“
Failing to listen to the woman is one of the biggest mistakes a practitioner can make.
”
”
Helen Varney
“
It seemed to Wren that having a mother had a lot less to do with a few sweaty hours of labor and delivery, and a lot more to do with whose face you always looked for in a crowd.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (A Spark of Light)
“
He used to say that life was all about a boy finding the perfect girl; he was lucky enough to have been handed his in a labor and delivery room.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Vanishing Acts)
“
I won’t leave you. What if you have another contraction? What if your water breaks and they rush you into the delivery room? What if there are complications?” He asked hoarsely, his eyes dilating more with each anxious question. And Theresa rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“I doubt any of those things will happen in the two minutes it would take you to leave the room and get a cup of coffee, Sandro,” she sighed impatiently.
”
”
Natasha Anders (The Unwanted Wife (Unwanted, #1))
“
By adopting, I was not a full-fledged mother in their eyes. I hadn't paid the price of pregnancy, hadn't earned the badge of labor or the award for delivery, and would forever be an outside --an associate member at best. I looked like the other women, but I felt like less of one.
”
”
Jana Wolff (Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother)
“
a mothers labor and delivery never ends, and you just have to keep remembering to breathe
”
”
Ann Voskamp (The Broken Way: A Daring Path into the Abundant Life)
“
It seemed to Wren that having a mother had a lot less to do with a few sweaty hours of labor and delivery and a lot more to do with whose face you always looked for in a crowd.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (A Spark of Light)
“
having a mother had a lot less to do with a few sweaty hours of labor and delivery and a lot more to do with whose face you always looked for in a crowd.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (A Spark of Light)
“
It seemed to Wren that having a mother had a lot less to do with a few sweaty hours of labor and delivery and a lot more to do with whose face you always looked for in a crowd
”
”
Jodi Picoult (A Spark of Light)
“
a labor and delivery room that contained some very interesting equipment. It made me only slightly less comfortable than that time I got to sit in an actual electric chair. You know, for giggles.
”
”
Darynda Jones (Third Grave Dead Ahead (Charley Davidson, #3))
“
You know how women talk about having babies? This one had an easy delivery, this one had it hard?” Piper nodded. “Death is like that, too. Mr. Carty was in labor a long time, but now he’s delivered.
”
”
Stephen King (Under the Dome)
“
When did I lose that natural sense of accomplishment that came with everyday tasks? Was it upon the birth of baby number two, three, or four? Or did I retain it even through my sixth pregnancy, when I bleached everything in sight, washing my cotton nightgown so frequently that the bright bluebell pattern faded to a dull gray? To this day, I can recall the fresh scent of the bleached and sun-dried gown and bedsheets. It wasn’t until I’d gotten through a difficult labor and delivery, and my head hit the hospital pillow, that I realized I’d attempted to replicate the smell of hospital linens—the one place I was able to get some rest.
”
”
Mary Potter Kenyon (Called to Be Creative: A Guide to Reigniting Your Creativity)
“
The human brain has rendered the organism’s most basic task, reproduction, a treacherous affair. That same brain made things like labor and delivery units, cardiotocometers, epidurals, and emergency C-sections both possible and necessary.
”
”
Paul Kalanithi (When Breath Becomes Air)
“
I was taken to Elmhurst Hospital in a motorcade. It looked to me like a million police cars buzzing around the vehicle in which i, a woman in labor, was riding. And they all followed. Into Elmhurst Hospital and up to the delivery room. They surrounded the hospital.
”
”
Assata Shakur (Assata: An Autobiography)
“
Seamus shuddered in horror, before he pulled himself together. Determined, he reached between my thighs and shoved hard. Pain, like the fire of a thousand suns, burned through my belly. I tried to squirm away from his hands, using mine to push him away.
”
”
A.B. Shepherd (Lifeboat)
“
The task of the cervix is to stay closed, to make an impenetrable wall protecting the fetus, for approximately forty weeks of a pregnancy. After that, by means of labor, the wall must somehow become an opening. This happens through dilation, which is not a shattering, but an extreme thinning.
”
”
Maggie Nelson (The Argonauts)
“
This sounded good — I like physical experiences that involve surrender. I didn’t know, however, very much about experiences that demand surrender — that run over you like a truck, with no safe word to stop it. I was ready to scream, but labor turned out to be the quietest experience of my life.
”
”
Maggie Nelson (The Argonauts)
“
At conception I had the soul of an Egyptian,
at birth I had the soul of an Ethiopian,
at death I had the soul of an African,
and at resurrection I had the soul of God.
At conception, I was a citizen of creation.
At labor, I was a citizen of the world.
At delivery, I was a citizen of the universe,
and at death, I became a citizen of Heaven.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
It’s not for the weak or faint of heart. It will take a toll on you. Your body will hurt. Your soul will ache. Your family life will suffer. No one will understand what you do or why you do it, but you do it. You will work nights. You will work weekends. Holidays. You will bathe the elderly, the weak. You will clean their body, their bodily fluids. You will have to know every medication, what it does, when to stop it, when to give it, and how to get it into people. You will have to know how to interpret blood tests, when the doctor must know. You will have thirty seconds to start an IV, how to hook up an EKG machine. You will need to know how to interpret tracing or when you should give or take away oxygen. You will experience joy, grief, and sorrow in a day, sometimes within the same hour. You are the glue between the patient, the family, the doctor. It’s you who will keep everyone happy, as comfortable as possible. Code blue. Trauma evaluation. Labor. Delivery. Surgery. Babies. Postpartum. Psychology. These and more will all need to be learned. And when you think you know everything, you don’t. You’re just starting. I was asked to write this essay on why
”
”
Tijan (Logan Kade (Fallen Crest Series Book 6))
“
History favors the bold. Compensation favors the meek. As a Fortune 500 company CEO, you’re better off taking the path often traveled and staying the course. Big companies may have more assets to innovate with, but they rarely take big risks or innovate at the cost of cannibalizing a current business. Neither would they chance alienating suppliers or investors. They play not to lose, and shareholders reward them for it—until those shareholders walk and buy Amazon stock. Most boards ask management: “How can we build the greatest advantage for the least amount of capital/investment?” Amazon reverses the question: “What can we do that gives us an advantage that’s hugely expensive, and that no one else can afford?” Why? Because Amazon has access to capital with lower return expectations than peers. Reducing shipping times from two days to one day? That will require billions. Amazon will have to build smart warehouses near cities, where real estate and labor are expensive. By any conventional measure, it would be a huge investment for a marginal return. But for Amazon, it’s all kinds of perfect. Why? Because Macy’s, Sears, and Walmart can’t afford to spend billions getting the delivery times of their relatively small online businesses down from two days to one. Consumers love it, and competitors stand flaccid on the sidelines. In 2015, Amazon spent $7 billion on shipping fees, a net shipping loss of $5 billion, and overall profits of $2.4 billion. Crazy, no? No. Amazon is going underwater with the world’s largest oxygen tank, forcing other retailers to follow it, match its prices, and deal with changed customer delivery expectations. The difference is other retailers have just the air in their lungs and are drowning. Amazon will surface and have the ocean of retail largely to itself.
”
”
Scott Galloway (The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google)
“
At some point I tried willing things along, mentally focusing on a rapid delivery. That didn't work. I got up to walk around-walking is supposed to help you progress-then quickly got back in the chair.
“Argh!!!!!” I groaned. And other stuff.
The way I saw it, my baby should have been out by now, shaking hands with his dad and passing around cigars to the nurses. But he apparently had other plans. Labor continued very slowly.
Very slowly.
We were in that room for eighteen hours. That was a lot of contractions. And a lot of PG versions of curse words, along with the X-rated kind. I may have invented a whole new language.
Somewhere around the twelve-hour mark, Chris asked if I’d mind if he changed the music, since our songs had been playing on repeat for what surely seemed like a millennium.
“Sure,” I said.
He switched to the radio and found a country station. That lasted a song or two.
“I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I need Enya. I’m tuned in to it, and it calms me…ohhhhh!”
“Okay. No problem,” he said calmly, though not quite cheerfully. I’m sure it was torture.
Chris would take short breaks, walking out into the waiting room where both sides of our family were waiting to welcome their first grandchild and nephew. He’d look at his dad and give a little nod.
“She’s okay,” he told everyone. Then he’d wipe a little tear away from his eye and walk back to me.
Chris said later that watching me give birth was probably the most powerless feeling he’d ever had. He knew I was in pain and yet couldn’t do a whit about it. “It’s like watching your wife get stabbed and not being able to do anything to help.”
But when he came into the room with me, his eyes were clear and he seemed confident and even upbeat. It was the thing he did when talking to me from the combat zone, all over again: he wasn’t about to do anything that would make me worry.
I, on the other hand, made no secret of what I was feeling. An alien watermelon was ripping my insides out. And it hurt.
Whoooh!
Suddenly one of the contractions peaked way beyond where the others had been. Bubba had finally decided it was time to say hello to the world.
I grabbed the side rail on the bed and struggled to remain conscious, if not exactly calm.
Part of me was thinking, You should remember this, Taya. This is natural childbirth. This is beautiful. This is what God intended. You should enjoy this precious moment and remember it always.
Another part of me was telling that part to shut the bleep up.
I begged for mercy-for painkillers.
”
”
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
“
The word “empath” jumped up in my awareness a few years after I had already been in the States. When I first came across it, it felt so woo-woo and new-agey that the “normal” part of me balked at it. It was hard enough to own being a Highly Sensitive Person, words that had research backing them. But this empath thing, this was taking it even a step further. It veered off into ambiguous, questionable territory. In fact, when I had first stumbled across the word online, trying to find a way to understand a part of my sensitivity that being an HSP didn’t quite encapsulate, I hadn’t even thought that it could possibly have anything to do with me. But the more I listened to other people’s stories, the more I followed the breadcrumbs, the more it started feeling that although the words that people used to describe their empath experiences were foreign, what they were talking about was essentially my own experience. It was just that some of these people connected that experience to belief systems I didn’t always resonate with while some others wrapped up the word in explanations that felt like the making up of a false story. But slowly, I could see that at the heart of it, beyond the cloak of words, beyond the different interpretations that people gave, our experiences felt similar. Like these so-called empaths, I often felt flooded with other people’s feelings. Their curiosity, worry and frustration jumped out at me. This often made me feel like I was walking through emotional minefields or collecting new feelings like you would collect scraps of paper. Going back to India after moving to the States, each time, I was stuck by how much all the little daily interactions, packed tightly in one day, which were part of my parents’ Delhi household, affected me energetically. Living in suburban America, I had often found the quiet too much. Then, I had thought nostalgically about India. Weeks could pass here without anyone so much as ringing the bell to our house. But it seemed like I had conveniently forgotten the other side of the story, forgotten how overstimulating Delhi had always been for me. There was, of course, the familiar sensory overload all around -- the continuous honking of horns, the laborers working noisily in the house next door, the continuous ringing of the bell as different people came and went -- the dhobi taking the clothes for ironing, the koodawalla come to pick up the daily trash, the delivery boy delivering groceries from the neighborhood kiraana store. But apart from these interruptions, inconveniences and overstimulations, there was also something more. In Delhi, every day, more lives touched mine in a day than they did in weeks in America. Going back, I could see, clearly for the first time, how much this sensory overload cost me and how much other people’s feelings leaked into mine, so much so that I almost felt them in my body. I could see that the koodawalla, the one I had always liked, the one from some kind of a “lower caste,” had changed in these past few years. He was angry now, unlike the calm resignation, almost acceptance he had carried inside him before. His anger seemed to jump out at me, as if he thought I was part of a whole tribe of people who had kept people like him down for years, who had relegated him to this lower caste, who had only given him the permission to do “dirty,” degrading work, like collecting the trash.
”
”
Ritu Kaushal, The Empath's Journey
“
The word “empath” jumped up in my awareness a few years after I had already been in the States. When I first came across it, it felt so woo-woo and new-agey that the “normal” part of me balked at it. It was hard enough to own being a Highly Sensitive Person, words that had research backing them. But this empath thing, this was taking it even a step further. It veered off into ambiguous, questionable territory. In fact, when I had first stumbled across the word online, trying to find a way to understand a part of my sensitivity that being an HSP didn’t quite encapsulate, I hadn’t even thought that it could possibly have anything to do with me. But the more I listened to other people’s stories, the more I followed the breadcrumbs, the more it started feeling that although the words that people used to describe their empath experiences were foreign, what they were talking about was essentially my own experience. It was just that some of these people connected that experience to belief systems I didn’t always resonate with while some others wrapped up the word in explanations that felt like the making up of a false story. But slowly, I could see that at the heart of it, beyond the cloak of words, beyond the different interpretations that people gave, our experiences felt similar. Like these so-called empaths, I often felt flooded with other people’s feelings. Their curiosity, worry and frustration jumped out at me. This often made me feel like I was walking through emotional minefields or collecting new feelings like you would collect scraps of paper. Going back to India after moving to the States, each time, I was stuck by how much all the little daily interactions, packed tightly in one day, which were part of my parents’ Delhi household, affected me energetically. Living in suburban America, I had often found the quiet too much. Then, I had thought nostalgically about India. Weeks could pass here without anyone so much as ringing the bell to our house. But it seemed like I had conveniently forgotten the other side of the story, forgotten how overstimulating Delhi had always been for me. There was, of course, the familiar sensory overload all around -- the continuous honking of horns, the laborers working noisily in the house next door, the continuous ringing of the bell as different people came and went -- the dhobi taking the clothes for ironing, the koodawalla come to pick up the daily trash, the delivery boy delivering groceries from the neighborhood kiraana store. But apart from these interruptions, inconveniences and overstimulations, there was also something more. In Delhi, every day, more lives touched mine in a day than they did in weeks in America. Going back, I could see, clearly for the first time, how much this sensory overload cost me and how much other people’s feelings leaked into mine, so much so that I almost felt them in my body. I could see that the koodawalla, the one I had always liked, the one from some kind of a “lower caste,” had changed in these past few years. He was angry now, unlike the calm resignation, almost acceptance he had carried inside him before. His anger seemed to jump out at me, as if he thought I was part of a whole tribe of people who had kept people like him down for years, who had relegated him to this lower caste, who had only given him the permission to do “dirty,” degrading work, like collecting the trash.
”
”
Ritu Kaushal, The Empath's Journey: What Working with My Dreams, Moving to a Different Country and L
“
The Directorio Revolucionario (“DR”) existed during the mid-1950’s and it was a Cuban University students’ group in opposition to the dictator President Fulgencio Batista. It was one of the most active terrorist organizations in Havana. Although they were given orders not to attack the rank and file police officers, semantics became important, as their targets were no longer “assassinated,” but rather were “executed.” To them the term sounded more legally acceptable. However, regardless of how it is phrased, murder is murder!
At 3:20 on the afternoon of March 13, 1957, fifty attackers from the “DR”, led by Carlos Gutiérrez Menoyo, attacked the Presidential Palace. Menoyo had fought in the Sahara Desert against the German forces under General Rommel during World War II. By demonstrating great courage, Carlos had been decorated and given the rank of second lieutenant in the French army and was uniquely suited for this task. Now, with workers representing labor, and rebellious students from the university, they drove up to the entrance to the Presidential Palace in delivery van #7, marked “Fast Delivery S.A.” They also had two additional cars weighted down with bombs, rifles, and automatic weapons… (Read more in the Exciting Story of Cuba)
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
One assumption that is already being shattered is the idea that only routine, semi-skilled jobs like taxi driving, food delivery, or household chores are susceptible. Even traditional professions like medicine and law are proving to be susceptible to platform models. We’ve already mentioned Medicast, which applies an Uber-like model to finding a doctor. Several platform companies are providing online venues where legal services are available with comparable ease, speed, and convenience. Axiom Law has built a $200 million platform business by using a combination of data-mining software and freelance law talent to provide legal guidance and services to business clients; InCloudCounsel claims it can process basic legal documents such as licensing forms and nondisclosure agreements at a savings of up to 80 percent compared with a traditional law firm.11 In the decades to come, it seems likely that the platform model will be applied—or at least tested—in virtually every market for labor and professional services. How will this trend impact the service industries—not to mention the working lives of hundreds of millions of people? One likely result will be an even greater stratification of wealth, power, and prestige among service providers. Routine and standardized tasks will move to online platforms, where an army of relatively low-paid, self-employed professionals will be available to handle them. Meanwhile, the world’s great law firms, medical centers, consulting partnerships, and accounting practices will not vanish, but their relative size and importance will shrink as much of the work they used to do migrates to platforms that can provide comparable services at a fraction of the cost and with far greater convenience. A surviving handful of world-class experts will increasingly focus on a tiny subset of the most highly specialized and challenging assignments, which they can tackle from anywhere in the world using online tools. Thus, at the very highest level of professional expertise, winner-take-all markets are likely to emerge, with (say) two dozen internationally renowned attorneys competing for the splashiest and most lucrative cases anywhere on the globe.
”
”
Geoffrey G. Parker (Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy―and How to Make Them Work for You)
“
Searching for affordable and professional packers and movers service in around Delhi is very tired. Finding trusted and cost effective moving and packing companies is hectic and time taking process. In today’s era internet made lots of impact on own life, getting services online is easiest and fastest.
The Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Faridabad is home of largest numbers of movers and packers. Hiring the best and cheapest is the first choice for safe and secure moving experience.it demand lots of hard works and manual powers. Make it happened by an individual in not possible. You need professional teams with hands on experience to handle your valuable goods.
The EG packers and movers in Delhi should have trained employees for packing, loading and unloading process. As it requires lots of manual works, they have labors equipped with tools to lift and load heavy items effortless, on the hand with their experience they make sure no break ups and lose to your valuable goods. So its always advisable to hire EG packers movers Delhi for safe deliveries. We offer door to door service with best rate guarantee.
Pre planning is first step in home shifting process. The pre planning should start at least 2-3 week ahead of moving date. You should make a list of items you want to mover with. After that you should make a list of items you can pack yourself and you want professional packing Next step after packing and it needs lots of manual powers.
The labors and workers perform loading with the help of latest tools for easy and seamless loading. It the last step which is done at the destination, it could within Delhi or your desired city. know more visit us at
”
”
Hikmat Singh
“
Cesarean delivery (for labor abnormalities) in the absence of clear cephalopelvic disproportion is generally reserved for arrest of active phase and ROM with adequate uterine contractions for at least 4 hours, or inadequate uterine contractions for at least 6 hours.
”
”
Eugene C. Toy (Case Files: Obstetrics & Gynecology)
“
The gig economy itself is an aestheticization of labor practices. Sure, what you’re doing may look a whole lot like what a pizza delivery guy did twenty years ago, but what you’re really doing is (according to ads looking to reel in new DoorDash drivers) being your own boss, exploring new parts of the city, paying for your wedding.
”
”
Adrian Daub (What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley (FSG Originals x Logic))
“
The labor and delivery ward needed to have a false-eyelash policy.
”
”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Zikora)
“
Charlotte just lectured me that it’s inappropriate to say vagina when someone is giving birth. I have news for all of you…the vag rules in here. This is labor and delivery. The vagina is their crowned jewel.”
“And there she goes again. You somehow manage to keep saying it.”
“Stop being a prude. Babies come out of vaginas. It’s no secret. Hawky player, are you offended by the word?” Dylan asked…
“I love vaginas.” Hawk shrugged. “Especially Ever’s.”
“I’m going to hurt you if you talk like that while I’m giving birth to our son.” Everly shot a look at Hawk.
“Baby. She asked the question. And I have to say, you have a magical vagina.
”
”
Laura Pavlov (Make You Mine (Honey Mountain, #3))
“
The concept of selling solutions isn’t wrong. It’s based on a valid recognition of the enormous unmet needs most customers have. But very few companies have figured out how to implement the concept profitably. Most failed attempts to deliver solutions have suffered from one of two common flaws. First, many are uncompelling or undifferentiated in the customer’s eyes. Sometimes the word solution is simply code for a consultative selling process or an attempt to pitch some kind of service agreement along with the product. Sometimes the solution is more significant, but undifferentiated. Take outsourcing as an example. Many companies have moved to take over and run some customer function, such as the mail room or call center, and then struggled to make money. The reason: In most cases, this is simply a cost-of-capital or -labor play, based on the notion that the contractor can run the operation more cheaply than the client firm. The function’s role in enhancing the customer’s business scarcely changes. Not surprisingly, this purely cost-based value proposition leads to rapid downward pricing pressure and service commoditization. The other major problem with many attempts to create solutions is their complexity. Once a company has developed a compelling solutions offering, reaching and serving the customer often requires the creation of a highly skilled delivery force that is hard to scale up. The result is a small, marginally profitable operation that clings to relevance on the periphery of the business.
”
”
Adrian J. Slywotzky (How to Grow When Markets Don't)
“
For John Tyson, the lesson wasn’t in the crops or the soil. It was in the financing. Cash-poor farmers rented land, and their landowners arranged a credit system that financed crops up front for the farmers who were broke. So the landowner provided the money, the farmer provided the labor, and they split the money when the crop came to fruition. The system spread throughout the South, carried on the back of poverty, allowing wealthy landowners and bankers to raise crops without working the land, while forcing farmers to grow crops they would never truly own. In shorthand, it was called tenant farming. The method slowly migrated to Springdale, where John Tyson and other feed dealers were trying to ensure a steady supply of chicken. The feed dealers started providing their product up front for farmers, collecting their payment when the chickens were sold. Then they started fronting the money to buy chickens as well. John Tyson took it a step further. He bought the chickens himself from a hatchery, then he essentially loaned them to farmers who agreed to raise the birds and get paid a fixed price on delivery. The farmer didn’t take any risk on prices because he never owned the birds, and Tyson got his steady flow of chickens to deliver to customers up north.
”
”
Christopher Leonard (The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business)
“
Are you willing to wait until the umbilical cord has stopped pulsating before you clamp it? ■ What prenatal tests do you suggest getting? Which ones do you require? ■ Which tests do you usually order for women like your partner (her age, race, medical history, and risk factors)? ■ How many sonograms (ultrasounds) do you routinely recommend? ■ Are women free to walk, move, and take a shower throughout the early stages of labor? Can the baby be put to the breast immediately after delivery? ■ Are you willing to dim the lights when the baby is born? ■ How much experience have you had with twins or more (if applicable)?
”
”
Armin A. Brott (The Expectant Father: The Ultimate Guide for Dads-to-Be)
“
Oh, I wanted nothing more than to punch the smug look off Jenner’s face where he stood beside my hospital bed in the labor and delivery unit.
”
”
Siena Trap (Frozen Heart Face-Off (Indy Speed Hockey, #2))
“
By our seventh anniversary, we had five kids and weren’t done yet. Raven was blessed with easy pregnancies and could run around until the moment of delivery. Oh, and did those deliveries become legend.
When River was born, the whole crew was laughing their asses off in the waiting room because of Raven’s profanity-laced rants. Our twins came two years later. During their deliveries, a drinking game started with the crew and club guys. Every time Raven screamed a cuss word, Tucker told the guys at the bar and they’d take a shot of whiskey. Half of the guys were wasted by the time Savannah was born. As Avery joined her sister, the other half of the bar was just as drunk off their asses.
The obstetrician nearly begged Raven to use pain meds. She refused of course. No one was telling her what to do.
For Maverick’s birth, the hospital moved Raven to a room at the end of the hall and kept the other laboring mothers as far away as possible. Another change the third time around was how Raven refused to allow the club guys free fun based on her laboring pains. To play the drinking game, they had to donate a hundred dollars into the kids’ college fund. We figured at least one of our kids would want to do the education thing.
The guys donated the money and got ready for Raven to let loose. In her laboring room, she even allowed a mic connected to overhead speakers at the bar. Despite knowing they were all listening, my woman didn’t disappoint. One particular favorite was motherfucking crustacean cunt. When Maverick’s head crowded, she also sounded a little bit like a graboid from Tremors. Hell, I think she did that on purpose because we’d watched the movie the night before. Raven was a born entertainer.
That night, we added a few thousand dollars to the kids’ college fund, the guys had a blast getting wasted to Raven’s profanity, and I welcomed my second son. Unlike his angelic brother, Maverick peed on me an hour after birth. I knew that boy was going to be a handful.
”
”
Bijou Hunter (Damaged and the Outlaw (Damaged, #4))
“
The ability of a business to scale is determined by its ability to aggregate the inputs to business – labor and resources – and coordinate them efficiently toward value creation and delivery.
”
”
Sangeet Paul Choudary (Platform Scale: How an emerging business model helps startups build large empires with minimum investment)
“
In this way the original arrival of textile machinery not only replaced cottage hand manufacturing, it set up an opportunity for a higher-level set of arrangements-the factory system-in which the machinery became merely a component. The new factory system in turn set up a chain of needs-for labor and housing-whose solutions created further needs, and all this in time became the Victorian industrial system. The process took a hundred years or more to reach anything like completion.
The reader might object that this makes structural change appear too simplistic-too mechanical. Technology A sets up a need for arrangements B; technology C fulfills this, but sets up further needs D and E; these are resolved by technologies F and G. Certainly such sequences do form the basis of structural change, but there is nothing simple about them. The factory system itself needed means of powering the new machinery, systems of ropes and pulleys for transmitting this power, means of acquiring and keeping track of materials, means of bookkeeping, means of management, means of delivery of the product. And these in turn were built from other components, and had their own needs. Structural change is fractal, it branches out at lower levels, just as an embryonic arterial system branches out as it develops into smaller arteries and capillaries.
”
”
W. Brian Arthur (The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves)
“
These studies compare women who choose hospital birth with those who try to deliver at home (regardless of whether they have their babies there or end up transferring to hospital for pain relief or medical intervention). It turns out that simply by choosing home birth, women are less likely to require drugs to induce or speed up labor or relieve pain; less likely to be cut open or to tear; and less likely to need a C-section or instrumental delivery. Their babies are born in better shape and are more likely to breastfeed.
”
”
Jo Marchant (Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body)
“
Paul, the baby is coming very soon.” He smiled. “That’s getting real obvious.” “You’re my very best friend, Paul.” “Thanks, Vanni,” he said, but he furrowed his eyebrows. Suspicious. “I want you to be with me during the delivery.” “With you how?” he asked. “I want you to be the one to encourage me, coach me, coax me. Hold my hand. Support me.” “Um… Isn’t that Mel’s job?” “Mel is going to be very much a coach, but she’s also going to be the midwife and she’ll be busy with other things. Especially when the baby is coming out. I need you to do this.” “Vanni,” he said, scooting forward on his chair, “I’m a guy.” “I know. Guys do this.” “I can’t…Vanni, I shouldn’t…. Vanessa, listen. I can’t see you like that. It wouldn’t be…appropriate.” “Well, actually, I thought about my brother or my dad and frankly, that really doesn’t appeal to me. So,” she said, lifting a video from the table beside her, “I got us a childbirth movie from Mel.” “Aw, no,” he said, pleading. She stood up and popped it into the VCR, then sat down again with the remote in her hand. “Jack delivered his own son,” she said. “I know, but in case you’re interested, he wasn’t thrilled about it at the time. And he refuses to do it again—he’s adamant about that. And, Vanni, this isn’t my son. This is my best friend’s son.” “Of course I know that, Paul. But since it is your best friend’s son, he’d be so grateful.” She started the video. “Now, I want you to concentrate on what the partner is doing. Don’t worry about the mother. Most of the time while I’m in labor you’ll either be behind me, or helping me walk or squat to use gravity to help with the dilating, or reminding me to breathe properly. It’s not like you’re going to have your face in the field of birth.” “I’m starting to feel kind of weak,” he said. “Why don’t you ask Brie or Paige, if you need someone for that?” “I could do that, but to tell you the truth, I’m much closer to you. And you’re here—right here. You can do this. We’ll watch the movie together and if you have any questions, just ask me.” He looked at the screen, his brows drawn together. He squinted. This was an unattractive woman, giving birth. Well, not just yet—she was working up to it. Her big belly was sticking out, which was not what made her plain. It was the stringy hair, monobrow, baggy socks on her feet and—“Vanni, she has very hairy legs.” “If that’s what worries you I can still manage to shave my legs, even though I have to admit I’ve lost interest.” The hospital gown on the woman was draped over her belly and legs in such a way that when she started to rise into a sitting position, spreading her thighs and grabbing them to bear down, she was covered. Then the doctor or midwife or whoever was in charge flipped that gown out of the way and there, right in Paul’s face, was the top of a baby’s head emerging from the woman’s body. “Aw, man,” he whined, putting his head in his hands. “I said watch the coach—don’t worry about the woman,” Vanni lectured. “It’s pretty damn hard to not look at that, Vanni,” he said. “Concentrate.” So
”
”
Robyn Carr (Whispering Rock (Virgin River, #3))
“
There may be something more to our stories than just whether we had a good or bad birth experience, though. We might consider questions beyond whether or not everything went the way we wanted. Instead, we might ask what these birth stories tell us about ourselves. What meaning can we find in the particular way we came face to face with pain, with the unknown, and with the delivery of new life into this world? How might we use this experience in the future? Can it teach us something about how we mother our children or about who we are becoming in this next phase of our lives?
”
”
Julia Aziz (Lessons of Labor: One Woman's Self-Discovery through Birth and Motherhood)
“
Day in and day out, the average American family uses an amount of energy equivalent to the
work that 3,000 laborers and 400 draft horses would have provided on a large farm 200 years
ago. Most of that energy comes from resources that exist in limited amounts. The energy from
those resources usually undergoes one to several transformations before it can be used. The
kinds of energy resources that people use vary considerably from region to region and within
different economic sectors. In the future, patterns of energy use will depend heavily on the
relative supply of different energy sources. They will also depend on the environmental
impacts associated with the extraction, conversion, delivery, and consumption of these
”
”
Norm Christensen (The Environment and You)
“
In a way, I realized, every woman risked her life when bringing a child into the world. Labor and delivery were serious business, and not for the faint of heart. Yet down through the centuries women took that risk, willing to trade life for life.
”
”
Mindy Starns Clark (The Amish Nanny (The Women of Lancaster County, #2))
“
In Detroit in 2011 “a Detroit pizza delivery man turned the tables on three would be crooks.” The black men ambushed the driver. He killed one. Police caught the others. The delivery man had a permit to carry a concealed weapon. “The manager at the pizza shop told Action News … many of his other drivers” have permits too. Every year hundreds of delivery drivers are robbed. Over the last several years, hundreds have been killed. Most do not carry guns. That is why the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls it one of the most dangerous jobs in the country.11
”
”
Colin Flaherty ('White Girl Bleed A Lot': The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It)
“
Reacher put his hand on his gun in his pocket and stepped all the way out to the sunlight. The woman was stuffing her purse back in her bag. The taxi was driving away. The woman looked up. She saw Reacher and looked momentarily confused. Reacher was not the guy she was expecting to see. She was in her early twenties, with jet black hair and olive skin. She was very good looking. She could have been Turkish or Italian. She was the messenger. The two guys with her were waiting patiently, stoic and unexcited, like laborers ahead of routine tasks. They were airport workers, Reacher thought. He remembered telling Sinclair that Wiley had chosen Hamburg because it was a port. The second largest in Europe. The gateway to the world. Maybe once. But the plan had changed. Now he guessed they planned to drive the truck into the belly of a cargo plane. Maybe fly it to Aden, which was a port of a different kind. On the coast of Yemen. Where ten tramp steamers would be waiting to complete the deliveries, after weeks at sea. Straight to New York or D.C. or London or LA or San Francisco. All the world’s great cities had ports nearby. He remembered Neagley saying the radius of the lethal blast was a mile, and the radius of the fireball was two. Ten times over. Ten million dead, and then complete collapse. The next hundred years in the dark ages. The
”
”
Lee Child (Night School (Jack Reacher, #21))
“
To recommend that fetuses having vaginal delivery receive analgesia or anesthesia establishes a dual standard of care that society is unlikely to embrace.21 Clinicians traditionally avoid any consideration of fetal analgesia or anesthesia in labor and delivery, because of potentially depressive effects on the newborn.
”
”
David A. Grimes (Every Third Woman In America: How Legal Abortion Transformed Our Nation)
“
She reminds me that most doctors leave the supervision of labor and delivery solely to midwives, as there is too much blood involved in these activities, and that doctors are typically called in to help only if something goes wrong. “Personally, though, I like to assess the situation from the beginning,” Grandmother says, while we wait for the midwife and her
”
”
Lisa See (Lady Tan's Circle of Women)
“
Men with mortal wounds did not worry him like a woman in labor.
”
”
David Ball (Empires of Sand by David Ball (2001-03-06))
“
It would be much scarier, even dangerous, to give birth in a place where no one knew sign language. The Deaf community was replete with hospital horror stories, particularly of the labor and delivery variety. Her mother’s friend Lu had been wheeled into the OR without anyone telling her that she was about to have a cesarean; a woman down in Lexington had died from a blood clot after nursing staff ignored the complaints of pain she’d scrawled on a napkin.
”
”
Sara Nović (True Biz)
“
Sissss, you look like you need to take yo’ baby making ass down to labor and delivery and push her ass out,” Justice told her, and we all fell out laughing.
”
”
K. Renee (Her Heart My Soul 2: China & Keem)
“
Childbirth in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s was, like most of contemporary medicine, afflicted with patriarchal practices that made things easier for doctors but were not beneficial, and possibly were even harmful, to women. These included putting women under general anesthesia for labor and childbirth and banning fathers from the delivery room. Natural childbirth advocates questioned those practices and eventually pushed for their end. The contemporary patient experience is far better because of them.
”
”
Amy Tuteur (Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting)
“
This model also offers each group of providers the opportunity to learn from each other. Midwives would gain more exposure to high-risk patients and complications and, thus, learn to more readily recognize and initially manage them. Obstetricians would gain exposure to alternative delivery techniques they may not have learned in their training, such as hands and knees positions or birthing stool deliveries, as well as comfort with less aggressive management styles. In an ideal integrative model, both groups would have opportunities to work together even at the training level to help build professional camaraderie and respect from the onset of practice.
”
”
Michelle Aristizabal (Natural Labor and Birth: An Evidence-Based Guide to the Natural Birth Plan)
“
For those who never be in the labor ward where everyone arrival at hospital or any where baby delivered.The helpers who help mother to deliver the baby they focus on that process heppen to be successfully cause the life& death of mom and baby involved them on that moment while they are hands they use to praying heartly in order to keep mom alive and well while the baby's arrive the moment baby arrival use to cry that is very important cause that tell them that baby is alive if this not heppening they force it to be heppen by that I mean crying is starting gear of everything.
”
”
Nozipho N.Maphumulo
“
A good sermon has the heft of a solid week’s work (at least), yet wears its labor lightly. My homiletics professor said the rule was one hour of work per minute of sermon, say fifteen, sixteen hours on average, which always seemed scant to me. But I’m a slow writer. Then again, ministers don’t usually write for publication and good delivery can finesse many an unpolished sentence and awkward transition.
”
”
Michelle Huneven (Search)
“
Pain has a purpose. Especially in childbirth. It’s the pain that tells you how close you are to pushing, and when it’s time, you’ll know because you can’t stop until the baby is out.
”
”
Jessica Marie Baumgartner
“
As moms living with sinful hearts in a broken world, we struggle and toil, but in Christ, we’re not left without hope. God overcomes the curse by giving people another way to experience birth—not through a physical womb, but through the Holy Spirit.8 While a mother gives birth through physical groaning, sweat and tears, her water breaking, and the shedding of her blood—Jesus makes a way for life through his physical torture, sweat and tears in the garden, water pouring from his side, and his pure, perfect blood shed for us on the cross. The story of the crucified Christ is the best birth story ever told, with elements that parallel the gospel picture in each labor and delivery room.
”
”
Emily A. Jensen (Risen Motherhood: Gospel Hope for Everyday Moments)
“
When pride has made the sermon, it goes with us into the pulpit. It forms our tone, it animates us in the delivery, and it takes us away from that which may be displeasing, no matter how necessary it is, and sets us in pursuit of vain applause. Basically, it makes men, both in studying and preaching, to seek themselves and deny God, when they should seek God’s glory and deny themselves. When they should be asking what they should say and how they should say it to please God best and do the most good, pride makes them ask what they should say and how they should deliver it to be considered an educated, able preacher and to be applauded by all who hear them.
”
”
Richard Baxter (The Reformed Pastor: The Duties and Methods of Labors for the Souls of Men [Updated and Annotated])
“
Best Tips for a Stress-Free Pregnancy – Motherhood Chaitanya Hospital
Bringing a new life into the world is an extraordinary journey, one filled with anticipation and joy.
Yet, the path to motherhood can also be fraught with stress and anxiety. The good news is that there
are ways to navigate this period with greater ease. From seeking support through childbirth and
parenting classes in Chandigarh to embracing the serenity of Pre-Natal Yoga Classes for Pregnant
Mothers in Chandigarh, let’s explore some of the best tips for a stress-free pregnancy.
Understand Your Body
Pregnancy is a unique and transformative experience, but it also brings a host of physical changes.
Understanding these changes can alleviate anxiety. Remember, your body is doing something
miraculous. It’s nurturing and growing a new life. Embrace the journey with wonder and gratitude.
Stay Active with Pre-Natal Yoga
Pre-Natal Yoga Classes in Chandigarh provide an exceptional avenue to connect with your body and
your baby. Yoga helps maintain flexibility, ease discomfort, and reduce stress. The gentle stretches
and mindful breathing techniques impart a sense of calm and inner peace.
Educate Yourself
Knowledge is power, and when it comes to pregnancy, it’s empowering. Enroll in childbirth and
parenting classes in Chandigarh to gain insight into what to expect during labor, delivery, and early
parenthood. Knowing what lies ahead can significantly reduce apprehension.
Nurture Emotional Well-being
Pregnancy is not just about physical health; emotional well-being is equally vital. Seek emotional
support from your partner, friends, or a counselor if needed. Express your feelings and allow
yourself to experience a range of emotions without judgment.
Eat Mindfully
Nutrition is crucial for both you and your baby. Consume a balanced diet rich in essential nutrients.
Remember, you’re not eating for two adults; you’re providing the building blocks for a new life.
Consult with a healthcare professional for dietary guidance.
Stay Hydrated
Hydration is key to a healthy pregnancy. It helps prevent common issues like constipation and
urinary tract infections. Aim for at least eight glasses of water a day, and adjust your intake as
needed to accommodate your changing body.
”
”
Dr. Poonam Kumar
“
When we truly let go of our anxieties and tensions and choose softness towards our bodies, we can work with our bodies instead of against them and experience one of the most powerful and beautiful moments of our lives.
”
”
Emily Greseth (Made For This: Birthing Essentials From a Former Labor and Delivery Nurse and Mother of Two)
“
As corporations have amassed more market power, they’ve made every effort to keep wages low and productivity high. Increasingly, workers are providing far more value to their companies than their pay reflects, and employers are constantly finding new avenues to squeeze their labor force. Algorithms have proven to be more exacting bosses than people. Those algorithms powering just-in-time scheduling have allowed bosses to fine-tune staffing levels to demand, leading to unpredictable hours that cause paychecks to grow and shrink from week to week. Companies have deployed programs that record workers’ keystrokes and mouse clicks and capture screenshots at random intervals and have even made use of devices that sense heat and motion. Warehouse workers, cashiers, delivery drivers, fast food managers, copy editors, and millions of other kinds of workers—even therapists and hospice chaplains—are now monitored by software with names like Time Doctor and WorkSmart. Most large private firms track worker productivity, sometimes docking pay for “idle time,” including when employees use the bathroom or consult with clients. Such technological advances have increased workers’ efficiency and their precarity: You produce more profit but enjoy less of it, which is the textbook definition of exploitation.
”
”
Matthew Desmond (Poverty, by America)
“
The word “empath” jumped up in my awareness a few years after I had already been in the States. When I first came across it, it felt so woo-woo and new-agey that the “normal” part of me balked at it. It was hard enough to own being a Highly Sensitive Person, words that had research backing them. But this empath thing, this was taking it even a step further. It veered off into ambiguous, questionable territory. In fact, when I had first stumbled across the word online, trying to find a way to understand a part of my sensitivity that being an HSP didn’t quite encapsulate, I hadn’t even thought that it could possibly have anything to do with me. But the more I listened to other people’s stories, the more I followed the breadcrumbs, the more it started feeling that although the words that people used to describe their empath experiences were foreign, what they were talking about was essentially my own experience. It was just that some of these people connected that experience to belief systems I didn’t always resonate with while some others wrapped up the word in explanations that felt like the making up of a false story. But slowly, I could see that at the heart of it, beyond the cloak of words, beyond the different interpretations that people gave, our experiences felt similar. Like these so-called empaths, I often felt flooded with other people’s feelings. Their curiosity, worry and frustration jumped out at me. This often made me feel like I was walking through emotional minefields or collecting new feelings like you would collect scraps of paper. Going back to India after moving to the States, each time, I was stuck by how much all the little daily interactions, packed tightly in one day, which were part of my parents’ Delhi household, affected me energetically. Living in suburban America, I had often found the quiet too much. Then, I had thought nostalgically about India. Weeks could pass here without anyone so much as ringing the bell to our house. But it seemed like I had conveniently forgotten the other side of the story, forgotten how overstimulating Delhi had always been for me. There was, of course, the familiar sensory overload all around -- the continuous honking of horns, the laborers working noisily in the house next door, the continuous ringing of the bell as different people came and went -- the dhobi taking the clothes for ironing, the koodawalla come to pick up the daily trash, the delivery boy delivering groceries from the neighborhood kiraana store. But apart from these interruptions, inconveniences and overstimulations, there was also something more. In Delhi, every day, more lives touched mine in a day than they did in weeks in America. Going back, I could see, clearly for the first time, how much this sensory overload cost me and how much other people’s feelings leaked into mine, so much so that I almost felt them in my body. I could see that the koodawalla, the one I had always liked, the one from some kind of a “lower caste,” had changed in these past few years. He was angry now, unlike the calm resignation, almost acceptance he had carried inside him before. His anger seemed to jump out at me, as if he thought I was part of a whole tribe of people who had kept people like him down for years, who had relegated him to this lower caste, who had only given him the permission to do “dirty,” degrading work, like collecting the trash.
”
”
Ritu Kaushal, The Empath's Journey: What Working with My Dreams, Moving to a Different Country and L
“
The word “empath” jumped up in my awareness a few years after I had already been in the States. When I first came across it, it felt so woo-woo and new-agey that the “normal” part of me balked at it. It was hard enough to own being a Highly Sensitive Person, words that had research backing them. But this empath thing, this was taking it even a step further. It veered off into ambiguous, questionable territory. In fact, when I had first stumbled across the word online, trying to find a way to understand a part of my sensitivity that being an HSP didn’t quite encapsulate, I hadn’t even thought that it could possibly have anything to do with me. But the more I listened to other people’s stories, the more I followed the breadcrumbs, the more it started feeling that although the words that people used to describe their empath experiences were foreign, what they were talking about was essentially my own experience. It was just that some of these people connected that experience to belief systems I didn’t always resonate with while some others wrapped up the word in explanations that felt like the making up of a false story. But slowly, I could see that at the heart of it, beyond the cloak of words, beyond the different interpretations that people gave, our experiences felt similar. Like these so-called empaths, I often felt flooded with other people’s feelings. Their curiosity, worry and frustration jumped out at me. This often made me feel like I was walking through emotional minefields or collecting new feelings like you would collect scraps of paper. Going back to India after moving to the States, each time, I was stuck by how much all the little daily interactions, packed tightly in one day, which were part of my parents’ Delhi household, affected me energetically. Living in suburban America, I had often found the quiet too much. Then, I had thought nostalgically about India. Weeks could pass here without anyone so much as ringing the bell to our house. But it seemed like I had conveniently forgotten the other side of the story, forgotten how overstimulating Delhi had always been for me. There was, of course, the familiar sensory overload all around -- the continuous honking of horns, the laborers working noisily in the house next door, the continuous ringing of the bell as different people came and went -- the dhobi taking the clothes for ironing, the koodawalla come to pick up the daily trash, the delivery boy delivering groceries from the neighborhood kiraana store. But apart from these interruptions, inconveniences and overstimulations, there was also something more. In Delhi, every day, more lives touched mine in a day than they did in weeks in America. Going back, I could see, clearly for the first time, how much this sensory overload cost me and how much other people’s feelings leaked into mine, so much so that I almost felt them in my body. I could see that the koodawalla, the one I had always liked, the one from some kind of a “lower caste,” had changed in these past few years. He was angry now, unlike the calm resignation, almost acceptance he had carried inside him before. His anger seemed to jump out at me, as if he thought I was part of a whole tribe of people who had kept people like him down for years, who had relegated him to this lower caste, who had only given him the permission to do “dirty,” degrading work, like collecting the trash.
”
”
Ritu Kaushal (The Empath's Journey)
“
The word “empath” jumped up in my awareness a few years after I had already been in the States. When I first came across it, it felt so woo-woo and new-agey that the “normal” part of me balked at it. It was hard enough to own being a Highly Sensitive Person, words that had research backing them. But this empath thing, this was taking it even a step further. It veered off into ambiguous, questionable territory. In fact, when I had first stumbled across the word online, trying to find a way to understand a part of my sensitivity that being an HSP didn’t quite encapsulate, I hadn’t even thought that it could possibly have anything to do with me. But the more I listened to other people’s stories, the more I followed the breadcrumbs, the more it started feeling that although the words that people used to describe their empath experiences were foreign, what they were talking about was essentially my own experience. It was just that some of these people connected that experience to belief systems I didn’t always resonate with while some others wrapped up the word in explanations that felt like the making up of a false story. But slowly, I could see that at the heart of it, beyond the cloak of words, beyond the different interpretations that people gave, our experiences felt similar. Like these so-called empaths, I often felt flooded with other people’s feelings. Their curiosity, worry and frustration jumped out at me. This often made me feel like I was walking through emotional minefields or collecting new feelings like you would collect scraps of paper. Going back to India after moving to the States, each time, I was stuck by how much all the little daily interactions, packed tightly in one day, which were part of my parents’ Delhi household, affected me energetically. Living in suburban America, I had often found the quiet too much. Then, I had thought nostalgically about India. Weeks could pass here without anyone so much as ringing the bell to our house. But it seemed like I had conveniently forgotten the other side of the story, forgotten how overstimulating Delhi had always been for me. There was, of course, the familiar sensory overload all around -- the continuous honking of horns, the laborers working noisily in the house next door, the continuous ringing of the bell as different people came and went -- the dhobi taking the clothes for ironing, the koodawalla come to pick up the daily trash, the delivery boy delivering groceries from the neighborhood kiraana store. But apart from these interruptions, inconveniences and overstimulations, there was also something more. In Delhi, every day, more lives touched mine in a day than they did in weeks in America. Going back, I could see, clearly for the first time, how much this sensory overload cost me and how much other people’s feelings leaked into mine, so much so that I almost felt them in my body. I could see that the koodawalla, the one I had always liked, the one from some kind of a “lower caste,” had changed in these past few years. He was angry now, unlike the calm resignation, almost acceptance he had carried inside him before. His anger seemed to jump out at me, as if he thought I was part of a whole tribe of people who had kept people like him down for years, who had relegated him to this lower caste, who had only given him the permission to do “dirty,” degrading work, like collecting the trash.
”
”
Ritu Kaushal: The Empath's Journey: What Working with My Dreams, Moving to a Different Country and L
“
Men frequently complain that they do not understand what it really is to believe, and preachers are constantly laboring to explain. But the complaint is in many cases a mere excuse for rejection or delay, and the real difficulty is in all cases a lack of disposition to believe. Elaborate explanations do not lessen this indisposition, do but strengthen the supposed excuse, and may even embarrass the anxious inquirer with the notion that there is something very mysterious about faith, when it is in fact so simple as not to admit of being explained. Our main duty is to tell the people what to believe, and why they should believe it.
”
”
John Albert Broadus (On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons)
“
If women and men who pay for housework and care labor— whether in the form of live-in domestic workers, part-time cleaners, hourly babysitters, or even laundry and food delivery services—honestly and fully account for the labor that goes into the upkeep of households and the care of children, we will get a more accurate sense of the vast amount of time and energies that go into the reproduction of everyday existence and well-being. Persons with limited income do not outsource any of this household and care labor.
”
”
You Yenn Teo (This Is What Inequality Looks Like)
“
The sitting squat and lying flat on a delivery table (or labor bed) defeat nature’s plan. Both positions interfere with the normal, amazing expansion movements of your well-engineered pelvis. That’s why you want to do no more than the first three pushes in the sitting squat.
”
”
Susan McCutcheon (Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way)
“
The spiral arteries support a large, Draculean placenta. The placenta must be large and rich to support the growth of the fetal brain. Brain tissue is insatiable. Pound for pound, it is ten times more expensive to maintain than any other tissue of the body. During the last three months of pregnancy, the growth of the fetal brain is so explosive that stoking it demands nearly three quarters of all the energy entering the baby through the umbilical cord. No wonder the cord is so fat, so much like a long sausage, and no wonder the expulsion of the meaty placenta after the birth of the baby is considered an event in itself, worthy of being classified as the third stage of labor (the first being the dilation of the cervix, the second the delivery of the infant). The baby’s brain must eat, and it eats blood.
”
”
Natalie Angier (Woman: An Intimate Geography)
“
After a short labor, and without too much pain (I decided that the pain of delivery was overrated), my son was born.
”
”
Maya Angelou
“
Labor & delivery is measured in hours. Birth is a moment. Being a parent is the rest of your life.
”
”
Lisa Marshall (Becoming a Dad: The First-Time Dad's Guide to Pregnancy Preparation (101 Tips For Expectant Dads) (Positive Parenting Book 4))
“
And right there, in the birthing center of Saint Luke’s Hospital, I have a medium-sized epiphany that has nothing to do with labor and delivery. She didn’t believe me when I called her. My clinician has failed me, and it hurt. Finally I realize, like never before, that I absolutely need to listen to my patients better, to be more open to believing their side of the story, trust that they need my care, and not always assume that I know more than they do. Just because I’m in a position of power does not mean I have to wield it, creating an impenetrable fortress.
”
”
Julie Holland (Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.)
“
For consumers, most of these problems are invisible. That is by design. You’re not supposed to know that the trending topics on Twitter were sifted through by a few destitute people making pennies. You’re not supposed to realize that Facebook can process the billions of photos, links, and shareable items that pass through its network each day only because it recruits armies of content moderators through digital labor markets. Or that these moderators spend hours numbly scrolling through grisly photos that people around the world are trying to upload to the network. Uber’s selling point is convenience: press a button on your phone and a car will arrive in minutes, maybe seconds, to take you anywhere you want to go. As long as that’s what happens, what do consumers have to complain about? Now joined by a host of start-up delivery services, ride-sharing companies are in the business of taking whomever or whatever from point A to point B with minimal fuss or waiting time. That this self-indulgent convenience ultimately comes at the expense of others is easily brushed off or shrouded in the magical promise that anything you want can be produced immediately.
”
”
Jacob Silverman (Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection)
“
O God, thank you for the miracle of new beginning life. Bless the mothers, and let them know that you are ever with them throughout their pregnancies, labors, and deliveries. Bless those eagerly awaiting their opportunities to love and nurture. Especially bless baby, N. Keep these, your tiniest souls, safe in their mothers' wombs, and under your heart until they are old enough, big enough, strong enough, mature enough, and healthy enough to be born into this world to be shining examples of your love and grace. It is in the name of your dear child, Jesus Christ our Lord, that we pray. Amen.
”
”
Mrs. Camille S. Senter
“
If we enter solidarity, we will not disinherit supremacists of their universal birthright—which is a claim to justice—simply because we know the human spirit they follow to be evil and their beliefs to be malignant and twisted. If a supremacist gets cancer, we will see they are treated without having to worry about cost, just like anyone else. If a supremacist struggles to make ends meet, we will see them with a roof over their heads, enough food in their belly, clean water to drink, and health care that is free at point of delivery. In solidarity we will see that a supremacist’s labor will not be exploited, and ensure that even a supremacist should be able to determine what happens to their bodies, and should not have to worry about how they will live once their bodies become too old to earn money through work. If a supremacist’s evil beliefs lead them to harm others, we in solidarity will see that their physical safety is a chief priority in their apprehension, that their trial is fair, and that their sentence is carried out without violence or retribution or cruelty or exploitation.
”
”
A.R. Moxon (Very Fine People)