Renaissance of Birth

Table of Contents

Acknowledgmentsxv

Forwardxvii

I. The Beginning1

My Story and More2

II. Meet the Mothers25

Annette26

Barbara34

Carolyn43

Dorothy56

Eleanor64

Felicia73

Gwyneth81

III. Pictures Worth a Thousand Words95

Looking for Clues in the Art95

Annette’s Picture96

Barbara’s Picture101

Carolyn’s Picture104

Dorothy’s Picture107

Eleanor’s Picture110

Felicia’s Picture114

Gwyneth’s Picture117

IV. Picturing a Better Birth121

Pictures of Quality121

Imogene’s Changing Image128

A Doctor Uses Drawings133

Tips for Drawing an Ideal Birth134

What’s Under It All?137

Drawing on the Right Side140

Clear Intentions141

V. What is Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology Anyway?145

So Who Cares?149

Brains, Minds, and Consciousness: What’s the Difference?150

Brain Basics150

The Mind: Beyond the Brain157

Constant Consciousness165

Heart Smart176

VI. The State of Birth in the United States183

Lindsay Gives Birth183

Thinking What You’re Supposed To187

Questionable Interventions200

The Lithotomy Position201

Electronic Fetal Monitoring (EFM)204

Synthetic Oxytocin207

Epidurals210

Separation214

VII. Mothers’ Minds Matter219

A Model Pregnancy219

Minds Matter221

Feeling in Control222

Who’s in Charge?226

Old Programs? Change the Channel233

Trusting Your Power235

New Kids on the Block239

Transforming the Old Paradigm241

VIII. Empowering Birth Language245

The Right Words 245

Pregnancy Is Not Nine Months—It’s Ten!250

Bonding and Attachment: It’s All About Not Separating257

Words Can Be Swords265

Failure to Progress265

Induction266

Give Me Patience When Healthy Pregnant Women Are Labeled Patients267

The Paradox of Being Both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice268

Being Unwanted Leaves You Wanting Your Whole Life269

Thoughts Count271

IX. Messages for Men273

What’s a Father to Do?275

Testosterone: The Making of the Male Brain282

Maybe Dads Who Play Together, Stay285

X. The Renaissance of Birth287

Symbols Speak Louder than Words291

Every Woman a Queen, Every Man a King295

What Women Want300

New Paradigm Practices301

The Power of Oxytocin303

Speaking of Love304

There’s Only One of Us305

Tommy’s Memorial307

A Farewell Letter310

Epilogue313

What a Concept!313

Resources That Model the Renaissance of Birth316

References323

Acknowledgments

Ihave been so blessed by loving and helpful people—from Dr. Dorothy Gates, my spiritual teacher who inspired me to learn about prenatal and perinatal life, to Nick Ligidakis, my first publisher at Inkwell Productions, who gently and enthusiastically encouraged me to write. My editors, MaryEllen Smith and Susan Sheehan provided priceless insight and expertise which improved my manuscript; and Barbara Findeisen, who has written a magnificent forward to this new edition, are each worthy of my deep gratitude.

My own family was so supportive during the months of gestation. My husband Charles endured the highs and lows of my self-confidence as I shared deeply personal experiences as well as my understanding of the science and spirit of childbearing beliefs and practices in the United States today. He even wrote a few pages that share a masculine perspective. Thank you, Charles. I am grateful to my granddaughters, who have unfailingly shown up for me. They have been, and continue to be, lights in my life, reflecting such beauty and zest for life that I am able to see in their radiance the magnificence of all human life. They are the women who ignited the flames of my desire to write.

My former grandson-in-law contributed his skills and talent as an artist to illustrate The Renaissance of Birth. Lindsay (my firstborn granddaughter) and Liam (Lindsay’s second son) grace the back cover in a pencil drawing perfectly composed and rendered by Jeremiah France, Liam’s daddy. Not only are his drawings superb, but he also drew all of them for me while on remote assignment in Afghanistan. I trust his light shines in that region of the world which demonstrates the antithesis of everything I hold dear for women and babies.

I am eternally grateful to the young women who shared their expectations of childbirth with me while I was conducting qualitative research for my dissertation. Time has passed, but their messages, offered so genuinely, are timeless. They represent a generation of childbearing women who are giving birth in the United States today. Their words, drawings, and experiences show how unique childbearing can be for individuals. They also reveal that whatever a woman thinks, both consciously and subconsciously, can exert a powerful influence on her pregnancy, labor, and birthing experience. They have taught me valuable lessons; I trust these can now reach many other young women and their partners who are contemplating giving birth.

In appreciation and love, Susan Highsmith

Forward

Barbara Findeisen, MFT, PhD

Renaissance is an appropriate word in the title of Susan Highsmith’s book. I looked renaissance up in my dictionary and here is what I found: to be born again; to be born anew; a new birth; any revival. A renaissance woman or man is a person well versed and skilled in many fields. Here, the word reflects the author. Susan is well versed in many aspects of prenatal and perinatal psychology and has personally experienced renewals throughout her life.

In The Renaissance of Birth, Susan first relates how, as a teenage mother, she continued to pursue her dream of, not just finishing high school, but earning academic credentials at the college level. She earned her Associates Degree in her mid-thirties, a Bachelor’s Degree in Women’s Studies at 50, and, with an academic scholarship, went on to receive her Master’s Degree in Counseling and Guidance at age 52. Each degree led to renewal, and a new career. Inspired by a psychologist and spiritual mentor, she earned a Doctorate of Divinity. Susan then began her studies in prenatal and perinatal psychology at 58, graduating at age 62. Motivated to help young women, especially her own granddaughters, to believe in themselves, to know more about the pitfalls of teenage pregnancy, and to appreciate their own bodies as well as their natural abilities to give birth, she wrote this primer that is easy to read and full of helpful information.

Susan has been a friend and colleague for almost 20 years. I was an adviser for her when she wrote her dissertation—a masterpiece of qualitative research. Her inquiry into the expectations of primiparas provided a glimpse into the minds of young women pregnant for the first time. With the aid of pictures drawn by the participants in her study during their first interview, these women projected an image of their ideal birth. Transcripts of the interviews conducted both before and after they gave birth, coupled with their drawings, revealed many dimensions of conscious, subconscious, and unconscious beliefs, fears, and desires held by childbearing women.

Through the lens of prenatal and perinatal psychology, Susan tells each woman’s story with sensitivity and compassion. Each picture is described with an awareness that led her to develop a program she calls Picturing a Better Birth. It is a gift to any woman who uses the guidelines described in the next chapter. I found Susan’s use of art to be profound. Visualizing an ideal in the realm of childbirth, or in the manifestation of any goal, is a tool that works. Susan’s use of drawings created by pregnant women themselves accesses their inner belief systems and suggests that this technique can guide expectant women to realize their ideal births. Art employed in this way becomes a powerful tool for considering the consciousness of pregnant women. Extrapolating further, this art therapy technique is one that therapists can and do use to address a variety of challenges faced by their clients.

Prenatal and perinatal (PPN) psychology, a cumbersome phrase, is explained to readers in an enlightening and enjoyable way, as Susan asks and answers, What is PPN psychology anyway? This chapter discusses the science of brain, mind, and consciousness. Susan’s explanations distill complex information in an easily understandable manner.

Statistics are provided in a chapter titled The State of Birth in the United States. These data are astounding. The point that PPN psychologists have been making for decades is highlighted: too many interventions are being implemented in childbearing, to the detriment of mothers and babies. The most egregious intervention is a separation of babies from their mothers at birth. My own experience as a therapist for over 40 years has demonstrated the truth of Susan’s contentions, so well outlined in this chapter.

Mothers’ Minds Matter is pronounced so ardently and enthusiastically that any woman reading this book will find a new appreciation for her innate wisdom. Her self-esteem can only be enhanced by understanding the origins of old conditioning, and the power she has to change any programming that is not serving her well, especially if she is planning to have a baby.

We are given a lesson in how words support the existing paradigm in childbirth or foster a whole new paradigm that empowers childbearing women. Why have hospital staff been labeling women as failures simply because their labors have slowed down? Susan posits that, like all mammals giving birth, fear inhibits the birthing process until the mother feels safe. Perhaps, she wisely counsels, we should be reassuring women and helping them feel safe and nurtured rather than starting the cascade of interventions to rush the birth and promote the use of drugs and surgery.

The Renaissance of Birth teaches all of us—not just mothers and their babies. Susan includes the important male figures involved in birth or those involved in the renaissance of childbirth on a larger scale. All of us behave and live our lives under the influence of the imprints made by our earliest environment. Awakened to those impressions, men can be more supportive of the women in their lives, and women can give birth with new awareness. A new perspective is provided to help fathers feel vital and valuable during their partners’ pregnancies and births. This book broadens our understanding of the beginnings of life and enhances our abilities to transform—to find new ways—to be revitalized no matter our age or circumstances. We are assured that a positive change ignited by a renaissance in our birthing culture will serve all new babies, their mothers, and fathers.

A particular delight is Susan’s description of symbols and the potential for every woman to feel like a queen. Sharing the account of the death of her son at age 42 brings the heartfelt story of her first-born child to a loving conclusion. Finally, models of a new paradigm are pointed out. Susan’s faith in a new generation of women and men who are ready and able to change a broken system that has been motivated by those who desire power and money is expressed with extraordinary insight.

Indeed, a renaissance of childbirth has begun! When I first stumbled upon birth trauma in my own therapy, I was a disbeliever and set out to discredit or prove the reality of birth memories like those I had experienced. Most psychologists, especially child psychologists, had been trained in the abstract developmental timetables suggested by Freud and Piaget who believed there was very little if any, perception or cognition in a child younger than three. I now know without a doubt that babies—even those in the womb—are conscious, responding to their world, and learning how to defend themselves, or learning how to trust.

In The Renaissance of Birth, we can learn that memories of birth are not limited to the physical process of being born. They also provide a door to the period of time spent in the womb. Opening these doors to our earliest experiences generates lifelong opportunities for renewal and an expansion of consciousness—avenues to new ways of thinking.

The Renaissance of Birth offers the reader scientific information as well as tools to foster a renaissance in their own lives, the lives of their family members and clients. During my years as a therapist considering prenatal and perinatal issues in the lives of my clients, I have seen the power of exploring an individual’s earliest history. I have proven over and over that this part of life yields a powerful understanding of current life stressors, an understanding that is lacking in traditional psychology. Within the field of pre- and perinatal psychology is an expanded reflection of very personal issues surrounding birth from conception through physical development and growth to the emergence of increased consciousness. This reflection cultivates compassionate wisdom of the heart and mind.

In reading The Renaissance of Birth expect to have your own personal renaissance. You will likely become aware of, and better comprehend your unique patterns of behavior and thinking—body, mind, and certainly heart. This can lead to a transformation and an amplification of your compassionate heart. Susan’s compassionate heart in working with clients demonstrates a pathway we can all navigate to experience a revival in the way we interact with others, especially those most vulnerable. We still have a way to go. The Renaissance of Birth leads our way.

The Beginning

Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?

L. M. Montgomery

Istill have a mental picture of Teresa crossing the courtyard on her way to graduation. As she hurries into the stadium, her black gown billows behind her, revealing the blue chiffon ruffles of the dress she bought the day before, just for this occasion. Her mortarboard is pinned over her long chestnut hair. She has decorated the rim of her cap with corks from empty wine bottles, a clever idea that will make it easy to find her from our bleacher seats high above the throng of graduates who will fill the stadium. She looks gorgeous—and all grown up! She’s old enough to earn a college degree, drink wine, and now wait for her Peace Corps assignment to some yet-to-be-determined country.

I am breathless just thinking about her and her two sisters, who celebrated with her. These are three of my five granddaughters. I want happy futures for each of them; futures shaped by the good choices they make, and not by circumstances that can occur as a result of poor decisions. I have taken all the girls shopping while they were children and joked that making choices is all about discernment—exercising their will and the discretion to choose what is best for them. These were little lessons suggesting that first, they have choices; and second, that their thoughts and feelings matter.

My Story and More

When I was sixteen, I found myself in a situation no teenage girl wanted to be in during those days. It was a time when sex was not discussed and, if a girl got pregnant, she was stigmatized. She was considered a bad girl—and I was one of those girls. For all appearances, I looked good. Up till then, I had been the perfect child, an only child with relatively good looks, good grades, and good friends. But I also had a rebellious spirit that showed up when my hormones began to surge. When I discovered I was pregnant, I wanted to keep my child no matter what, but I thought I’d never speak of it. In time, no one would remember, and I would not have to ever make my indiscretion public.

Today things are different. Girls are still getting pregnant out of wedlock, as it used to be called, but there are resources available. In fact, current statistics—which I’ll address in an entire chapter later—indicate that almost half of the babies in the United States in 2013 were born to unmarried women! There are organizations which counsel young women and provide birth control if they want it. Just five decades ago, that was not the case. I shared some of my story with a granddaughter recently, and she was shocked that a sexually active adolescent would be denied a method of birth control—but that was true in 1960.

In my youth, sex was still in the closet. Today, the word is out! What may be unique is that this grandmother is sharing her story with her granddaughters and, through this book that my granddaughters have encouraged me to write, with legions of young women who are making personal decisions about sexual activity, pregnancy, and childbearing. I would love to spare my granddaughters—indeed, any young woman—the trauma of discovering an accidental pregnancy and the consequences of that event.

Like everyone else, I was a product of my conditioning. Girls were to be seen and not heard then. It has been quite an effort for women, let alone girls, to find their voices, to find the confidence to know what they have to say is worthwhile, and to speak up. That’s what started all my trouble.

My father was an authoritarian. He had always been an angry man, but a fall sustained while pushing a car out of the snow had left him in constant pain, and that made him even more upset. He ranted at my mother and criticized her at every opportunity and, when I was about fifteen, he started treating me the same way. Daddy had been gone for a year and a half, stationed in Japan while on active duty in the Air Force, when I entered puberty. When he left I was a little girl; when he returned, I had blossomed into a rather statuesque young woman. Coming home to a grown daughter was a shock for him, to say the least.

One evening I approached him while he sat watching TV. He barked, and I barked back. When I turned my back to stride out of the room, he got out of his easy chair and, before I knew it, grabbed me by my arm and threw me across the full length of the living room. I never said a word, but I resolved I’d be out of that house as soon as I could manage it.

My dad was also quite frugal. I brought home good grades and dreamed of going to Stanford. I had never gotten dollar bills like my friends did for the As they earned at school; if there was a B, I got grilled about why that grade was not an A. Dad, and mom did ask me what I wanted to be; my choices were a secretary or a nurse. They would consider sending me to a junior college so I could earn a living until I married some man who would support me. While my teachers in high school encouraged me to consider becoming a doctor, my parents’ visions for my future were more limited. My dreams collided with my father’s thrift, anger, and violence. I was just a junior in high school, but I was determined to find a way to leave my unhappy home.

I had started dating college boys and found one that looked like a movie star—Troy Donahue, to be exact. In my romantic fantasy, I equated love with sex and, in a few months, I was pregnant. My baby was my ticket out! It wasn’t a conscious choice, of course, but I certainly got what I wanted—a way to leave my parents’ home in a big hurry. Against his parent’s wishes, my boyfriend stepped up to the plate. He was only eighteen himself, just finishing his second year at Georgetown University, and was the idol of every girl between the ages of fourteen and twenty in our apartment complex. When he came to me and said he loved me and wanted to marry me, I was in heaven. Needless to say, nine years and two children later, we divorced.

I will say that my parents stood by me. They arranged and paid for a beautiful wedding, gave my new husband and me a place to stay for a month or so before we moved to another state to live with my aunt—a short-lived experience—and treated me with a degree of respect that let me hold my head up. They even offered me the option of adopting my child and raising it as their own if I did not want to marry. At that time, I would not consider having my dysfunctional parents raise my child; I could do a much better job. What youthful arrogance! When I consider that offer now, I realize how loving and how profoundly life-altering that choice would have been for them—and I am truly grateful for their heartfelt love and support.

My education had been put on hold but, after my son was born, I went back to school to get my high school diploma. I paid my dear friend Kathy, who had two children of her own, a dollar a day—which was all I could afford—to babysit from eight o’clock in the morning until noon while I attended regular daytime classes. I still graduated at eighteen and even earned a full academic scholarship to Arizona State University. I never thought they’d give a scholarship to a woman with a baby.

I’d been thinking that it was time to consider having a second child. Before I learned about receiving the scholarship, I suggested to my husband that we try to have another baby. I had finally been able to get a prescription for a method of birth control after my son was born. The night I stopped using my diaphragm, I got pregnant with my daughter. This time, getting pregnant was conscious and intentional. It seemed like a good trade to me; I had to pass up the scholarship, but I was pregnant when many of my friends were having difficulty conceiving. And Kristi turned out to be exactly what I’d ordered—a beautiful blue-eyed blonde, petite and feminine.

In those days I had no idea about the power of intention. It took years for me to notice that things were happening in ways that seemed to be consistent with my inner thoughts and feelings. When I awakened to the possibility that these were creative forces I was beyond my procreative years but in a new creative stage of life. That energy urged me to write a book that might reach young women before their choices led to consequences they did not anticipate.

When I was my granddaughters’ ages, I longed to go to college, but no opportunity presented itself while my children were little. After my divorce and remarriage, I found that while the kids were in school, I could go to a local community college. I was twenty-eight by then, and scared. I really thought that I might be too old for academics. That seems humorous now when I consider all the times—and how old I have been—when I have gone back to school.

It took me four years to earn an associate’s degree part-time. I completed all my classes at a community college in Arizona where I had moved again. Because my new husband was retiring from a career in the Air Force and I wanted to help out financially, I also met the requirements for a real estate license. That led to a successful career selling houses for several years. I served as secretary and vice president before becoming the first woman president of a local realtor association, served on a state executive committee making decisions which affected 18,000 realtors, developed and presented an equal opportunity in housing program, and co-designed a tourism campaign for the local chamber of commerce. Needless to say, I burned out after a dozen years.

I did continue my extracurricular studies of both psychological and spiritual practices because I wanted to understand the power of thoughts and emotions. I started to access altered states of consciousness and to meditate. I used those processes to go within and ask myself what I would do if I let go of my real estate career. My inner voice and my heart’s call was to go back to college to earn a bachelor’s degree.

This decision was given credence when, in 1987, my father died on my forty-fourth birthday. I had made peace with dad and, six months earlier, had recognized within myself that he had done the best he could do. Daddy was a product of his own upbringing which had been harsh. His mother had died when he was only one-year-old. Right after high school, where he had been senior class president and an A student, his father had taken a swing at my dad’s irresponsible older brother, who ducked, causing the blow to hit daddy in the face. Dad was only eighteen, but left home, (much as I had when he became violent with me) and rode the rails from Wisconsin to California. He worked at odd jobs until he found law enforcement and became a motorcycle cop. During World War II, he joined the service and ultimately became an Air Force security and law enforcement officer.

Dad always thought of himself as protector of my mother and me. Although I can’t remember him ever telling me he loved me; he told me in the last year of his life, Susie, you’re the best thing I ever did. In those last months, I simply accepted him the way he was—ranting at mother and yelling at the television, dealing with his pain and inability to walk, and attempting to maintain some dignity when he could not even control his bodily functions. When he made his transition, I felt like he had been waiting for me to understand him. When I stopped resisting and let go of my anger and hostility, he could finally let go too.

Making peace with your parents is important when you are contemplating bringing a new life into the world. But the point of this story is that my father’s death freed me. He seemed to breathe new life into me as he took his own last breaths. His tombstone has my birthday on it. After he died, as I sat on his grave weeping, I realized that November 19, 1987, was not November 19, 1943! I could move on in my life with renewed energy, and this day could continue to signify birth for me—indeed, in even more meaningful ways.

After dad’s death, I drove my mother to Southern California to visit friends and relatives, but we buried his remains at a veteran’s cemetery on an army post in Southern Arizona. He would have loved the twenty-one-gun salute. My trip with mother was also a healing time. We had fun together, and I was able to take a morning to visit a person who would become a dear teacher of mine, but I’ll tell you about her later.

I was ready for something new. A chapter in my life had closed, and I was eager for a new adventure. I would have to commute to the University of Arizona (U of A), seventy-five miles from where I lived, but I was committed to heeding my heart’s call. At forty-eight, I went back to school again. I earned a BA in women’s studies, a subject I had never heard of until the guidance counselor told me to check out the program. It definitely awakened me to women’s issues. Friends laughed when I mentioned the subject and asked if I didn’t know how to be one—a woman, that is! A degree in women’s studies was not particularly valued in the early 1990s, so going on for a master’s was appealing.

The BA took two-and-a-half years to complete, but I felt I had enough energy to pursue the master’s degree. I was told that I would have a better chance of qualifying for the limited number of spaces in the guidance and counseling program if I were male or an ethnic minority but I was accepted on the basis of good grades, GRE scores, and the sheer enthusiasm I displayed during my interview. I was looking at two more years of commuting two to three days a week, but I loved the studies, the UA campus, and my fellow students. I felt young and revitalized.

After a month of classes, I went to my graduate advisor and told her I had been commuting to UA for almost three years. It was expensive to drive 150 miles each day, pay for parking, and get lunch while on campus. I asked for her help in finding a position as a graduate assistant or for some form of financial aid. A month later, I received a letter virtually identical to the one I had received from the Arizona Board of Regents thirty years before! It informed me that I was the recipient of an academic scholarship and that my tuition and fees would be waived for two years of graduate studies if I kept my grades up. I was ecstatic. I would finally be able to accept a scholarship, just like the one I had received when I was eighteen. I felt like the universe was truly supporting my goals. And I was beginning to see that I was at least influencing, if not creating, events in my life—some good, some not so good, and some taking years to manifest.

At fifty-two, I graduated from the U of A with a master’s degree in counseling and guidance. Through an odd set of circumstances, I got a contract with the Veterans Administration to counsel veterans who were transitioning from military service to civilian life. I enjoyed that job, along with my private practice, for eight years.

Mother had introduced me to the VA representative who had helped daddy get VA benefits as a disabled veteran. This man took a personal interest in our family and was impressed that I was getting a master’s in counseling and guidance. He gave me the name and number of the VA regional director in Phoenix and suggested I call him. I did, and the rest is history. The VA needed a counselor with my qualifications in Southern Arizona! I would work as an independent contractor, beginning immediately. The contract was signed before I had my degree in hand! Another path had opened for me.

As that eight-year commitment to the Veterans Administration was ending, I had a new interest surging in my mind—one that had to do with birth. When I asked my heart what to do at this point in my life, the answer was to let my VA contract go. I was learning to listen to my own inner wisdom; it had inspired me to leave a real estate career and go back to college. Now that still, small voice was getting louder and more insistent. And it was teasing me with a new idea—to find out more about life’s beginnings.

I got turned on to childbirth in 1995. I had earned a graduate certificate in gerontology while I was earning my master’s at the U of A and found a practicum position working in a psychiatric program for the elderly. My husband’s 100-year-old grandmother had lived with us for a couple of years, so I had already looked at the end of life’s journey in an up-close and personal way. Obviously, I was already a mother, but I hadn’t really given any thought to how