4. My Number 1 Secret for Preparing For a Great Birth Experience
It’s not a book to read. Exercises to do. A magic fruit to eat.
It’s a lot more work than all those things, but it’s also something that you always have with you, something you can trust 100%, something you know you can count on.
What is it?
It’s YOU.
So often in preparing for birth, we look outside ourselves to find the answers to our questions. That’s not inherently bad of course. Finding the information we need is an important step in making decisions.
But what’s first?
Look within!
There are so many loud opinions out there about birth and so much information. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and lost in all that noise if you haven’t checked in with yourself first. (Side note: there’s a whole chapter on this very topic in my all-time favorite birth prep book, Britta Bushnell’s Transformed by Birth.) Leaping headfirst into the internet with all your questions about labor and birth is not my favorite preparation strategy because it doesn’t start with the most important person in all this birth business: you.
The whole spectrum of perspectives exists on the internet.
There are people who think *anything* is best:
Hospital birth
Home birth
Epidurals
Birthing unmedicated
Elective induction
Spontaneous labor
Getting cervical checks
Not getting cervical checks
IV pain meds
Hypnobabies
Etc etc etc
But none of those people are *you.* They don’t have your exact personal history, personality, decision-making process, risk-assessment, body, life philosophy, worries, past birth experiences.
So stop scrolling, log out of Facebook, and get away from Google. It’s time to shut all that out and turn inward.
Preparing for birth is self work. If you already have a great relationship with yourself, awesome. This may be easier for you. If you don’t, then it’s time to get quiet. Maybe a little uncomfortable. Definitely up close and personal.
Let’s start with learning to listen to yourself. I present… the self interview. Answer these questions in your journal, or your head, or with magnetic poetry on the fridge. However! The point is to take some time away from the world and start thinking about these things.
What’s your relationship with your body like? What does it feel like to live in your body? When have you felt the best about your body? The worst?
When you think about birth, what are the first images and words that come to mind? Where do you think these came from?
Describe any previous birth experiences (yours and/or someone else’s you witnessed). How did they make you feel?
When you think about your upcoming birth, do any fears, worries, or concerns come to mind? What are they?
What’s your relationship with your provider like? How do you feel about hospitals and the medical system in general?
What’s one thing you wish you could learn in preparing for birth?
The coolest part about this introspection is that the more you listen to your gut, the easier it is to hear. And that skill — tuning into your intuition — plus the skills you can learn to navigate the uncertainty of birth are going to serve you well beyond labor and delivery. They’ll help you realize what you really want in your postpartum experience, support you in developing the parenting skills you’ll need to raise this particular kiddo, and give you the confidence to handle the unpredictability of life.
Hot damn!
So what if you used pregnancy and birth preparation as an opportunity to build a deeper connection with yourself? What if you knew that no matter what happened during your birth, you’d have your best resource there, the person you’ve known the longest, right by your side, guiding you through the journey?
What if you could look forward to birth because you knew it would take you into the wonder — not of birth, but of YOURSELF!?