how i prepared for my birth + postpartum experiences
The stories we are told about birth are important. I am forever grateful to my mother for the way she shared my and my siblings’ birth stories when I was growing up. There was no fear in her voice, only mild irritation with her providers. She had three unmedicated births and when I began considering my future birth experiences, I had a strong conviction that I was capable of the same.
Two years before I became pregnant, a family friend birthed her baby in her own home with her husband, parents, and a midwife present. It was the first time I’d heard about homebirth. Hearing her experience opened the door to a whole new world for me.
Those stories are the foundation of who I am today. They laid the groundwork for my own pregnancy, birth and postpartum experiences, and how I prepared for them. I was very intentional in beginning my preparations well before I became pregnant.
Started researching my options preconception. Reading and learning are two things I love to do. When my husband and I began considering a baby, I immediately went out and bought books recommended by my friend who birthed her babies at home, like Pushed and Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, and watched The Business of Being Born and Call the Midwife. I also flooded myself with birth stories via The Birth Hour podcast and any homebirth or freebirth video I could find on YouTube.
Altered my language in regards to contractions and pain. This preparation began preconception, when I started reading Mindful Birthing. The book encourages you to choose an alternative word for “contraction” that better captures their true ebb-and-flow nature. For me, that word was “wave.” The book also encourages you to reframe the way you think about pain, breaking it down into more specific terms like stretching, pressure, cramping, or tightening. It can be helpful to identify the new feelings in your body this way rather than lumping everything together under the prescription of “pain.” Check out this previous blog post for more details.
Chose a birth place and provider that felt aligned with my desired experience. After my first hospital appointment with an OBGYN, I knew hospital birth was not for me. Since I was preparing for an unmedicated birth, I decided to look into my out-of-hospital options. My husband and I interviewed a homebirth midwife but eventually settled on a freestanding birth center after attending one of their discovery sessions. We had an opportunity to interview all the midwives there and chose the one we felt most comfortable with to be our primary provider.
Took classes that supported my desired experience. My desired experience was for my husband to be my main support person and to exclusively breastfeed after birth. We attended an express Bradley Method class, which focused on unmedicated coping techniques as well as partner support. I also chose to educate myself ahead of time on breastfeeding with an Infant Feeding 101 class.
Scheduled in-home postpartum support when my partner returned to work. My husband took one week off of work to stay home during the immediate postpartum period. We planned well in advance for my mom to stay with us for a week after he returned to work. My mother-in-law had also prepared freezer meals for us in advance. We knew our cleaning and cooking capabilities would be limited. My mom helped keep the house tidy and prepare meals for us. She knew all I wanted to do was sit with my baby skin-to-skin and she respected that, only offering to hold him when I needed to take a shower. Having the extra support helped immensely.
If you’re curious about how my birth went, you can read the full story here and my thoughts on it five years later.
