There seem to be a common belief in our culture today; that as long as a woman thinks positively about birth & is determined to birth without drugs, then that will give her a good birth. And if a woman worries [...]]]>
The key to meaningful birth preparation:
Prepare for pain, intensity and the unexpected

There seem to be a common belief in our culture today; that as long as a woman thinks positively about birth & is determined to birth without drugs, then that will give her a good birth. And if a woman worries about cesareans or pain, that will somehow manifest itself for her birth. I remember it well myself, giving birth to my first child about 10 years ago. I was determined to prove that birth was natural and that I would show them all where to put their epidurals. I don’t think I would have even answered honestly if someone had asked me if I had worries or fears about my birth. I did of course

Feeling respected, listened to and dealt with in a non-judgmental way is a very important part of preparing for birth. I had great fear of not being able to push my baby out, I had great fears of losing control in hospital with all sorts of interventions put on me and I had an agreement with myself about not letting my baby ever being taken to the nursery. As it turned out, all three fears manifested themselves to some degree in the birth. Now I don’t believe that because these were my fears they happened, but I do believe if I had been helped to take my worries more seriously, I would have had a much better birth and felt much less traumatised.

Worry is the work of pregnancy and it is there for a good reason. It drives us to sort out how to deal with situations we most hope won’t happen. We can’t prepare for all situations, but it is the ones we fear the most that will be most difficult, if left unattended.

The other thing that is creeping into our culture is a polarized attitude about pain. On one hand there is an attitude that believes if we don’t mention the word pain, labour will be pain free. The other attitude is evidenced by all the horrendous stories about the agonizing suffering women will go through in birth. I think that in traditional birth classes, in general, we spend too little time preparing women and their partners for the intensity and pain of labour. Most women all over the world report some sort of pain involved with childbirth. And I don’t think counting on a pain free birth is realistic. More often than not, that it is likely to fail; leaving women totally overwhelmed and with no tools to deal with the reality. But obviously being scared senseless is not beneficial either. If women are not prepared for the fact that birth is painful and intense, they are very likely to be very surprised and very overwhelmed during labour. And if it turns out to be not painful for them, it will be a fantastic bonus.

I have struggled with the issue of how to prepare for birth for ages. I want to pass on my passion, my respect and amazement for birth to parents. But I also want to prepare them for what birth is like in our modern culture, where birth is easily more complicated than it needs to be. We don’t know how a particular woman will feel throughout her birth, and often the unknown is the scariest aspect for both women and caregivers. Striking a balance of strength, confidence and determination with an open heart and a willingness to work with caregivers and to do whatever is needed of you, without giving your power away, is, I think, the ultimate. Helping women to be compassionate to themselves, while being realistic about what birth is, as well as being savvy in communicating effectively with hospital staff is the key. These are skills to prioritise when preparing for birth.

Being positive about birth does not have to exclude taking fears and worries seriously. And it doesn’t mean that we can’t talk about other types of births than natural ones. I believe that the positive in preparation comes in through making time to celebrate birth with all its challenges and joys. Birth is an unbelievably amazing, challenging, awesome, hard, and transformative event and celebrating with rituals for instance, can help women and their partners embrace birth for whatever it will be for them, pain or no pain, home or hospital, medical help or not. Happy birthing

Birth Connection : Why did you choose a Doula?

We fell into it by accident really.  We were doing antenatal classes and decided to extend the service to include having a Doula after we got on so well in the class.  It seemed like a good idea to have that extra [...]]]> Interview with Rebecca Markham

Birth Connection : Why did you choose a Doula?

We fell into it by accident really.  We were doing antenatal classes and decided to extend the service to include having a Doula after we got on so well in the class.  It seemed like a good idea to have that extra support.  We knew that she was already familiar with our views on birthing, it was just a natural extension.

 BC : Did having a Doula enhance the experience for you in any way?

Yes!   We both felt empowered and supported.  It really felt like at any point during the labour and birth we had answers if we wanted them, and options.  We felt comfortable at the hospital, something I don’t think would have been the case if we hadn’t had a doula.  We knew our Doula had been there plenty of times and knew the nurses and carers it made things easier.  Like we weren’t going through it alone.

It helped that when we ran out of things to help cope with the pain, our Doula suggested other options – options within our plan – stuff we’d forgotten.

I was very keen for a drug free birth if possible.  My baby was posterior and I can say for a fact that had our Doula not been there, helping me to stay mobile and suggesting positions for helping to turn the baby and helping to cope with the pain, I would have had an epidural. For sure.  That would not have been a negative outcome for us, however I am so very proud of myself and of my husband for doing the whole thing using only a bit of gas. It was our ideal scenario and our Doula allowed us to achieve that.

Also once we’d had Eloise, our Doula was able to support my husband when he held Eloise for the first time while I was busy.  My husband and I had some time to ourselves once it was all over to get refreshed since our Doula looked after Eloise.

BC: Did it matter in any way that you had built a relationship with her during your pregnancy? To have a known person present apart from your husband?

Yes that was important, I’m not sure if the experience would have gone differently if we’d only just met our Doula before the birth, but we had the opportunity to voice opinions thoroughly.  There wasn’t anything that we’d forgotten to point out or discuss because we got to know Pernille over a number of sessions together.  It was great to have someone in the room that had the experience as well as someone who was going to advocate for me.  Having my husband was amazing, but this was his first time too, so with having a doula, I had the best of both worlds.

BC: How did the preparation enhance your confidence?

We’d discussed all the options and made our feelings and wishes known.  We had the opportunity to make sure our Doula knew what we wanted, but more importantly she brought up things we hadn’t even thought of, for example how we could make an unexpected ceasar more of a birthing experience rather than a ‘medical’ one.  It also meant that when the hospital staff raised certain options or asked questions we already knew they were coming and we had the answers.  We felt a lot more in control of our experience than had we not had that knowledge.

BC : Did having a Doula change the way your husband participated in the birth?

Yes.  My husband felt more confident, which in turn allowed him to participate more in the pain management and birth.  I remember him saying, ‘I knew at any time I could look at Pernille and get reassurance that it would be ok, that what you were doing was normal and that I was doing a good job.’

BC: How did having a Doula change the way you felt at the birth?

I felt a lot calmer, because I knew that we had the tools, that is, the knowledge we gained from our Doula and having a Doula present, to get answers and to come to decisions that were comfortable for us.

BC : Would you recommend having a Doula to other women?

Yes. Undoubtedly, I will have a doula at the birth of all of my children.

15th of March at 6.30pm in lecture theatre 7

Saturday the 24th of March at 2.30pm in Lecture Theatre 3.

After the movie there will be a panel of local birth people to answer questions, and some light refreshments.

This is a [...]]]> Sunshine Coast University is screening the new movie Face of Birth.

15th of March at 6.30pm in lecture theatre 7

Saturday the 24th of March at 2.30pm in Lecture Theatre 3.

After the movie there will be a panel of local birth people to answer questions, and some light refreshments.

This is a film about families that choose to give birth at home, the midwives and health professionals who support them and a system that works against them. And it couldn’t really be more relevant than right in these times of lots of bickering after the tragic death of a birthing Mum in Victoria. It would be great to see lots of people there and to have lots of questions for the panel afterwards.

I have mentioned this plenty of times in other blogs and Facebook notices before, about how important it is that we women stay together at the moment regardless of where our preferred birthing place is. It is about the human right to choose where you want to give birth to your baby and how we can support women’s choices in the safest and most respectful way. Like we always talk about in BaBs; women don’t need other women to judge them, we need each others’ support. Let’s keep the focus on the woman, not on her personal birth choices ?

Tickets are available from Michelle on 5456 5031 or Leonie on 5459 4549
$25 pr tickets and $20 for Students

translated from Danish by Hayes van der Meer

www.familylab.com.au

When two people fall in love and move in together they “give birth” to their first baby – their relationship. When their second child arrives there is a risk that their first ends up as a neglected child. The relationship will, just [...]]]> By Jesper Juul

translated from Danish by Hayes van der Meer

www.familylab.com.au

When two people fall in love and move in together they “give birth” to their first baby – their relationship. When their second child arrives there is a risk that their first ends up as a neglected child. The relationship will, just like any neglected child, become difficult and cause lots of trouble – in the hope of getting some proper attention.

For most couples, the job of parenting requires their full-time attention, so it is understandable that the relationship suffers. In fact, the symptoms often begin already during pregnancy. The woman might become introverted and focussed on what is happening to her. She might even feel guilty about it. Her partner will feel his first bout of jealousy, envy and longing. All this continues and further develops as soon as the child is born. From then on the parents will be busy trying to figure out what it means to be a parent as well as how to live up to their new family member’s requirements. “Should the baby be comforted at the sound of every cry?”, “How much time should they spend nursing the baby?” and so on.

First time parents are particularly uncertain about how much attention to give. Therefore, they are more likely to give a little extra out of the fear for later to discover that the child has been neglected. It is not possible to say exactly how much care is enough, except that a 0-3 year old child simply cannot receive too much parental contact. Keep in mind though, that this should not continue. In the long run, no children benefit from parents who sacrifice themselves and their lives for their sake. Firstly; it will without doubt create a level of debt, which it is impossible for the child to re-pay. Secondly; the child will actually be better off with less attention than with two parents who argue because they do not have enough time and energy for each other.

The woman will usually be the one who spends more and more time with the child. As a result, the man will be the one who feels more and more neglected and thereby relegated to second position on her hit list. His loss, which often sounds like jealousy, is the first sign that their relationship is neglected.

The father’s jealousy

Jealousy should almost never be taken at face value – certainly not in this case. When he says: “Why do you always have to spend so much time with the child?” he really does not mean that the child gets too much attention but that he (and thereby she) does not get enough. If he is able to focus on the relationship as his first priority chances are that the outcome of the conflict will be very positive indeed.

Let us look at a concrete example: Most children love to cuddle up in their parents’ bed in the evening, and sneak in during the night or early morning. Absolutely wonderful! …at least, that is what the child and the mother might think. The father, however, most likely feels his privacy violated. Perhaps, he thinks it is too much of a good thing that the child invades the double bed and thus the possibility of a spontaneous sex life. Yet, when he tries to express this, it will most likely sound something like: “You spoil the child!”

This will essentially come across as an attack on the mother’s way of being a mum. He needs to talk about the relationship, instead he ends up criticising her role as a parent. As we know, criticism is not very seductive, so things obviously end in a deadlock.

If he is able to express himself as a responsible partner rather than a jealous father there is a much greater chance that she will do anything she can to be his lover.

A similar, yet opposite, example: the father is writing when his 2 year old daughter wants him to play. What happens next is different to what would happen if she went to her mother. Dad would pick his daughter up, chat with her and let her look through his papers for a few minutes. Then he would say: “That’s enough. I need to work. Off you go!” and that is what she would do.

The mother would let it go on for much longer. The daughter would not only look through her papers, she would also draw on them, scrunch them up and throw some of them on the floor. When she eventually tries to put her daughter down she will inevitably become clingy and start to whinge. The mum will become frustrated and take it out on the father by saying: “You really should look after her more often. I also have to be able to do some work…”

This time, her comments come across as a criticism of the father’s way of being a father. Eventually, it becomes a pointless argument about who does what and about quality versus quantity and other nonsense – another destructive argument between the parents.

Instead, there is a need for the father to focus on the relationship. He needs to be able to see that, in this situation, it is not about who does what. It is about the mother finding it difficult to get on with her work – more difficult than he does. When the daughter crosses the mother’s boundaries she needs to be able to say: “Stop!” – and feel all right about it. Right now, she needs some urgent assistance. Then she needs the opportunity to talk about the importance of taking time for her own life even when the child’s needs seem endless. She does need help to learn to look after her own life just as she looks after her daughter’s life.

 Less mum – more dad.

It is no coincidence that there are so many examples of mothers who are too much mothers. This makes it very difficult for dads to be dads in the same way as mums are mums. From the mother’s point of view she will often feel like being a single mother – even though the dad might look after half (or more) of the practical tasks. She has the responsibility and he completes the tasks. As a result, many mothers turn into super-mums – because they do not have a partner who shares responsibility.

Things are off to a bad start already before it all starts. Parenthood is out of balance during pregnancy because the mother at that early stage is able to integrate the child into her life. She will continue to do so while she is breast feeding. This allows her to develop a “radar system”, which means that she always knows where the child is, what it needs, whether it needs a nappy change, and if he/she can handle an argument with a sibling or if there is a need to interfere, etc. As a consequence, most mothers will shake their heads and roll their eyes at their husbands because there are so many things they do not see – even the most simple and obvious things!

Fathers can obviously also develop this radar system, if they are given the space – or rather, if they claim the space. Co-responsibility is not something that is given to you as a gift, it is something, which you have to claim. If the father is changing the nappy and the mother walks past and reminds him not to do it up too tightly, she obviously has no bad intentions. She does it because she cares for the child. Nevertheless, it remains a “mother” comment much more than a “partner” comment. There are plenty of examples of this: the dad is taking the children to the beach. As they walk out the mother tells him that he does not have the right towels.

Fathers must claim their right to go through their own parental experiences. Even if he has to pay the price of being called stupid, childish and stubborn – and perhaps even a bad father if the children come home with wet noses or bleeding knees after a trip to the beach. A father who reduces himself to “assistant mother” deprives himself and short-change the rest of the family. Due to the fact that the mother tries to be a super-mum, it is often the man’s job to stick to the partnership at the same time as he tries to claim his position as a father. When the mother is tired it will be more helpful if he invites her to the movies or out for dinner rather than to do a few extra of the practical tasks, which have to be done.

This must not sound as if mothers are incapable of doing anything to support their husbands: It is Friday evening and Dad has been away all week. Now, he wants to put the baby to bed. “No!” says the child “Mum has to!”

It is a harsh rejection especially when you have been looking forward to being with your child. In such a situation many fathers will hand over to the mother out of consideration for the child or because he fears that a conflict will make things worse. However, the conflict should be taken. The mother must support him no matter how angry or sad the child becomes. The alternative will be a vicious cycle: the father and child will never really become close. The mother’s job is to support her husband’s relationship with the child, rather than to prevent the child’s sadness right here and now.

 Children and the parents’ arguments

The relationship between parents is not just something, which happens when the children are in bed. “But…!” you might think “…it surely isn’t good for the children to watch the parents argue?”

That depends if the parents are wearing the “parent hats” or the “adult hats”. If the argument develops and you start criticising each other’s ways of being parents, then that is destructive – even to the children. Obviously, parents cannot, neither should they, agree on everything related to the raising of their children. In fact, it is really unfortunate if the two parents always agree. One important reason why children are born with two parents is exactly that the parents are different.

Parenthood must never become a power struggle where one is sabotaging the ideas of the other. Even though, you might completely disagree with what your partner is doing or saying it is important to be loyal and count to 10 and remember that no lasting harm is done from one potentially destructive episode. Leave it – rather than begin to defend the children or air your own excellence as a parent. Later on, when you are both able to see things in perspective, talk about it if you do not like your family to operate in that particular manner. This frank and possibly passionate discussion is one, which the children will benefit from listening to. It is about, which norms and values are being applied in your family so it is a unique opportunity for them to learn something about how to resolve conflicts and negotiate a satisfactory solution between two people. Why should they miss out on that?

 Good parenting

Parenting is generally defined far too narrowly. Often, it only concerns issues relating to what we provide for our children: food, , nappies, contact, full lunch boxes, help with homework, etc. Of course, this needs to be done but it really is the least important aspect of what we give them. We are preparing them for life. A life as future adults, future partners and parents. So we ought to demonstrate the practical expressions of how to live a life together, with children and with an adult partner. The way to do this, is to show them. We can tell them what life was like in the old days, how the earth rotates around the sun and explain to them the ins and outs of the government’s balance of payments (maybe). Any other, real parenting issues, we can only show them. Children are put together in such a clever way that they learn much more from what we do than what we say.

So, there is no use in lecturing to them. It does not make sense to tell them how terrible it is to lie, if we ourselves tell a little white lie every now and then. Neither is there any point in telling them they should stop arguing with each other, if we as parents regularly have arguments or power struggles.

It is during our mundane daily lives that we show them. We show them either how adults negotiate differences without necessarily crowning a winner and a loser, or we show them how most effectively to put someone down with or without a discussion. So, there is a limit to the benefits of long lectures about the true values of life. On the other hand, there are almost no limits to how many valuable experiences you can give them by converting these values into action.

 Responsibilities and tasks

Some couples frequently have arguments. It is usually the man who is accused of doing too little in relation to the children, washing, cooking, cleaning… or all of the above.

These conflicts are often based on the woman’s experience of “being left alone with it all” and “everything is up to her”. This might be her experience, even though the man actually does solve a lot of tasks. The reason is often because the two of them do not distinguish between responsibilities and tasks. Many men solve many tasks but leave the responsibility with the woman, and because responsibility requires much more energy compared to tasks, it may be the reason why she feels overloaded. There are two options:

1: The man steps up and takes more responsibility for specific areas.

2: They have a thorough discussion about how the responsibilities (and tasks) are in fact divided between them. They also need to talk about whether or not this distribution suits each of them individually. It need not be a 50/50 split but it is important that the division is open for revision.

Jesper Juul. Family therapist, author and founder of FamilyLab International.

Text by Hayes van der Meer, FamilyLab ANZ.

For more information and other articles please visit: www.familylab.com.au

FamilyLab ANZ

www.familylab.com.au  PO Box 354. Summer Hill. NSW 2130. 02-9799 2424. 04 313 977 21.

Birth is rarely described as easy, and in today’s culture birth is surrounded by lots of fear and feelings of danger and risk. However, for most women the safest and healthiest way to birth is a normal, vaginal [...]]]> Based on a presentation by midwife and lecturer Rachel Reed. Check out her very informative website: MidwifeThinking

Birth is rarely described as easy, and in today’s culture birth is surrounded by lots of fear and feelings of danger and risk. However, for most women the safest and healthiest way to birth is a normal, vaginal birth with no unnecessary interventions. In today’s Australia though, only a minority of women birth in this safest and healthiest way.

According to Neonatal Perinatal Statistics, only 37% of women in Queensland, go into labour themselves and birth their baby without medical or surgical assistance. This matters because women rate their birth experience as important as their wedding day and we know that a woman’s experience of birth has long lasting effects on her health and on her baby’s health. The feelings we bring home from our birth experience affects our experience of parenting our new baby. Medical intervention increases the risk of post- partum depression and post- traumatic stress syndrome and we know that in general, women who birth without intervention report greater satisfaction with their experience.

There is of course no doubt that necessary caesareans and other interventions save lives, but unnecessary caesareans and interventions increase the risk for mothers and babies. With every intervention there is a risk of more intervention. This is known among health professionals as the “cascade of intervention”. Over the last ten years Australia’s caesarean rate has increased more than 52% without any evidence that this is making birth safer for women or babies, meaning we are not saving more babies or mothers by doing this. The national caesarean rate in Australia is now 31.1% with the Queensland caesarean rate at 33%. The World Health Organisation recommends a caesarean rate of about 10 – 15% and states that there are ‘no additional benefits for a rate any higher than that’. Apart from this, caesareans are very costly for our society and our health budget, compared to normal, vaginal births. So all in all, we are not seeing any benefits to women, babies or our society from this trend.

In order to understand why birth seems to be getting harder, we need to look back in history and also understand how birth works. For millions of years the majority of women have given birth successfully. Our human race depended on that. Later on science has given us the ability to study anatomy, physiology and birth, and instruments were designed to assist women when birth became abnormal and did save lots of lives. Then doctors began to compete with midwives for ‘normal’ births and the most effective way to do this, was to get birth into hospitals. The move to get all births into hospital happened under the guise of “safety”, though a large Cochrane review has later found that this was not supported by good evidence, and may have resulted in increased intervention and complications without any benefit for low risk women.

In today’s Australia, birth has become a medical event controlled by obstetricians. Most women undergo some form of medical intervention during their birth, reinforcing their own and society’s lack of confidence in women’s ability to give birth.

So what might make birth easier?

When women give birth they use the old part of their brain. The part that stands for instinctual behaviour and ‘gut’ knowing. They need an environment that allows them to use that old brain and turn off our new brain, the neocortex, which is the part of the brain that analyses, thinks and uses logic. She also needs an environment conducive to the release of a beautiful concoction of birth hormones. These particular hormones will help her birth her baby. One of the hormones in labour is called Endorphins. This hormone helps a woman cope with the pain and stress of labour by relaxing her and putting her in a spacy place also known as ‘labour land’. When a woman is in labour land she is in the old brain. The main hormone involved in birth though, is the love hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin creates contractions and thereby dilation of the cervix, so baby can be born and also makes us fall totally in love with our baby when we see him or her.

Oxytocin is inhibited by bright light, strangers, questions and fear

Fear in labour not only interferes with oxytocin release, but also reduces the blood flow to the placenta, and thereby to the baby, which can lead to foetal distress. This is what we call the fight or flight response.

Of caesareans carried out during labour: 33% = ‘failure to progress’ and 30.5% = ‘fetal distress’

Oxytocin is increased by privacy, darkness, people we know and feel safe with and touch; this makes home is an ideal oxytocin environment and we now know that a planned homebirth is as safe as a hospital birth for low risk women, despite all the obstrically induced media hype. (And for the politicians; it is also much cheaper)

We also know that women, who has midwives as their primary caregiver, has a much higher chance of a normal birth without intervention. A midwife is highly skilled in normal, natural birth and works from a woman centered belief. Obstetricians on the other hand, are highly skilled doctors, specialising in high risk pregnancy, complications and surgery. A midwife knows when birth is no longer safe and normal and will call in the obstetrician and his/her skills in dealing with complications that are outside the midwife’s scope.

But how does it work in real life? When you birth in the private system in Australia, your main care provider is always an obstetrician and although they rarely care for the woman during her labour, they do make decisions regarding her care (often via the phone). They also, in most cases, attend when the baby is emerging.

Compared to women birthing in public hospitals, women birthing in private hospitals:

• are significantly more likely to have interventions during labour

• have a 15.3% chance of forceps or vacuum birth (public 10.2%)

• have a 41.3% chance (18.2% with no labour) of having a caesarean (public 28.1%)

Another major factor which seems to increase satisfaction for women and lower the intervention rates significantly, is continuity of care. This means that a woman receives all her care from a known midwife. Women who receive continuity of care and who have continues care during labour as well:

• are less likely to be admitted to hospital during their pregnancy

• have a shorter labours • use less drugs during their labour

• have less intervention during labour

• are more likely to have a normal birth

• their babies are less likely to need resuscitation

• are more likely to be pleased with their care.

Doulas and continuity of care during labour

A doula is a trained birth support person and is ideal for providing support (emotional and physical) for women and their partners during labour and birth. She spends time with a couple getting to know them during pregnancy, helps them with issues, fears and wishes, so she knows them when labour and birth is happening. A doula is not medically trained and cannot replace a midwife, but can provide their care without the distractions a midwife may encounter, due to professional responsibilities and documenting. The benefits associated with continuous care in labour are even greater, when a Doula is part of the care.

So in summary:

A good birth environment conducive to oxytocin release and birthing from the primitive brain

Midwifery led care, so the person you deal with through your pregnancy is a midwife and only if complications arise do you see the obstetrician.

Continuity of care, care from a known midwife all the way through your pregnancy, birth and early postpartum

Support during labour from a Midwife and a trained birth doula

This makes birth easier!

But before women even become pregnant they have been socialised into perceiving birth as a risky event with medical technology and intervention as the key to reducing this risk. This picture of birth is also perpetuated in the media. Here on the Sunshine Coast we don’t have any options for birthing the easy way. Many have a medicalised birth, which reinforces the risk and danger of birth and the lack of confidence in the natural process……. they tell their birth story to other women…..

But what if all women could choose their own midwife early in pregnancy and build up a relationship of trust, had access to evidence based information about their options throughout pregnancy, felt confident in her ability to birth her baby, could choose where to birth (home, birth center or hospital), had the support of a known doula throughout her labour, had an empowering birth experience told their birth story to other women…….

How can we move towards easier birth in our community?

At the moment here on the Sunshine Coast, a group of women are fighting to get a birth center with the new hospital being built in Kawana. Please join them on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/FBCSC to see what you can do. If we don’t have the voice of the women, who are going to use these facilities we have much less power. Also the Maternity Coalition of Australia is working very hard to ensure that homebirth won’t be made illegal by 2012 as it is predicted to be. Join them on http://www.facebook.com/Maternity.Coalition?ref=ts&sk=wall.

We can’t predict how our birth journey’s will unfold. Some births need medical intervention and this is not wrong. But we can do so much more and so much better for our birthing women. Even if your birth turns high risk and needs intervention, you still deserve having a known midwife, a doula, and continuity of care. Let’s tell politicians how our birth experiences could be better and more positive, regardless of how our birth journeys unfold . Knowledge is power in this situation. Where do you want to birth?

A lot of you know that I recently went through a miscarriage at 13 weeks. I wanted to share with you some amazing things I have learned on my journey through the three months of being pregnant and going through the miscarriage.

Being a Doula and then getting pregnant makes you realise that it [...]]]>

A lot of you know that I recently went through a miscarriage at 13 weeks. I wanted to share with you some amazing things I have learned on my journey through the three months of being pregnant and going through the miscarriage.

Being a Doula and then getting pregnant makes you realise that it is vastly different supporting birth from the outside, to being in birth. Despite having birthed twice before, it was a good thing to be reminded of, when I found myself unexpectedly pregnant after Christmas. I know a lot about birth, about hospitals and obstetrics, but I very quickly realised that despite all of that, I had lots of preparation to do. It was a more soulful type of preparation though that I needed, one that connected me with my strength and trust in birth and one that took my fears and worries seriously enough, to really look at them. I wanted a natural homebirth, like many other birth workers do, but I realised that I needed to prepare myself to a place where I could have a good birth no matter how my journey would unfold. And that is not an easy task!

In the end, I never made it that far; my baby only stayed for a short time. I did start my preparation slowly by writing in my journal and doing some drawings, and maybe this also helped me on the journey I had to do. I have learned so much and for that I am so grateful for the short time and the birth journey this baby gave me.

I went to the hospital because I was spotting and an ultrasound confirmed that our baby was no longer with us. The news was heart breaking and we were all devastated. I was sent home to let the baby come by itself, which was what I wanted. I don’t know if this is now standard procedure in a miscarriage or if this was a case of ‘we actually don’t have any beds left and this woman seems to be ok with going home’. I don’t know. But for me this was the best thing.

The baby took a bit more than a week to come and it was one of the most challenging weeks of my life. I was dealing with the grief, with worry of what was to happen, with impatience and the unknown of when it would be and how it would be. I kept going into control mode and trying to organise when and how, which obviously wasn’t possible and I am very thankful to my husband who tirelessly grounded me with his patience and with reality and had such confidence in me too. I had to open and surrender to a degree I don’t think I have ever tried before.

I was also incredibly lucky that the community around me came together and I was so supported in every possible way. I had shared my pregnancy joy and now they were sharing my grief. This is a huge part of how I came through this event, and it was awesome to experience. I had women bringing food, giving me foot massages and acupuncture sessions – every day someone was checking in on me either by phone or email or texting. I felt so respected and cared for. Sometimes it was just knowing that women were thinking about me and feeling for me, other times it was great that women came forward with their stories, so I felt like I wasn’t alone and also so I practically was ready for how this would happen.

My baby came in the middle of the night, after three hours of labour, transition and the whole kit and caboodle. I was grateful because one of my worries was how to deal with my other two kids if they were around. We knew we couldn’t be parents while we did this and even though lots of people had offered to take them or be there, it was nice that they didn’t have to go away. Going through labour also meant that I got all the hormones with me and even though my baby was a tiny little, though fully formed, alien looking being, I totally fell in love with her. We held her and examined her, talked to her and cried over her until we were ready to let her go. I got to feel like I had mothered her and cared for her and protected her and sent her off with dignity and this is a very big part of the very empowered feeling I now have afterwards.

So what have I learned? Well, I suppose it is food for thought that I could have an empowered experience through a birth which had such a bad outcome – a little, but still dead baby. So maybe the saying we hear again and again about ‘at least you have a healthy baby, doesn’t necessarily hold water. We all want healthy babies, but the process is, I think, just as important. It is possible to have an empowered birth with a bad outcome, but it is also very possible to have a disempowering experience with a good outcome. We need to change our focus in preparation from mainly obstetrical, to mainly soulful I think. My point being that we need to work on the process, since we can’t control the outcome. We need not to be afraid of touching the difficult feeling around birth, the fears of how it will be, because we can’t control if birth will go there. If we only prepare for lovely, calm, serene, maybe even pain free birth, we will most likely feel very unprepared and maybe even feel quite lost and traumatised in the event of our birth journey taking a different path

When a birth has unwanted intervention and the journey goes a different direction to how you would have liked it, there is going to be disappointment and grief. We all know that in our birth culture today, many women have traumatic experiences and are treated appallingly. But we need to make sure that birth activism doesn’t mean that we only prepare ourselves for being strong through a normal, straight forward birth and make all ‘un’- natural experiences wrong or bad. We also have to watch our language, just as we wish doctors would. We all need to acknowledge that a woman who had a caesarean still birthed her baby, she still had to find the ultimate strength inside herself to surrender to be cut open, to save herself and/or her baby.  The fact that it might have been an unnecessary caesarean is not relevant right in that moment. That is a separate issue that should be fought separately to birth preparation. A woman can’t fight for her rights while she is birthing, she can only make good choices of birth place and carer and then stay present in doing what she has to do to get her baby out with the help of those carers she has entrusted to look after her.

So despite the grief and disappointment this woman might feel, we need to remember to honour her journey and her womanly strength. To do this we need to detach from specific outcomes such as natural birth. And here I don’t mean giving up natural birth or the fact that natural birth is generally favourable, but more to be mindful of how we can be in our womanhood, no matter how our journey unfolds and to accept very deeply that birth is unknown and unexpected and sometimes unwanted things happen. It is beyond our control and we can’t prepare ourselves to gain this control. We can do lots of things to maximize the possibility, but regardless of all the’ right’ books, all the ‘right’ types of courses, and all the positive thinking in the world, it is still not going to take the unknown and unexpected and sometimes unwanted out of birth.

Women are made for birthing, but not just our bodies. Our minds and our strength were made to cope with whatever we have to do to birth our babies, to meet the challenges in natural birth and in birth with medical help too. Being surrounded by supportive women is imperative to deal with a difficult experience. That is our job and challenge to create as women for each other.

My experience was empowering because I had time to come to terms with the fact that this is part of birth. It is part of being a woman and making babies, growing babies, raising children. I had time to accept that this is how it was for me this time and I had to do what I had to do. I could feel my womanly strength within that. I had time to connect with my baby and send her off even before she came out and I had amazing women around me who trusted me, felt for me, cried with me and encouraged me to do it my way.

I allowed myself to feel all the feeling involved with the situation and I felt 100%present in what I had to do. I had to be in my uttermost womanly place of strength and power to do this, but keeping in mind that what I was doing was part of birth and of what we women do, meant that I didn’t feel like a victim.

Having the support of so many women around me, whether they were right in it with me or just sending me their love, was amazing. I wish all birthing women could have this. This helped me keep going, when I was about to give up. It helped me stay grounded and true to myself, when I got stressed and wanted to control when and where, and it made me feel part of something bigger, that there was something more here even when I had said goodbye to my baby.

And then it was the feeling of having been able to mother my baby – the feeling of having protected her and connected with her and sent her off with dignity. I hope that our medical establishment learns to honour this very important point, whatever intervention they think is needed for any particular woman. She needs time to mother her baby on the inside as well as on the outside. She needs to feel like she protected her baby and that she was important, because she is the most important person in birth to her baby.

Mothering my baby meant that I feel like I have come full circle. I can leave the experience behind in peace. It doesn’t mean that I don’t cry about her and my loss or not feel cheated, but it means, like a wise woman said to me , that even though my arms are empty, my heart is even fuller.