I have feared childbirth my whole life. Whenever anyone brought it up, I’d have a visceral reaction. I’d feel queasy, lightheaded, and want to gag. I’d change the topic of conversation as soon as I could.
I remember thinking to myself many years ago… if I ever want to have kids I’m going to need to see a psychologist about that! And that I would most likely try to have an elective caesarean.
And then I remember thinking in more recent years, if my clients start having kids, I might need to see a psychologist myself so I can actually support them! Well newsflash – of course some of my clients started having kids (and it all turned out fine – I was fine in sessions).
I also remember two distinct conversations I had with two friends… “Aren’t you scared about the pain of birth?” I asked. One of them responded “Nah, I’ll have all those amazing hormones that will help me forget about the pain after!”. The other responded, “Some women don’t even feel pain during labour… for some women birth feels orgasmic!”
At the time, those friends may as well have been speaking a totally different language. I was like…. Sorry, what?!
So how on earth did we end up here that I willingly planned and had a blissful, empowering, unmedicated homebirth? It certainly does feel a long way from that earlier version of myself.
It wasn’t until I was planning for this chapter of my life that I started to deep dive into birth world and was pretty shocked by the realisations I had.
Pretty much everything I thought or knew about birth was wrong.
I’m sure I’m not alone in this realisation. We really are socially conditioned to fear birth, often by mass media but also by the stories we hear from those around us. So often in the media birth is represented as an unbearably painful event, where the woman is sweating, shrieking, crying, panicking, and begging those around her to save her. She enters and leaves this rite of passage disempowered and out of control. Often in this image, hospital staff are the holders of power and knowledge over what she needs, rather than her innate wisdom and intuition.
These images we’re fed in the mass media are so far from how birth can be.
Birth can be peaceful, calm, intuitive, grounded, mystic, and empowering. There is a balance of focus, and surrender. The woman is completely in the zone, deeply attuned to her body and her baby, and moving, feeling, and responding in an intuitive, instinctual way. Physiological birth is a unique experience like no other, and women are so lucky to be able to experience this. Our bodies are designed to nourish and birth a beautiful baby.
As I learned more about the true physiology of birth, and all the elements that help that along the way, I became angry. Angry at yet another iteration of the patriarchy convincing women we’re too weak to handle pain, that we need to place more of our trust in others than we do in ourselves, and that we need saving. We’re convinced by this message that we are both WEAK and then also need SAVING by those who position us as weak. I am so sick of this story. What would the world look like, if women were unconditionally supported to attune to their inner power and strength? Who would benefit from that? And what might others stand to lose?
I really think this learning happened at the right time in my life. In other areas of my life I was fed up with the implicit and explicit influence of the patriarchy telling me I couldn’t, and I was DONE.
We need to re-learn what birth can be like. It’s not that birth will be a pain-free, cruisy walk in the park. It most likely will involve pain! And surrender! And vulnerability! And going deeply inwards. But it is totally and completely possible to have a pain-embracing, empowering, intuitive birth. Don’t let those images you see in movies fool you, you are so capable. As a mentor once told me, “Anything is possible with the right support”. If you are looking for support with birth preparation, and wanting a coveted space to explore, unlearn, and re-learn your beliefs and ideas about birth please get in touch. I can’t wait to meet and support you!