Word: ashli
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...green and blue in the goals, red and yellow flags marking the boundaries, rows of wooden benches where parents, in different days, cheered their children. The 118 bodies are gone, carted to a field outside town and buried. But signs of the massacre remain. Four circles of bonfire ash are dotted with personal effects of the victims: a rifled plastic wallet, a tube of lipstick, the shoe of a very small child on which Tweety Bird still cavorts under a coating of ash...
Debra and Ash Suri, a Manhattan couple in their early 30s, are expecting their first child at the end of this month. After reading several childbirth books and attending a Lamaze class, Debra decided she wanted to have a doula present at her baby's birth. She interviewed several women and chose Guralnick. "I really wanted to go with a doula, because Barbara has so much knowledge and experience, and I find it very comforting to have somebody there with us from the beginning to the end, to be able to answer our questions," says Debra...
Individual doulas follow their own routines, and Guralnick includes two pre-natal visits with a couple to get acquainted and go over options. In a meeting in the Suris' apartment--Ash's first with the doula --Guralnick provides the couple with documents and reviews topics like pain medication and various interventions that can be used during labor and delivery. Debra sits on the massive 75-in. ball to get accustomed to how it feels. (Women in labor often find the ball more comfortable than a chair.) She guides them through massage techniques and positions that ease labor pain, demonstrating...
...thought you were here to do my job," says Ash with a laugh. His comment raises a pressing issue: If a doula is providing all this physical and emotional support for the woman, what's Dad supposed to do? While Ash is relieved that Guralnick will be there, many birth fathers feel a bit wary and even threatened by the news that their wives want special help from another nonmedical person. Good doulas make fathers feel more involved and more useful at a stressful time...
...grew older, existential questions regarding Santa turned to existential questions regarding God. Unsurprisingly, given these previous experiences, the invisible, omniscient, moralistic father figure (in the Christian tradition) found his place on the mental ash-heap, right next to the jolly fat man. Thus now I face the problem that many atheists feel during the holidays. While enjoying the time with family and the bonanza of material exchanges, the holiday is undeniably built on foundations that I reject. For me the holiday will always be tied to questioning, to the evaluation of evidence, both of Santa and God, but more generally...