2. Welcome to the Into the Wonder Birth blog: A (Not-So) Brief Guide to What You’ll Find Here (Part 2)
When I formed Into the Wonder Birth, I spent (and still spend!) a lot of time thinking about my own passions and areas of expertise and who I can best support. When we doulas start out, we want to work with everyone! But what a lot of us realize fairly quickly is that we’re drawn to certain things, have certain skills, really enjoy certain parts, and if we stop trying to be the best doula for everyone and start actually specializing in what we really love and are really good at, we’ll have a lot more impact.
While anyone preparing for birth will find my content helpful, you’re going to get the most out of this blog if you:
are planning to give birth in a hospital
struggle with all the unknowns of birth
I went into the challenges of the hospital maternity care system a bit in part one, so let’s dive into the second aspect here. Why is birth such an unknown?
First, let’s look at where birth happens. Literally. Regardless of how we plan to give birth, birth happens in our bodies. It’s the thing most of us have been taught to hate or find fault in or want to change. To not trust or listen to. How many of us have spent a lot of time with the parts of our body that are the superstars in birth? I’m talking uterus, pelvic floor, perineum. Hell, how much time have we really spent down there with a mirror over the course of our entire lives? (Side note: Did anyone else grow up with that American Girl book The Care and Keeping of You? Remember the “controversy” over it because there was an illustrated picture of a girl putting in a tampon? I just googled and found this one-star review: “Do not get this book for young girls. It has a picture of a girl with no shirt or bra on and has full breast. It also has a picture of a girl with no pants or underwear on. My daughter did not need to see that.” …I don’t even know what to say about that.)
Then there’s the mysteriousness of birth in our culture. For something that literally happens all the time, it’s incredibly tucked away. For most people, the first birth they see (aside from a couple YouTube videos) is their own. If you’re not around birth all the time, it’s hard to feel like it’s normal, like you know what to expect.
And finally… there’s the small detail of us not being time travelers. Birth is unknowable before it happens. We can’t predict exactly what the process will look like because we’re living, changing beings and not machines. Birth is out of our control, even if we do ALL THE THINGS, like eating well, taking care of ourselves, resting, moving, stretching. For most of us, we’re used to having the amount of effort or work we put into something directly contribute to the outcome. We like progress, productivity, the idea that our life takes place on this line that is constantly moving forward and upward. Birth doesn’t work like that. That’s why the labyrinth has become such a symbol for the birth journey.
I’m sure that to an extent, most people struggle with the unknowns of life. But who tends to have a particularly hard time with the uncertainties of birth?
People who feel overwhelmed with the vast amounts of information out there about birth. Maybe you don’t even know what your preferences and priorities are because there’s just so much to sift through and how will you possibly learn everything in time!? And make the right decisions?!
People who’ve had a difficult birth experience before. When you’ve had a really tough time with a previous birth, whether you consider it a challenging experience or birth trauma, it can be hard to not know what to expect with your next birth. What if the same thing happens again? What if it’s something else that’s really difficult? Should you plan for a “redo” to heal from your first birth? Or have no expectations so you’re not disappointed?
People with anxiety. Anxiety likes order, calm, predictability. It wants to know what to expect and what everything is going to be like ahead of time. Basically everything that birth is not.
People who have specific expectations for birth and don’t know how they’ll cope if things go differently. Maybe you really need a specific provider to feel comfortable. Or you’re determined to manage pain a certain way and don’t want to have to rely on other options. Or you think that if X, Y, or Z were to happen, there’d be no way you could handle it.
Are any of those you? If so, welcome! You’re in the right spot.
Join me here each week to learn more about shifting our thinking around birth, how to prepare, why hospital culture is the way it is (and what to do about it!), what skills I think you should practice in pregnancy, and more. I want you to approach your birth feeling confident about going into the unknown. Because preparing for birth is self work! It’s about getting to know ourselves better in this new season of life — what we struggle with, what our strengths are, how to listen to and trust ourselves more, how to respond to challenges. It’s about going beyond memorizing tons of information to develop the skills you need to handle the uncertainty of birth, parenting, and life — all in the way that feels best to you. There is no right way. There’s only your authentic voice and way.
At the end of the day, you have one person you can count on 100%, and that’s YOU. Can you imagine all the possibilities if you spent your pregnancy getting to know yourself better? What would that feel like during your birth? After? To take it to the “universal level” (what we always said in high school English class to get maximum points during our seminar discussions), can you imagine a better relationship to cultivate at this transformative time in your life than the one with yourself?