BOLD Locations

Fresno, California

Wow… where to start?? What a wonderful group of women we put together!Lets first say that myself and Chanah are very active Birth professionals, and had more than a few deliveries during the whole process, in fact one of Chanah's clients delivered after the Fri night performance and she made it back for the Sat one!! Dawn, Melissa,Gena and Cheryl all have babies; Dawn twins, and Gena a baby with Down Syndrome. Most of our rehearsals took place amid crawlers, nurslings and crying, and we wouldn't have traded a minute of it!! GJ and Stacey are old theatre buffs and stated at the end of our performances that they have NEVER had such a wonderful time!

As for the performances; Friday, the morning of opening night, was our first time actually on the stage. Friday night we tried to relax before the performance, we were all getting pretty nervous… Gena and I drank a glass of wine! I was worried we would have a very small audience.. we did comp - we gave many of the tickets to young women either pregnant or thinking about it in the near future. (As we are a birth network we had a pretty easy time finding them, and we felt it more important to get the message out than make $$) We were surprised to find a decent audience (for FRESNO!). The audience was very positive and laghed, and at times cried. We had some live music during intermission and the Silent Auction. Starbucks donated coffee and we brought cookies for refreshments. Act two I think we felt more relaxed ( or this could be my assumption, clouded by the second glass of wine I drank during intermission, anyway, I was more relaxed!).GJ's part, the chracter Natalie, brought a silence that you could cut to the audience, a few women were reliving some painful memories. Gena played the chracter Lisa and there was not a dry eye in the audience. Fresno has a 37% c-section rate, so many women could relate, and many members of the International Cesarean Awareness Newtork were there. The chracter Janet's birth was very special for the actor Dawn who played her, as her twins were born via c-section (and she thanks Karen deeply for giving her the birth she wanted!!). Many in the audience were down town for "Reel Pride", a gay pride event that was wrapping up, and they loved the way the couple was represented (so our ears heard!)

Our talkback that night was far greater then we could have dreamed, we had 50 people stay and had to kick them out at 12am!!! A pediatrician was in the audience, asked if he could come up and join the panel, then at the end, asked for permission to join us for the Saturdays panel!!

Saturday… We all felt better, we had survived opening night!!! We went on stage Saturday and had fun!! We had a larger audience and the direct feedback from them was fantastic!!! We had 75 stay for that talkback. Good questions, good panel, Great night!!!!

We had the panel introduce themselves and opened up the mic for questions. Many MEN came up with questions. The question of choices made because of fear of litigation was brought up by a Lawyer…whose wife was very pregnant…!! Our OB answered very truthfully for both sides, very balanced The topic of water birth came up, it does happen in Fresno, at home… and we discussed how to bring it in to the hospital! Informed choice and consent came up both nights… women and men know that this is NOT happening as it should, especially with VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). The audience both nights had to eventually take it "outside" as we were WAY over our time for the theatre!!!!

Lisa Gartin was the BOLD Organizer in Fresno. BOLD Fresno reaise money for the Childbirth Resource Center.