cave woman confidence

A pastor, a skeptic, a doctor, an over-analyst, and .... me?

Me: “My midwife recommended we take a prenatal class. I’m SO not into it!”

Anonymous relative: “Me either, I didn’t do any of that stuff for either of my pregnancies.”

Me: “Like, what are we going to talk about? Breathing techniques? I already know how to breathe.”

Reasons I had for not doing a prenatal class:

- Paranoia of brainwash

- Fear of not “fitting in”

- Expensive

- Figured I could self-educate myself on anything they were going to teach me

- It will be boring, and then I’ll feel bad for dragging James along

- I don’t know anyone that’s done them, and they all seemed to pop their babies out 

Reasons I ended up doing a prenatal class: 

- Found one that seemed balanced (educational but “natural” focused)

- Decided at least my baby daddy will be there with me

- Soul mama gave me some baby funds for Xmas specifically for things like this

- Learning from books was beginning to annoy me, I wanted to learn from real people

- James really wanted to do it (I know, right? I’m so lucky!)

- Though everyone I know popped out their babies fine, no one did it the way I want to (home birth)

“Hello everyone and welcome. I always like to start the class by going around the circle and everyone introducing themselves, their due dates, whether they know what they’re having, and a brief description of the type of birth they are hoping to have”, says our friendly prenatal teacher. So far I know she’s a doula, though I’m not yet entirely certain what that entails. I’m looking her over and trying to guess details about her life and personality based on appearance, even though I know that’s a ridiculous thing to do. Hmm she has a septum piercing flipped upward and hiding... professional by day but maybe has a little wilder side too. I see the edge of a tattoo under her rolled up sleeve, this seems to me a good sign. Clearly she’s not uptight and doesn’t care what people think. Her legs are pulled up and she’s sitting cross-legged on her chair. I don’t know what this means about her per se, but I like it. Makes me feel like I can lean back into the couch I’m sitting on and not feel restrained. Yes, I am being ridiculous and judgmental, but don’t pretend you wouldn’t be overanalyzing the person you’re about to spend your entire weekend with, the one that’s supposed to teach you everything you hope to know about labour and beyond. 

“Let’s start with you!” she smiles excitedly and makes direct eye contact with me... crap. 

“Hi, I’m Martyna... this is James. Our estimated due date is April 11th, we are having a girl. I am not sure how I’ve come to the following labour and birth ideas, because I don't personally know anyone that did it this way, but we are hoping to have a natural birth at home, in a water birthing tub. We’ve been under the care of midwives. My goal is to avoid medical intervention as much as possible, and to only transfer to a hospital if there is an emergency. ”  No one’s nodding their heads in approval except for the instructor. Everyone looks scared for me, like having a birth naturally in my home is an alien concept. The mama’s in particular look like their eyes are going to burst. But maybe it’s because I’m half the age of most of them and we look like teenagers amongst this crowd. Could be that. Could also be my own insecurities. Must be, because why would I care about head nod approvals from strangers. 

“Hi, I’m ______this is James. Hahaha yep, two James’ in the class!” Hmm, she’s nervous too. Not just me. “We are due _________ and do not yet know what we are having. We plan to have our baby at the Women’s and Children’s hospital, because I am the type of person that likes to know exactly  what’s going on all the time. For example, when I go for a bike ride, I like to map out my entire route before we even leave the house. I like to have my little computer with me so I can calculate how far we’ve gone, and how far we are going. I am obsessed with details.” This is an actual quote, not an exaggeration, “ I wish my little bicycle computer could calculate every detail with my labour and birth too, that would make me feel more in control.”

“Hi, I’m ________ and this is my wife ________. God has been a huge part of our journey. I’m in bible school studying to become a paster. God, God, God, more God. God, and then God some more. Our faith, God’s miracle. Thank you God. Thank you Amy for carrying God’s miracle for me, and the huge sacrifice your body is making for God’s sake. God. Marriage, Faith, baby, God. We are scheduled at the hospital.” On this one I maybe am slightly exaggerating, only because after a while of this I find myself tuning out.

“Hi, I’m ________ and I’m expecting a boy. I am seeing midwives but plan to give birth at the hospital. We are on our second set of midwives because the first were so horrible. A lot of things have been horrible. I actually have questions for you, Robin. What is the percentage of this in relation to that. What has been your experience with this type of horrible emergency. A friend of a friend of a friend of a friend had this horrible thing happen to her... can you give me an estimated number of how many times you’ve encountered that as a doula? What is the likelihood that this horrible thing will happen if I am feeling this horrible symptom. Does placenta encapsulation help with menopause? Menopause is horrible.”

This one’s my favorite:

“Hi I’m ___________. I don’t know what I’m having but I”m due _______. I have  a doula, the same midwives as Martyna and James, and am planning a natural home birth without intervention. Up until recently I worked as a pediatrician at the hospital, specializing in births, but now I’m focusing on my child psychology practice. I want a home birth because I trust in my body and don’t want to associate my labour with feeling like I’m at “work”. The hospital is not a peaceful environment for me and I know I just wouldn’t feel comfortable laboring there.” That’s right. She’s a doctor. And she’s doin’ it the way we plan to. Ahhhh, finally. 

Though it may sound like I’m poking fun at the other couples in our group, I’m not. Well, maybe some and maybe just a little. They were all very nice and I thought it was an interesting mix of people. I just wanted to paint a picture for you, my lovely reader, at how very different each person’s ideas about birth are. It amazed me that we all picked this particular prenatal class, with our different preconceived notions of labour and birth, different hopes and fears. 

I couldn’t help but wonder why the couples so intent on hospital birth picked a class called ‘Birthing from Within’ by a business entitled ‘Dancing Star Birth’, but the good thing that came out of the fact that we all seemed to be from totally different planets, was that we got to hear different perspectives than if we all thought the same way. And that’s always a good thing. Sometimes I find hearing someone’s opposing view on a subject just makes me feel that much stronger and more confident about my own.  And strength and confidence are definitely good feelings to have when you’re thinking about your birth plan, whatever that may be.

Anyways, enough about our quirky group. Here are some of my favorite things that came out of the Birthing From Within prenatal workshop:

• The birth video we were shown of a Mexican midwife’s natural water birth at home. The mama starts her day off with early labour contractions, and right away sees this as a reason to rejoice, celebrate; not  panic like they do in movies. She calls her relatives over and together as a family, with her children in tow, they go for a long walk down to a local river. Upon returning home they have a huge feast together, during which she at times takes breaks to focus on breathing through the stronger contractions. Eventually, while in *labour land, she gets the urge to walk around her home again. She is walking and breathing through more intense contractions, and at one point makes eye contact with her husband who makes her feel like this : 

“The sensation in my womb was as though the sun was wanting to burst out of my belly, and if I looked at him it was very clear as if it was our love that was swollen inside my belly and that it was wanting to burst out.” Her husband begins to walk backwards with her, almost slow dancing, and she explains that when she looks at him it reminds her that the sensation, though like pain, is their love bursting. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL WAY TO LOOK AT THE PAIN! Seriously, this part of the film is life-changing for me. Everyone watching this film in our class is crying at this point. Anyways, eventually the midwife gets into a huge beautiful tub and says that “the professional midwife side of me knew it was too early to get into the water, but my women’s intuition knew it was time”. Again, what a profound statement. After assisting in the birth of so many babies and knowing the medical side of it, she trusts her instinct more. I suppose this is how the pediatrician in our group feels. Baby is born into a warm water world and with the help of midwives is brought up to mama’s chest right away, and it’s the most breathtaking eye-opening moment for me. It suddenly clicks... this is what I want. This is what I’ve been researching and learning, and all the while wondering why I had these urges to birth naturally at home... well now it’s clear. It’s because of my woman’s intuition. And although I’ve only heard of hospital births and c-sections, somewhere inside of me, my women’s instinct knew there was another way. 

• Confidence. The confidence and trust James and I developed in each other, and in my body; knowing that my body made this miracle, and my body is made to birth this miracle. Cave women did this with no resources, I can do this. 

• Owning our birth. No matter what our labour journey ends up looking like, we can make informed decisions the entire way through. Our birth is in our hands, we have rights and can have a say in many things that happen along the way to make the space comfortable for us: the lighting, the music, the people around us (or, in some cases, shooing them away), our movements, our pain-coping techniques. These choices still are available to us even regardless of where the actual birth takes place.

• Acknowledgment of our fears. Towards the end of the workshop, the instructor made an interesting point about individual fears. She said that if we weren’t exactly sure what ours were, to think about the specific questions we were asking. A lot of our questions were signs about what we needed to come to peace with, accept, change our way of thinking, or simply learn more about. For example, one of the couples really wanted to know percentages and statistics of things. They wanted to know what the odds were that something was going to go haywire, and were constantly wondering about other peoples’ experiences. I got the impression that they felt the more they knew about everything that can go wrong, the more they will "own" their experience. Though I understand that urge, I don’t agree with it all the way. It became clear that they had almost over-educated themselves and their minds were spinning with too many possible outcomes, and were becoming obsessed with the part of birth you can’t control, instead of focusing on the parts you can. They also seemed to have a lot of “friends of friends” who shared traumatizing things with them... it’s not like the media doesn’t do that enough. 

***Note, I will post another separate blog on mine and James’ personal fears because I’ve been private messaged with questions about them. This is really exciting to me because A) I am getting people talking and B) I want to share my fear solutions because that’s more empowering than just freaking everyone out.

Would I recommend a prenatal workshop? Absolutely. Though I can only vouch for the one that I attended, I do think it's worth looking into if you ever catch yourself wondering the following: 

Cave woman confidence to you,

Martyna

Oh yea, and a word on the aforementioned “labourland”. This is where a woman is in her most primal state during labour. She is in active labour and does not (or at least should not) care about what anyone else is doing or thinking. She is comfortable moaning, groaning, singing, yoddling, dancing, chanting, stomping, being nekkid, and everything in between. Unlike what media portrays through tv and film, this does not always entail a woman on her back with feet in stirrups, an uncomfortable plastic hospital gown, panicked  shrieking, cursing and general sense of fear and doom.