It has been one month since the birth of our daughter girl and it has passed by like a sleepless blur. A lot of contemplation & reflection has filled this past month, all allowed by the amount of time spent at home insulated from the “outside” world, living inside our self-generated bubble, doing little else but taking care of our lil’ girl. Having Pema at home was the most beautiful and the most intense experience of our lives, a true right of passage. People had always told me how life totally changes once you have a child, and I knew they were right, but really had no idea what to expect. Since Pema was born I now view this world and my place in it from a different position. It is as if the DNA program, responsible for the reproduction of the species has been activated and now I have this little helpless human living with me who needs to be loved unconditionally, cared for, fed, protected, nurtured, etc… It has changed absolutely everything!
Today, at the Dupont market, I was speaking with a chap about what we learned through this whole birth experience. We learned that the Birth Industry has done to birthing what the Food Industry has done to eating. The interest lies in profits and not in the best interest of the mom, baby and dad. It is really sad how this industry has changed the perception of the people in the last 100 years. In 1900, over 95% of the births were at home, by 1955, less than 2% of births were at home. Don’t get me wrong, hospitals and modern medicine have their place and thank god for them, but I think they end up doing more harm than good in the whole birth process. I know this is a subject that people tend to completely freak out about, so I have no judgement, I just offer my own experience, which is very little. I just think that if a pregnancy and birth have no major complications, then it is probably better to let it unfold as it needs to, on its own, with very little or no intervention. This obviously has much more to do with the woman than the man, and I have no problem admitting that Violeta is way braver & stronger than me.
So, anyways, life is grand, altered, full, sleepless, joyful, simply beyond words, ineffable, i guess it would be. What does all this have to do with gelato, well, i guess just to say that we like to do EVERYTHING the natural way, whether it is spinning gelato or spinning babies, it just seems to come out better, and that’s just the way we are.