I remember when I was pregnant with my first, I commented all the time to my husband how I was shocked at how little information I felt like there was about having an intervention-free (or at least intervention-limited) pregnancy and birth. I kept returning to the same few resources in part because they were great, but also because they were really the only ones I could find that had information about “non-conventional” directions. When I asked for recommendations from other mamas who had followed a similar path to myself, I felt like the same 3 or 4 books were suggested. A lot of my conclusions and decisions were made after piecing together hours of independent research and then bouncing ideas off of my birth team (who were an amazing fount of knowledge to have partnering with us).
While I loved the journey and I’m a big fan of research and informed decision making, it was kind of lonely. It saddened me that there wasn’t more readily available for women who don’t want the standard hospital birth. When I researched medication free births, the messaging was always, “you can try, but you’re going to be begging for an epidural.” Or researching homebirths, the message was always, “how could you be so irresponsible to even think of having a baby at home?” Or learning about breastfeeding, the most popular resources recommended “have formula on hand because you’ll likely need it for when your milk is not enough.” All of these messages were so negative and could easily undermine any woman’s confidence in her body’s ability to grow, birth, and nourish a child. Digging in deeper and looking beyond the top Google result, I found most of this messaging to be complete lies.
That’s why my husband encouraged me to share. Even when I felt like I had nothing to say or when I felt like what I was learning was just common sense, he reminded me that it was only common sense to me because I had been researching it non-stop. He would say someone may need to hear it in the way I would say it for it to make sense or finally click. And he would remind me that there aren’t many voices saying what I’m saying, so why not become one of those voices?
I tried to share with my first, but I was pretty self-conscious, didn’t have a big following, and wasn’t overly confident that my research was right. I knew in my gut that everything I was doing – focusing on minimal intervention and disturbance of the natural processes taking place – was the right path to bring our child into this world as peacefully and gently as possible (and to this day, people comment on how chill and relaxed he is, so I think there’s something to this stuff….). But there was still a part of myself that doubted our choices, knowing they were SO different than the choices our friends around us were making.
With this pregnancy, my goal is to take you along with me to show what choices we make throughout pregnancy and birth while respecting my family’s medical and general privacy. There may be some things we choose not to share, but I’ll do my best to explain why we make the decisions we do and highlight differences between our choices and mainstream advice. I want to be a resource for any mamas looking into natural pregnancy and birth in a way that I didn’t feel I had. So here we go….grow, baby, grow!!
Here are some great resources I found helpful as I researched pregnancy and birth. Instagram is also a great place to find positive birth stories and support.
The Mama Natural Week-by-Week Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth and www.mamanatural.com
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way
(my midwife’s website – she has a blog with a few posts as well as some powerful videos from previous births….the twins birth is incredible!)
(my photographer’s website – her work is stunning and so emotional. I cry everytime I see her post another birth)
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Have a good day!. Finally someone that actually knows what they are talking about thank you!