How do I make sure all the bad stuff doesn’t happen to me?
If there is one thing I can almost guarantee during pregnancy it is unsolicited advice. As soon as someone recognizes that you are pregnant (either with visual assumption-bleh or by actual confirmation), they have something to say. Strangers will comment on your body, tell you stories, or even compare their experiences to what they expect yours to be.
I’d like to hope that family and friends are less intrusive, but the likelihood is that you might know some of their birth stories and/or want to learn from them because they are people you love and trust.
What am I even getting at here? Simply that it can feel impossible to be pregnant without having the opinions and narratives of others. And this is pretty rough. It can make you feel like what happened to others will happen to you. It can create anxiety and fear about what might come. And in general, the majority of what is shared about pregnancy and birth tends to be negative.
And don’t get me wrong, this is because the birth system is pretty effed up and is constantly causing trauma for birthing people… BUT you will still have your own experience. Because every birth is unique just like every body and every human is unique.
Sure you might be able to predict a few things. Such as the size of the baby…often it’s similar to you or the birth partner’s size at their birth or similar to past births. And maybe even what the little babe will look like because you know, genes and all. But what will actually happen at birth, that’s impossible to know.
Why am I saying all of this? Because all of the bad stuff you hear about is not your story. And it never will be.
So how do you keep the bad stuff from happening to you? I have to admit that feels impossible too. But what you can control is how you approach your birth, what you ask of your birth team, and how you care for yourself before, during, and after birth.
You should also control your feelings, just kidding. That is impossible and all feelings should be welcome when it comes to pregnancy, birth, and parenting. But you can get to know them and take control where you can (and want to). *Note - I don’t mean control as the lead here, but whatever control means to you. It means setting you up for your needs and wants, based on your needs and wants.
How do you even do that?
Welcome your feelings to the party, invite them to the table…it’s only here that you can examine them, feel them, talk about them or to them, and decide that fear, anxiety, frustration, and stress are all normal human responses. By doing this, you give them a voice - as even if they are irrational or extreme, they are just trying to protect you. Ask them instead to shift their focus and used their protection skills in a way that actually makes sense for you.
Make a birth plan…but not just any plan. Make one that speaks to your birth team, your support team, and anyone else who will be involved in labor, birth, and postpartum. Tell them what you need, not just what you want. You set the stage for what will happen.
Make decisions in advance of what medical interventions may come up. And put them in order from first choice to last choice. For example, if you (in your body) feel like your labor is stalled and you need help…do you want rest, provider help such as vacuum or forceps, pitocin, a cesarean, meditation, nipple stimulation, etc.
Connect with your intuition. Intuition is a place of confidence and calm. It is here where you can be sure you are in tune with your body and your needs. After inviting in fear to allow it to be heard, you open up space for your intuition to speak freely because the fear has gotten what it needed.
Remember that, even though today’s birth system is a complete shitshow, your provider came to be a person who delivers babies because that is what they wanted to do. This is where their medicine lies, their magic, their heart. No provider gets into birth because they love a good cesarean, they get into it because there is something in the birth of new life that drew them in. They are there to assist you (if needed) in bringing a baby into this world.
Finally, do whatever the hell you want to do. There is so much information out there about birth and pregnancy and health and this and that. But focus on you. What do you need? What does your intuition tell you? Go with that.
You deserve to be in control of your birth. That’s how you keep bad things from happening because it’s not about the “bag things,” it’s about trusting yourself and your team to be in your magic. You’ve got this!
*Interested in learning more about planning a better birth? Check out my e-book which is all about decision-making and feeling empowered from pregnancy through post-partum.
