‘The Middle Wife’, by an anonymous 2nd grade teacher

I’ve been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best “birth” story I know is the one I saw in my own second grade classroom a few years back.

When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they’re welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.

She holds up a snapshot of an infant. ‘This is Luke, my baby brother, and I’m going to tell you about his birthday.’

‘First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom’s stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.’
She’s standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I’m trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.

‘Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, ‘Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!’ Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. ‘She walked around the house for, like an hour, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ (Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.)

‘My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn’t have a sign on the car like the Domino’s man. They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this.’ (Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall)

‘And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!’ (This kid has her legs spread with her little hands miming water flowing away. It was too much!)

‘Then the middle wife starts saying ‘push, push,’ and ‘breathe, breathe’. They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother.. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was from Mom’s play-center, (placenta) so there must be a lot of toys inside there. When he got out, the middle wife spanked him for crawling up in there.’

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I’m sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it’s show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another ‘Middle Wife’ comes along.

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Getting pregnant after the pill isn’t as easy as you may hope.  The reason is because chemical birth control pills contain artificial hormones.  These hormones prevent the endocrine system from reacting as it normally would and as a result the reproductive hormones will become unbalanced.

It can take several months to over a year for the body to right itself after stopping the pill. Think of the hormones as a fine tuned instruments in a symphony. Each one no matter how delicate or strong has a role to play to make the body hum along – or function – properly. When in balance – all systems work beautifully. When unbalanced it’s as if the instruments were replaced with trash can lids and kazoos.

The key to helping the body to achieve pregnancy is to first balance the reproductive hormones. You can do this through natural means and if there are no other infertility issues, they work very well.

First step is to learn to chart your fertility signs, so you can see where the hormone issues are. Study the Charting Basic articles to learn more about this. Charting will help you to see when your hormone issues are correct as well.

Second step is to cleanse your body of the chemical birth control pills. Look into taking a natural liver and colon cleanse. Drink plenty of water.  You can read about cleansing for TTC at InfertilityWorkshop.com

Cycle Pro Balance Natural Progesterone Cream

Use the cream from either day 7 through day 28 of your cycle for 1 to 3 months. Another thing that really helps, get a good natural progesterone cream. I highly recommend  Cycle ProBalance Natural Progesterone Cream.  Read the natural progesterone cream cleansing for TTC article.

This helps to balance the endocrine system faster. You won’t ovulate during this, but when you stop the cream, you may have a very strong ovulation.  If you don’t know when the first day of your last cycle was – just go ahead and use the cream for 3 weeks.

Once you stop the cream – and ovulate, start back on the cream and use during the luteal phase (and through pregnancy too!). It helps to lengthen the luteal phase and helps to prevent early miscarriages that are causes from hormonal deficiencies.

Is it true that female ovulation cycle occurs on day 14 of every woman’s cycle? In spite  of the general consensus the answer is a resounding NO. [WIDGET1]

Each and every woman is unique and while it may be normal for one woman to ovulate on day 14 another may ovulate as early as day 8 and yet another may ovulate as late as day 22. Any of these cases can be perfectly normal. It’s this misconception that has caused women to not conceive if they only have sexual intercourse around day 14 of their cycles.

Given the fact that most women are taught that ovulation occurs on day 14 has caused some to believe that they suffer from infertility and others amazed that they conceived even while avoiding intercourse on day 14.

In my own experience I have ovulated as early as day 12 and as late as day 22.  Many factors determine when ovulation actually occurs.

Hormones play a key role in the release of the monthly mature egg and anything from stress to health can hinder the time ovulation actually happens. Of the hormones your body produces the key hormones in the reproductive cycle are follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), estrogen, luteinizing hormone (LH), and progesterone. Any imbalance in these hormones can impede or prevent  ovulation. The presence of prolactin (the hormone produced while breastfeeding) and or a dysfunctional thyroid can stop ovulation.