Welcome to the June 2012 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Embracing Your Birth Experience

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have written about at least one part of their birth experience that they can hold up and cherish.

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Birth is about more than healthy babies and healthy mothers.

Pregnancy, labor, birth and the postpartum period are a mother’s rite of passage. Each time we grow a baby, give birth and learn anew to mother, we are pushing ourselves to the limits of our abilities.

And who knows what we are capable of?

Laboring for over an entire day? Birthing an 11 lb baby? Mothering a newborn who needs to be worn and walked almost constantly?

Birth, just as life, is an unknown.

It is this part of birth’s nature that makes birth one of our greatest teachers. It is a rare experience in life that asks us to let go so completely, that forces us to surrender so fully, that requires us to lose control in order to stay afloat.

We cannot force birth; we cannot force life.

Indeed, life at times works like the mysterious process of pregnancy, feels like the intensity of labor and can be as up and down as the postpartum period. We are presented with challenges. We work hard and make the best decisions we can. We experience hurt. We experience joy.

Regardless of what our birth experiences are, the metaphor of birth is there to aid us in our journey through life.

I have found myself in a group of other mothers saying, “It’s just like pregnancy!” to a chorus of nodding heads. Pregnancy can teach us how to give of ourselves, how to balance our needs with those of others, how to slow down, how to think and prepare long term. Even unexpected twists serve as useful lessons. For instance, we can learn that it is never too late to begin using our voice. Care provider not respecting you at your 36 week prenatal appointment? Get a new care provider!

Even with non-parents I find myself trying to explain, “It’s just like birth!,” followed by an explanation in which I express how the opening of birth, in all its complexity, mirrors the opening up to the possibilities of life. For me this is a quite literal life meditation as I work to manifest a new existence for myself and my family through the creation of A Living Family community.

Just as in birth, I find myself blind to what is coming next and when, deaf to the world around me as I seek to listen to the voice within, mute to speak of my transformation as the web of experience weaves together at its own pace and in its own way.

Just as in birth, I gather strength and courage and trust beyond what I thought possible, riding the waves of reality in the moment to moment and diving deeper and deeper into that dark mystery of creation.

Another very real example of the metaphor of birth exists in my own struggles with aversion when nursing my toddler.

Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth and Pam England’s Birthing from Within that first time around. My body (and mind) can both create the pain and help it go away.

I have struggled since my pregnancy with my son to deal with feelings of aversion while nursing my daughter. In fact, I recognized when she weaned during pregnancy that I was experiencing freedom from those feelings and the limits on my wardrobe. When the aversion came back as she learned to nurse after the birth, I felt the same threat of hopelessness I felt when I was in early labor with her.

Desperate for direction, I sought out the same intuition I had during my first birth: Use my breath and visualize. . . .

I started to see my struggles differently. My nursing aversion is my labor of love. It has all the urgency and intensity of birth. It has the same letting go, the surrender, the wild, shifting feelings. This realization encouraged me to trust, to stay open to the possibility, to keep on working.

Still struggling, I reached inside for wisdom from my second birth: I already have all I need.

I face something that feels difficult emotionally and mentally, just like birth. I know that I am these feelings I feel when I nurse my daughter. I know that a shift in me would create a shift in my daughter, and in our whole family. The work feels as hard as the work of birth as I say to myself, “I can do this” and labor to love my child.

It is the metaphor of birth, written into my body memory from my birth experiences, that tells me to embrace my potential.

My potential to know.
To feel.
To learn.
To grow.
To stretch.
To shift.
To move through.
To overcome.

Birth inspires me to embrace and trust my power to transform, my Self, my family, my community and the world.

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A middle school teacher in a past life, Sheila Pai followed a calling after the homebirth of her daughter to create A Living Family: a community of extended “family” focused on making a life instead of making a living. First through the blog and then by co-founding a local Meetup community in the Philadelphia region, Sheila began building community, support and resources for natural birth, parenting and living. After the homebirth of her son in December, she is now shifting to her role as a tandem nurturer and planning the Life Learning Unschooling Coop and Homesteading Cooperative she plans to launch through A Living Family in the fall. Some day, when she is finally certified, Sheila hopes to offer her services as a childbirth preparation mentor with a focus on H/VBAC mamas, partners/dads and second time around families.

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Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

(This list will be live and updated by afternoon June 12 with all the carnival links.)

• I Had A C-Section. So What! — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama rewrites her birth story now that she has worked through the feelings of inadequacy and disappointment of not having the “perfect” birth.
• The Perfect Birth — Kellie at Our Mindful Life reflects on how a birth can be far from what we imagined, but still perfect.
• Own Your Birth: My Hope For All Expectant Moms — Andrea at Tales of Goodness shares how she owned her birth spiritually (while navigating it physically) in order to have a joyous experience.
• Carnival of Natural Parenting: My Birth Experience — It wasn’t what Lily at Witch Mom wanted, but it was everything she needed.
• The Painless Natural Homebirth of BabyE — Shannon at GrowingSlower wants women considering natural birth to know painless births are possible.
• Reflections on Jemma’s Birth … 20 Months Later — It took a second pregnancy for That Mama Gretchen to fully embrace her first birth experience.
• Loving My Unnatural Birth Experience — Erika at Cinco de Mommy cherishes her very first birth experience, in all its unnatural glory!
• Be Careful What you Wish for in Birth — Amber at Strocel.com had two births, and it was the one that went to plan that she struggled with embracing.
• Redeeming an unexpected hospital transfer — Lauren at Hobo Mama looks back at her first, interrupted home-turned-hospital birth, and finds the beauty in what happened.
• All of it — Laura from Pug in the Kitchen had to learn to embrace the whole experience of birth even though it meant being naked . . . with an audience.
• Birthing Dreams & Realities — Momma Jorje never had a “dream birth,” but she wouldn’t change a thing about her births.
• Memories of Birth: Calm Amidst the Storm — While neither of her children’s births had been quite what she expected, Cynthia at The Hippie Housewife cherishes one moment in particular from each of her birth experiences.
• Embracing Our Birth Stories — Luschka from Diary of a First Child shares a sensitive post on her recent birth which both did and didn’t go ‘to plan’, and writes about the journey of coming to terms with the good and the bad.
• Two Beautiful Births — Sheila at A Gift Universe remembers how her mother brought out the beauty in each of her children’s births, and tries to do the same with her sons’ birth stories.
• Embracing My Supernatural ChildBirth Experiences… — Jenny at I’m a full-time mummy shares her fond memories on both her supernatural childbirth experiences
• Embracing the Hospital Birth Experience — Jenn at Monkey Butt Junction believes that sometimes a medicated, induced hospital birth is the right choice for a natural parent.
• Carnival: Embracing Your Birth Experience — Stephanie at The Other Baby Blog embraces the birth experience from a paleobiologist’s point of view and takes a look at how humans defy their anatomy.
• Reflections on My First Birth and Preparing for a Second — Abbie at Farmer’s Daughter shares the strength she didn’t realize she had until she gave birth to her son.
• becoming a mama – embracing my birth experience — Meegs at A New Day remembers the birth of her daughter Gwenivere, and the empowered feeling it left her with.
• What About Us? A Poem About Birth — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment shares a poem she wrote about healing from an unexpected and emotionally painful birth experience.
• Be a Man: One Father’s View of Birth — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children shares her husband’s advice to other fathers and partners.
• A Birth Monologue — Kat at MomeeeZen shares a monologue she wrote during the process of healing from her birth experiences.
• Forgiveness: My Birth Journey — Leah at The Crunchy Farm Baby discusses what happens when her planned homebirth doesn’t end up the way she wanted, and explains her journey of forgiving herself for losing that “perfect” birth.
• Patching together a perfect birth — KrissyFair at Think Mama, Think learned that sometimes a perfect birth happens in pieces.
• Celebrating and Sharing the Possibilities of Perfect Birth — Terri from Child of the Nature Isle joyfully shares details of her perfect births and wishes to inspire a more positive cultural expectation about birth.
• Instinct – Embracing Your Birth Experience — Laura at Laura’s Blog reflects on instinctual moments during and after the births of her two daughters.

• I was Foolish Then — ANonyMous at Radical Ramblings describes how foolish lack of preparation for childbirth led to a feeling of powerlessness and fear, but that in the end she had her baby in her arms, and that’s one thing she can celebrate.
• Sometimes no plan is the best plan — Tat at Mum in search contemplates that maybe she doesn’t need a birth plan for her upcoming birth.
• Disturbing the peace — Kenna at Million Tiny Things thought she would be a calm, quiet baby-haver. Ha!
• Accepting the Unexpected During Birth — Emily at S.A.H.M i AM imagined herself laboring on a birthing ball but she never imagined where she’d really be most comfortable when the time came…
• Sacred This Time, Too — Kimber at The Single Crunch learned enough to know that the way she birthed wasn’t they way she wanted to; but she also knew to enjoy it for what it was.
• The Birth Partner: A Great Natural Labor Companion — Justine at The Lone Home Ranger thinks that the secret to her pleasant natural labors was having a great support system.
• the Best Thing About My Labor Experience — Crunchy Con Mommy realizes that amidst all the things that seemed to go wrong with her labor, the love and support of her husband was the one thing she could always count on!
• Your Birth Was My Favorite — Dulce de leche describes some of the highlights from each of her four births and explains why despite the differences, they are all her favorites.
• Birth Story: Part One – Moon on a Stick! — Gentle Mama Moon tells the first part of her birth story to share some of the delight of labouring at home.
• Embracing My Birth Experience by Sharing My Birth Story — Dionna at Code Name: Mama made peace with her first birth by sharing the story with her son.
• Focusing on the Beauty of Birth — Julia at A Little Bit of All of It shares the beautiful aspects of her birth center water birth.
• A Joyful Induced Delivery — Amy Willa: Me, Mothering, and Making it All Work notes the meditations and perspective that helped her achieve an unmedicated birth despite being induced for medical reasons.
• Finding Joy in an Imperfect Childbirth Experience — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now tells what she learned from her two very different childbirth experiences.
• What’s to like about a c-section? — Jessica at Crunchy-Chewy Mama is glad she her second child at home, but she also cherishes much about the c-section she had four years earlier.
• What Story Will I Tell? — Rachael at The Variegated Life realizes that the way she tells the story of her second child’s birth matters — and could be exhilarating.
• I Quietly Put My Hopes to Rest E — Erica at ChildOrganics shares her emotional ups and downs with the highly intervened birth of her special needs daughter, Bella.
• Tale of Six Births — Jessica at Instead of Institutions appreciates that unique challenges and joys of each of her births.
• Labouring naturally: nature’s gift — Caroline at stoneageparent describes the most beautiful, spiritual aspect of the labour of her son, the first stages along a bumpy road to giving birth.
• All The Woman I Am. — Lindsay at This Woman’s Work shares a poem about letting go and surrendering during the thralls of labor.
• A twin birth story: embracing the unexpected — Megan at The Boho Mama shares her twin birth experience and how she found the silver lining when faced with preterm labor, premature birth, and a two-week NICU stay.
• Giving Birth With Eminem — Kerry at City Kids Homeschooling shares how fiery rap music contributed to an empowered homebirth with her third baby.
• Two Different Births — Cassie at There’s a Pickle in My Life shares how she learned from her first birth experience and how to trust yourself and your body.
• Embracing Our Potential: Birth as a Metaphor — Sheila from A Living Family guest posts at Natural Parents Network and expresses how birth has served as a metaphor to help her through other experiences in life.
• Little Sister’s Birth Story: Our VBAC Adventure — Charise at I Thought I Knew Mama describes the recent birth story of her baby girl, her pride in an epidural-free VBAC, and how her story isn’t exactly the birth experience she had planned for.
• A Journey in Birth Confidence — Shannon at The Artful Mama shares her experiences with labor during both of her sons’ births.