Author: Camille Williams

Stories About Circumcision: A Tale of Two Brothers

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This is the second post in the series on circumcision. The first explores circumcision in general and tells the story of my first experience with it as a nursing student, and how I counsel expectant parents now as a midwife. To read it, click here.

Julie (name changed for privacy) is a 40-year-old mother of two boys, ages 11 and 7. Her older son was circumcised, and her younger son was not. She agreed to talk with me about her experience and how she and her husband made both decisions.   Continue reading →

How It Feels to NOT Be Sending My Baby to Kindergarten

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This post also ran on KiDOinfo: Connecting Families, RI and Beyond on August 26, 2015

The other day, I realized that if things had played out differently, I would be gearing up to send Boy 2 to kindergarten.

My boys are 9 and 5, and this will be our second year homeschooling. Last year, my little one was in a beautiful little co-op preschool, and I got my bearings homeschooling Boy 1. We had our tough days, but we love this way of learning and this lifestyle for our family. So both boys will be home this year.   Continue reading →

Stories About Circumcision: One Midwife’s Perspective

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Circumcision can be a touchy subject. Parents are in the unenviable position of having to make this important and permanent decision for their sons with a lot of conflicting information. Those who choose to fully investigate the issue find an overwhelming spectrum of opinions amidst the facts, and most will encounter heated debate in the media, their social circles, or even within their own families. They hear from staunch defenders on medical, cultural, or religious grounds. They hear from others who consider the procedure unnecessary but relatively benign.  They hear from those who see it as a human rights violation, ethically no different from female circumcision common to other cultures.

As you may have guessed, I am among those who hopes cultural change will make circumcision a distant memory. In the future, I suspect we will all be scratching our heads in disbelief that this is what we used to do to almost all our baby boys.   Continue reading →

Decluttering Your Memories

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Before my KonMari Method declutter-palooza, I did make some headway here and there ridding our home of excess stuff. One of my favorite resources for simplifying life and changing your ways is the Zen Habits blog. A couple years ago, I bought a decluttering e-book by Leo Babauta, that blog’s author. My favorite takeaway was his advice on items that are packed away, taking up space but never used, yet difficult to part with due to sentimental value. He suggested taking photos of those items and writing their stories. Then you can let the items go while preserving the memories, which is all you really want anyway.   Continue reading →

Are Women’s Birth Sounds Silenced in the Hospital?

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Attention birthing women: This will be the hardest work of your life. It will test you on every level. Childbirth education is very helpful, yet there’s no way to know how you will feel physically and emotionally until you’re in it. There are many schools of thought on how to cope, what to call the forces of labor (contractions or surges?), and how to label the feeling (pain or sensation?). I like to keep it simple: it’s really hard, and yeah, it hurts. And, you are stronger than you know, and you can do it. Whether or not you plan to use pain medication or epidural anesthesia, know that you have what it takes within you to get through however many contractions you choose to feel fully.   Do your preparation, trust in the birth process, and believe in yourself.

But once you get to the hospital, whatever you do, for God’s sake, maintain some decorum and do it quietly! And if you can’t do that on your own, we’ve got something for you that will fix that problem quite nicely.  Then, we can ALL be comfortable.

Is that the unspoken message women receive from hospital staff during labor?   Continue reading →

Lessons From Books (Not the kind you think…)

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As some of you know, I’m in the process of a massive decluttering project using the KonMari Method from the book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. The author recommends purging by category rather than area or room. Per the suggested order, I did clothes first, and after a long break during which life happened, this week I finally moved on to books.

Before I read the chapter on books, I was dreading this category, having always found it near impossible to part with books.   I did one purge already last winter, but only got rid of a couple boxes. After reading Kondo’s chapter on books, I felt excitement rather than dread because she gave me new ways to think about it that made sense to me.   Continue reading →

“I’m Not Creative,” and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves

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“Poetry often enters through the window of irrelevance.” — M.C. Richards

I can’t draw, so I’m not creative. The word “creative” is only for people who identify as artists, or who have God-given gifts in the arts that are obvious to everyone. I bought this story hook, line, and sinker at very young age, and held onto it until well into my forties.  Whenever I heard, “Everyone is creative” or similar, I always thought that was such bullshit.  Continue reading →

More on Ritual: 6 Favorites that Make Our Lives Better

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In my last post, I wrote about a prayer ritual from my husband’s religious tradition that I do every day. Since then, I’ve been thinking more about the role of rituals in my and my family’s lives. It’s kind of funny that I’m writing about this, because I used to hate the word “ritual.” It conjured up vague but frightening images of biblical animal sacrifice. Or something. Either that, or it was synonymous with routine, which I used to equate with boredom and rigidity.  Either way, I had no use for it.

I love the word “ritual” now. This was a gradual change, and I never noticed or thought about it as it was happening.   Without ever planning it that way, I keep adding rituals to my life one by one, and now they are my spiritual container, my guideposts. Initially foreign and even a little bit forced in some cases, with time and repetition, most of them have become part of me now—as comfortable and familiar as a favorite pair of broken-in shoes.   They are reliable reminders to focus on what really matters. On the harder days, they help me hang in there. On the best days, they create more joy in our lives.   Continue reading →

The Gift of Ritual

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Sometime during the year after Boy 2 was born, depression snuck up on me. I had experienced several bouts of it since adolescence, but it took a while for me to figure out what was happening since it came on gradually and I had some legitimate stressors to pin it on. Once I finally accepted that it was more than just situational stress, I got some counseling.   Just as important, I thought about lifestyle changes I could make—more exercise, a regular meditation practice, etc.  I was talking with my husband, Gurpreet, about that and he said very definitively, “You need to do prayers.”   Continue reading →

Decluttering Brings an Unexpected Mother’s Day Gift

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I’m in the midst of a massive decluttering extravaganza via the KonMari Method. So far, I finished the clothes category and I am completely sold on the process outlined in the book. My reluctant husband was inspired to do his clothes after seeing my results, and we have gone from filling two closets to sharing one. And we both have room to spare in our dressers—we could probably share one and move the other one out if we wanted to. We are both finding it simple, easy, and pleasant to get ready in the morning.

I haven’t had time in the last week to tackle another category, but I have been doing small things to stay in the mindset. Continue reading →