Preach It!

No one can tell a woman what is best for her and her baby ... waterbirth, homebirth, hospital birth, doctor, midwife, Unassisted Childbirth (UC) or cesarean surgery ... it is for her and her baby to know. The best we can do is support her to access, trust, and know her own inner wisdom and communicate with the Being within her - the One whose birth it is through her womb and the man. - Janel Mirendah, Attachment/Birth trauma therapist, Filmmaker of The Other Side of the Glass.

Watch It! (The Trailer)

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Support a New Father and Go Green

Story about a father seeking custody of his newborn and a fundraiser to help him pay for legal fees.

The fundraiser is very reciprocal offering a green household product sample package for $20. Details below. First, the story.

Dear mommas, friends and colleagues,

I am writing asking for support in helping my son Alexander reunite with his infant daughter Bella, who was taken in a parental abduction ten days after his girlfriend, Alex gave birth to her in our home. They are now in New Jersey, where they are actively keeping Allie and our family from any contact with Bella. I have attached Allie’s story about his experience of becoming a father, so that you will know in his words what has happened.

It is clear based upon their actions that Alex’s family has been under the direction of an attorney whose methods involve attempts to demean and discredit our family’s beliefs in homebirth, breastfeeding, attachment, holistic health care and attention to the psycho-spiritual well-being of infants. Allie has been lied to, attacked, insulted, threatened and cut off completely from his daughter. A birth certificate has been filed without his name and he has been denied the opportunity to give his daughter his surname. The actions taken by Alex and her family against Allie and our family are so atrocious as to be almost unbelievable. But, they are indeed quite true.

When the moms in the Moms’ group I facilitate heard this story, they wanted to organize a fundraiser to help Allie pay for legal assistance to gain custody of Bella. Unfortunately, such fundraisers are complicated to organize and can cost more than they ultimately raise. Right now, we are being told that Allie needs at least $7500 for legal fees.

Energetically, Allie maintains his connection to Bella every day, working to keep his vibration up, to communicate heart-to-heart with his daughter, to access supportive therapies and keep a positive attitude, knowing that Bella needs him and deserves the love and devotion of her father on a daily basis. Allie loves Bella dearly.

Sadly, Alex is completely unconscious as to the needs of her daughterand acts only from her own fears, insecurities and neediness. In her fear and under the control and manipulation of her family, she has stated that Bella has no awareness of Allie and that she will never know of his absence. Bella spent the first ten days of her life in her father’s arms when not at her mother’s breast. She slept by him every night and recognized his love for her immediately. Allie has read a great deal about attachment and understands quite well the damage being done to Bella through her mother’s actions. Her experience of his loss
to her can only be one of abandonment, which even further serves to tear him apart. This false premise, that Bella has no awareness of Allie and no experience of loss has been encouraged and reinforced by Alex’s parents, who clearly have not even the most basic understanding of infant psychology. For her part, Alex’s focus is on herself and her own wants and needs, expecting that her life should not change in any way and resenting Bella’s intrusion into her life.

In reality, Bella has already experienced deep psychological trauma due to the ignorance of her mother and the manipulations of her grandparents. First, her very existence was denied, as her mother lied about her pregnancy for 34 weeks. She experienced her mother’s fear, denial and complete lack of connection. Think of all the times a pregnant mother talks to her baby, strokes her belly, thinks of her baby with love and wonder. Think of all the love and affection a father shows both the mother and the baby during gestation. All of the love that flows from extended family and friends, delighting in her coming. Bella experienced none of this. There was no connection, no love, no wondrous expectation—only oblivion. Yet, at birth, she was welcomed wholly and completely into our home, into the arms of her father who had no idea of the machinations of her frightened mother and jealous, angry, resentful grandparents.

Allie was prepared to take leave from school, seek employment and rearrange his life to put Bella’s needs first and foremost. Now, he is in the unenviable position of needing a lot of money and resources to secure his relationship with his daughter. Not that we underestimate the power and love and energy in this family, but sometimes that love and energy need to co-mingle with other kinds of actions that support the desired outcome.

When Allie and I discussed the idea of a fundraiser, he felt strongly that it is important for him to provide something meaningful in exchange. Before Allie was aware of Alex’s pregnancy, he signed on as a distributor for WowGreen, a natural enzyme-based cleaning product, to assist him in paying for his education. Now, while Allie intends to return to school in January, it is more important than ever that he have the ability to make money, both because he needs to pay a lawyer and because he needs to have long-term income sources to support Bella.

As it turns out, WowGreen has a very simple fundraiser available that can be easily organized and completed quickly. WowGreen markets a sample box that contains five products and sells for $20 as a fundraising product. The typical fundraiser asks 20 people to sell 20 trial boxes each and would provide $4000 to Allie. Additional sales yield additional funds, of course. Allie and I are asking the many families and individuals we know who care about the deeply significant relationship between an infant and her father, as well as the well-being of the planet to help Allie raise this money.

Each person’s energy contributed to Bella’s return will likely be the most powerful aspect of this entire process. Remember, we live in an inclusive Universe—if we focus on Bella and Allie as one, they will be together.

In love and gratitude,
Jennifer


I have included only the end of Allie's letter here in case you don't feel the need or have the time to read it in its entirety. The
pertinent information about the fundraiser in copied here:
I am unable to come to any resolution with Alex and must seek legal assistance to gain joint custody of Bella. I have been asked for a $7500 retainer and my family cannot afford this. Several of the moms who are in my mother’s Moms’ Group have offered to organize a fundraiser to help me with these costs. Several ideas were discussed, but I felt that I would like to be able to give something in exchange for the help.

A couple of months before Bella was born, I became involved in a company that sells natural household cleaning products through a company called WOWGreen LLC. As my mother’s letter explained, I intend to use this business to help me get my daughter back. Since making that decision, I have learned a lot from this experience and am designing a website and blog to educate other people of my generation about the options they have in many areas of their lives other than those spoon-fed to us through schools, the media and advertising.

In researching my parental rights, I have followed a path toward discovering just how misinformed and uneducated most people are about the needs of babies and children. From there, I read and explored a lot more about the ideas I was raised with. People my age need to make better choices in diet, lifestyle, education, health care and even in plans for raising children. I want to teach people my age how important these things are and that they have many choices to make they are not even aware of. Creating the life we want can begin at any age. We do not need to reach middle age and suddenly realize we have lived in a
way that doesn’t bring us joy. We can make active decisions to create lives that rise to our highest personal potential. Selling these products is the beginning of my intention to create a broader forum for reaching young people and inspiring them to live lives of joy that include health, well-being and caretaking the planet.

Fundraiser and Product information:

Some of the key points about these products:
It is a contradiction to imagine that your home or office can be clean if the products used leave toxic residue on services. WowGreen contains no toxins and leaves no such residue.

They have 4 plant-based ingredients: Enzymes, Natural Surfactants (Natural Surfacing Agents, natural soaps that are 100% non-toxic), Natural scents and dyes and Water. Nothing else. The different products simply utilize different enzymes.

Of the twelve products, half are shipped in refillable plastic spray bottles. Refills are simply small packets that you add your own water to. This saves hugely on environmental impact, as there is no landfill waste and less to ship in the future.

You can replace all of the toxic products in your home or office. The people responsible for cleaning your office or home are no longer exposed to toxins in their “workplace”.

Here are some options to consider:
If you are willing to organize a group to fundraise or if you are willing to sell the trial boxes yourself to friends and family, then we can provide you with a single trial box for demonstration purchases for $20 if you are local ($25 including shipping otherwise). Once you have pre-sold a case of twelve, we can ship it to you directly. Once you and others have tried the products you may simply purchase the full-size products that you like through Allie’s link, which will allow him to continue to have an income stream from this fundraiser. If you would prefer to, you can sign up as a Preferred Customer to purchase the full-size products. You may also become a distributor, as I have.

Whatever you choose, please do not think any effort is too small. It is only through these small efforts that I hope to have the opportunity to raise my beautiful daughter Bella.

Sincerely with gratitude,
Allie Tow
860-338-3733
alexandertow@yahoo.com

A link to the explanation of the Enzymes:
http://www.wowgreen.net/Products-ScienceBehindTheIngredient.aspx?ID159

My WOWGreen™ home page:
http://www.wowgreen.net/?ID159

Fundraising information:
http://www.wowgreen.net/images/FundraisingIntroLetter.pdf

Product order page:
https://www.wowgreen.net/DefaultProductListing.aspx?ID159

This is the enrollment page:
http://www.wowgreen.net/Enroll.aspx?ID159


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Buy It!

Part One: The Other Side of the Glass: a Birth Film for and About Men officially released in digital download format on June 2, 2013. Go to www.TheOtherSideoftheGlass.com to purchase a digital download.

Men have been marginalized in birth for a long time. The old joke is that a man was sent off to boil water to keep him busy. I believe they were making the environment safe. Birth moved to hospitals and for forty years women were separated from their partners who was left to wait in smoke filled waiting room. Finally, he would see his baby from "the other side of the glass." Now a man can go in the birthing room and even get to hold his partner's hand during surgery. But they are still marginalized and powerless, according to the fathers I interviewed around the country.

Historically, birth has been defined by the medical establishment. The midwifery and natural birth movement now advocate for need "to educate and prepare men to protect their wife and baby" in medical environment. Seems logical ... if we process with the same illogic that got us here.

Through the voices of men - and doctors and midwives - men share heart-touching stories about how this is not workin' out. A man is also very likely to be disempowered and prevented from connecting with their newborn baby in the first minutes of life.

Now is the time for men to take back birth.

The film is about restoring our families, society, and world through birthing wanted, loved, protected, and nurtured males (and females, of course). It's about empowering males to support the females to birth humanity safely, lovingly, and consciously.

Donors, check your emails or email me at theothersideoftheglassfilm@gmail.com for info to download. Release on DVD is not planned at this date.

FREE online! watch Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 10 at www.vimeo.com/75767434

"Doctor's Voices" - Stuart Fischbein, MD - Part 1

Doctor's Voices - Michael Odent, MD

Human Rights Violations

Resources - Healing Birth Trauma

"The Other Side of the Glass" has the potential to open up feelings that have been denied and ignored for a very long time. How to heal the trauma of birth at any age will be addressed in the film. Meanwhile, these are pioneers in the field.

Raymond Castellino and Mary Jackson - www.BEBA.org

David Chamberlain, Ph.D. - www.BEPE.info

Judith Cohen - www.judithleecohen.com

Myrna Martin - www.MyrnaMartin.net

Karen Melton - www.HealYourEarlyImprints.com

Wendy McCord, Ph.D. - www.WendyMcCord.com

Wendy McCarty, Ph.D. - www.WondrousBeginnings.com

And, many, many more all over the world at www.BirthPsychology.com
In both relationships and life trust begets trust.
Generosity begets generosity.
Love begets love.
Be the spark, especially when it's dark.

--Note from the Universe, www.tut.com

"Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so children have very little time with their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world." - Mother Theresa