my dear dear friend brittany gave birth to a precious and healthy baby girl around 4am this morning! oh what joy! i heard a running account of the 30+ hour birth from my friend sara, who acted as her doula, and melanie, special best friend support.
can i just pause to say once more how miraculous birth is? and how happy i am brittany and baby are healthy and happy? labors extending past 30 hours are what lead to fistula for literally millions of women in niger and countless other countries. i just reminisced a bit and looked up my posts and pictures from when i was working with the fistula patients at the hospital in niamey... oh! it's simply unfair that they have to needlessly suffer this debilitating injury when it 100% preventable.
or the girls i'm working with now. who receive no support whatsoever in their journey to being a mother. and thus are so mentally crippled in terms of their capacity to deal with pregnancy, the delivery, and then the aftermath of caring for a baby. it's simply a mental illness the way fistula is physical. and both could be prevented. both stem from poverty, from broken systems, whether they be corruption in a nation's infrastructure or the destruction of an individual home.
oh! sorry when i'm embroiled in this environment i cannot help but remark on the contrasts... the unjustness of it all, no?
but truly, so happy for brittany, and for this new - yet-to-be-named - addition to our extended family! brittany was born to be a mother, her strength is remarkable, and she is one of the most capable and beautiful and caring women i know. the last hours i have been moved to tears of joy for her and her new little family again and again. yay yay yay for safe birth! :)
photo of brittany by melanie, photo/designer extraordinaire!
1 comment:
Aww she looks so happy in that pic! Congrats to your friend, so exciting :-)
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