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Flagstaff, Arizona
Oh my…it was an incredible night. The show was received with so much love and support. Not a dry eye in the house throughout - lots of verbal support from the audience. Standing ovation and all. We did a staged reading and the cast consisted of mostly beginning actors - all of them mothers. One cast member is expecting her first baby and I loved having her as part of the cast. She even felt the baby move for the first time during our final dress rehearsal! It was a joyous moment for all of us. Everyone of these actors were great. I was the proud parent, a giddy girlfriend, and a humbled director the evening of our performance and throughout the rehearsal process. I was an actress, director, etc, in New York for many years and when I moved to Flagstaff and became a mother, I felt ready to hang up those former hats. I willingly embrace my role as mother and shifted my "career focus" to teaching yoga, doing occasional commercials when they come up, and being the go-to gal in Flagstaff for Bradley families and prenatal yoga. I NEEDED to produce/direct Birth because it seemed to be the right thing to do - and I knew how to do it. When I came upstairs from the theatre basement on our performance evening after leading a warm-up and blessingway for the cast - the sound of a full house of people talking and anticipating the show - stopped me dead in my tracks. I burst into tears. My stage manager was a little worried for a second! But for me, it was a moment of complete confirmation that everything I'm doing right now is exactly what I should be doing. It all felt so easy and so right to be combining my love of mommies, my love of teaching, and my love of theatre into one perfect moment. And we are already making a difference for families here in Northern Arizona. Our performance inspired a group of L&D nurses at the hospital to bring "The Business of Being Born" to Flagstaff this month. Our talkback started not only the discussion about the need for a birth network to happen here - but the actual formation of it! We've applied to be a charter of the Arizona Birth Network and our community is coming together to help get the word out to women of what is available to them to have the best birth experience possible. Our diverse and large BOLD Talkback panel consisted of : one OB/GYN (very mother friendly!), one labor&delivery nurse, one midwife, one childbirth educator (teaching for 50 years!), one LaLecheLeague leader, one doula, one nurse practicioner (worked with pregnant women in Africa, herself had two home births). The discussion was lively and centered around our need in our community for several changes: vbacs (vaginal birth after cesearan) at the hospital, midwives brought back into the hospital, education education education - not just of pregnant women, but of young girls. Teaching them that birth is normal and that their bodies are capable of birthing their children. The discussion went on into "what happened?": When did women forget that birth is an important right of passage?, when did they lose confidence in themselves/their bodies to stand up for their right to birth as they know they can? It was great and I wish it could have gone on for longer, but we had to eventually end the night. The "discussion" is continuing though! I think it’s important to note that since the talkback some fathers have approached me to ask why they are so often left out of all of this. They noted that they often feel left out and intimidated by the birthing community - the "sorority" as one called it. I didn't think we had done that in our talkback - we actually talked a lot about how important the couple is, how much stronger they are when they are both educated in the process of birth and possible interventions etc, but these two dads noted that they felt unsure of their place in birth. Something else to think about…how do we include fathers in birth? Finally, two years ago I read an article in Mothering Magazine about small ways that I could be a birth activist. That article actually was the inspiration for me to go ahead an begin the process of becoming a Bradley instructor. I recently - just after the production of the play! - reread that article and was so FLOORED to realize that Karen Brody (founder of BOLD, playwright of Birth) wrote that article!! I feel that everything I've done for the women in my community (teaching Bradley, teaching prenatal yoga, getting women to talk about their experiences, now producing Birth, and recently being asked to sit on the committee to start the Flagstaff Birth Network) was fueled by reading that article. Thank you Karen. I thank you over and over and over again Mary Denmead was the BOLD Organizer in Flagstaff. BOLD Flagstaff performance raised money for the Maternal and Child Health Program of Coconino County
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