Canada Moms Blog

Birth Day by Mark Sloan, M.D.: A Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Club

This month for Silicon Valley Moms Group bloggers' monthly book club we read a unique book - stories of birth, told from the perspective of a doctor. And a man. Hmmmm...think we might have some stories too?

Join in as Silicon Valley Moms Group bloggers discuss book Birth Day by Mark Sloan, M.D..

• Chicago Moms Blog's Melanie M. leads us off
• Chefdruck from Chefdruck Musings talks about castor oil, a very potent old wives' tale
• Tracey from Just Another Review Blog reads before she jumps
• Alma from Marketing Mommy experienced two kinds of births
• Jennifer from The Kamienski Chronicles chronicles Benjamin's birth day
• Bonggamom from Finding Bonggamom tells her birth story part two (and three)
• Jen from Laughing at Chaos had two births, too different
• Jennifer from Connect with your Teens starts with "It was 20 years ago today..."
• Kim from Passion & Art muses about becoming a big sister
• Catherine from Everyday Life as Lyric Poetry talks birth day miracles
• Emily from Mama Sick is glad to have given birth in 2006
• Wife and Mommy from Wife and Mommy compares her birth stories to gorialls
• Mary Kate from New Jersey Moms Blog asks whether to turn or not to turn?
• Jill from Musings from Me was never prepared for her c-section
• Nicole from Not Just a Working Mom concludes that soccer coach does not equal birth coach
• Bonnie from Faith Barista had her eyes opened to what her husband experienced as an expectant dad during her pregnancies
• Linsey from Me Too You talks about the critical first five minutes and having babies in the NICU
• Amy Jo from The Cheese Party is planning for a natural child birth for her third time around
• Stacy from The Fabulous Miss S asks "did you know...?"
• CosMama from wellthoughtoutspot says that her pain in not your pain
  

More posts will be put up throughout the day on our writer's personal sites, so be sure to check back to follow along.

.... and if you have a post up on YOUR personal site on this topic, please leave a comment here and we will add your link!

Read about the book Birth Day here.

Past Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Clubs have included:

• What Happened to the Girl I Married? by Michael Miller
• Testimony by Anita Shreve
• Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs
• Much to Your Chagrin by Suzanne Guilette
  
• It Started with Pop-Tarts by Lori Hanson
• Who By Fire by Diana Spechler
• The White Trash Moms Handbook by Michelle Lamar
• Writing Motherhood by Lisa Garrigues
• The Vaccine Book by Dr. Robert W. Sears
• The Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross

If you have a book that you would like to submit for consideration for a future Silicon Valley Moms Group book club, please contact us at info (at) svmoms dot com.

Birth Day by Mark Sloan, M.D.: Join us for Silicon Valley Moms Group's next Book Club on Wednesday, August 12th

As moms, we all tend to get talking about our birth stories from time to time. What do our collective birth days (either those of our kids, whether we birthed them or adopted them, or...our stories of our own births) reveal about us? Join us next Wednesday, August 12th as we discuss the book Birth Day by Mark Sloan, M.D. and talk about our birth days for our next book club.

About the book - Birth Day: A Pediatrician Explores the Science, the History, and the Wonder of Childbirth (from the publisher, Random House's, website:

"I delivered twenty babies in the summer of 1977. I was hardly more than a baby myself, just turned twenty-four and starting my third year of medical school.”—from Birth Day

So began Mark Sloan’s three-decades-long exploration of the wonders and oddities of human childbirth. Pediatrician, husband, and father, the author has attended nearly three thousand births since that long-ago summer, encountering everything from routine deliveries to tense labor-room dramas. In Birth Day, Sloan draws on his personal and professional experience to weave the strands of memoir, history, science, and culture into a fascinating—and often funny—tapestry of this fundamental human passage.

Birth Day takes the reader on a remarkable journey, from the dawn of human history to the quiet efficiency of a modern operating room; from Aristotle and Julius Caesar to a trailblazing, cross-dressing British army surgeon; from a recent past filled with the horrors of childbirth gone wrong to a present day, in which every pregnancy is expected to end happily. Some of Birth Day’s many topics include

• The evolution of human childbirth—or, why do gorillas have it so easy?
• The first five minutes of life—scuba divers, astronauts, and the amazing adaptations that transform a fetus into an air-breathing, out-in-the-world baby
• Cesarean section—a look at its origins, its future, and how it came to be the most frequently performed operation in American hospitals
• Pain and politics—the age-old quest for painless childbirth, starring Adam and Eve, Queen Victoria, a nineteenth-century medical brawl, and the rise of today’s “epidural monoculture”
• Daddies—raging paternal hormones, hidden anxieties, and the emotional evolution of men (including the author, his father, and grandfather) as they approach fatherhood
• The five senses at birth—does light enter the womb? how loud is it in there? what is a newborn baby searching for with those first anxious glances?
• A tour of the newborn body—springy skulls, hairy ears, innies and outies, the advantages (and disadvantages) of looking like your father, and why the United States is one of the world’s most circumcised nations

Delightfully instructive and entertaining, Birth Day offers a fresh, sometimes irreverent take on a universally familiar topic. Warm, reassuring, and packed with stories from the author’s work and life, this unique book is one pediatrician’s meditation on the hiding-in-plain-sight marvels of human birth.

Read along with us: Buy your copy of the book today and get ready to discuss with us on Wednesday, August 12th. See you at book club!

Past Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Clubs have included:

• What Happened to the Girl I Married? by Michael Miller
  
• Testimony by Anita Shreve
  
• Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs
  
• Much to Your Chagrin by Suzanne Guilette
  
• It Started with Pop-Tarts by Lori Hanson
  
• Who By Fire by Diana Spechler
• The White Trash Moms Handbook by Michelle Lamar
• Writing Motherhood by Lisa Garrigues
• The Vaccine Book by Dr. Robert W. Sears
• The Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross

Read along with us: Buy your copy of the book today and get ready to discuss with us on Wednesday, August 12th. See you at book club!

Past Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Clubs have included:

• What Happened to the Girl I Married? by Michael Miller
  
• Testimony by Anita Shreve
  
• Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs
  
• Much to Your Chagrin by Suzanne Guilette
  
• It Started with Pop-Tarts by Lori Hanson
  
• Who By Fire by Diana Spechler
• The White Trash Moms Handbook by Michelle Lamar
• Writing Motherhood by Lisa Garrigues
• The Vaccine Book by Dr. Robert W. Sears
• The Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross

I'm NOT Pregnant. Just Fat.

“How many months are you?” the nurse asked me, as she left my sister’s hospital room – elated and relieved that my new nephew's tedious delivery was over.

“Oh, my son is 22 months old,” I replied (giving her a way out of certain awkwardness), “and I’m not --"

“So, are you having the baby in this hospital?”

“I’m not. Pregnant,” I said, “Just FAT.” My cheeks started to boil, and I placed my hand protectively on my belly.

“Oh no. Is it a boy or a girl?”

Are you KIDDING ME?

“She’s NOT PREGNANT,” my brother blurted.

“Oh! Ha ha! Oh! It does take a long time to lose the weight. I know. OH, I know.” And, she walked off to take her break. Not even an apology for, like, ROCKING my WORLD in the middle of an exciting occasion.

Grrrrrowwl...!

The Baby Formula Breaks, Um, The Formula

Hollywood movies about birth and babies tend to take a predictable route: couple discovers that the woman of the pair is pregnant, man of the couple gets all flustered and blustery, woman remains patient and mature, misunderstandings abound, hilarities ensue, woman is rushed to hospital, man realizes error of his ways when squawling baby is placed in his arms, happy happy happy, END SCENE.

Adjust for variations involving adoption and teen pregnancy, but basically: ALL THE SAME.

Which, meh. Can we get something different around here? Please?

Oh, hey! Hello, Alison Reid!

Boys Will Be Boys

I hate that term.

I especially hate that term when it is used to excuse otherwise inexcusable behaviors.

Ahem.    My boy turned seven today.   

I am feeling very nostalgic about it all.   Our first born and all that.  Where did the time go?

It is also making me think alot about the whole gender thing and our perceptions and attitudes about boys and girls, men and women.

The day after Adam was born, as I lay in a loss of blood stupor, the new mom next door popped her head in to say hi.   

"What did you have?" she asked.  The look of pure envy that washed over her face when I said a boy was quite shocking to me.   

The Price of Parenting

My nesting needs are kicking in pretty hard these days.

I have two and a half months to go and with potential gestational diabetes and lack of energy have had waves of 'oh woe is me' which my family has had to put up with.

Shopping does help.  Having an excuse for shopping really helps...."WE NEED THINGS FOR THE BABEE!'" is the big cry.

Pregnancy MY Way

Days like today make me so happy that midwifery care is covered by MSP in British Columbia.  Why? You ask?  Because I cannot imagine being able to spend AN HOUR in the office of a GP or Ob/Gyn as my preggo brain drifted from one concern to another.