Women, Empowerment and Birth

College essay from 2017, please skip right past unless you want to know more about the current research into fallacies of birth practices in America today.  P.S.  My creative writing 101 professor disagreed with the thesis and consequently gave me a C.  

Photograph of my actual visit to the natural history museum in the Bronx,  New York City, NY. 

 An exhibit postulating that evolution has occurred such that babies are now too big for the birth canal and have to be helped through modern surgical methods to be born.    

 #1.  Evolution doesn't work that way.  If baby heads got bigger, mom's pelvis would too. 

 #2  What a load of crap.  

Birth has transitioned historically from a natural and organic process to a procedure that is typically accompanied by medical intervention.  This evolution of birth, its rights, its freedoms and oppressions affect women and children on a national scale.  And whether good or ill, medical intervention is a decision that should be purposeful, dictated by choice and medical necessity, not simply by physician efficacy and medical routine.  Empowered women must seek valid studies and statistics to avoid becoming victims of out-dated birth practices that risk health and which have an oppressive effect on women's ability to make educated birth choices.  

Birth practices prior to the twentieth century utilized an organic approach to birth.  Birth occurred in homes and women were aided by other women.  By the turn of the century, hospitals were replacing homes, and by 1935 half of all women living in cities were giving birth in medical facilities.  By 1950, only a quarter of births occurred outside hospitals.  As birth moved from homes to hospitals, infant deaths did not decrease, but in fact rose seventeen percent.  Deaths in hospitals did not begin to decline until the use of sulfa drugs became common and physicians finally agreed to improve their sanitation procedures (Goer, Thinking, 202).

As mothers birthed during the first years of the twentieth century, modifications on the natural process were rare.  Medical interventions in labor and delivery and pain relief were initiated by the surgical branch of specialized medicine called obstetrics and women became the test subjects for medical interventions.  Today, birth without any medicinal or physical intervention is rare and women and newborns continue to be on the cutting edge for progressive advancement in labor and delivery protocols (Gaskin p 3).

With the advent of medicine and science, the biological process of what was once a natural occurrence has transitioned.  Today most of us join the proponents of medical advancements to agree that medicine has improved many aspects of birth.  From high-risk pregnancies, and the mortality of premature babies to medical advancements that impact couples who suffer with infertility, medical innovations have assisted those who suffer with physiological birth challenges.  In addition, without the surgical specialization of the obstetric branch of medicine, life-saving, emergency surgical interventions like caesarians would be even more dangerous.  Medical intervention appears to be the wave of the future.     

Yet, within the current birth practices, we need to ask which inventions and actions are the result of sound medical advancement and which interventions can actually cause birth complications (Carroll).  Could our ignorance of these issues be contributing to an increase in the birth mortality rate of both mothers and babies in America (CIA)?  If any other medical suggested a procedure that doubled the risk of a major surgical intervention, that would be considered malpractice.  Not so with labor induction that results in c-sections. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-induced-labor-c-section/induced-labor-may-double-the-odds-of-c-section-idUSTRE65K6DW20100621 

As medicine and nature blend, it has become increasingly difficult for consumers—parents-to-be, to make informed decisions based on a full evaluation of labor and delivery options.  These decisions must include risks and benefits of birth interventions in these decisions because the method and manner of birth can affect the growth and development of children throughout life.  However, individualized childbirth decisions can be difficult to make because comprehensive studies on birth practice are complex and nuanced and many times the studies seem too complicated for a consumer to evaluate in the process of deciding the best method for childbirth (Blanchette).  

An evaluation of current birth strategies and care giver alternatives are important in taking responsibility for one’s one health choices. One of these is which professionals will attend the birth.  98% of births are now attended by obstetricians--physicians whose training is in the medicine and surgical interventions of childbirth (Goer, Thinking, 243).  Family practitioners are medical professionals trained in all aspects of family medicine and who are typically birth attendants in rural areas who have minimal options available for pain relief and surgical interventions.  The third labor class of delivery providers are certified nurse midwives—specially trained and more frequently, state certified to attend birth with minimal interventions. 

The decision of birth facility is critical to birth outcome (Van Der Hulst). Birthing facilities must be evaluated, ie., hospitals, birth centers within hospitals and births in a home environment.  An evaluation of the financial benefits and risks to the medical and insurance industries may be relevant in the birth decisions. 

The primary focus of mothers, birth professionals and this paper’s examination is a positive birth outcome—the child.  The birth process of a child has been proven to affect the growth and development throughout childhood.  As medicine and nature meld, women and children’s health can benefit from solid, statistical information that focuses on obtaining relevant education and evaluating diverse information related to the physiology of birth.  This knowledge is what empowers a personal birth experience. 

It seems that this is a simple evaluation and that by making an effort to gain knowledge, women will become informed participants rather than merely patients. But the truth is more complicated.  Less than 2% of births in America occur with no medical intervention (Gaskin, 5), and a review of the consequences of this casual acceptance of the current medical practices of birth intervention must be made to ascertain why.    

As the medical facilitation of birth has increased so have the risks to the mother and the baby. A woman in America has a greater risk of dying from childbirth than do those in the 40 other industrialized countries and that risk is increasing.  The maternal mortality rate has doubled in the last thirty years (Amnesty).  These numbers are so alarming to birth professionals that recently an industry-wide call for the formation of a National Maternal Mortality Review Committee has been made.  The request, published in the July 2017 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, makes the case that, “…these numbers are four to five times higher than that of the best-performing nations.”  It goes on to state that, “In fact, the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any high-resource country” (Clark). 

 In addition, the birth mortality of newborns in the United States has dropped below seventeen of the high-resource countries in the world (Hamilton), and caesarian rates have increased drastically in the last three decades (Osterman).  One-third to half of all babies born today (Goer, Thinking, p 202) are caesarian births. This is “in spite of the fact,” states Dr. Louis Weinstein, chair of the obstetrics and gynecology department at Thomas Jefferson University, “that a Caesarean is 6 to 20 times more dangerous than a vaginal delivery” (Donaldson).   Nearly one in four American women gives birth by cesarean section and “one-half to two-thirds of these major abdominal operations were not needed.” (Goer, Myths, 17)   

Birth is no different than any other consumer based commodity.  Supply and demand are precursors for the wave of medical birth alternatives.  Labor/delivery techniques have changed to meet the demands of a free market economy that caters to the consumer and feeds the need as it grows.  Obstetricians are aware of the prevailing trend and because their specialty is trained specifically in the surgical aspect of birth, these physicians are positioning themselves to be aptly suited to meet the market demands with labor and birth efficiency. 

To get a jump on the prevailing trend, a preemptive study on optional caesarian birth was conducted in Texas in 2006. It investigated how much on-demand caesarians (c-sections) at 39 weeks could benefit babies.  This conclusion was based on extrapolation of the number of injuries suffered by vaginal birth babies multiplied by the estimated increase of babies that would be born c-section if women were allowed to opt for an optional c-section at 39 weeks.  The conclusion was that injuries to babies that occur during vaginal birth would be greatly lessened with the optional request for caesarian birth at 39 weeks, because the baby would not be delivered vaginally (Hankins).  This study neglects to address the significantly increased dangers to the child of c-sections.  This study is used often to justify the continued overuse of this procedure.  Fully thirty-three percent of births are c-section and statistics do not support the increase with improved mother/child risk.  

In response to trends, advocates for fewer caesarians have statistics that counterbalance the positive effects of optional caesarians with studies of their own.   A 1992 Dutch study proved that over the course of one decade between 1982-1992, that c-sections caused 700% more deaths than vaginal births, 28 per 10,000 (Goer, Thinking, 23)   Henci Goer, a birth researcher and pregnancy and birth educator and the author of Obstetric Myths versus Research Realities:  A Guide to the Medical Literature, challenges studies like the optional c-section one and considers them to be spurious and merely created to promote the intervention of major surgery without valid statistics garnered from accepted birth study protocols (5).  Ms. Goer, invites women to consider that, “Cesarean section is the most common major surgery performed in this country… despite the health risks, pain, recovery time and expense.”  She also claims again in a subsequent book, The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth that, “The consensus of medical literature is that half of these operations were not needed” (1). 

In addition, epidurals continue to be the drug of choice for birth.  Proponents minimize the risk to babies suggesting that with the large numbers being performed, that epidurals have been improved and are safe (Thorpe).  The average rate of epidurals in the US is 61% (Osterman) yet “an epidural increases the odds of cesarean for lack of progress somewhere between 2- and 8-fold, especially in first-time moms and causes fetal distress in about 10% of babies,” (Goer, Myth, 3).

In addition, numerous studies on the effects of labor analgesia and infant brain development have proved that epidural analgesia is connected to increased duration of labor, medical interventions in instrumentation related to vaginal delivery and in birth by cesarean (MacArthur; Eddleston; Thorpe). 

            Advocates for the medical industry say they are just giving women what they want, and of course it’s up to the consumer or insurance providers to ask, “At what cost?”  A hospital makes significantly more on surgeries and epidurals vs. natural birth.  Doctors also make significantly more and therefore the suggestion to limit or eliminate birth intervention is going to come from that direction.   Jenene Turley, a prenatal birth educator felt compelled to publish a peer-review paper for the Journal of Prenatal Education entitled, “How I Teach Evidence-Based Epidural Information in a Hospital and Keep My Job” (Turley).   It's obvious that there is no monetary value in a neutral advocacy group of obstetricians who would investigate safe, and non-surgical birth.  

            The two sides, medical interventionists and natural birth advocates who are debating the issue ostensibly join in empowering mothers, but each differ on what “birth empowerment,” actually means.  Medical professionals argue that empowering women is accomplished through alleviating the discomforts associated with birth, i.e., the inconvenience, pain through drug intervention and the benefits of cutting edge technology.  Natural proponents offer a biological and organic alternative to low-risk birth situations and insist that this empowers women through education and involvement. Their model of care is not based on the obstetricians “normative standards” of the progression of labor occurring on some prescribed schedule, but instead on a pattern that is individual to each patient.  Midwives follow the tenants of noted French physician, Michael Odent.  “One cannot help an involuntary process.  The point is not to disturb it” (Goer, Thinking, 199). 

More discussion on the impact of knowledge on the empowerment of the personal birth experience is called for and insight on what may happen when the patient takes an active interest and more responsibility in health care could be the subject of subsequent research.  What might be the result to the mortality of babies in America and the mortality rates of mothers if education encouraged them to transition from patients to proactive participants in evidence-based labor education?

Evidence-based education must begin at the ground-level.  For example, while strolling through the New York City Natural History Museum, one may expect to see exhibits theorizing the evolution of man.  In the children’s area is an exhibit explaining human birth with a scale model of a baby and the mother’s birth canal.  The exhibit descriptor explains that due to evolution, the human brain has evolved such that the skull is so large that medical intervention has become necessary to complete the birth process.   Aside from the inherent inaccuracies in the scientific theory of evolutionary process, (Darwin would say that if growth over time has forced an increase in skull size, then that same impetus would influence the evolution of the pelvis,) this exhibit in a prominent city museum is an indicator of the nation’s general opinion of the need for intervention in the natural process of birth as well as an indicator of the need for better birth education. 

Current methods of birth practice may reflect scientific opinion, but medical practices fail to adapt when the studies manifest negative results.  Surgical obstetrics is tradition based and has become so enmeshed in the economy of health care that any modification of these practices—even those evidence-based—does not motivate change.  The question is how can that be?  And a possible answer is offered by labor and delivery educator Henci Goer, “Obstetric practice does not reflect the research evidence because obstetricians actually base their practices on a set of predetermined beliefs.  If you start from this premise, everything about obstetrics, including the inconsistencies between research and practice, makes sense.”  (Goer, Thinking 4).      

Neither extensive studies nor grass-roots advocacy has had an effect on obstetric labor and delivery techniques, yet maternal mortality and infant mortality rates continue to stymie medical interventionists.  Kathleen Harper, an obstetrician practicing in Nevada wrote a paper calling for more obstetricians to be trained—blaming the increase in the maternal mortality rate in Nevada on the lack of obstetricians (Harper). The author of the paper failed to clarify what is causing the mother and infant mortality and is perhaps unaware of what is adding to the death statistics.   Hemorrhage is the #1 reason for delivery-related deaths—and obstetricians rely on surgical intervention to treat this problem.  Most hospitals, although mandated to provide operating facilities, are not prepared to facilitate emergency surgeries (Goer, Thinking, 206), and delivering mothers bleed out before they ever get to the surgery.

 A significant majority of the deaths--African American women—are a 3-4 times greater risk (Bond).  Substandard social structures is one contributor to the problem.  Training more obstetricians will not solve the issue of social inequality—nor can their methods become part of the answer.  The obstetrician’s traditional birth practice of vaginal delivery involves releasing the mother from the hospital within 12-24 hours and not seeing the mother again for a week.  This practice exacerbates the risk to those in difficult social circumstances.

The Maryland study of maternal mortality identified drug use as the other major source of the mortality issue. (MDOHP) This problem can be addressed with the same answer, improved home health care professionals, trained and required to attend a pregnant mother in prenatal and postnatal visits in the home.  A professional, like a midwife, identifies interventions for problems related to social inequality.  Only midwives are required by law to make extensive before and after-care visits and only those visits can reveal on-going health situations that could be resolved through existing social programs.  Until we begin to utilize the birth practitioner who is trained to address these failures, we can continue throwing doctors at the problem without ever experiencing a solution. 

There is cautious optimism about the evolution to healthier birth practices.  Smart consumers—made even wiser through clearer information and better education will grow to understand their responsibility in this issue and demand changes via the economics of supply and demand.  Just last month a newscast was finally shown by CBS TV news, which quoted an Associated Press article from December of the previous year.  It recommended to laboring mothers that they require that their doctors allow the umbilical cord to completely deliver all of the cord blood to the baby rather than clamping and cutting the cord immediately upon birth. This small change had been proven to positively affect the well-being of children as far-reaching as four years later (Andersson.) The newscast went on to say that although the new policy would cut into the hospital economics (which has a lucrative business in selling umbilical stem cell blood for research,) the long-term health of a child would benefit.  But, that study was published back in 2015.

It’s easy to get lost in the mortality numbers and caught up in the birth statistics, but there is more at risk than our national standing in the World Health Organization’s mortality standards.  Women are laboring and delivering babies along the cutting edge of technological advancement and consumers must become educated in the true facts of these medical options.  Birth cannot always be managed, scheduled and manufactured with the precision of an assembly line; humans are not machines.  Caregivers must take their focus off expediency, tradition and consideration of normative procedures and refocus on the individual’s simplistic progression through the birth processes.  If even one child or mother is at greater risk because of the expediency of medical interventions, then consumers must respond more judiciously and advocate for safer alternatives.  Safer birth demands it.  

Works Cited

Amnesty International.  “The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the United States,” March 2011, https://www.amnestyusa.org/reports/deadly-delivery-the-maternal-health-care-crisis-in-the-usa/

Associated Press, December 1, 2016, Web:   https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dont-cut-umbilical-cord-too-fast-doctors-say-pause-benefits-newborns/

Andersson, Ola, MD., PhD., et. al., Effect of Delayed Cord Clamping on Neurodevelopment at 4 Years of Age, A Randomized Clinical Trial. Jama Pediatr. 2015;169(7):631-638. Doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.0358 July 2015, Web https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2296145

Donaldson, Susan. “Trying to Take Back Childbirth.” ABC News, July 28, 2008, http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ Reproductive Health/story?id=5462833&page=1

Blanchette, H. “Comparison of obstetric outcome of a primary-care access clinic staffed by certified midwives and private practice obstetricians.”  Am J Obstet Gynecol. 1993; 168(5);1407-1413.

Bond, S. “Maternal mortality rates increase in the United States with risk of death 3-4 times higher in African American women.” J Midwifery Womens Health. 2011 Jul-Aug;56(4):404-5.   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21861303

Carroll, JC et al. “The influence of the high-risk care environment on the practice of low-risk obstetrics.”  Fam Med 1991; 23(3): 184-188.

CIA Central Intelligence Agency (US). https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2091.html.  October 2017

Clark, SL. et.al., “The Case for a National Maternal Mortality Review Committee.”  Obstet Gynecol. 2017 Jul;130(1): 198-202

CDC Home Birth Statistics. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6103a6.htm

Eddleston, JM, et.al. Comparison of the maternal and fetal effects associated with intermittent or continuous infusion of extradural analgesia. Br J Anesth 1992 Aug;69(2): 154-8

Gaskin, Ina Mae, Guide to Childbirth, Bantam Dell, Random House, Inc., NY, NY Mar. 2003

Goer, Henci.  The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth, Peregee Books, 1999

Goer, Henci. Obstetric Myths versus Research Realities:  A Guide to the Medical Literature, Peregee Books, 1995, http://www.hencigoer.com/obmyth/

Hankins, GD, et.al. Cesarean section on request at 39 weeks:  impact on shoulder dystocia, fetal trauma, neonatal encephalopathy, and intrauterine fetal demise. Semin Perinatol. 2006 Oct;30(5):276-87.

Hamilton, Brady, et.al. Center for Disease Control, National Vital Statistics Report, Vol 64, Number 6, June 17, 2015 Web. Retrieved 10-15-2017 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs /data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_06.pdf

Harper, Jenene, “Response to Nevada’s Incidence of Maternal Mortality with more Obstetricians,” Am. Jrnl Obstetrics and Gyn., May 2015

MacArthur, C, Lewis M, and Knox, EG. Investigation of long term problems after obstetric epidural anesthesia. BMJ 1992;304:1279-1282 

MDOH Maryland Department of Health.  State Maternal Mortality Review (MMR) Program Retrieved Oct. 2017  https://phpa.health.maryland.gov/mch/Pages/mmr.aspx

MDOHP Maryland Department of Health Poster for media release.  https://www.acog.org/-/media/Sections/MD/Public/MarylandMMRposter2017.pdf?dmc=1&ts=20170927T1731113112

Osterman, M.J.K, Joyce A. Martin, MPH, Epidural and Spinal Anesthesia Use During Labor: 27-state Reporting Area, National Vital Statistics, Health and Human Service Department: 2008   Retrieved: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_05.pdf

Shapiro, Samantha M. “Ina May Gaskin and the Battle for at-Home Births,” New York Times, May 23, 2012 Web http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/magazine/ina-may-gaskin-and-the-battle-for-at-home-births.html

Thorp, JA, Breedlove G. “Epidural analgesia in labor: an evaluation of risks and benefits.” Birth. 1996 Jun:23(2):63-83 

Tumblin, Ann, CD(DONA), LCCE, FACCE. “How I Teach Evidence-Based Epidural Information in a Hospital and Keep My Job,” J Perinat Educ. 2007 Fall;16(4): 69-69

Van Der Hulst LA, et al. “Does a pregnant woman’s intended place of birth influence her attitudes toward and occurrence of obstetric intervention?” Birth. 2004 Mar; 31(1):28-33.  

dec 6 2017

Choice: Birth--Death The Morphosis of Womanhood

I just read an article makes three relevant points, that women are experiencing a revolutionary transition of personal power, that birth control is the impetus, and that womanhood is in morphosis.  I write on the cautionary genesis of that process.


I counter the basic idea of the article that society's convenience is reason enough to justify birth decisions or the end of birth--the death of life.  Although we are experiencing unprecedented  reproductive freedom,  women are still subject to what some think of as arbitrary forces of nature, subject to age, infertility and happenstance and to assume that we have gained some control over that merely because we have come into our own "womanhood" may be a fallacy.    Like a child who begins to recognize that he rules the world, then fears that he rules the world we must recognize that with increased freedom of choice comes natural, and irrevocable consequence.  I myself had to come to that untidy conclusion with the risks of some birth control that modify the body to reject future pregnancy.

Presuming that we can circumvent nature's reality with impunity is naive.  It is a contradiction to ignore the mind/body connection that ultimately requires humble supplication of self at every point--to nature, or to a God, to a world, an opinion, in relationships, or to illness and all the other ways to which we as human beings involuntarily relinquish control and are acted upon.  Even to the consequence of the humanity of the anguish of abortion.

We've come to believe--no to expect--that we have control and expecting that we exercise a sense of power over nature without consequence is at the core of this new womanhood question.  Continuing to further that argument leads us to believe that life is trivial and can be had at our own behest and on demand--further leading to the cavalier idea of humanity as a fungible and resulting in the devastation that we are now experiencing.

That being said,  my pro-life stance is that while women’s reproductive domination by man may be coming to an end, nature's control cannot be ignored.  As we become free from being acted upon we must more fully be willing to accept the ramifications of our own actions.  It is an enlightened woman who recognizes her place in the world universe and her eternal responsibility to the freedom of childbearing.  This responsibility is greater than surrendering choice, it is cautiously and carefully considering how to submit to a natural, more powerful version of nature's intent.

A responsible for life.  When we are considerate and adequately reverent of that, the lines of responsibility are more easily drawn.




Reality Bite:  Then we can more truthfully look to the added responsibilities of the choice of life--social responsibility, structure, care, nurturing, and education.

Can I Learn To Love Those I Hate?

Dia talk college BYU 2008 singles ward

Hate Thy Brother? 

Remember that the family is the most sacred unit of the Church. –For the Strength of Youth

Right now, I’d like you to think about the person in your life who is most difficult to get along with—whether they be a family member, roommate, classmate, coworker or that one guy who cuts in line every morning at Jamba Juice—whomever, it’s not important. What is important is that you remember this person all the way to the end of this talk—so, if your memory is like mine or if you have a tendency to doze, you might want to write their name down. If it’s the person sitting next to you, I’d write it small.

Let me tell you—this is not my tried and true method of giving talks.  Usually I like to get up and stun the audience with a long chain of scriptures, hymn numbers and Bible dictionary definitions and then, while everyone’s still searching for the first reference, offer a quick testimony and sit down. If I do it right, I don’t even have to look nice because everyone’s looking at the standard works the whole time. However, I really felt I needed to share something different with you today.

Do you have your person in mind?  Let me tell you about my someone that I struggled with.

• When I knew him, he was fourteen years old and flunking out of school—again.
• He couldn’t concentrate in class and preferred to read comic books.
• His mind was filled with the most trivial of trivia. He could tell you how many medic stations there are aboard the Enterprise, but he couldn’t multiply six and eight. He knew the names, types and skills of all three hundred and however-many Pokemon but couldn’t tell you what he wore yesterday.
• He was absolutely self-oblivious. He’d forget to shower (or to use soap once he was in the shower), change his clothes or brush his teeth—and he was smack in the middle of puberty. His belches were audible from China.
• He didn’t have any friends (big surprise) because he couldn’t carry on a conversation. He was an extreme introvert-- offering an icy glare to anyone who tried to even introduce themselves and a sarcastic dismissal to conversation starters. He had absolutely no sense of social norms, manners or fashion.
• He had one older sister who was sailing through the social scene in high school and would probably end up valedictorian. She was forced to take him to social events and church activities, where her friends made fun of him. His parents were at a loss. He lived in a part-member family and wasn’t baptized—and showed no visible interest in it or in getting the priesthood.  He had to be forced to get up and go to early-morning Seminary. In my opinion, he was a failure at school, at church and at home—to his teachers, his bishop and his family.

His name was Ian, and he was my little brother.

Now, I realized while preparing this talk that it’s a little odd to talk about family in a single’s ward—I can’t exactly censure you about your relationships with your brothers, sisters or parents in the traditional sense by telling you to spend more time with them or to stop missing your curfew.  That said, my hope is that my experiences with family can be applied to our lives, present day, twenty-something working-single-college or grad school-students.  

When I was sixteen, my little brother was the bane of my near-perfect existence. My growing social life, blossoming relationships with teachers and budding reputation at church were crippled by this failure—who, by mother’s decree, followed me everywhere. Ian went with me to Mutual activities, dances and Seminary by necessity, but was also sent along with me to club activities, friends’ parties and even—horrors!—on dates.   He was the guy who called shotgun. 

He hated going almost as much as I hated taking him. My friends responded to my treatment of him and accordingly teased or ignored him. He responded with rude sarcasm or icy silence, which hardly improved anyone’s opinion of him.

Now let me tell you how this little book—the Book of Mormon—changes lives.

On March 17, 2006, I was sitting in the Oklahoma City Temple with my ward. I was the only member of my family there because no one else could come to the temple—including Ian, who came to church with me and my mom, but had never been baptized. I was all too aware of this in the temple, watching other sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers. At some point, I pulled out my For the Strength of Youth. In the family section, I read a few sentences that changed my life. “Strengthen your relationships with your brothers and sisters. They can become your closest friends. Support them in their interests and help them with problems they may be facing.”

President Harold B. Lee told us “the most important of the Lord’s work you will ever do will be within the walls of your own homes” and we know, of course, that “no success compensates for failure in the home,” but as a 16 year old, I’d always assumed this would only apply to me when I had my own home.

What I learned that day was that Ian was startlingly odd, quirky to the extreme, enigmatic in every way—but he was my brother, and these few words—“they can become your closest friends”.  

This revelation made me realize that my attitude was the problem between us, not his personality. Nothing about him changed, but I was starting to adjust my own perspective.

If time—Moses 1: 3-4, 6, 12-13, 16

Why are we given families? Lots of reasons, of course, but in a few words—to have at least one person who will love us no matter what. If we can have just that one person rooting for us, the whole world seems brighter.

Preach My Gospel is pretty much my favorite text in the whole world. It coaches missionaries teaching the first lesson to compare the love of God to the love of a parent. How could we understand the love of God for us if we did not feel that overwhelming, absolute and never ending love from our families?

How could I understand the importance of charity and loving everyone as my brother if I didn’t learn to love my brother first?

Families are a microcosm of how God’s family (mankind) should treat one another. Hopefully our relationships with our family members help us realize that we can love anyone—even that person you wrote down back at the beginning of this talk.

We all know that the reason we treat others bad is because of our own insecurities.   The meaner the girl, the more insecure they are.  

I came to realize that the one reason I couldn’t show love for my little brother before was because of my OWN weaknesses and inadequacies—these stemmed from the relationship that I lacked with my elder brother, Jesus Christ.

As we learned from that verse in Moses, when people realize that someone--anyone thinks they are worthwhile, they live up to that expectation.  

My changes with Ian were slow and painful and so different than I had thought they would be. I began by praying to love him better, but I quickly found that with that prayer what I accomlished was that I really prayed to love myself better so I could be more open to his quirky tendencies. 

I practiced patience and learned to laugh at myself when his antics got me upset.  I reviewed my friends and only made friends who would be friends with me in spite of and because of my oddball little brother. 

It came—as I realized that I respected him, he started to trust me. We learned to enjoy the things we had in common and to capitalize on those similarities. We started with just a few things, but grew closer and closer as we learned to love each other. 

By my senior year, we were referred to as the Dynamic Darcey Duo in Seminary, carried out entire conversations in solely movie quotes and memorized every other word of scripture masteries—so we passed them off together.

He is now my go-to-guy in everything, scriptures, history, doctrine.  He knows it everything... well, about everything.  

Sweetest of all, Ian was baptized when I was seventeen, twenty-one months after I realized in the temple that I wanted him to be there with me.

Now, I can thankfully and joyfully tell you that we are the closest of friends. 

He is the most brilliant person I know in terms of history, computers, astronomy, mythology, Star Wars, Star Trek, and the scriptures.  

We’re still really different—sometimes he still forgets to shower—but we have learned slowly and painfully to treasure those differences.

We have become the closest of friends because I have applied the atonement in our relationship and have learned to love like the Savior.  

And he’s going to teach me how to sword fight this summer.

Momma's Mantras

An Ode to my Mommy by Dia 2014 Mother's Day    

"The loss of her parents, sudden, unexpected, must have seemed to the little girl like total betrayal. 'Not her Mommy!' one of her friends cried. To the small child Mommy is still god, and therefore immortal, and must not betray the child and the universe by dying." A Circle of Quiet, Madeleine L'Engle

Mother is everything, the beginning of beginnings, the start of life. As Doctor Who (who can speak baby) responds to one infant's cooing, "You really should call him Daddy, not just not-Mummy." Mom is, in one sense, just a person--with her projects, her personality, her baggage, her positives and negatives, her problems, her programs. But her personhood teaches us, the little people, what and how personhood can happen. She teaches through her very ontology, through her being. 

The following is an incomplete musing on my mommy's mantras--what she taught us without really saying it out loud.   And let's be honest, we're all glad it's incomplete. We'd have to include her mantra (in great grandma's words), "Damn isn't a swear word, it's a place" and "a little yelling can make you feel better," along with other less humorously un-praiseworthy things. But if it is incomplete in its damning, it is more incomplete in its praise and celebration.   Mom, you wouldn't be you without all sides and all intricacies and all imperfections, and we're grateful for your choice to be a Mother along with all else.

Mom’s ability to sew taught more than geometry and home-tech skills. Through that one skill, she models thrift, modesty, integrity, creativity and munificence as she stitches away at our projects:  She sewed countless formal dresses and Halloween costumes long into the night, my choir dress shoulder shrug, dresses made more modest for my friends, and an ingenious pencil case out of a pair of shorts that made me the talk of the homeroom class for the year,  Oh, and let us not forget how you fixed that dreaded tie skirt. 

Mom was willing to put the time behind her injunction to “use your head, Fred” as she creatively and determinedly put all her energies into every problem at hand. From her, I learned, "there is always a solution" and "we'll make it work" and with enough resources, problem-solving, hours and creativity, "Yes, you can do Halloween as a human-sized tarantula complete with 8 moving legs and venomous fangs."   For her, sewing shows love and so she stitched my dress for the wedding reception and her own dress for my wedding.  I remember seeing her for the first time--after the sealing had finished--in the dressing room, resplendent and glowing and gorgeous in a hand-sewn purple dress. "No fair, Mom, you're going to steal my thunder."

Mom taught us to do hard things, and not only do them but improve with hard work and humility. I remember having a spit-fire-hissy-fit-tantrum once when she looked at a self-portrait I'd blown off quickly for the 4th grade parents-to-school night because "I'm not an artist." 

"You can do better," she responded (to my shock), and she sat me down and taught me about proportion, angle and perspective. After an hour or so of tearful sulking behind a slammed door, I realized I really could do better, and tried, and did better, and changed my perspective of myself forever afterward: "I can do new things, and if I'm humble enough to take correction, I can improve."

I remember Mom inventing ingenious new methods for boring tasks like patiently brushing Ian’s teeth reciting A, ">Apatosaurus, B, Brachiosaurus, C, Corythosaurus, D, Deinonychus,and all the way through the alphabet every single night. This was the only tactic that would hold his attention long enough to stand still and have his teeth brushed. 

Whenever she watched a friend or neighbor's crazy, filthy children, she would teach every single one--individually, and with utmost love and attention, and often with a humorous story or illustration--why we put away our toys, and why we washed our hands. She taught us that children are creative, intelligent, important and worthwhile---by treating them as though they are.

I'm hoping to keep learning from her for a long, long time, because though I've got "person" down OK, I still need so much help in learning how to teach personhood to a new little person. I hope my little person can learn just as much from Grandmother (Nina's) mantras as I learned from her. 

Clothes - Modified to Modest!

Buy it at Goodwill and sew up the sides to make it fit!  

VOILA!  

I Trekked the South Mountain Challenge

Cedar Ridge Trek 2014

Parent Discussion Challenge Topics

March 19, 2014   Wed. night--Pretrek FHE

A mountain of buckets and sleeping bags filled the cultural hall the night before we departed for our historical reinactment of the handcart pioneers trek across the United States to the West. 

The youth arrived buzzing with excitement.  We introduced Ma’s and Pa’s and began the challenge of blending families--the first being what would become our surname.  The family name, selected by the youth, and reflecting our ancestral heritages was crucial to achieving unanimity.  The Rockefellers, Ripleys and MacCalters, won out.   

 We broke out into families and got to know each other.  One family asked how were each of them pioneers? What is our purpose in the Lord’s plan? We volunteered for family role assignments to fulfill what the prophet advises--to fit in we need a purpose, and a friend.  And we needed another challenge, so we were all given a heavy baby to symbolize the small and innocents on the trek. Ask about our baby's name and how it was decided.

March 20, 2014   Thurs. morning 7 a.m.  Pickup, bandanas and travel to trek site

·       In our morning meeting, Bro. Watts showed us a shawl carried across the plains by his ancestor--the young girl, Mary Elizabeth Rollins in Independence who rescued the book of commandments pages from the mob.  After we arrived out past Henryetta, the youth were responsible for packing their personal buckets and sleep material onto handcarts.  We decided that our super youth needed this super challenge and still some trek parents had to simply walk away as they observed the potential packing failures.  
      
      As incredible as it seems, they piled all their buckets and mountains of sleep gear into a five by five cart, stacked it up and then covered and roped it.  When we walked that first day, the loads did shift and carts... excreted.   But, first day packing failures are great training.    Some families tore a Title of Liberty, wrote their name and flew it on a pole.  Carrying a pole became the challenge to some walkers as they looked for incentives to keep up.  

      Admittedly many of the challenges on this trek were man-ufactured--created to challenge the youth in difficult situations and crafted to create discussion and to push the youth out of their comfort zone to seek spiritual guidance.  They had to learn how the pioneers turned to the Lord so they could test His strength in their/our own personal trials.  

Yet, some of the trials were accidental.   The boxes of food were loaded but at lunchtime, one box was just gone.  We did not plan it, but when the kids were told of the situation in pioneer parlance, “that one family was thus challenged” the youth rallied, combined their stores and set into motion a lunch line and delivery system that was marvelous.   Ask about the pioneer story of miracle of the shoes or the pie in the road.  Miracles happen.

·       Our youth worked together coordinating cart-pulling duties all on their own.  I explained that our family would have extra challenges with our dozen orphans that the other companies did not and that our older bro and sis would have to step up.  They had to forge ahead like many true pioneer children did as parents fell behind caring for others or perishing.  

Pa and I fell behind that first day, sometimes far, far behind as the two of us built a trust relationship for the challenge that our two weaker trekkers would face ahead.  In that first day, there was talk of illness, of calling for the truck and talk of giving up and each time youth rescuers would step in, add encouragement and even one youth, the youngest, and shortest offered to take the youth’s biggest pack. 

      Uplifting and pertinent conversation. There was  only one incidence of  the youth interacting about worldly issues (I asked one youth to discuss videogames with another to take his mind of the misery and they do mesmerize and take the mind off the current miserable task).  Otherwise, the walking conversations were to be focused on history, comparisons and personal live challenges.

      Each individual upped their personal trial level and we parents were encouraged to allow it.  Some youth stepped it up (ha pun!) and initiated a barefoot challenge to authenticate their experience.   Wow. When one walker twisted an ankle, these same youth improvised and perched the injured atop a precarious pile.  That’s what the pioneers did.  It was the story of the woman who pulled her husband the sixteen miles up Rocky Ridge that helped the youth understand that this could only have been accomplished with the help of angels. Thereafter, packing plans included that potentiality.

        It was truly a vision of the promised land that the youth experienced when at the days end we parked at the shores of what was to be their Sweetwater or Platt River crossing challenge.  Ask about that evening, and the success of the soothing sand/water activities.   The topic of conversation was “What is your Trek Trial?”  Our beach devotional was insightful.  It was about then that the youth voted to limit my devotions to morning, noon and night.  After all the stories, they marveled that any pioneers ever survived.

      That night was the terrific stew/spoon challenge—again planned only by the Lord, but inventiveness and sharing again prevailed.  Ask about Zane’s bark spoon.  Again, no complaining.  Ask how your youth adapted.

     The potential for crossing the river challenge was deeply felt.  The youth sent out explorers to test the depths, as they brainstormed how to make it easier.  There was talk of dumping buckets and attaching them as ballast to float across.  The group packed the next morning with purpose and dressed in water shoes, preparing well.  When they were told it was too treacherous, their mental planning served them well for the next challenge.        

       The immediate mustering of the men for the battalion challenge was emotionally overwhelming for all of us.  They left for battle still in their worst water shoes, and as the male priesthood presence exited (not period authentic as not all the men left,) the women experienced the lack thereof.  

      Ask your youth about the survivor guilt these men must have felt as they were government funded, fed and clothed.  The discussion and comparison to current day was deep and impactful to all of us.  Ask about the boys watching in silence and difficulty of them allowing the girls to test their own strength and endurance in the women’s pull.  Ask girls about the discussion that sometimes we will put our spouses on the spiritual wagon, and sometimes vice-versa. For the women, the stops for prayer, (once kneeling) along our journey was significant.  We increased our trust in the Lord.  Sometimes when we feel more bodies would be better, prayer works best.  

 At times, in spite of best planning, the Lord’s small challenges continued.  Ask about the jug water challenge, unplanned but it fit well with our own 4 oz. biscuit challenge.  Even when the youth saw the extra rations in the box and knew that the food challenge would end, they stepped up to the spirit of the challenge and tested their own limits.  They chose to either eat, share or pocket their stores and then pulled harder to reexamine their own endurance.

That evening upon reaching camp with minimal stores, they still pitched camp, and joined enthusiastically in all the authentic activities prepared to coincide with stories of the true pioneer challenges.  The deprivation hunger challenge served it’s purpose and not one complained about it as they explored their own personal spiritual starvation.

.  Ask your youth about games:  the blind guide game, the boy/girl wagon pull, and the three-legged jump. There was some small murmuring about feeling at their peak for competition, but after the Joseph Smith stick pull, the guys and girls proved they can survive fasting deprivation and with the strength of the Lord, it is possible to endure and excel!

·       Ask about the afternoon rescue party who brought fresh baked bread and three cookies each to us. When the group finally opened the stores, the food was even more appreciated.  Ask about the second wave rescuers whose dutch oven dessert included three or four delicious choices and ice cream.

·       It was here that the group met one of its hardest social challenges, dancing.  We hoedowned, Virginia Reeled and learned three line dances.  Aside from a few, all participated and enjoyed themselves.

      The firesites and vignettes added much spiritual depth to the trek, the sacrifice of their pie, the Indian encampment, the deceased family complete with bagpiper and  Hudson, our three year old child actor portraying the deceased, who did not step out of character, and Jim Bridger telling them not to go.  President Fox speaking of trials building strength and Bishop advising “Find Joy in your Journey,” regardless how arduous.  Ask what they learned about themselves in each of these situations--particularly when two babies of our company died and one adult merely disappeared.  They learned like the pioneers, that they could do hard things.

·         Break-feasts were the bounty.  Fruit, scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon, biscuits, sausage gravy, juice milk; we ate like royalty in the mornings and enjoyed quick and tasty lunches on the trail—like our ancestors we never went hungry as we focused less on sustenance and more on the feasting of the Spirit.  

      Each night the youth set up their own camp, prepared for any bad eventuality (I promise I did not once say Indian raid at night-- that was totally camp gossip. Well done! whoever started that.)  Each morning they broke camp and packed again.  By day two the handcarts were packed tight and strong!  This challenge promised initial failure but the process of thinking and packing stimulated their pioneer spirit and the resulting success made their next challenge even more do-able.  

      We were all changed by this experience, and this was best demonstrated by the change in our most challenged walkers who by the second day were discussing how they might improve, how to gain a second wind, challenge themselves, and by the third day even the first day’s weakest were pulling the cart—in the impromptu single cart challenges.  Go Andrew the Ox!    The youth stepped up to challenges we couldn’t even imagine for them.

We Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked and walked, and walked, and walked.  Even when the youth got that we were retraipsing trail to extend the experience, there was no grumbling.  There was joy in the journey and we became grateful for the journey of our forbearers who persevered as an example for us so we could gain the strength and testimony from their journey. More than once it was mentioned that they did their trek for us—in a literal and figurative and spiritual sense.  Bishop once told us that Family History creates resilient teens.  Knowing about others who faced greater difficulties and then experiencing a taste of that challenge make life-altering changes  for these youth.

And then it was over.   I watched as the white flags waved and the trek ended and the teens relished time to hug parents but then felt the need to immediately return back again to their trek brothers and sisters in regret and sorrow, taking a moment to adapt to the return to reality.  Continuity in our ward family was just what our youth needed and what they came to yearn for.  They were still filled with reluctance to give up the greatness that these life-altering experiences offered them.   

This was reaffirmed when the next morning I received a lengthy text from a teen.  “I miss trek.  I want to wake everyday with the excitement and enthusiasm for the thrill of a new spiritual experience.  Help me!  What can I do now?  Do you have ideas for service projects or challenges for me?  I can’t give up this feeling.  I want the Spirit with me all the time.  I want more.” 

They can do hard things and with enough challenge, they will Find Joy in The Journey.