bspace notes

That title doesn't quite sound right, does it.

As a father of two, I've had occasion, over the years, to offer my 'three tips' to first-time moms-to-be, and have received positive feedback. Recently I've been thinking about birth due to recent family and friend births, and figured I'd write them up...

Childbirth classes

Think of tips & techniques as tools, not rules.

I highly recommend childbirth classes; I really cannot say enough positive things about them -- even refresher ones. However, my advice for moms (and partners): view the tips and techniques taught as 'possible tools', not 'rules to live up to'. Specific moms may or may not find specific tips and techniques useful. The reason I note this is because I've occasionally talked to moms who have been disappointed with their 'performance' during birth -- often because they had an expectation from a class of how the birth 'should have' progressed. One mom told me she was embarrassed at how loud she was, thinking that if she would have performed the class' breathing and relaxation techniques 'better', she wouldn't have needed to yell. My thought: if yelling or grunting works for a particular woman -- that is fine, whether or not it is in the standard technique playbook.

Visitors

Pick a close friend or family member to not visit until after four weeks have elapsed.

This is mostly for the first kid. It comes from a midwife, and was dramatically confirmed by our experience with our firstborn. She told us that after the child is born, friends and family will, understandably, want to come and visit and help out. By the time a month has elapsed, everyone has come and gone, and that is when the effects of sleeplessness can become more pronounced, and help is most appreciated/needed. We planned to have one of our good friends fly in around five weeks after the birth of our first child. Our baby was colicky until about six weeks, and our friend's simple willingness to do laundry, to organize pizza deliveries, and to simply watch the baby while we both took a short walk was deeply, deeply appreciated.

Breastfeeding

It's not innate! Learn, and ask for advice.

I suspect that in times when multiple generations of families lived together, or for those women who have had a baby after a bunch of their women friends have, this fact would not be the surprise that it was to us. However, we were among the first of our set of friends to have children, and so hadn't had the experience of extensive conversations.

I had naively assumed that breastfeeding would be some sort of natural, somewhat instinctive process, but our midwife encouraged us to go to a breastfeeding class. The instructor basically noted that given that our society is no longer made up of multi-generational families living together, many are not aware that the process can be difficult for mom and baby to get used to. In particular, she noted that because first-time moms are understandably concerned about the baby, that it's easy for an unconstructive cycle to quickly develop: mom is worried that baby isn't getting enough milk -> feedings thus become more stressful -> feedings thus become more difficult -> mom worries more. The instructor showed the (clothed) moms helpful holding techniques, gave information about dealing with sore nipples (and noted how commonly that condition occurs among first-time moms especially), and gave a hotline number for information and support and even a home-visit for a bit of coaching. Breastfeeding mostly went smoothly for mom & baby, but during a few difficult periods, the information and the normalization of the problem from that class was invaluable. (I trust that it's not even necessary here to spend any time noting why breastfeeding is a Good Thing.)

By the time we had our second baby a few years later, I noticed, in our brief hospital stay, much more information being offered about breastfeeding tips and techniques. I hope information this trend has continued. Congrats to all moms-to-be and dads-to-be out there!

[Yes, that date of June 9, 2003 is correct. I just today (Saturday, February 16, 2008) ran a disk-search on some text and saw an old ClarisWorks-format file named 'statement' that, curious, I opened. It's a statement that was part of my application to The Person's School of Marlboro College (since renamed The Marlboro College Graduate Center) -- to the Masters of Science in Internet Engineering program. The eighth paragraph, where I convey a sense of what I would like to do in the future, struck me; I hadn't remembered writing that. Interesting how life works out.]

For over fifteen years I have been captivated by the way in which computers have created possibilities for people to work together. In the 1980s I attached a 300-baud modem to my first Mac, and discovered a world of local bulletin-board systems as well as a national service called GEnie. Though GEnie used a text interface, it hosted a game which allowed members to engage in aerial combat via downloaded software. I was fascinated by this union of a graphical front-end to underlying networking.

This interest in computers connecting people led me to create a local BBS I ran for two years which focused on social change issues and introducing non-technical folk to the benefits of email and discussion groups.

My immersion in the design and logic of BBS-hosting software primed my move from desktop publishing to database programming. I created a discussion area on America Online (the 'FoxBASE/Mac Coffeehouse') devoted to the exchange of tips and techniques, and learned first-hand how powerful a learning tool a national network can be. It was during this intensive period of dBASE programming, working on a series of complex multi-user systems, that I learned programming constructs (memory variables, loops, conditional branching, etc.) that have proven invaluable to this day. I have since created a few small educational programs using REALbasic, an object-oriented programming environment similar to Visual Basic.

For years I have dabbled with web-page creation, but my interest in the web has grown significantly as I have begun to experiment with moving beyond static pages.

My first dynamic web project was the creation of an automated script that twice a day exported data from multiple office databases to text-files, massaged these files in a text-editor, and then uploaded them to a webserver where the new data was displayed via server-side-includes. Exciting, but still not interactive.

Over the past year, I have begun to learn PHP and MySQL, and have created an initial version of a user-updated web calendar for a youth group I work with. I find this work extremely compelling; my desire to do more work like this is what inspired me to apply to the MSIE program.

Nearly all of my computer knowledge has been self-taught. While I continue to value learning from books and user-groups, I am eager to return to school, to immerse myself in learning about multiple aspects of Internet-engineering, from packet-transmission to programming and database environments. And I look forward to integrating this knowledge through the Capstone Project.

I want to work on creative, interesting projects that would utilize this knowledge I will have gained. One vision is to work in a collegial environment such as Brown University in a technology-group setting where I could implement innovative, useful technology initiatives assisting students, faculty, and administrators.

I have also been mulling over very preliminary ideas for a Capstone Project, ideas evolved from my early appreciation for how the Internet has created new possibilities for people to interact and work together. One example, stemming from an interest in alternative methods of voting and democracy, is to work with a political science professor at Brown to focus on a Rhode Island community to test Internet campaigning and voting (and to integrate into this experiment alternative voting strategies such as the 'single transferrable vote').

I have a strong interest in policy decision-making and in improving systems. However, my primary goal is to directly build and create systems and solutions. This is why I am excited about applying to the MSIE program, and why I hope to be a part of The Persons School experience this Fall.

-Birkin James Diana, MSIE applicant for Fall 2003