Please, Please, Read These Stories Before You Choose a Midwife-Assisted Birth

I’ve spent part of the night reading about babies who didn’t have to die. And I don’t want their stories to be yours. If you’re pregnant or planning, and considering giving birth outside of a hospital, please stop right now and read Grant’s story. His mother Rachel had to tell it. He didn’t live. He didn’t have to die.

Let me remind you that when I first arrived at the birth center for the second time that evening I was offered a transfer for not being able to handle my labor. Why, now with my baby dying were they not offering us a transfer? Why were they trying to make me push when I wasn’t dilated?

I was moved from the birthing stool to the bed… still not 100% dilated. I was told that I needed to get this baby out now. I’m still trying to push. I’ve never pushed so hard in my life. The pain is so bad that my vision is becoming blurry. I was given oxygen. When I look back at this scene I still wonder why no one has called for help. The baby has been in trouble and I’m having a hard time… why?

My husband and I were so focused on pushing this baby out as fast as possible and so focused on what we were doing that we couldn’t stop and tell her to call 911. We weren’t sane. We were relying on all of those midwives to do that for us if need be. We were counting on them to make the decisions that would need to be made when necessary. We were still all on our own as our baby was losing his struggle to breathe.

Read her whole story. Read about her having to leave the body of her perfect baby boy in the arms of crying nurses. If your heart didn’t shatter into atoms, you had no heart to begin with.

People, I have read far too many stories about dead babies. Continue reading “Please, Please, Read These Stories Before You Choose a Midwife-Assisted Birth”

Please, Please, Read These Stories Before You Choose a Midwife-Assisted Birth
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Here’s Where to Find Me on Social Media

‘Tis the age of social media, indeed. I post a lot of random stuff to random places. Some of you may even want to follow me here, there, and maybe not everywhere, but at least at the places you frequent. So here is a convenient list for you! I’ve made it into a Page, which you can bookmark if you wish – I’ll keep it updated with any newfangled social media thing I get sucked in to.

If you’ve got suggestions for what you’d like me to post here, there, and everywhere, please do leave them in comments! I’m one of those old farts who started school when they still mimeographed worksheets, and personal computers were clunky chunks of thick plastic with monochrome screens that cost a fortune. You young people and early adopters can guide me aright.

Image is me leaning on the nickel-iron meteorite in the visitor's center at Meteor Crater.
Moi with awesome AZ meteorite.
Image shows me standing in front of a bunch of basalt at Dee Wright Volcano Observatory.
Moi at Dee Wright Observatory.

Twitter

Blog feeds, links to posts and articles I’ve found fascinating, and random outbursts.

Facebook

Blog feeds, the occasional reshare, and Facebook sort o’ stuff.

Google + – Personal

Selected posts, funny photos of Misha, occasional Greek Yogurt Geology, and other scenes from Dana’s life.

Google+ – Dana Hunter’s Schist

Blog and YouTube feed. Get all the cute animal videos first! And there’ll be plenty more to come.

Image shows me standing in front of Crater Lake. A bit of Wizard Island is visible to my right.
Moi at Crater Lake
Image shows me standing in front of a sedimentary formation, pointing at the basalt contact overhead.
Moi pointing to the contact between earth and fire at Seal Rock.

YouTube

Subscribe to my channel to see my nature, wildlife, and geology videos before they appear on my blogs.

Tumblr

Blog feed, plus new product announcements,occasional outtakes not available anywhere else, and more!

Oh, and if you’re going shopping, all of my stores are listed here. There’s some pretty gneiss schist there!

Here’s Where to Find Me on Social Media

Interlude with Soaring Eagles, Colorful Blackbirds, and a Non-Ninja Turtle

After the week we’ve had, it’s time to relax with some neato wild critters. B and I took a healthy walk at Juanita Bay and saw about ten trillion birdies. There were so many ducklings, you guys, and I will have to find more time to sort through them. At the moment, however, we shall focus mostly on eagles, with also some beautiful blackbirds and one awkward turtle.

There were so many eagles, you guys. I didn’t even realize they were eagles at first, because there were bunches of them, and I’m not used to eagles flying in flocks. Then we got a better look, and a gentleman out there with a hyoooge camera lens pointed out the two juvenile balds, and then later we got a good look at the adults, and yep, eagles. Eagles everywhere. Continue reading “Interlude with Soaring Eagles, Colorful Blackbirds, and a Non-Ninja Turtle”

Interlude with Soaring Eagles, Colorful Blackbirds, and a Non-Ninja Turtle

A Saturday Singsong About Butterflies, Starring the Summer Falls Butterflies

We’ll get back to Mount St. Helens soon, I absolutely promise, but after all the news this week, I figured we could use a nice sing-song about butterflies, plus some pretty butterflies, and maybe a waterfall or two. Right? I’m pretty sure I’m right. So: refill your drink, situate yourself in splendid comfort, and press play.

Then enjoy these lovely butterflies, which live at Summer Falls near Coulee City, WA. Continue reading “A Saturday Singsong About Butterflies, Starring the Summer Falls Butterflies”

A Saturday Singsong About Butterflies, Starring the Summer Falls Butterflies

Reveal That Metazoan! Frenchman Coulee Fuzzy Critter Edition

Let me tear you away from the slopes and Silver Lakes of Mount St. Helens for just a moment here, and take you back in time to the previous trip, when B and I headed to the dry side. We saw some pretty super-awesome things on that journey. One of them was barely visible. I’d never have noticed it, but B’s brain is really good with the something’s-not-like-the-others game. Let’s see if you can spot it.

Image shows a rocky slope, a few sage bushes, and a barely-visible animal that is probably in the Sciuridae family.
Mystery Metazoan I

C wut evolution did thar? No? Okay, I’ll give you some hints: Continue reading “Reveal That Metazoan! Frenchman Coulee Fuzzy Critter Edition”

Reveal That Metazoan! Frenchman Coulee Fuzzy Critter Edition

#CancelTheDuggars – Replace it With This, #TLC

So, TLC, it’s time for a little real talk. Sit down. Shut up. Listen. I know you’re scrambling for ways to save your cash cow. You think sacrificing Josh Duggar will be enough. You think since Ma and Pa Duggar aren’t squirting out the kids (and, also, turned out to be hypocritical child sex abuse-hiders), you can just turn to exploiting the newlywed and newly-mom girls instead. Like that’ll make it all better. Like that’ll allow people to forget that you filmed a family that beat its children with a stick and sheltered a child molester (autoplay vid at link), and pretended you were good. You think people will forget that you knew, all along. Had to have known – at least about the sexual abuse, even if the Duggars somehow hid from you the blanket training by tempting babies to crawl off a blanket, then beating them with a plastic ruler when they followed their natural curiosity. You knew Josh Duggar was being monitored by the State of Arkansas for forcibly probing his sisters’ genitals, even if you didn’t see the parents forcing children to smile while they beat them with a stick. You were there rolling cameras when he sued the Arkansas Department of Human Services. Kinda a hard thing to miss, even if they kept the beatings on the down-low.

You could have pulled that Josh-featuring marathon when the story about his assaults broke, but you let it run, took days to pull the show, and even now haven’t done the right thing and cancelled it.

Your network is a cesspool. You’re nothing but a bunch of exploitative assholes who’d let children suffer just about anything as long as they make you enough money. Yeah, you’ve got the fig leaf of cancelling Honey Boo Boo when you learned mommy might be dating the man who’d just got out of prison for sexually assaulting her daughter. But that doesn’t cover you. It just shows what you should have done with the Duggars, long ago.

If there was any justice in the world, your network would be DOA after this. But alas, you’re not going away. Continue reading “#CancelTheDuggars – Replace it With This, #TLC”

#CancelTheDuggars – Replace it With This, #TLC

Bad News for Hollywood

So, you know those disaster movies where volcanoes explode like St. Helens but also spew fountains of really runny lava like Kilauea on laxatives?

I have really bad news for them, courtesy of Edward Wolfe and Thomas Pierson in Volcanic-Hazard Zonation for Mount St. Helens, Washington, 1995.

Lava flows are destructive but generally not life-threatening because they normally advance so slowly that people can walk or run away from them.

Drat.

Of course, it’s never about realism anyway, which is why I avoid any disaster movie with a volcano in it – I know I’d end up ruining everyone’s movie experience by howling, “That doesn’t happen!” every ten seconds or so. (And no, I sure as shit am not going to see San Andreas – that looks even worse than the volcano flicks, and I’m not interested in dying from apoplexy at my tender age. I will probably eventually watch Pompeii because some of you asked me to years ago, and I can now watch it here at home, where I can scream into a pillow so as not to disturb the neighbors.) I’m not a fan, is what I’m trying to say. Some people enjoy disaster films despite (or because of) the absurdity. I have a lot more fun with reality. I mean, this is the greatest shit ever!

Did you hear that crackling?! Did you see the little pieces of volcanic glass popping up like popcorn kernels in a hot pan? Did you seem them cook burritos and marshmallows on a bloody pahoehoe flow? And hear the squeals of pure science-geek joy? Oh, yes. That’s my kinda flick! You can see the whole video here.

So yeah, those of you who like your volcano disaster flicks can enjoy the ridiculously-funny lava and the volcanic bombs that set off huge gasoline explosions wherever they land and stuff. I’m just gonna enjoy watching geologists amble around the edges of active lava fields.

Image shows a steaming black lava flow oozing onto a grassy field. It appears to have eaten a fence.. A geologist in a red shirt and a backpack skirts close to the edge.
A USGS geologist maps the margin of the active lava flow in an open field west of the town of Pāhoa on Oct. 26, 2014. Image and caption courtesy USGS.

I mean, that is so ridiculously epically awesome – except for the people of Pāhoa: I’m so sorry Kilauea ate your town.

And now Ima go watch my favorite lava lake video of all time.

Bad News for Hollywood

Preparing for the Apocalypse – Escape Chapter 2: Child’s Play

Reading books like Escape makes me realize how sheltered I was.

I wasn’t taught to fear strangers. I wasn’t in an environment where abuse was rife and women forced into loveless marriages, all stamped with God’s approval. And I was taught games like Kick-the-Can and Hide-and-Go-Seek. No one ever taught me to play Apocalypse. Continue reading “Preparing for the Apocalypse – Escape Chapter 2: Child’s Play”

Preparing for the Apocalypse – Escape Chapter 2: Child’s Play

It’s Also Geek Pride Day. I’m Geeking Out On…

…This amazing Mount St. Helens Lidar image.

Image is a LIDAR view of Mount St. Helens. With all the trees stripped away, the various volcanic deposits and stream incisions are wonderfully clear.
Mount St. Helens lidar
by Vivian R. Queija/USGS.

Oh, people! Those flows! If you look closely (which is far easier if you download the pdf file), you’ll notice the drastic difference in texture between the young, pyroclastics-rich north and the older south side with its stubby flows. Oh so delicious!

I never would’ve appreciated Lidar before moving to the Pacific Northwest. Up here, having a technology that can look past trees is priceless. This is so neato! And yes, I literally drooled when I saw the full file available for download.

What are you geeking out on?

It’s Also Geek Pride Day. I’m Geeking Out On…

Two Stark Poems for Memorial Day

It’s traditional to remember the sacrifice of soldiers on this day, the battlefield fallen.

Iron

by Carl Sandburg

Guns,
Long, steel guns,
Pointed from the war ships
In the name of the war god.
Straight, shining, polished guns,
Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,
Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,
Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,
Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.

Shovels,
Broad, iron shovels,
Scooping out oblong vaults,
Loosening turf and leveling sod.

I ask you
To witness—
The shovel is brother to the gun.

 

Image shows two soldiers standing side-by-side in the snow in front of a building. Their backs are to the camera. One has a shovel slung across his back, the other a rifle and ammunition bag.
Norwegian soldiers, ca. 1928. Public domain image courtesy Anders Beer Wilse.

But today, let’s also remember those the fallen leave behind.

Patterns

by Amy Lowell

I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.

My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whale-bone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

And the splashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.

I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
“Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday sen’night.”
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
“Any answer, Madam,” said my footman.
“No,” I told him.
“See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer.”
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, “It shall be as you have said.”
Now he is dead.

In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down,
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?

Sunday Afternoon - Ladies in a Garden. Detail of painting by unknown English School artist.
Sunday Afternoon – Ladies in a Garden. Detail of painting by unknown English School artist.

War is a tragedy. War destroys lives and causes unmeasurable suffering. It should never be entered in to lightly: lives are too precious to waste. We forget that all too often.

Every Memorial Day, I hope we remember.

War Memorial at The Park at Bothell Landing
Two Stark Poems for Memorial Day