conditions need to be defined symptomatically; not by end-results.
My own case is a good example. I know, by personal experience and symptom-matching, that I had a (mild) case of HG. If I had known then what I knew now, I would have gone to the hospital (and thus I would have "had HG"). However, we did not have insurance and I believed (falsely) that there was no medication to give to pregnant mamas for fear of harming the baby. Thus, we stayed home even though I was dehydrated and wanting to die. But if we had gone in, like we should have, then I would (by Miriam's estimate) have had HG! Since I didn't, I obviously didn't!!
A couple more examples....
- What about the woman in a third world country who doesn't have access to medical care? Well, obviously she doesn't have HG because she wasn't hospitalized!
- What about women who check themselves into a hospital unnecessarily? I once heard a doula describe an unbalanced, hysterical-type client of hers who constantly checked herself into the hospital for imaginary or minor complaints (including nausea and vomiting, which didn't exist). Well, obviously she had HG - because she was hospitalized!
- What about the woman who isn't hospitalized because her doctor is ignorant or insensitive and refuses to hospitalize her even though she needs it? Well, obviously she didn't have HG!
Forgive the sarcasm - but her definition did make me angry. You simply cannot classify a disease condition by what the medical community decides to do about it. It must be symptom-based.
My third complaint:
I realized about two-thirds of the way through the book that this book didn't have the same "feel" as other HG books I have read. It took me a minute to realize what it was, and then I realized that this book (as far as I could tell) was not written from personal experience. Miriam has not been through HG herself. How do I conclude that? #1 - She has no "my story" part of the book, something that will never be missing from an HG-mama's writings. #2 - She has a statement in the beginning of the book that pretty much clinches it (more on that later).
Hyperemesis is what I can only describe as a "path of darkness." It is an experience with the deepest physical agony and mental suffering - an encounter with deep, deep darkness. A friend of mine described it as "sliding into the Pit," and I highly concur. Writings of HG women (such as McCall and Schmitt) deeply reflect this experience with darkness. This book had no such reflection - it was mostly bright and cheerful. I found myself thinking, "Gosh, I was making a fuss over nothing! This is just a normal condition that can be treated sensibly like anything else."
This statement made me laugh, and it made me a bit mad at the same time. Here it is:
"Believe me I know exactly what you are going through - because I take care of women just like you every day of the year." (p. xxiv, italics in original)
Oh, my goodness! Miriam, don't write things like that! If you have not been through HG, you do NOT know what HG-mothers are going through. You may know about the condition, how to treat it, have empathy with HG-mamas - but until you've been there you will not know anything about "what you are going through" - and it is presumptuous to say that you do. If you have had HG, you need to state it. If you have not had HG, then I suggest the following rewording: "Believe me, I have a lot of experience working with severe morning sickness - because I take care of women just like you every day of the year."
Let's take an example: Imagine a male obstetrician leaning over a woman in transition (the hardest part of labor) and saying, "Believe me I know exactly what you are going through - because I take care of women just like you every day of the year." What would we do? We'd laugh him out to the parking lot!!!
For major life changes, disease conditions, suffering and crises, not one of us can say that "I know just what you're going through" until he/she has been there. I cannot truly know the hurt of infertility, the hurt of deepest grief, the hurt of losing a child (much as I may sympathize) because I have not been down those paths in my own life.
There's no reason why people shouldn't study or write about conditions that they haven't experienced. Counselors and pastors counsel people all the time who are going through disasters that the counselors themselves haven't experienced. Men can make great obstetricians. And I'm sure Miriam is a great dietition helping out HG mothers. But she should not say that she "knows exactly what we're going through."
Enough complaints (for the moment).... Let's move on to a survey of this book.
The first chapter deals with the question "what is morning sickness?" There are so many facets to this condition that it is actually a pretty hard question! Miriam lists some of the different facets of morning sickness:
- Nausea, vomiting, retching
- Aversion to odors
- Aversion to bright lights
- Aversion to noises
- Aversion to tight-fitting clothes
- Low-level claustrophobia
- Sensitivity to visual motion from computer screens/televisions
I personally experienced the first two, and I have no idea about the rest - I was too sick to notice!!
She then goes on to give some of the differences between MS and HG (which, again, is hard to do). She mentions some of the other facets of morning sickness - that it's not generally "morning" sickness, that it doesn't always (or even usually) dissipate by the end of the first trimester, and that it is a condition unfortunately prone to relapse.
Miriam then writes a chapter about how morning sickness affects women's careers and families/relationships. Very important! I know that with my experience, social relationships suffered greatly (from neglect). If I had had a career, it would have been over, and if I had had a less than perfectly-patient DH, my marital relationship would have suffered as well. I got off easy - but many women don't, especially when they have careers or small children.
Chapter three is really interesting - it presents the different theories as to WHY women get morning sickness. Oddly enough, no one really knows for sure!! Here are some of the theories:
- Lowered blood sodium
- Adjustment of the brain's chemical sensors
- Metabolism of pregnancy hormones
- Slower emptying of the stomach
- Rising hormone levels
- Left vs. right ovary theory (women, for some reason, have more MS when the egg is released from the right ovary)
- Protection from sexual activity (which might conceivably harm the baby)
- Placental enzymes and low blood sugar
- Protection from food toxins
- Heightened stress
- Your diet 1 year before pregnancy (diets higher in saturated fats result in more morning sickness)
- Baby girls (has been pretty much disproven)
- Altered ratio of t-helper cells
- Lowered levels of B vitamins
When it all comes down to it, no one really knows! But it's a great education to read about it.
Chapter 4 is a study of "morning sickness through history" - it describes, in some detail, the remedies for morning sickness used throughout history and in other cultures. When I first read this chapter, I was really annoyed - because this is a chapter that is utterly useless to me as an HG mother. However, upon rereading I realized that this book is a book about morning sickness - and thus, any information known about morning sickness should be included in order to form an exhaustive text. Anyone doing research on morning sickness from an academic perspective will find this chapter very interesting - it's just not useful to here-and-now morning sickness sufferers.
After a chapter on odors (where they are, how to avoid them, etc.), Miriam writes about the technique of dealing with morning sickness "triggers." In other words, for MS/HG women, various things (noises, sights, odors, tastes) set off vomiting. Miriam writes that one should practice extreme vigilance to notice what triggers nausea and strictly avoid that. She also writes that one should think deeply about what one wants at a given moment (ice cream? soup?) and pursue that. She gives a chart which women can use daily to chart their nausea level, food preferences, climate (which can cause shifts in nausea levels) and various environmental stimuli so that they are able to track patterns and make shifts accordingly.
This all sounds great in theory. In practice? Well, she claims it works. But when I think back to my own experience, it doesn't sound very practical. I was too sick to be charting anything, all food sounded repulsive, and the least bit of solid food would cause uncontrollable vomiting. There is no way on earth I would have been able to sit there and say, "Okay, it's ten o'clock and I'm craving pickles. I see by the weather that the storm front caused an increase in nausea, so I'll wait to take my prenatal." No way!!
But I'm willing to give it a try. Hey, I'd stand on my head for an hour a day if it would work! So I'm definitely willing to give this a try.
And I should say that this book got great reviews on Amazon, with five HG mothers saying that Erick's techniques helped them greatly. So despite my skepticism, I'm not writing off this advice - it just sounds impossible from the outside.
Miriam's next chapter is on morning sickness and emotions. This covers a myriad of topics, most of which are helpful. However, there was one section in here which was so funny (unintentionally, I'm afraid) that I have to mention it. It is called "boredom and morning sickness" - a list of things to do when one is kept at home by morning sickness - things such as "make beaded barrettes or belts with a kit," "writing a child's storybook for the baby's third or fourth birthday, complete with pictures," "Knitting or embroidering," "Organizing a photo album," etc. What on earth??? If, like I was, you are in bed with morning sickness, you are in NO condition to even think about activities! That is just about as practical as giving a list of "things to do when you're home with severe food poisoning." When I was at home in bed, I was either throwing up or sleeping. Period. Origami never crossed my mind. If you're feeling well enough to do these things, I don't think you need to be in bed!! Of course, every case could be different. Who knows? I only have my experience from which to judge.
The next part is the part I find the most puzzling. As a nutritionist (registered dietitian), Erick's main focus is on "helping morning sickness with food." She (as mentioned above) asks mothers to think, for example, "Would something salty reduce or aggravate the queasy feelings at this very minute? What food or drink comes to mind at this very moment?" (p. 171) and "What food or beverage would ease your nausea? Something salty, sour, bitter, tart, sweet, crunchy/lumpy, soft/smooth, mushy, hard, fruity, wet, dry, bland, spicy, aromatic, earthy, hot, cold, thin or thick?" She then gives lists of foods for each category and asks mothers to focus on finding what they really want to eat or drink and to pursue that thing.
I can't but be puzzled by this. Erick claims to have helped cure hundreds of women with hyperemesis with this method... But even with my own mild HG, I can't imagine this helping! When all food sounds horrible beyond belief and you're retching at the first bite of solid food (and some of my severe-HG friends have been unable to even tolerate liquids), I can't really think that satisfying cravings (which I didn't have) would be the least bit helpful.
She then gives "sick day meal plans" according to the various flavors mentioned above (crunchy, salty, etc.). Again, I am puzzled. Let's look at this one, from p. 204
Sick-day meal plan (bland)
7 am - 4 unsalted oyster crackers
8 am - 1/2 egg matzo cracker
9 am - 1/2 cup instant cream of wheat
10 am - 1/2 ripe banana blended with 1/2 cup milk to make a milkshake
etc.
How does that help when you're throwing up so hard you can't even leave the bathroom? How does that help when you're so sick you can't even handle food? I remember being annoyed with my poor mother when she suggested making milkshakes, because getting out to the kitchen and getting out food and equipment to make a milkshake was simply impossible due to exhaustion and food aversions. In a later chapter, Erick gives recipes as well. They look great, but again, how is a woman with HG (whose hubbie is generally at work) going to get out to the kitchen to start cooking? I couldn't even manage to make the cheesecake for my friend's baby shower, let alone get out into the kitchen to cook for myself!!! The average hubbie is not going to be spending his entire evening cooking up various from-scratch recipes (not to mention that even if he did, that wouldn't help day-time cravings). Especially since HG-hubbies generally have a TON to do in the evenings with childcare, basic meal prep, shopping and housework - they don't have time to be whipping up various recipes.
Erick then gives a very helpful chapter on hospitalization, with all the procedures and policies to expect. This is not as indepth as McCall's treatment, but still very good.
She writes sections also on pharmaceuticals for HG, and also a bit about alternative treatments - her main focus is on acupuncture, with a wee bit on herbs and homeopathy. Her sections on herbs/homeopathy need a bit of formatting help for clarity, as she just incorporates the remedies into the text rather than putting them in bold or bullet-format - they're very hard to locate.
She closes with a chapter on the rarer complications of HG, and then gives a list of resources for HG women. Very, very helpful.
Side note: I do not like Erick's treatment of the subject of abortion. She is remarkably complacent and blase about the fact that many HG pregnancies end in abortion. It was kind of like, "So-and-so couldn't handle the nausea, so she aborted. Okay! Moving on to our next subject..." There is sympathy, but that's it.
Abortion is an inextricable part of HG. It's kind of inevitable in a country where abortion is available on demand. When you're in the midst of unbearable suffering and relief is either nine months away (basically an eternity) or one short doctor's appointment away, many women choose abortion. While I don't condemn these women, as I know what they went through, I am still 100% pro-life and believe that any abortion is a tragedy and a deep violation of human rights on the part of the unborn baby who was denied life. Any book on HG needs to contain in-depth material on abortion - at the very least, encouragement for abortion-minded women, telling them strongly that HG WILL PASS and that their beautiful baby will be in their arms. When HG is over, it is over. But when an abortion is over - the HG is gone, but the baby is dead. And most post-abortive HG women feel compelled to try again for a baby - meaning that their journey through HG will be considerably longer than if they didn't abort in the first place.
Ashli McCall's book "Beyond Morning Sickness" covers this in depth. McCall suffered severe HG four times, the first time ending in a second-trimester abortion which left her deeply scarred and grieving for life. She devotes a large part of her book to dealing with abortion and encouraging HG mothers to stick it out. There is no such encouragement in this book, and it is a big hole that needs to be filled.
On the whole? Well, I recommend this book for the information. There's a lot of information here. Even if the nutritional stuff doesn't help, there's a lot of helpful information. For myself, as a post-HG mother contemplating another pregnancy, I want to know everything about morning sickness and HG before going into another pregnancy. In the middle of HG is NOT the time to be flipping through reference books! I want to know all facets of morning sickness, drugs, alternative therapies, hospital procedures, coping strategies, nutrition, complications - knowledge is power, and I want as much of it as possible before facing another pregnancy.
In terms of the nutritional coping strategies Erick outlines, I do not possibly see how they could be helpful (although for any morning sickness short of HG, I am sure they would be GREAT - don't get me wrong). However, this woman has years and years of experience with treating HG mothers, so I'm not going to write her off. I'll give her methods a try. And I'll let you know if any of it works!
So.... Buy this book. Read it, and let me know what you think of it. If you use or have used any of her techniques in the past, let me know about it and I'll post it here. I'm quite willing to eat crow if they work!
Signing off,
Diana
Miriam Erick
2004, 412 pages
After reading this book, I felt.... confused. Yes, definitely confused. And also irritated.
I liked the book better upon rereading it. It definitely has good information. So I guess that my review is mixed!
I want to start off with three big complaints.
First - This is not a book about hyperemesis. This is a book about morning sickness - ALL morning sickness - from the slightest queasiness to the severest case of HG. I am not sure that the choice to lump all forms of MS/HG together was a wise choice. What works for one will not work for the other, and what applies to one will not apply to the other. I found it confusing to wade through oodles of advice, only some of which applied to me.
Of course, I realize the quandary. Hyperemesis is not a well-defined condition, just because morning sickness is a spectrum/continuum condition. It progresses from mild to life-threatening, and the exact dividing point between garden-variety MS and HG is not well-defined - or rather, it is an artificial division that doesn't really exist! So it would be hard to separate the conditions for separate books! Still, it was confusing.
Which brings me to my second complaint - Miriam's definition of HG. First of all, she gives several different definitions of HG:
"The technical name for moderate-to-severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy is hyperemesis gravidarum (HG)." p. 5
Although she admits that "Currently, there is no set of criteria that can delinate this spectrum," (p. 5) she later states that "On occasion a hospital stay to correct dehydration is necessary. If this happens, morning sickness becomes known as hyperemesis gravidarum." (p. 245)
She seems to stick with this definition, for the most part - she repeats it several times throughout the book. So, if you end up in the hospital, you had hyperemesis; if you don't, you didn't.
Speaking from a somewhat scientifically-trained background, this is the WORST possible way to define a condition - to define it based on the clinical action taken. Frankly, I don't know how she could even contemplate this methodology! Let's take some analogous situations to see how ludicrous this appears:
- "You only have pneumonia if you go to see a doctor. Otherwise it's just a bad cold."
- "You only have cancer once the doctors decide to do chemotherapy. Otherwise it's just your imagination."
- "You only have a broken bone if the doctor gives you a cast. Otherwise it's a strain."
- "You only have a bad cut if you get stitches. Otherwise it's just a scratch."
Conditions need to be defined symptomatically; not by end-results.
My own case is a good example. I know, by personal experience and symptom-matching, that I had a (mild) case of HG. If I had known then what I knew now, I would have gone to the hospital (and thus I would have "had HG"). However, we did not have insurance and I believed (falsely) that there was no medication to give to pregnant mamas for fear of harming the baby. Thus, we stayed home even though I was dehydrated and wanting to die. But if we had gone in, like we should have, then I would (by Miriam's estimate) have had HG! Since I didn't, I obviously didn't!!
A couple more examples....
- What about the woman in a third world country who doesn't have access to medical care? Well, obviously she doesn't have HG because she wasn't hospitalized!
- What about women who check themselves into a hospital unnecessarily? I once heard a doula describe an unbalanced, hysterical-type client of hers who constantly checked herself into the hospital for imaginary or minor complaints (including nausea and vomiting, which didn't exist). Well, obviously she had HG - because she was hospitalized!
- What about the woman who isn't hospitalized because her doctor is ignorant or insensitive and refuses to hospitalize her even though she needs it? Well, obviously she didn't have HG!
Forgive the sarcasm - but her definition did make me angry. You simply cannot classify a disease condition by what the medical community decides to do about it. It must be symptom-based.
My third complaint:
I realized about two-thirds of the way through the book that this book didn't have the same "feel" as other HG books I have read. It took me a minute to realize what it was, and then I realized that this book (as far as I could tell) was not written from personal experience. Miriam has not been through HG herself. How do I conclude that? #1 - She has no "my story" part of the book, something that will never be missing from an HG-mama's writings. #2 - She has a statement in the beginning of the book that pretty much clinches it (more on that later).
Hyperemesis is what I can only describe as a "path of darkness." It is an experience with the deepest physical agony and mental suffering - an encounter with deep, deep darkness. A friend of mine described it as "sliding into the Pit," and I highly concur. Writings of HG women (such as McCall and Schmitt) deeply reflect this experience with darkness. This book had no such reflection - it was mostly bright and cheerful. I found myself thinking, "Gosh, I was making a fuss over nothing! This is just a normal condition that can be treated sensibly like anything else."
This statement made me laugh, and it made me a bit mad at the same time. Here it is:
"Believe me I know exactly what you are going through - because I take care of women just like you every day of the year." (p. xxiv, italics in original)
Oh, my goodness! Miriam, don't write things like that! If you have not been through HG, you do NOT know what HG-mothers are going through. You may know about the condition, how to treat it, have empathy with HG-mamas - but until you've been there you will not know anything about "what you are going through" - and it is presumptuous to say that you do. If you have had HG, you need to state it. If you have not had HG, then I suggest the following rewording: "Believe me, I have a lot of experience working with severe morning sickness - because I take care of women just like you every day of the year."
Let's take an example: Imagine a male obstetrician leaning over a woman in transition (the hardest part of labor) and saying, "Believe me I know exactly what you are going through - because I take care of women just like you every day of the year." What would we do? We'd laugh him out to the parking lot!!!
For major life changes, disease conditions, suffering and crises, not one of us can say that "I know just what you're going through" until he/she has been there. I cannot truly know the hurt of infertility, the hurt of deepest grief, the hurt of losing a child (much as I may sympathize) because I have not been down those paths in my own life.
There's no reason why people shouldn't study or write about conditions that they haven't experienced. Counselors and pastors counsel people all the time who are going through disasters that the counselors themselves haven't experienced. Men can make great obstetricians. And I'm sure Miriam is a great dietition helping out HG mothers. But she should not say that she "knows exactly what we're going through."
Enough complaints (for the moment).... Let's move on to a survey of this book.
The first chapter deals with the question "what is morning sickness?" There are so many facets to this condition that it is actually a pretty hard question! Miriam lists some of the different facets of morning sickness:
- Nausea, vomiting, retching
- Aversion to odors
- Aversion to bright lights
- Aversion to noises
- Aversion to tight-fitting clothes
- Low-level claustrophobia
- Sensitivity to visual motion from computer screens/televisions
I personally experienced the first two, and I have no idea about the rest - I was too sick to notice!!
She then goes on to give some of the differences between MS and HG (which, again, is hard to do). She mentions some of the other facets of morning sickness - that it's not generally "morning" sickness, that it doesn't always (or even usually) dissipate by the end of the first trimester, and that it is a condition unfortunately prone to relapse.
Miriam then writes a chapter about how morning sickness affects women's careers and families/relationships. Very important! I know that with my experience, social relationships suffered greatly (from neglect). If I had had a career, it would have been over, and if I had had a less than perfectly-patient DH, my marital relationship would have suffered as well. I got off easy - but many women don't, especially when they have careers or small children.
Chapter three is really interesting - it presents the different theories as to WHY women get morning sickness. Oddly enough, no one really knows for sure!! Here are some of the theories:
- Lowered blood sodium
- Adjustment of the brain's chemical sensors
- Metabolism of pregnancy hormones
- Slower emptying of the stomach
- Rising hormone levels
- Left vs. right ovary theory (women, for some reason, have more MS when the egg is released from the right ovary)
- Protection from sexual activity (which might conceivably harm the baby)
- Placental enzymes and low blood sugar
- Protection from food toxins
- Heightened stress
- Your diet 1 year before pregnancy (diets higher in saturated fats result in more morning sickness)
- Baby girls (has been pretty much disproven)
- Altered ratio of t-helper cells
- Lowered levels of B vitamins
When it all comes down to it, no one really knows! But it's a great education to read about it.
Chapter 4 is a study of "morning sickness through history" - it describes, in some detail, the remedies for morning sickness used throughout history and in other cultures. When I first read this chapter, I was really annoyed - because this is a chapter that is utterly useless to me as an HG mother. However, upon rereading I realized that this book is a book about morning sickness - and thus, any information known about morning sickness should be included in order to form an exhaustive text. Anyone doing research on morning sickness from an academic perspective will find this chapter very interesting - it's just not useful to here-and-now morning sickness sufferers.
After a chapter on odors (where they are, how to avoid them, etc.), Miriam writes about the technique of dealing with morning sickness "triggers." In other words, for MS/HG women, various things (noises, sights, odors, tastes) set off vomiting. Miriam writes that one should practice extreme vigilance to notice what triggers nausea and strictly avoid that. She also writes that one should think deeply about what one wants at a given moment (ice cream? soup?) and pursue that. She gives a chart which women can use daily to chart their nausea level, food preferences, climate (which can cause shifts in nausea levels) and various environmental stimuli so that they are able to track patterns and make shifts accordingly.
This all sounds great in theory. In practice? Well, she claims it works. But when I think back to my own experience, it doesn't sound very practical. I was too sick to be charting anything, all food sounded repulsive, and the least bit of solid food would cause uncontrollable vomiting. There is no way on earth I would have been able to sit there and say, "Okay, it's ten o'clock and I'm craving pickles. I see by the weather that the storm front caused an increase in nausea, so I'll wait to take my prenatal." No way!!
But I'm willing to give it a try. Hey, I'd stand on my head for an hour a day if it would work! So I'm definitely willing to give this a try.
And I should say that this book got great reviews on Amazon, with five HG mothers saying that Erick's techniques helped them greatly. So despite my skepticism, I'm not writing off this advice - it just sounds impossible from the outside.
Miriam's next chapter is on morning sickness and emotions. This covers a myriad of topics, most of which are helpful. However, there was one section in here which was so funny (unintentionally, I'm afraid) that I have to mention it. It is called "boredom and morning sickness" - a list of things to do when one is kept at home by morning sickness - things such as "make beaded barrettes or belts with a kit," "writing a child's storybook for the baby's third or fourth birthday, complete with pictures," "Knitting or embroidering," "Organizing a photo album," etc. What on earth??? If, like I was, you are in bed with morning sickness, you are in NO condition to even think about activities! That is just about as practical as giving a list of "things to do when you're home with severe food poisoning." When I was at home in bed, I was either throwing up or sleeping. Period. Origami never crossed my mind. If you're feeling well enough to do these things, I don't think you need to be in bed!! Of course, every case could be different. Who knows? I only have my experience from which to judge.
The next part is the part I find the most puzzling. As a nutritionist (registered dietitian), Erick's main focus is on "helping morning sickness with food." She (as mentioned above) asks mothers to think, for example, "Would something salty reduce or aggravate the queasy feelings at this very minute? What food or drink comes to mind at this very moment?" (p. 171) and "What food or beverage would ease your nausea? Something salty, sour, bitter, tart, sweet, crunchy/lumpy, soft/smooth, mushy, hard, fruity, wet, dry, bland, spicy, aromatic, earthy, hot, cold, thin or thick?" She then gives lists of foods for each category and asks mothers to focus on finding what they really want to eat or drink and to pursue that thing.
I can't but be puzzled by this. Erick claims to have helped cure hundreds of women with hyperemesis with this method... But even with my own mild HG, I can't imagine this helping! When all food sounds horrible beyond belief and you're retching at the first bite of solid food (and some of my severe-HG friends have been unable to even tolerate liquids), I can't really think that satisfying cravings (which I didn't have) would be the least bit helpful.
She then gives "sick day meal plans" according to the various flavors mentioned above (crunchy, salty, etc.). Again, I am puzzled. Let's look at this one, from p. 204
Sick-day meal plan (bland)
7 am - 4 unsalted oyster crackers
8 am - 1/2 egg matzo cracker
9 am - 1/2 cup instant cream of wheat
10 am - 1/2 ripe banana blended with 1/2 cup milk to make a milkshake
etc.
How does that help when you're throwing up so hard you can't even leave the bathroom? How does that help when you're so sick you can't even handle food? I remember being annoyed with my poor mother when she suggested making milkshakes, because getting out to the kitchen and getting out food and equipment to make a milkshake was simply impossible due to exhaustion and food aversions. In a later chapter, Erick gives recipes as well. They look great, but again, how is a woman with HG (whose hubbie is generally at work) going to get out to the kitchen to start cooking? I couldn't even manage to make the cheesecake for my friend's baby shower, let alone get out into the kitchen to cook for myself!!! The average hubbie is not going to be spending his entire evening cooking up various from-scratch recipes (not to mention that even if he did, that wouldn't help day-time cravings). Especially since HG-hubbies generally have a TON to do in the evenings with childcare, basic meal prep, shopping and housework - they don't have time to be whipping up various recipes.
Erick then gives a very helpful chapter on hospitalization, with all the procedures and policies to expect. This is not as indepth as McCall's treatment, but still very good.
She writes sections also on pharmaceuticals for HG, and also a bit about alternative treatments - her main focus is on acupuncture, with a wee bit on herbs and homeopathy. Her sections on herbs/homeopathy need a bit of formatting help for clarity, as she just incorporates the remedies into the text rather than putting them in bold or bullet-format - they're very hard to locate.
She closes with a chapter on the rarer complications of HG, and then gives a list of resources for HG women. Very, very helpful.
Side note: I do not like Erick's treatment of the subject of abortion. She is remarkably complacent and blase about the fact that many HG pregnancies end in abortion. It was kind of like, "So-and-so couldn't handle the nausea, so she aborted. Okay! Moving on to our next subject..." There is sympathy, but that's it.
Abortion is an inextricable part of HG. It's kind of inevitable in a country where abortion is available on demand. When you're in the midst of unbearable suffering and relief is either nine months away (basically an eternity) or one short doctor's appointment away, many women choose abortion. While I don't condemn these women, as I know what they went through, I am still 100% pro-life and believe that any abortion is a tragedy and a deep violation of human rights on the part of the unborn baby who was denied life. Any book on HG needs to contain in-depth material on abortion - at the very least, encouragement for abortion-minded women, telling them strongly that HG WILL PASS and that their beautiful baby will be in their arms. When HG is over, it is over. But when an abortion is over - the HG is gone, but the baby is dead. And most post-abortive HG women feel compelled to try again for a baby - meaning that their journey through HG will be considerably longer than if they didn't abort in the first place.
Ashli McCall's book "Beyond Morning Sickness" covers this in depth. McCall suffered severe HG four times, the first time ending in a second-trimester abortion which left her deeply scarred and grieving for life. She devotes a large part of her book to dealing with abortion and encouraging HG mothers to stick it out. There is no such encouragement in this book, and it is a big hole that needs to be filled.
On the whole? Well, I recommend this book for the information. There's a lot of information here. Even if the nutritional stuff doesn't help, there's a lot of helpful information. For myself, as a post-HG mother contemplating another pregnancy, I want to know everything about morning sickness and HG before going into another pregnancy. In the middle of HG is NOT the time to be flipping through reference books! I want to know all facets of morning sickness, drugs, alternative therapies, hospital procedures, coping strategies, nutrition, complications - knowledge is power, and I want as much of it as possible before facing another pregnancy.
In terms of the nutritional coping strategies Erick outlines, I do not possibly see how they could be helpful (although for any morning sickness short of HG, I am sure they would be GREAT - don't get me wrong). However, this woman has years and years of experience with treating HG mothers, so I'm not going to write her off. I'll give her methods a try. And I'll let you know if any of it works!
So.... Buy this book. Read it, and let me know what you think of it. If you use or have used any of her techniques in the past, let me know about it and I'll post it here. I'm quite willing to eat crow if they work!
Signing off,
Diana
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Book Review: "Body Mutiny" by Jenna Schmitt
"Body Mutiny"
Jenna Schmitt
2006, 150 pages
I first met Jenna Schmitt four months ago, when she and another HG-mum (Sarah, whose story is on this blog) and I became acquainted. Jenna and Sarah met online; Sarah and I met through our midwife, and the three of us then hooked up as a threesome and eventually met in person. We are all Phoenicians (more or less) and live within an hour of each other. I now regularly correspond with them both and have learned a ton from them - and I value their friendship!
Jenna is an amazing woman. She endured what was probably one of the most intense cases of hyperemesis in history - and lived to tell about it, which is nothing short of a miracle. She tells her story in her book's introduction, and it is truly an amazing story.
"Body Mutiny" is not an informational book like Ashli McCall's "Beyond Morning Sickness: Battling Hyperemesis Gravidarum." It is an experiential book - a book of verse (one section per week of pregnancy) written about the individual experience with hyperemesis and that is deeply introspective and very intense.
I got a real kick out of this:
Jenna Schmitt
2006, 150 pages
I first met Jenna Schmitt four months ago, when she and another HG-mum (Sarah, whose story is on this blog) and I became acquainted. Jenna and Sarah met online; Sarah and I met through our midwife, and the three of us then hooked up as a threesome and eventually met in person. We are all Phoenicians (more or less) and live within an hour of each other. I now regularly correspond with them both and have learned a ton from them - and I value their friendship!
Jenna is an amazing woman. She endured what was probably one of the most intense cases of hyperemesis in history - and lived to tell about it, which is nothing short of a miracle. She tells her story in her book's introduction, and it is truly an amazing story.
"Body Mutiny" is not an informational book like Ashli McCall's "Beyond Morning Sickness: Battling Hyperemesis Gravidarum." It is an experiential book - a book of verse (one section per week of pregnancy) written about the individual experience with hyperemesis and that is deeply introspective and very intense.
I got a real kick out of this:
"When I turn my head, things shift like vertigo -
and my belly
FLOPS
down off an unseen edge;
drool releases,
followed by a full-body heave
which elevates me well off of the throne.
Into the depths of a white wastebasket
I retch boundlessly and enthusiastically without yield -
In fact, I retch joyfully with every muscle, strained from shoulder to toe,
all in obeisance to the great and holy
demands of early life.
My head swirls and
I feel as if I am an honored vessel
of divine consecration
glowing like the Madonna
in my lavatory splendor
I resolve to be humble and accepting,
happy to bear discomfort and
eager to bend the obstinate ego
to a higher love:
'Not my will but thine'
I glisten really at the very thought of it.
These glorious moments of sacred contortion
soon fill my days with the same results:
BULGING EYES
RAGGED BREATHS
and
CELLULAR STRAINING
Prolonged retching within the bowels of self
soon voids up any arrogance that remains."
(Schmitt 2006:35-36)
Oh, that made me laugh!! I did the very same thing. I guess we all have (I hope - I don't want to be arrogant on my own). One is so proud to feel those first faint twinges of nausea - one even wants to feel more in order to feel more pregnant, more self-sacrificial, more like a mother. "Oh, yeah!! Bring it on!!!" And then one's world comes crashing down as one realizes that this is not going to be controllable; this is not going to stop; and no, it is not manageable and cute. That is when your world falls apart.
Although I know somewhat what Jenna has been through, I am by no means in her league. Jenna's case was ten, twenty, fifty times worse than mine. She spent a huge portion of her pregnancy in the hospital with a PICC line. She has been on every antiemetic drug in the book. She dealt with life-threatening staph and e-coli infections from infected PICC lines and skin infections, as well as an infected gallbladder (common side-effect of HG) and the side-effects of an induction leading to a c-section (done to shorten her term with HG). She had to wilfully struggle with enormous temptations toward both suicide and abortion (and she is a devout Catholic who would never consider either thing normally). I pray that I am never where Jenna has been with this horrible disease.
I highly recommend this book. It is not a book that will be useful in terms of finding help for hyperemesis - stick with Ashli McCall for that. It is, instead, a book that is highly useful for emotional healing post-HG and for finding out that there truly is someone out there who knows what you have been through.
Jenna told me that several customers have bought multiple copies of this book to hand out to unbelieving/non-understanding friends and family, and I would highly recommend this book for that purpose. It is a great way to induce understanding without having to get into arguments or involved explanations of hyperemesis.
I highly recommend this book for all HG-mums and their libraries! I am thankful to have had the opportunity to read it and will recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about the subject.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Blog Review: "Bring the Rain"
This is so fascinating....
I just this morning commented in my book review (last post) that C.S. Lewis's book "The Problem of Pain" was a great book but that it simply couldn't touch my heart in terms of understanding human suffering. A couple of hours later, while checking a friend's blog, I clicked on her link to another blog, "Bring the Rain."
http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/
I spent the next hour completely neglecting my poor toddler (thankfully he has a new CD player with which he is entranced) while I read this blog and cried my eyes out over it (which, if you know me, is completely uncharacteristic).
"Bring the Rain" is a blog written by a mother who learned, when she was partway through her fifth pregnancy, that her baby had too many health problems to live, and would die at birth. She completed the pregnancy with this knowledge, having to select her daughter's coffin and grave marker before she was even born. Seeing the tiny pictures of her after birth, and her sweet little wooden coffin, was just overwhelming.
I had actually heard a very similar story before, in a testimony by a woman at a local church. She and her husband lost their first child shortly after birth due to health problems. They then had three healthy children, but when pregnant with their fifth found out that the child would not live past birth. They, too, had to deal with grieving for a child who was still living and not even yet born.
This blog spoke more to me about the depth of human suffering, from a Christian perspective, than all of Lewis's book could do. That's not Lewis's fault - he is a spectacular author and did a great job with the book. But when speaking of suffering, academic treatises just won't do. One word from someone who has "been there, done that" is worth volumes of academic work on the meaning of human pain.
In some ways, that very fact is an answer to my "why?" - suffering occurs, in part, so that we will have the ability to comfort others. We can all sympathize, but one cannot truly comfort someone who is hurting until one has been through it oneself.
I was floored by this young mother's Christian maturity. I'm not saying stoicism, resignation, or anything like that - I'm saying the ability to trust God, to keep coming back to him even in the midst of hurt - something I haven't quite learned.
Here's something the mother, Angie, says regarding an earlier pregnancy with twins, in which she very nearly lost both babies:
"I was on magnesium sulfate for three and a half weeks (the stuff is nasty...I hallucinated that my IV pole was a robot and told Audra to let the trick-or-treaters in one night...she told me she loved me, put on a Jim Brickman CD, and turned off the lights). I was on a lot of medication to keep me out of labor, including a pump thing that I had to inject myself with. Time passed slowly, slowly. I was really scared and depressed, and I want to tell you something else, because we are all friends here, and I think you should know.
"I hardly ever opened my Bible.
"I believed in Him. The whole story. I loved Him fully, but I learned to keep Him at arm's length in the event that He let me down. I hate that part of the story, and if I could do it over...well, I can't. I just have to know that He pursued me even when I acted like a jilted bride. He wanted me when I didn't want Him. He taught me about Himself, even as I resisted loving Him back. I am forever grateful for the tenderness He showed me during that time, and the grace He showed me when I came running back with remorse in my heart."
How she felt then is how I have felt over the past couple of years. Yes, I love God, but I want to keep him at arm's length. Having seen how deeply he hurt me in the past, I feel like I can't trust him now. I'm still working on this. But I didn't open my Bible for almost the entirety of my pregnancy, and have had a hard time since.
I have spent a lot of time unconsciously debating between physical and emotional pain. Which is worse? How to compare the two? etc. etc. Although it's an interesting question (which is worse? unbearable physical agony, or unbearable mental torment?), it really doesn't have any purpose. Suffice it to say that pain is pain, torment is torment, and the resulting spiritual downward spiral can be the same.
This woman is an example to me, and I hope to follow her lead in terms of trusting God, studying the Bible, and preparing myself spiritually.
Life has rather frightened me ever since hyperemesis. That disease gave me a brief glimpse into the unplumbed depths of human suffering that lay open to each of us, and it is impossible to know which types of suffering we will each encounter in this life. Right now I am unprepared, spiritually speaking, and I know it - for physical or emotional pain. I'm trying to work through things from my time with HG, but I know that I need to quit wasting time and jump back on the bandwagon. Even if I never get pregnant again, suffering will intrude into my life in some form or another, and I need to be spiritually ready.
I really recommend this blog!
Love,
Diana
I just this morning commented in my book review (last post) that C.S. Lewis's book "The Problem of Pain" was a great book but that it simply couldn't touch my heart in terms of understanding human suffering. A couple of hours later, while checking a friend's blog, I clicked on her link to another blog, "Bring the Rain."
http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/
I spent the next hour completely neglecting my poor toddler (thankfully he has a new CD player with which he is entranced) while I read this blog and cried my eyes out over it (which, if you know me, is completely uncharacteristic).
"Bring the Rain" is a blog written by a mother who learned, when she was partway through her fifth pregnancy, that her baby had too many health problems to live, and would die at birth. She completed the pregnancy with this knowledge, having to select her daughter's coffin and grave marker before she was even born. Seeing the tiny pictures of her after birth, and her sweet little wooden coffin, was just overwhelming.
I had actually heard a very similar story before, in a testimony by a woman at a local church. She and her husband lost their first child shortly after birth due to health problems. They then had three healthy children, but when pregnant with their fifth found out that the child would not live past birth. They, too, had to deal with grieving for a child who was still living and not even yet born.
This blog spoke more to me about the depth of human suffering, from a Christian perspective, than all of Lewis's book could do. That's not Lewis's fault - he is a spectacular author and did a great job with the book. But when speaking of suffering, academic treatises just won't do. One word from someone who has "been there, done that" is worth volumes of academic work on the meaning of human pain.
In some ways, that very fact is an answer to my "why?" - suffering occurs, in part, so that we will have the ability to comfort others. We can all sympathize, but one cannot truly comfort someone who is hurting until one has been through it oneself.
I was floored by this young mother's Christian maturity. I'm not saying stoicism, resignation, or anything like that - I'm saying the ability to trust God, to keep coming back to him even in the midst of hurt - something I haven't quite learned.
Here's something the mother, Angie, says regarding an earlier pregnancy with twins, in which she very nearly lost both babies:
"I was on magnesium sulfate for three and a half weeks (the stuff is nasty...I hallucinated that my IV pole was a robot and told Audra to let the trick-or-treaters in one night...she told me she loved me, put on a Jim Brickman CD, and turned off the lights). I was on a lot of medication to keep me out of labor, including a pump thing that I had to inject myself with. Time passed slowly, slowly. I was really scared and depressed, and I want to tell you something else, because we are all friends here, and I think you should know.
"I hardly ever opened my Bible.
"I believed in Him. The whole story. I loved Him fully, but I learned to keep Him at arm's length in the event that He let me down. I hate that part of the story, and if I could do it over...well, I can't. I just have to know that He pursued me even when I acted like a jilted bride. He wanted me when I didn't want Him. He taught me about Himself, even as I resisted loving Him back. I am forever grateful for the tenderness He showed me during that time, and the grace He showed me when I came running back with remorse in my heart."
How she felt then is how I have felt over the past couple of years. Yes, I love God, but I want to keep him at arm's length. Having seen how deeply he hurt me in the past, I feel like I can't trust him now. I'm still working on this. But I didn't open my Bible for almost the entirety of my pregnancy, and have had a hard time since.
I have spent a lot of time unconsciously debating between physical and emotional pain. Which is worse? How to compare the two? etc. etc. Although it's an interesting question (which is worse? unbearable physical agony, or unbearable mental torment?), it really doesn't have any purpose. Suffice it to say that pain is pain, torment is torment, and the resulting spiritual downward spiral can be the same.
This woman is an example to me, and I hope to follow her lead in terms of trusting God, studying the Bible, and preparing myself spiritually.
Life has rather frightened me ever since hyperemesis. That disease gave me a brief glimpse into the unplumbed depths of human suffering that lay open to each of us, and it is impossible to know which types of suffering we will each encounter in this life. Right now I am unprepared, spiritually speaking, and I know it - for physical or emotional pain. I'm trying to work through things from my time with HG, but I know that I need to quit wasting time and jump back on the bandwagon. Even if I never get pregnant again, suffering will intrude into my life in some form or another, and I need to be spiritually ready.
I really recommend this blog!
Love,
Diana
Book Review: "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis
What a busy week! I've had a lot of fun setting up my other blog. I feel like it really uncluttered this blog, at least mentally - I had so much stuff running through my mind about both hyperemesis and homebirth midwifery that I just didn't know how to sort them out in one blog. I think that two blogs will work much better - as long as I don't double the amount of time I spend blogging!! I mean to keep a strict eye on that.
I've decided that I'll probably keep most of my "personal," i.e. day-to-day blogs on this blog, simply because my other blog is more of an interest-blog, while this blog is more wrapped up in my personal/spiritual/emotional life. I'll probably post occasional personal blogs on the other account, but I'll save most of it for here.
Well, I have three book reviews to do this week so that I can get these books back to the library, so here goes number two!!
The Problem of Pain
C.S. Lewis
Touchstone, 1962, 141 pages
"I can stand anything but pain!"
- Oscar Levant, in "The Bandwagon"
This is not an easy review to write. For me, trying to critique C.S. Lewis is something along the lines of like trying to critique God. It's not that C.S. Lewis is on the same level as God, of course, but simply that they both are so far beyond me that trying to critique either of them is something of an presumptuous absurdity! So rest assured that I am aware of that fact as I write this.
Whenever I read C.S. Lewis my mind and my soul mature by at least 50 years. In case you can't tell, I am a major, major fan of this man and his writings. I started out at a young age with the Narnian series and have been in love ever since. Oddly enough, though, I have not read all of his books - or even most of them. I was, therefore, pleased to have the job of reading this book just to catch up on more of his writings!
First of all, I will mention the one thing that I didn't like, and that is his chapter on animal pain. I had read a quote by Madeline L'Engle a long time ago, in which she said that she gave up on Lewis's writings for a long while after reading his dismissive treatment of animal pain in "The Problem of Pain." For the most part, I agree with her, and I do not particularly agree with Lewis's treatment of the subject of animal pain. I find it rather cold, callous, anthropocentric, uncompassionate, and others. However, I am not saying that he is wrong, simply because I do not have the mental resources to refute him! And for all I know, he may be right (though I doubt it).
Enough of that. Moving on....
I am a little confused as to how to proceed with this review, because if I wrote all that I had to say, I would be here for weeks - literally. There are so many good quotes here! Let me just pull out a few:
First of all, on the difference between the lovingkindness of God and the "kindness" which we all wish was an attribute of God:
"By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness, and by this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness - the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter so long as they are contented?'..... But since it is abundantly clear.... that God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction..... There is kindness in Love; but Love and kindness are not coterminous, and when kindness.... is separated from the other elements of Love, it involves a certain fundamental indifference to its object, and even something like contempt of it.... Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering. As Scripture points out, it is bastards who are spoiled; the legitimate sons... are punished. It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms; with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes. If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense." (p. 35-37)
It's so true! I do wish for a "kind" rather than a truly "loving" God - one who looks after my comfort rather than my ultimate good or holiness. Sometimes, I think, we do confuse kindness with love, and vice versa.
"The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it."(p. 82)
So true!!! The times of my greatest spiritual apathy are often when all is well and tranquil. When I am self-satisfied and complacent are probably my times of greatest self-wilfulness and pride. It is when my true nature and state are revealed to me that I truly turn to God.
"If the first and lowest operation of pain shatters the illusion that all is well, the second shatters the illusion that what we have, whether good or bad in itself, is our own and enough for us." (p. 85)
What more can I say than "Amen!" He hits it right on the nail.
Thus, the purposes and/or reasons of/for pain, according to Lewis, are:
(1) The consequence of combining fallen nature and free will
(2) For the purpose of sanctification and/or leading us to redemption and faith
I concur completely with Lewis's assessment.
Lewis gives thorough treatment to the following aspects of human pain: man's Fall and wickedness, divine goodness, Hell, Heaven, and human suffering. It's very clear and easy-to-follow, and the treatment is excellent.
The one complaint I have (and it's not even really a complaint) was that this book seemed to touch me on only a mental rather than an emotional or "soul" level. I came away full of knowledge, but not satisfied. I think that that is the inevitable end of a work which treats such a deeply soul-wrenching subject on a theological or logical level. It's rather like going through a deeply hurtful time in one's life - a hug can do more than all the detailed explanations of why one is hurting. Thus, while I felt like this book was valuable and a "must read," I did not come away with all of my questions answered on a deep enough level for real satisfaction.
A friend mentioned that I should read "A Grief Observed" (also by Lewis) after this book, as it treats the subject on a more emotional level, and I plan to do so.
Unfortunately, as this was a library book, I was not able to underline and make margin notes, so many of the quotes that I had planned to bring into this review have quietly faded into oblivion. Well, it'll have to wait! Rest assured that this is an excellent book, well worth the read and the purchase, and one that I will definitely be adding to my collection.
Rating: The best!!
I'll be posting a review of Jenna Schmidt's "Body Mutiny" hopefully very soon, and after that I'll get onto "A Grief Observed" and the Book of Job.
I've decided that I'll probably keep most of my "personal," i.e. day-to-day blogs on this blog, simply because my other blog is more of an interest-blog, while this blog is more wrapped up in my personal/spiritual/emotional life. I'll probably post occasional personal blogs on the other account, but I'll save most of it for here.
Well, I have three book reviews to do this week so that I can get these books back to the library, so here goes number two!!
The Problem of Pain
C.S. Lewis
Touchstone, 1962, 141 pages
"I can stand anything but pain!"
- Oscar Levant, in "The Bandwagon"
This is not an easy review to write. For me, trying to critique C.S. Lewis is something along the lines of like trying to critique God. It's not that C.S. Lewis is on the same level as God, of course, but simply that they both are so far beyond me that trying to critique either of them is something of an presumptuous absurdity! So rest assured that I am aware of that fact as I write this.
Whenever I read C.S. Lewis my mind and my soul mature by at least 50 years. In case you can't tell, I am a major, major fan of this man and his writings. I started out at a young age with the Narnian series and have been in love ever since. Oddly enough, though, I have not read all of his books - or even most of them. I was, therefore, pleased to have the job of reading this book just to catch up on more of his writings!
First of all, I will mention the one thing that I didn't like, and that is his chapter on animal pain. I had read a quote by Madeline L'Engle a long time ago, in which she said that she gave up on Lewis's writings for a long while after reading his dismissive treatment of animal pain in "The Problem of Pain." For the most part, I agree with her, and I do not particularly agree with Lewis's treatment of the subject of animal pain. I find it rather cold, callous, anthropocentric, uncompassionate, and others. However, I am not saying that he is wrong, simply because I do not have the mental resources to refute him! And for all I know, he may be right (though I doubt it).
Enough of that. Moving on....
I am a little confused as to how to proceed with this review, because if I wrote all that I had to say, I would be here for weeks - literally. There are so many good quotes here! Let me just pull out a few:
First of all, on the difference between the lovingkindness of God and the "kindness" which we all wish was an attribute of God:
"By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness, and by this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness - the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter so long as they are contented?'..... But since it is abundantly clear.... that God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction..... There is kindness in Love; but Love and kindness are not coterminous, and when kindness.... is separated from the other elements of Love, it involves a certain fundamental indifference to its object, and even something like contempt of it.... Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering. As Scripture points out, it is bastards who are spoiled; the legitimate sons... are punished. It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms; with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes. If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense." (p. 35-37)
It's so true! I do wish for a "kind" rather than a truly "loving" God - one who looks after my comfort rather than my ultimate good or holiness. Sometimes, I think, we do confuse kindness with love, and vice versa.
"The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it."(p. 82)
So true!!! The times of my greatest spiritual apathy are often when all is well and tranquil. When I am self-satisfied and complacent are probably my times of greatest self-wilfulness and pride. It is when my true nature and state are revealed to me that I truly turn to God.
"If the first and lowest operation of pain shatters the illusion that all is well, the second shatters the illusion that what we have, whether good or bad in itself, is our own and enough for us." (p. 85)
What more can I say than "Amen!" He hits it right on the nail.
Thus, the purposes and/or reasons of/for pain, according to Lewis, are:
(1) The consequence of combining fallen nature and free will
(2) For the purpose of sanctification and/or leading us to redemption and faith
I concur completely with Lewis's assessment.
Lewis gives thorough treatment to the following aspects of human pain: man's Fall and wickedness, divine goodness, Hell, Heaven, and human suffering. It's very clear and easy-to-follow, and the treatment is excellent.
The one complaint I have (and it's not even really a complaint) was that this book seemed to touch me on only a mental rather than an emotional or "soul" level. I came away full of knowledge, but not satisfied. I think that that is the inevitable end of a work which treats such a deeply soul-wrenching subject on a theological or logical level. It's rather like going through a deeply hurtful time in one's life - a hug can do more than all the detailed explanations of why one is hurting. Thus, while I felt like this book was valuable and a "must read," I did not come away with all of my questions answered on a deep enough level for real satisfaction.
A friend mentioned that I should read "A Grief Observed" (also by Lewis) after this book, as it treats the subject on a more emotional level, and I plan to do so.
Unfortunately, as this was a library book, I was not able to underline and make margin notes, so many of the quotes that I had planned to bring into this review have quietly faded into oblivion. Well, it'll have to wait! Rest assured that this is an excellent book, well worth the read and the purchase, and one that I will definitely be adding to my collection.
Rating: The best!!
I'll be posting a review of Jenna Schmidt's "Body Mutiny" hopefully very soon, and after that I'll get onto "A Grief Observed" and the Book of Job.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Intertwining Themes
I have come to realize lately that I really ought to have two blogs - one for hyperemesis and one for homebirth midwifery and birth issues. It would be okay to mix themes if this were a personal blog, i.e. a record of my life and daily doings, but since it is definitely a themed-blog, all of the midwifery material is a little bit out of place. However, the fact remains that I simply do not have time for two blogs!! And they're both pregnancy related, so perhaps I can use that excuse to mix the themes.
This past period of time (since Caleb's birth) has been an important time in my life because it has revealed what is I believe my life passion - homebirth midwifery and other birth issues (promoting natural childbirth, women's rights in childbirth, childbirth education, etc.). It's odd that I had to wait until I was 25 or so to find that out - it could have saved me a lot of time and money pursuing a Bachelor's in biology and a certification in patisserie, both of which turned out to be more along the lines of hobbies rather than life-callings. But I really didn't figure it out until my baby was born. And frankly, I know it's true love because I had a miserable pregnancy, and childbirth wasn't a ton of fun either - but I'm now fascinated with them! I have been on a continual reading spree ever since Caleb turned about six months old, and my fascination just continues to grow.
Side note: I've learned how one can tell a true life passion from a hobby (at least for me) - it's when one can read a magazine devoted solely to the subject and be fascinated by it. I had always wondered why I could have hobbies (organ music, environmentalism, birds, outdoors, cooking, etc.) but be bored silly by publications relating to them. But I can read "Midwifery Today" until I'm blue in the face and be utterly enthralled!
The main problem I am facing right now is simply not knowing what to do with my fascination. I simply don't have any real sense of a direction in which I want to move. The main options open are midwife, doula, and childbirth educator. For the moment I have decided that I am not going to pursue being a midwife, much as I really regret it. I just don't think that I was cut out to be a midwife. Here are the reasons:
(1) I am extraordinarily squeamish around needles and scalpels
(2) I am an uptight super-scheduler type of person (I plan my weeks down to the hour)
(3) I have very weak people skills, and I am especially uncomfortable in any type of counseling situation
(4) I absolutely hate being in charge. I love being a helper, but not the person in charge
(5) I can obsess morbidly for months about receiving disapproval of any kind - and midwives have to be inured against disapproval, since they get it constantly
(6) I have had life-long issues with constant fatigue - not something that is compatible with an on-the-go 24/7 type of career which is one of the most demanding professions in the world.
(7) There's a certain lack of time mixed into all this! As a very happy SAHM I am not looking for a career - just a side-line or a hobby. Midwifery is a career - one of the most demanding careers there is! That's why it has traditionally been reserved for older women.
To me, that's a pretty water-tight case!
So that leaves doula work and childbirth education, both of which I think are possibilities. There are also side-callings, such as lactation consultation, selling birth & baby supplies (slings, etc.), but I don't want to get too peripheral - I really am interested in birth, not just being on the sidelines.
So right now I am really praying for wisdom on this issue. For the moment I am content to just attend birth circle meetings, read voraciously, and back my poor midwife into a corner with continual questions whenever I see her (sorry, Wendi!), but I do want eventually to have a goal and a purpose, and not just be a groupie. There are doula and CBE certification classes probably coming up this fall, so I may try one of those.
What I really need, I guess, is for someone to come up to me and say, "Gosh, I think you'd be a great [fill in the blank]," at which point I would say, "Gee, I never thought of that! I would like to be a [fill in the blank]." Well, I can only dream!
Well, enough wasted time for now! Love to all!!
This past period of time (since Caleb's birth) has been an important time in my life because it has revealed what is I believe my life passion - homebirth midwifery and other birth issues (promoting natural childbirth, women's rights in childbirth, childbirth education, etc.). It's odd that I had to wait until I was 25 or so to find that out - it could have saved me a lot of time and money pursuing a Bachelor's in biology and a certification in patisserie, both of which turned out to be more along the lines of hobbies rather than life-callings. But I really didn't figure it out until my baby was born. And frankly, I know it's true love because I had a miserable pregnancy, and childbirth wasn't a ton of fun either - but I'm now fascinated with them! I have been on a continual reading spree ever since Caleb turned about six months old, and my fascination just continues to grow.
Side note: I've learned how one can tell a true life passion from a hobby (at least for me) - it's when one can read a magazine devoted solely to the subject and be fascinated by it. I had always wondered why I could have hobbies (organ music, environmentalism, birds, outdoors, cooking, etc.) but be bored silly by publications relating to them. But I can read "Midwifery Today" until I'm blue in the face and be utterly enthralled!
The main problem I am facing right now is simply not knowing what to do with my fascination. I simply don't have any real sense of a direction in which I want to move. The main options open are midwife, doula, and childbirth educator. For the moment I have decided that I am not going to pursue being a midwife, much as I really regret it. I just don't think that I was cut out to be a midwife. Here are the reasons:
(1) I am extraordinarily squeamish around needles and scalpels
(2) I am an uptight super-scheduler type of person (I plan my weeks down to the hour)
(3) I have very weak people skills, and I am especially uncomfortable in any type of counseling situation
(4) I absolutely hate being in charge. I love being a helper, but not the person in charge
(5) I can obsess morbidly for months about receiving disapproval of any kind - and midwives have to be inured against disapproval, since they get it constantly
(6) I have had life-long issues with constant fatigue - not something that is compatible with an on-the-go 24/7 type of career which is one of the most demanding professions in the world.
(7) There's a certain lack of time mixed into all this! As a very happy SAHM I am not looking for a career - just a side-line or a hobby. Midwifery is a career - one of the most demanding careers there is! That's why it has traditionally been reserved for older women.
To me, that's a pretty water-tight case!
So that leaves doula work and childbirth education, both of which I think are possibilities. There are also side-callings, such as lactation consultation, selling birth & baby supplies (slings, etc.), but I don't want to get too peripheral - I really am interested in birth, not just being on the sidelines.
So right now I am really praying for wisdom on this issue. For the moment I am content to just attend birth circle meetings, read voraciously, and back my poor midwife into a corner with continual questions whenever I see her (sorry, Wendi!), but I do want eventually to have a goal and a purpose, and not just be a groupie. There are doula and CBE certification classes probably coming up this fall, so I may try one of those.
What I really need, I guess, is for someone to come up to me and say, "Gosh, I think you'd be a great [fill in the blank]," at which point I would say, "Gee, I never thought of that! I would like to be a [fill in the blank]." Well, I can only dream!
Well, enough wasted time for now! Love to all!!
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Book Review: "Beyond Morning Sickness: Battling Hyperemesis Gravidarum"
This is the review as I have posted it on Amazon.com. I really cannot say enough in praise of this book! Here goes:
"Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) is a severe form of “morning sickness” which is characterized by one or all of the following: unrelenting nausea and/or vomiting, dehydration and/or malnutrition, rapid weight loss, and the inability to keep food and/or liquids down (or even eat at all).
If you are reading this review, you are most likely suffering from HG, a past sufferer from HG, or the friend, relative or caregiver of someone suffering with HG.
If that is the case, here is my recommendation: Before you read any further, stop, go back to the top of the page (on Amazon), and order “Beyond Morning Sickness: Battling Hyperemesis Gravidarum.” You need this book.
As a matter of fact, order a couple. One for you, one for your doctor or caregiver, and one for family members. If you’re exorbitantly rich, buy a small stack and hand them out to every insensitive person who says, through word or deed, “Oh come on. We all dealt with morning sickness. Stop whining and get over it.”
After my own relatively-minor bout of HG, I started looking for answers. Where does it come from? What can we do about it? Well, no one knows the answer to the first question (theories abound), and there are multiple answers to the second (although each person requires specialized treatment – what works for one may not work for another). This book deals in depth with treatment options for HG, from the minor to the life-saving, giving details, risks, procedure descriptions, drug information, and oodles of personal testimonies.
I first found Ashli McCall through her excellent blog, which details her fourth trip through this fiendish disease:
http://www.hyperemesisgravidarum.blogspot.com/
There is literally no experience having to do with HG that this amazing woman has not dealt with, from the amusing to the tragic. She is truly the be-all-end-all in terms of knowledge about this disease, because she has dealt with almost every drug, treatment and procedure for HG that currently exists. One of the best parts about this book is the realization that “Oh my gosh, someone FINALLY understands!!” HG sufferers know firsthand the infuriating comments that we get by the handful:
“Oh yeah, I had bad morning sickness too. Couldn’t eat bacon for weeks.”
“Go outside and get some fresh air. You’ll be fine.”
“Stop thinking about yourself so much. You’re making yourself sick. Just snap out of it.”
“Eat crackers and drink ginger ale.”
Due to the rarity of this condition, most people have not heard of it. When you combine that with the fact that most women have dealt with some sort of morning sickness at one point or another, that adds up to a bad combination – and the result is that HG sufferers almost never get taken seriously, by friends/family/coworkers/general acquaintances or by doctors and caregivers. By outsiders, HG is seen as the subject of an amusing joke. “She’s really making a fuss over such a common thing. She needs to get over it.” etc. etc. etc. This book is incredibly validating in that it gives me something to give to people and say, “Here. Read this!” For myself as well, it was a very healing process to learn that there are other people out there who have been through this nightmare (and, let me say, with versions of HG that made mine look like a bad sneeze).
I recommend that one have this book in hand whenever one is dealing with the medical community. My husband and I are thinking of trying to get through a second pregnancy, and I will be taking this book with me everywhere I go.
Especially helpful are some of the appendices – There is an appendix of antiemetic drugs, with all of their classifications, alternate names, and information. There are also lists of books and websites that are of invaluable assistance to address the needs of HG women.
This is the best book that I have read on the subject, and I HIGHLY recommend it. You cannot afford to be without this book.
Thank you, Ashli!!!
"Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) is a severe form of “morning sickness” which is characterized by one or all of the following: unrelenting nausea and/or vomiting, dehydration and/or malnutrition, rapid weight loss, and the inability to keep food and/or liquids down (or even eat at all).
If you are reading this review, you are most likely suffering from HG, a past sufferer from HG, or the friend, relative or caregiver of someone suffering with HG.
If that is the case, here is my recommendation: Before you read any further, stop, go back to the top of the page (on Amazon), and order “Beyond Morning Sickness: Battling Hyperemesis Gravidarum.” You need this book.
As a matter of fact, order a couple. One for you, one for your doctor or caregiver, and one for family members. If you’re exorbitantly rich, buy a small stack and hand them out to every insensitive person who says, through word or deed, “Oh come on. We all dealt with morning sickness. Stop whining and get over it.”
After my own relatively-minor bout of HG, I started looking for answers. Where does it come from? What can we do about it? Well, no one knows the answer to the first question (theories abound), and there are multiple answers to the second (although each person requires specialized treatment – what works for one may not work for another). This book deals in depth with treatment options for HG, from the minor to the life-saving, giving details, risks, procedure descriptions, drug information, and oodles of personal testimonies.
I first found Ashli McCall through her excellent blog, which details her fourth trip through this fiendish disease:
http://www.hyperemesisgravidarum.blogspot.com/
There is literally no experience having to do with HG that this amazing woman has not dealt with, from the amusing to the tragic. She is truly the be-all-end-all in terms of knowledge about this disease, because she has dealt with almost every drug, treatment and procedure for HG that currently exists. One of the best parts about this book is the realization that “Oh my gosh, someone FINALLY understands!!” HG sufferers know firsthand the infuriating comments that we get by the handful:
“Oh yeah, I had bad morning sickness too. Couldn’t eat bacon for weeks.”
“Go outside and get some fresh air. You’ll be fine.”
“Stop thinking about yourself so much. You’re making yourself sick. Just snap out of it.”
“Eat crackers and drink ginger ale.”
Due to the rarity of this condition, most people have not heard of it. When you combine that with the fact that most women have dealt with some sort of morning sickness at one point or another, that adds up to a bad combination – and the result is that HG sufferers almost never get taken seriously, by friends/family/coworkers/general acquaintances or by doctors and caregivers. By outsiders, HG is seen as the subject of an amusing joke. “She’s really making a fuss over such a common thing. She needs to get over it.” etc. etc. etc. This book is incredibly validating in that it gives me something to give to people and say, “Here. Read this!” For myself as well, it was a very healing process to learn that there are other people out there who have been through this nightmare (and, let me say, with versions of HG that made mine look like a bad sneeze).
I recommend that one have this book in hand whenever one is dealing with the medical community. My husband and I are thinking of trying to get through a second pregnancy, and I will be taking this book with me everywhere I go.
Especially helpful are some of the appendices – There is an appendix of antiemetic drugs, with all of their classifications, alternate names, and information. There are also lists of books and websites that are of invaluable assistance to address the needs of HG women.
This is the best book that I have read on the subject, and I HIGHLY recommend it. You cannot afford to be without this book.
Thank you, Ashli!!!
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