By Joanna Steven
Today, I am interviewing Alisha Deschene who isn’t just any raw mom, she is the mother of 7 children ranging from age 13 to less than a year old. She has experienced both hospital births and home births, and tell us more about her experience. We also discuss time management when you have a large family, and how she manages to feed a husband and 7 children who do not all follow the same diet. You can read more about Alisha on her blog, http://eatrawtolive.blogspot.com/.
JS: Alisha, you are the raw mom of 7 beautiful children, some born in the hospital and some born at home. Let’s start first with what you call the natural beauty of childbirth. As you undoubtedly learned more with every birth, did anything really strike you as being invaluable to having a better birthing experience? Did you do anything to help prepare for the day of delivery so everything would go more smoothly (diet, exercise, task delegations etc)?
Alisha: One thing that I would say is that knowledge is power. I have learned so much with every one of my births and they have all been quite different. No two births are the same, even with the same woman. It is so important to have a strong grasp of what you want for your birth and a strong support group to help you. My very first birth was a nightmare. I was very young and was treated very badly by the hospital staff. People questioned my desire to have more children after the horrible first birth that I had and my response was that it couldn’t possibly get any worse with another one.I feel that it is very important for a woman giving birth to be given as much support and encouragement as possible. It seems as though OB’s and the L&D nurses operate more on fear more than knowledge. They are so afraid of a lawsuit that they have put all women into these ridiculous cookie cutter molds about what has to happen when and give them silly timetables and deadlines. That kind of pressure can send a womens body into fight or flight mode and make it very difficult for a woman to be able to relax enough for her body to progress through the labor process. And all of the interventions lead to more interventions which inevitably lead to C-sections. I strongly feel that 99% of women can give birth naturally if they are just left alone and not harassed and drugged.
When I only had one or two children there was not much preparation done for the new baby. Once I had more children though I started planning ahead and freezing meals for my family. I would freeze a wide variety of things from dinner meals to cookies or breads. This was to help both me and my husband (and children). It was easier on me knowing that there were meals already prepared for my children to eat. We were also blessed with meals from our church family after a couple of our births. This was a tremendous help.
Happy Home Birth Baby
JS: Do you feel that giving birth at home was a better experience than the hospital births? What was different about the home births
Alisha: Giving birth at home was the most wonderful experience ever!
We have had 5 hospital births. Our first one was horrible. It consisted of 36 hours of labor being strapped down to a hospital bed with IV’s and tubes sticking out all over the place and a revolving door of strange people coming in to check me, poke me, take blood, roll me over, prod me and check me again. It was humiliating and degrading experience that left me feeling very violated and powerless.
Our second birth almost happened in the car. We did make it to the hospital but it wasn’t the one we were supposed to go to where the doctor I had been seeing was. Instead I was stuck with an intern who possibly never saw a baby born in his whole life who mistakenly claimed that I was not really in labor and then got right in my face and yelled at me telling me that it was going to be a long time until my baby was born. He changed his mind when I announced that I was pushing and he noticed the babies head coming out.
With our third baby I got smart and found a midwife who I felt more comfortable with. The same midwife delivered our 3rd, 4th and 5th babies, all in a hospital setting. While these births were much better than our first two there were still things that bothered me about giving birth in the hospital. For one thing I hated leaving my other little children at home. We did not live near family and finding a responsible person to watch them was always stressful. Also I hated having random people coming in and out of my hospital room. I am a very modest person and having strangers with me at such an intimate and personal time made me very uncomfortable. With our 5th baby we had an especially unpleasant nurse and when I asked if I could get assigned a different nurse I was flat out refused. Fortunately I had quite a bit of experience with birthing by then and I had a nice support team with me. We called her Nurse Ratchet behind her back and laughed at her but I couldn’t help but feel bad for the other women in her care who may have been first time mothers. There is no need to belittle and yell at laboring women! Having a child is such a beautiful and emotional time. Women need support, not hostility. I also did not like the nurses taking my baby away from me right after the baby was born. With our fifth child I did get the baby placed on my belly immediately after but I had to fight for that. A laboring woman has enough to deal with without having to fight with nurses and hostile doctors.
With our sixth child I told my husband that I was not going back to the hospital. I wanted a home birth. I was done with hospitals and doctors visits and being poked and prodded and treated like an invalid. Hospitals are for sick people and since I was not sick I figured that I didn’t need to go to one. I found a lovely midwife and planned to have my first home birth. I had a couple of lovely women that wanted to be part of my birth team and surrounded by my friends and family I gave birth to our Sunshine. It was the most amazing birth. The most incredible thing was the way I felt. Calm, serene, and empowered. I did not feel threatened in any way. I could relax and not worry about anyone popping in to “check” me. No one was going to take my baby after the birth. No one to chide me and gripe at me. It was incredible. It was so natural and free.
When we got pregnant again I knew that there was no going back. I never ever wanted another hospital birth. My husband was getting a job transfer to another state before our baby was due. As I began searching for a midwife in the area that we were moving to I was horrified to learn that home birth midwifery was illegal in the state we were moving to. I couldn’t believe it! How could something so wonderful and empowering for women be illegal? I was so upset and it became a very big source of contention and stress for me. I was finally able to locate an “underground” midwife and things were arranged. With our first home birth I was surrounded by family and friends and supported every step of the way. This time I didn’t know anyone. We had just moved to a new area and we hadn’t really met anyone yet, certainly no one that I would want to invite to a home birth! It was just my husband, my midwife and myself. I didn’t think that I could ever have a more perfect birth than our first home birth but we did. Our Little Angel was born in the water in such peace and tranquility with soft music playing and candles burning. It was so amazing. She never even cried. She was peaceful and happy and content, lovingly held in her mothers arms and cradled with love and adoration. It was so beautiful!
JS: A lot of new moms are worried about time management after their baby is born. How do you manage to take care of a baby (8 months old now?) when you have a household with 6 more children to run?
Alisha: One thing about having several children is that there are many hands to help. My oldest daughter is 13 and she is such a little mother. She loves to cook and helps out with the little girls. The older boys, ages 9,8 and 7, love to help out in any way that they can as well. We have always tried to cultivate a deep love between our children and to instill in them a strong sense of family devotion and loyalty. We try to keep a sense of order and structure in the house with mealtimes, nap times and bedtimes remaining consistent. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed but it usually only happens when I have not managed my time properly. The joy that our children bring makes any chaos worthwhile.
JS: Now, let’s talk more about your beautiful family. While you are raw, not all of your children or your husband are, and you respect all of their differences instead of pushing your choices on them. But, having 7 children is time consuming enough, how do you manage to make different meals for them?
Alisha: This one is tricky at times. I eat raw. Our oldest daughter and my middle son will eat raw with me from time to time. All of my girls are vegetarians. My middle son is an occasional vegetarian, which means that he changes his mind daily and we always have to ask him what he wants. The children typically have fruit for breakfast. This will be in the form of a fruit plate, a green smoothie or banana “pudding” with toppings such as pecans, frozen blueberries, cacao nibs and coconut. For lunch they typically have sandwiches or leftovers from supper. Sometimes my oldest will make rice or beans for lunch. The children make their own lunch and clean up after themselves when they are done. Each week we make out a menu for what our supper foods will be for the week. We generally will make a vegetarian meal. Sometimes my husband and the boys will have a side of meat. If we have burgers then the boys will eat regular burgers and the girls will have veggie burgers.
My food is typically separate from what everyone else eats. Meaning that I don’t factor my food in when planning out our weekly menu. My husband always just makes sure to get lots of fresh fruit and veggies for me when he goes shopping. I generally have fruit for breakfast, a smoothie or more fruit for lunch and a salad for supper. I snack on fruit between “meals” if I am hungry. I am a grazer so I like to just nibble throughout the day. I keep things pretty simple and easy. I don’t have a lot of time or patience for gourmet raw foods but sometimes I make a raw dessert and all the children devour it. They also love kale chips, raw crackers and raw “cheese” dip. I try to get them to eat as much raw food as possible. We do not eat processed foods, everything is homemade from scratch. We have made a lot of progress through the years and I would guess that my children eat more fruits and veggies than most other children do. I was recently encouraged when we had a church potluck and all of my little ones came back from the buffet table with lots of fruit on their plates. Every little bit helps!
Joanna Steven is the co-author of the first ever raw nutritional analysis with Tonya Kay, available at www.kayosmarket.com. She is also the co-owner of the online raw food store www.sirova.com.
Her next book on healthy raw pregnancies is scheduled to be released in December 2010.