Birth and Parenting...

...And the Ability to Make a Recovery

One of the things I stress in Birthing from Within classes is how childbirth preparation is also parenting preparation. 

- Want to learn how to cope with labor pain?  Those skills will come in handy for coping with fussy babies and trying toddlers.  

- Want to foster flexibility to ride the waves of whatever twists and turns your birth may bring?  That will come in handy when your ideas about breastfeeding, baby sleep, cloth diapers, etc. are challenged while traversing uncharted territory with your newborn.  

- Working on bringing a spirit of compassion and self-acceptance to yourself and your partner as you do whatever it takes to get your baby out?  Oh boy, are you gonna need that one for parenting!

Another thing I stress in childbirth classes is this importance of making a recovery when you get off track.  That could mean finding your way back to a place of focus after getting overwhelmed by an intense contraction, or returning to a place of finding connection with your partner and your baby during the disappointment of an unplanned cesarean birth.  

Yesterday my four year old son had an hour long knock down, drag out tantrum.  I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it all started over not knowing what he wanted for lunch.  O.o  I tried to be as patient as I could, but after a while I found myself not being my best self as a mother.  

Later on when the dust had settled and his tummy was full, my son and I reconnected with kisses and cuddles and he said to me, "Can you kiss me until morning?"  I realized in that moment that together we had practiced what I always preach...we had made a recovery.  

It's impossible to be a perfect mom all the time.  Mistakes happen, tempers flare, but it's never hopeless.  There's always an opportunity to come together, to get back on your feet, to find one small way of showing up for yourself, for a loved one, or for your relationship.  Occasional mistakes are inevitable.  Recoveries are always possible. 

A Map for Birth

What if someone could give you a map...an emotional guide...to birth?  What if someone could normalize feeling scared, elated, so bleeping over it, plugged in with their partner, overwhelmed, and strong BEFORE the birth so that parents knew they were on the right track when they passed through these gates during birth?  What if parents could even, for a few moments, go into the slower brain waves and altered state that will be waiting for them at the threshold of active labor?

The labyrinth is a tool we use in class to give a more realistic map of the labor process than perfectly round cervical diagrams increasing from 1-10 centimeters or a graph of how quickly labor should progress.  No one gives a damn about a graph in the middle of labor.  What they do care about is that they feel scared right now, and not sure that they can take this much longer.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find out ahead of time that those feelings were a sign of progress instead of a sign that you’re not handling labor well?  How freeing would it be to have permission to feel the way you need to feel, and to move, grunt, throw up, cry, dance, moan, tense up, let go, and do whatever it takes to get your baby out?

Self Knowledge is as Important as Practical Knowledge for Birth

What is just as important as gaining information about birth?  Gaining awareness.  Does that sound like some hippy stuff?  Well, guess what?  Most of the practical information moms pick up before birth will fly right out of their heads during labor, and with good cause.  During birth mothers make a shift from the thinking part of their brains into the instinctive, creative, non-verbal part where they have a diminished sense of pain and of time.  Have you ever wondered how a mother can have a 48 hour unmedicated birth?  That’s how.  So wouldn’t it make sense to nurture the intuitive brain during pregnancy at least as much as the processing part of the brain?  Practicing mindfulness techniques, doing birth art, increasing awareness of your own patterns and beliefs, and engaging in experiential learning will serve you in those foggy, faraway moments of birth when you can’t pull facts and data out of your brain because it’s too busy maintaining an altered state that will help you cope through the process.  

Fear and Childbirth

Is fear making you freeze, or are you using it as a learning opportunity for birth?

What a Doula Doesn't Do

There is a lot of talk about what doulas can do to help families, backed up by anecdotal accounts of how helpful doulas were to birthing parents and even statistics showing better birth outcomes for moms who had a doula.  But can we talk for a minute about what doulas don’t do?

Doulas don’t save you from a care provider who isn’t a good fit.  On message boards and in moms’ groups when I hear a mom talking about her feeling uncomfortable with her care provider’s beliefs and priorities not aligning with hers, oftentimes the next thing I hear is someone chiming in that she should get a doula.  While I certainly won’t argue with someone wanting the support of a doula through her birth experience, that mom’s most important task is getting herself a doctor or midwife who is on the same page as her.  

This could mean having a conversation with your current doctor or midwife to clarify where you’re coming from and making sure everyone is working toward the same goal, or changing care providers altogether.  If you’re worried about having a difficult “break up” conversation with your current doctor or midwife, I have good news.  After you interview and find a care provider who is a good fit for your family, schedule an appointment with them.  They will request your records from your previous care provider, and the most uncomfortable thing you have to do is call the receptionist and cancel the appointment you had set up with your old doctor/midwife.

Your choice of care provider is the biggest decision you can make to affect the course of your birth.  It’s very important to create a birthing environment for yourself where your support people want the things you want.  If you feel like the people in your birth space are your adversaries, it will be much harder to let go and drift off to Labor Land.  It could even make it more difficult for your body to labor effectively if you’re feeling defensive.  

A doula’s scope of practice does not include arguing with care providers or speaking on your behalf.  She should not be the intermediary between you and your doctor/midwife.  What a doula CAN do is remind you of important questions to ask and conversations to have as circumstances arise in your birth, based on the talks you have had prenatally about what is important to you.   She should be there as someone who’s got your back.  Someone who can help you think clearly in a moment clouded by fatigue, pain, and hormones.  Someone who will show up for you physically and emotionally regardless of what happens in your birth.  She is not there as a gatekeeper, body guard, or proxy for your voice.  

So by all means, hire a doula to help you cope through contractions, stay home longer during labor, bring comforting words and touch, help you navigate the unfamiliar terrain of birth, and bring continuous, loving care throughout your labor.  But please, don’t hire her to be your knight in shining armor to defend you against the system.  Take a step in self-care by setting yourself up for success in your relationship with your doctor and hospital, or midwife and birth center.  

Repeat After Me: "I am Enough"

Hey you! Yes, you...the one who replays decisions you made during your birth over and over again. The one who ponders the “what if’s” when you’re alone in bed at night. The one who wants/wishes for a do-over birth so you could do it the “right” way this time… You are enough! The decisions you made, the actions you took were the sum of labor pains, exhaustion, hormones, and a lifetime of events and conditioning around birth that only you know the full extent of. Decisions do not happen in a vacuum. They are influenced by our entire lives, and no other decision can be made in that moment because of every. other. thing. that has happened in your life. You were strong enough then and you are strong enough now. You were brave enough then and you are brave enough now. You were a good enough wife/mother/woman/human, worthy of love and respect, then and now. You don’t need to re-do your birth to prove that you are enough. You need only change the story you are telling yourself, to a truer story...one that comes from a deep knowing women have in their bones as old as time. Repeat after me: “I. Am. Enough.”

Some Facts About Cesarean Birth that You Won't Find in Most Books

1) It IS still a birth, a rite of passage, a life-altering transition. It is the birth of a mother, father, baby, and family, not just a surgical procedure. 

2) Moms who birth by cesarean did not take the easy way out. It takes incredible courage, selflessness, and love for your baby to allow someone to cut through your body for your child to be born.
3) It is ok to feel sad about your cesarean birth and to grieve the birth you didn’t have. Please don’t ever tell a mom “at least you had a healthy baby!” Of course she is grateful for her healthy baby. She may also be disappointed about the experience that she planned for, worked for, strived for, that did not come to fruition.
4) It is possible to retrieve moments of connection, humanity, and transformation during a cesarean birth.
5) ICAN (International Cesarean Awareness Network) consists of many local support groups who are there to listen to helps families who have experienced a cesarean birth.