What does it take to birth forth a child of God from your womb? Better yet, what does it take for a pregnant woman to birth herself into a consciousness of motherhood before she physically gives birth to her own child?
A woman is given 9-10 months to be pregnant. How she chooses to grow herself during that time is totally up to her. What kind of pregnant woman will you be? Will you be the kind to birth as the status quo does? Learn that you are pregnant, be in the utter excitement of it all (rightly so), tell everybody, listen to other women’s tale of woe about their journey of pregnancy and childbirth, and make their experience your own? Will you automatically make the choice of having a medicated or c-section birth without doing the research? Will you turn your body over to the medical establishment, wholeheartedly trusting that they know all that is best for you, including, how you should birth, when you should birth, what you should take, etc. etc. etc. Will you be the kind of pregnant woman that is too frightened to listen to her own inner-voice? Will you allow others’ voices dominate your intuitive voice about what is best for you and your baby? What kind of pregnant woman will you be? What kind of mama will you be? Breathe on it.
Listen up mamas-to-be! It is part of the human experience to experience fears and nervousness during pregnancy and childbirth. However, your experiences of these emotions do not have to dominate your entire pregnancy and childbirth experience. What kind of pregnant woman do you choose to be? Are you willing to be a woman who opens her mind and heart to experiencing a conscious way of birthing? Are you willing to make conscious and informed decisions about childbirth? Are you willing to research the pros and cons about medicated births (epidural, c-sections)? Or are you going to do what 90% of the women do in this American culture, and that is have a medicated birth because many do not want to deal with or experience the sensations of “pain” during childbirth. The bottom-line is that you have a choice, you can choose how you give birth. Whatever choice that you make, just make it a conscious one. If a medicated birth is what you are choosing in the moment, so be it. Make the best decision for yourself in that laboring moment, without guilt. If you are scheduling a c-section and their is no medical emergency, why are you doing this? Think about it. Are you frustrated and tired of being pregnant, being impatient? Wanting the baby to come out on “your” time frame or the “hospitals” and not his or her own. Ask yourself, how is this choice honoring my baby? A caterpillar cannot skip any stages when becoming a butterfly, if it does, it will not become the full extraordinary butterfly that we see all around us. If the butterfly tries to bi-pass or rush a stage of its cocooning process, it won’t be able to FLY! Nine months of pregnancy is your cocooning phase, just before becoming a mother. If you rush this cocooning phase of pregnancy, in what way will this effect your laboring process, childbirth experience, parenting skills; and how will this effect your baby? Breathe on it.
I do not write this blog and questions to perpetuate greater pregnancy guilt, confusion, nor to enhance greater pregnancy stress. I write this because I want you to think about your choices. I meet many women in my practice who say to me that they want to “try” and have a natural birth, “I want to see how long I can go, if the pain gets too much, then I’ll have an epidural.” Nowhere in their consciousness is there even the “possibility” the “belief” that they have everything within them to birth forth their child naturally, without medication. When you make a statement like “try and have a natural birth,” you are already setting yourself up for a way out… and medication or c-section is that way out. What if… right now, where ever you are in your pregnancy, you decide, you choose to make natural faith-based choices about pregnancy and childbirth instead of fear-based choices? This means you are willing to look at yourself, your thinking and the drama/trauma perceptions about pregnancy and childbirth that you unconsciously bought into. Don’t fret, many of us have bought into this same belief system, that pregnancy and childbirth is “hellacious,” “just give me the drugs and knock me the f— out!”. Many of us don’t want to do the work required in childbirth or parenting. The caterpillar just is, and knows by the very nature of its DNA that a great deal of work and preparation is required before becoming a butterfly. The human species is the only species that wants to rush and manipulate the birthing process, thereby, never taking heed to the ramification that this may have on a woman’s immediate and long term postpartum experience and the way she parents long term. If one did not acquire patience during labor and childbirth, how patient will one be as a mother, as a parent?
Today, you can choose anew and Wake Up. You may be eight months pregnant right now, nine months pregnant and what if you decide to just forgive yourself for all the unconscious thoughts and beliefs you held about yourself, your baby and the whole pregnancy and childbirth experience? Forgive yourself for holding the perception that you “so called, wasted” nine months of pregnancy. We get it, when we get it. Now you are AWAKE! This does not necessarily mean you will have a natural non-medicated birth, (and this is quite okay), but it does mean that you are willing to be aware of old thoughts and beliefs that really did not support you during this pregnancy journey, and you are now willing to look at them and let them go. Let go of self-judgments, judgments of others and the birth process. You can move into self-forgiveness just by putting your hand over your heart and stating, “I forgive myself for judging pregnancy and childbirth as anything other than a God-given, Love-filled experience.” Say this over and over again as much as you need to, allow the tears to flow and feel your heart opening. You can use your own forgiveness phrases. You can now experience the remainder of your pregnancy and go into your labor and childbirth being fully present with what you are feeling, whatever the feelings may be, without guilt, knowing that you are making the best choices for yourself and your baby in that moment. It is important to remember this, just because you “feel” a certain way, does not mean you are that feeling or those feelings. Those feelings are just passing through, so let them.
Experiencing a natural non-medicated birth is an extraordinary thing. The women who have had natural births are so grateful that they did and cannot imagine themselves having a birth any other way. I have had clients that have had medicated births and are equally as happy and could not imagine having a natural birth. If you have a flicker of interest in having a natural birth go with that flicker. Ignore the comments from others on how “horrid” birth can be. Find yourself individuals and other pregnant women who are choosing natural births, surround yourself with like minded people so that you become uplifted. Pregnant women who have birth doulas and loving family support by their side have a very high rate of birthing naturally.
Remember, this is the only time that you are going to be pregnant with this child. So you must put forth your BEST effort, you will not get this opportunity to nurture this child within your womb again. No matter how you choose to birth, make sure you trust your intuition, do the research to necessary to “appease the ego,” let go of guilt, give yourself love, forgiveness and gratitude. The last three words are the only way.
I want to acknowledge those women who are pregnant and have had a very challenging time of it, be it physical health reasons, mental health reasons or have experienced an unimaginable tragedy during their pregnancy. Keep applying love, forgiveness and gratitude to yourself and your experiences.
God Bless each of you! My heart surrounds you in love.
Peace, peace and only peace.
