So… I haven’t been particularly public about my pregnancy (yes – all of my videos are purposely recorded from the head up). I’m not really sure, why… perhaps because I’ve been taught that therapists are not supposed to self-disclose, or perhaps I didn’t want to make my social media about me, when it is supposed to be about you… Whatever the reason, I’ve decided to share with you all a bit about my pregnancy and birthing experience, not simply because it was beautiful, but because I learned and grew a lot from the experience and hope that perhaps someone out there will gain a grain of goodness from my sharing…When we found out I was pregnant in February 2013, my husband and I were really excited. Throughout my pregnancy, I was continually struck by how profound it was to create life within me, yet how natural and normal it felt to do it. One thing I got particularly interested in was the process of giving birth. It became something I started thinking about all the time. In this society I’ve found that people tend to spend more time picking out a car than researching their birth options, and I wasn’t quite comfortable just jumping on the bandwagon with the current birthing procedure.This movie, “The Business of Being Born” was really the start of my curiosity. You can find it on Netflix or here on YouTube (only from computer not from mobile). I highly recommend it.It was in this film that I was exposed to the concept of having a completely natural, drug free, home-birth in a bathtub. When I saw the movie for the first time, I didn’t really think I’d end up doing it, but after some time and thought I realized that I really believed in my body’s ability to birth, and that I trusted my ability to soothe and comfort myself, and above all I truly wanted to fully experience the gift of bringing life into this world. I realized I couldn’t think of anything more profound, natural, empowering, and purely vulnerable than birthing a child.
So I made it my mission to learn about how I could make this the most beautiful and peaceful experience possible. I found a class called HypnoBirthing, which is based on the premise that birthing doesn’t have to be painful, scary or dramatic like in the movies. It teaches that our bodies inherently know how to birth, and that if we can train our minds and bodies to relax throughout the process, it can be peaceful and maybe even pleasant! Here is a news clip about it: Hynobirthing.
After learning these theories about child birthing and watching lots of videos of people having drama-free water births, I was committed to creating my beautiful birth plan. I exchanged my daily hour meditation for the hypno-birthing meditations, I took prenatal yoga classes and spend much time visualizing and practicing relaxation techniques for this beautiful birth.
I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy to handle all of the fears, questions, and concerns from my family and friends regarding our choice to have a home birth, but I just kept returning to the notion that I am committed to creating the life that I want, and that I don’t make choices based in fear. I knew that I had done all the research possible and trusted the midwives and doula who were going to be there for the birth, and most of all I knew I trusted myself, and my ability birth naturally, (even though I had never done it)!
Once the labor started, all my fears went instantly out the window. We kept the room dark, with dim lighting and my meditation music played on repeat, as I moved and breathed my baby down….I knew that above all I was committed to keeping the energy around me as calm, still and peaceful as possible…
I was in active labor for only 4 hours (which included a walk on the beach by moonlight) and I birthed our baby boy in our jacuzzi tub at 4:24am on November 8th, 2013.
When looking back at the experience (although there was definitely more pain that I had hoped for, and 3 times I can remember thinking that next time I wanted a c-section!), I feel truly empowered, knowing that my dedication and commitment to doing the work to prepare for this special experience actually manifested exactly what I had believed was possible.
This experience reiterated beliefs that I have always tried to live by… We are the creators of our reality. We have more power within us than we’ll ever know…
So in sum, I welcome to the world, my perfect baby boy. His name is Zen… go figure. 🙂
I still can’t really believe I’m a mommy… it’s gonna take some time to wrap my head around this one…