Friendship Archives - The Good Birth Project

Great Gifts For New Parents

2019 brought me two new grandbabies and four “new parents”. They helped me compile a list of great, really practical, digital gift ideas for the parents (which in turn, benefits the babies). There are so many advantages to digital gifts, the obvious being that they can be purchased and sent instantly (such a relief once you’re done perseverating over what to give). What was your favorite gift you received as a new parent? Let me know in the comments!

1. Gift Certificate to a meal service kit delivery (try Blue Apron) or one that specializes in delivering fully prepared meals (like Freshly). This is beyond helpful to take off their plates…I couldn’t resist. Check out this article from Epicurious where they compare a few of their favorite meal-kit brands!

2. Misfits Market delivers fresh, organic produce that farms and stores can’t sell for a fraction of the cost right to their door!

3. Appropriately named Insomnia Cookies, are the perfect sweet treat for those late-night feedings. Their delicious cookies are available to ship nationwide, and in many cities, they deliver fresh-baked warm cookies on-demand as late as 3am! These are VERY VERY good for the soul.

4. Arrange a Dog Walker through Rover – This app allows you to safely match up with local pet-lovers who are available to take Fluffy on a 30-minute walk or even dog sit for a whole weekend!

5. Gift them one hour of Virtual Doula Postpartum Support with me so they have an expert, day and night, to help them with every single thing that comes up! Fill out the form on my site and let me know you’re interested in giving this as a gift. They’ll receive a beautiful gift certificate from you!

6. The days are long but the weeks are short…and the chores never get done. Giving them a gift card for house cleaning, grocery delivery, even assembling baby equipment through a service like TaskRabbit is one of those ‘OMG… HEAVEN!!’ gifts for any family.

7. Massages. They BOTH need one…trust me. Check out a list of spas near them to find the perfect gift of ~zen~.

Happy Gifting!

Peace on Maternity | Newborns and Dogs

From the time he was a puppy, I knew Peace had the perfect temperament to be a Therapy Dog and so many years ago, we certified as a Therapy Dog Team.

He loves his visits with the children on Pediatrics at UVM Medical Center. As soon as I take out his Therapy Dog bandana, he gets excited and heads for the door. He knows exactly where we are going. I have to give us at least twenty minutes or so just to get from the parking garage up to the fifth floor because so many people want to pet/hug/admire/love/take a picture of Peace as we make our way through the hospital.

He is an enormous Golden Retriever; weighing in at about ninety pounds (down from one hundred given his eleven years, size and proclivity to arthritis). We say he is a Golden channeling “Newfie”. If I had a dollar for every time someone remarks on how huge his paws are, I’d be inordinately wealthy. The answer I’ve come up with to the question I get more often than not – “Why is he so big?” – is to say that Peace needed an extra-large body to house a heart as big as his...

It had been a dream of mine forever to pioneer a Therapy Dog Team on Maternity. Where else would a Doula and her Dog want to be? So, after some research around protocol and the support of the midwives and nursing staff, Peace and I began our visits to the Mother/Baby unit.

Once we announce ourselves at the Nurses Station, the staff come from everywhere to love on Peace. Then we begin our trip down the hallway, knocking gently, opening the door a crack and ask “Would you like a visit with a Therapy Dog?”

Almost always, the answer is a resounding YES PLEASE! For the mothers who have delivered and miss their dogs they have left behind at home, Peace brings much-needed comfort. For the first-time mothers who have left behind their “firstborns”, the dogs they have raised before giving birth, Peace helps them allay the anxiety around going home and introducing their human babies to their dogs. They have the chance to practice right then and there, lifting their new babies for Peace to smell and nuzzle. We visit with the mothers who are on bed rest for preterm labor, have experienced miscarriage and loss and recovering from surgery. Mothers have sat on the floor hugging him and sobbing into his fur.

Peace is always gentle and kind and knowing.

One Doc said it right; Peace is the best medicine in the hospital.

Doesn't it just make sense to have Peace on Maternity at every hospital?

The Worst Mother Of The Year Award

Around this time every year, my friend Amy and I commenced with the tally for our annual “Worst Mother of the Year Award”. We would review scenarios over the last year in which each of us had behaved in absolutely terrible, horrible, heinous fashion, without any redeeming anything, completely without reason, toward one or some of our collective seven daughters; four of them hers and three of them mine.

We would evaluate systematically all the catalogued transgressions and determine who would walk away with the title based on who had done the worst self esteem damage – hardest to recover from – requiring the most therapy in the future.

This review was conducted over lots of time together in any number of locations; on the phone over morning meeting (which we took pretty much every morning in order to get news, give news, assess who needed to be where, picked up when and fill in how), on our many-times-per-week walks with our dogs in the five thousand acre preserve down the hill from our homes (having lived 35 seconds apart for 23 years), in my kitchen, in Amy’s kitchen over breakfast, lunch, coffee, noshing, dinner or a glass of wine (our favorite!).

We laughed, we cried, we cried from laughing. Sometimes I would win, sometimes Amy would win and there were years we tied. In fact, lots of years we tied. We shared lightening speed tempers when pushed to our respective limits coupled with razor sharp tongues. Can a Viennese Jew and an Italian Catholic qualify as “tiger mothers”?

Amy passed way in November of 2009, nineteen months after being diagnosed with the most brutal type of brain tumor.

Amy might have argued that dying and leaving your children wins you the title of Worst Mother of the Year, no contest. Throw in that the eldest will be married next month without her mother by her side and that seals it.

I would argue back that this absolutely does not qualify.
This was not by choice.

When I consider all the choices I watched Amy make as a mother over the two decades of intertwined, crazy making, raising children years of our dear friendship, I can say, with complete conviction, that she made each and every one of them out of love…
deep, unconditional, no questions asked, tough love, love.

And that kind of love, the kind that will stay with her daughters for the rest of their lives, wins her, in my heart, the Wisest Mother Forever award.