Hartford, Connecticut

BOLD's first mother-daughter team! BOLD organizer Michal Klau-Stevens produced the September 2 performance and her mother directed. Michal, who sits on a board of a local Hartford hospital, has BOLD plans to take the video she made of the performance and give it to area hospitals in the hope that this will open up discussions on how to make the hospital birth experience more mother-friendly. Below Michal reports on Hartford's BOLD performance:

Our production was a complete success! Our actresses did a wonderful job performing to a house of about 90 people (we were hoping for 50)!

Our talk back session was also very successful, with comments on the need for doctors to listen to their patients, educating women on informed consent and dissent, and legislature necessary to keep midwives active and legal in the state of Connecticut. Our panelists were a doctor, a labor and delivery nurse and a doula and they were excellent. The audience all opened up - one woman began to cry as she talked about her story, similar to "Lisa" in the play, about the need for doctors to practice evidence based medicine.

It was an excellent kick-off event/fundraiser for my new group "Women Empowering Birth."

I hope that all the BOLD events throughout the country and the world are as successful and impactful as ours was. The change may take a while, but there are people out there who are listening, and it is energizing to come together a get renewal from true believers.

But where was the media? Michal writes: 

I was BOLD the Friday before our performance and actually WALKED IN to the local TV news studio.  I had two children and a poster in my hand, and asked to talk to a reporter about this event.  I explained that I had sent several press releases and had not heard a response and that this was a nationwide and global event, and the Hartford event was the only one taking place in Connecticut. They told me that there was not a single reporter in the building - they were all out in the field.  I left a long handwritten note to the women's health reporter-she never called me back.  I thought maybe they would send someone Saturday night to the theater. No such luck.  I came home Saturday night after the performance and talkback and turned on that news station, and they were showing a report on using Restylane to fill undereye bags.  That was more important than educating women about their rights as birthing women and making changes to a messed up health care system.  TOTALLY FRUSTRATING!!  This is definitely a "women's issue" thing that the media either feel is totally unimportant or so controversial that they can't touch it.

Michal adds:

My mother says she is still "high" from the weekend.  And I am at a loss for words to describe the many things I feel about being a part of BOLD in its first year.  I am proud, humbled, in awe of the women involved in this project and so much more.