Preparing for birth...

I have the privilege of teaching childbirth preparation classes at the Charleston Birth Place each Tuesday evening. After a day of counseling at a mental health center, it is wonderful to gather with a group of expectant parents who are full of hope and love for each other and their waiting-to-be born child. Getting ready for the birth of a child, especially a first baby, is such an exciting time of self-discovery.

As a midwife and therapist, I created the Best Birth childbirth preparation class to educate, support and inspire woman and their partners to make the make the best choices for their best birth. But, this class is not just about birthing, it is about living! Best Birth childbirth preparation series is based on the ageless midwives’ saying, “We birth how we live.” This statement recognizes that we don’t turn into someone else when we give birth. We are always us, even when we are having a baby. So, we will each greet the experience of birth in the same way we greet our other life experiences. We will follow our old familiar patterns. During our baby’s birth, we will each be who we are at that moment. Who we are influences how we experience birth and what birth will feel like to us.

What will birth feel like? That’s everyone’s big question isn’t it? That is why women come to a childbirth preparation class, to find out what birth will feel like and how to deal with those feelings. Truthfully, I don’t know what birth will feel like to anyone. I know what birth felt like for me, and it was completely different all four times! That’s because from birth to birth I had new experiences and received new information that changed how I thought. Because my thoughts had changed, I changed how I lived my life. Because I lived differently from birth to birth; I birthed differently. We birth how we live.

So, in my classes we explore how we live our lives in relation to ourselves and others. How we experience our thoughts and our bodies. How we cope with change and stress. How we identify our needs and ask for our desires to be met. And we make decisions about living differently, not only to prepare for birth, but for the rest of our lives. After all, birth is just a part of life, although it is a very special part, and it is even not the most difficult part of having a child!