I’m Jennifer, and I have been married to my husband James for 12 years, and we are the parents of 3 year old Owen.  This blog was born out of a baby blog that I started when I was pregnant with Owen.  Through that blog, I realized I had a lot to say, and it didn’t always fit into the cutesy style of a baby blog.

Owen’s birth was a traumatic event for me due to the mistreatment I received by the hospital staff.  Doing creative things, like artwork and writing, was a way that I dealt with the birth trauma.  I began to write this blog then, and I transferred some of the posts I had made on the baby blog to this one.  I originally started this blog on blogger, but lately I have become a fan of WordPress after having to transfer Owen’s blog there, so I decided to make this final switch and here is where my blog shall remain.

I chose the name “Mama Blogess” for my blog.  The “Mama” obviously refers to the fact that I am a mother.  The “Blogess” is both stating that I am a female blogger, as well as perhaps conjuring up the feminist power of the symbolic goddesses.  I thought it was important to reference that I am a mother, because my journey of motherhood is what inspired this blog.  This journey has changed my life immensely, and was an experience that has proved to be very blog worthy.

I am not only a mother though, I also blog about other things.  I have become a birth activist since Owen’s birth.  I do not want other women to experience what I did, and I currently advocate for gentler birth practices and mother/baby friendly maternity care.  I work with The Grassroots Advocates Committee (GAC) of The Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS) on The Birth Survey project.  I am on the survey’s subcommittee and worked on several drafts of the survey to write and edit questions, as well as doing a lot of other work for the project.  I am still working with GAC CIMS on the survey, and I truly love being given the opportunity to do so.  I also volunteer with the organization Solace for Mothers which works to help birth traumatized women heal, as well as to advocate for birth practices that wont traumatize mothers.  I helped create a discussion board on Solace for Mothers in order to have a private place for birth traumatized women to gain peer support.  We are also currently working on several other projects.  I do most of my birth related blogging over at the Birth Activist blog as a contributing author, however I sometimes post here on birth related topics as well.

There was also another trauma in my life though, and it is one that has provided me with much to blog about.  A couple years ago James and I left the religion we were raised in; the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  I have had to come to terms with that, and deal with many things around leaving, as well as try to forge a new spiritual path for myself, and create new traditions for our family.  I now have new goals and aspirations for my life, and new hopes for our family and for Owen.  I have a completely different perspective on many things, and I am still growing and learning about the world outside of that narrow culture.

In this blog’s infancy, and in my son’s infancy, I was very much an advocate of the attachment parenting style of parenting, which is reflected in many of my earlier posts.  I believe in throwing out the books written predominately by males and following our instincts as mothers who have a biological connection to our own offspring.  I’ve come to realize that attachment parenting isn’t a set of rules that one must follow perfectly, but rather being tuned in to our individual child’s needs,  and responding to them with the same kindness and respect that we would give to anyone else.  I try to follow my instincts, and parent my son with gentleness and respect for his individuality.  I have much work to do in this regard, but I try to work towards what I feel is the ideal, and sometimes I’m a little bit successful.

I also write about other things, such as living green, striving to live debt free, politics, family fun, and may other areas of life.  I enjoy writing and sharing my life with others, and I hope you enjoy reading.