I'm really excited this week as I have finally completed and become fully certified as a Hypnobirthing Practitioner! I can't wait to start running my workshops! It might seem like an odd choice for a fertility challenged woman to take on - choosing to surround myself with pregnant women and help guide and educate them on ways to have a positive birth...
But there's the thing...
After experiencing fertility challenges for many years I have spent a lot of time thinking about pregnancy and birth. Its no secret that my ‘silver lining’ for having trouble conceiving is a new found passion and appreciation for the wonder that is pregnancy and birth.
I am so amazed by what our bodies can do. I mean come on - we can grow and birth a human!!!
In pursuit of my pregnancy I have spent a lot of time getting back to basics - nutrition, exercise and also unpacking a lot of fear and self-doubt that has built up.
Its amazing to me how clinical and how fear based procreation has become. Instead of supporting each other with stories of hope and triumph - whether for fertility or birth - the trend of conversation I hear seems to be based on pain and misery.
Three years ago I was none the wiser - I wonder if I had of gotten pregnant immediately if I would have changed my view?
Maybe facing miscarriages and IVF has made me more fearless than I was before….but then again maybe its just opened my eyes to being afraid for no reason.
Birth seems to have become such a business. So procedural. So much fear for something that in so many other cultures is viewed as this amazing right of passage as a woman!
This instinctual, primal process that gives you the most amazing gift you can get - a new life that you created! - has gone from the fields or river banks to the stark brightness of hospital beds and drugs.
My chance to conceive a baby in a primal, instinctual way has been lost. Conception for me will be done under a microscope in a lab. Maybe that is what has kicked off my desire for my birth experience (when the time comes) to be the opposite.
Science and Medicine can do many amazing things. IVF is one of them. So is an Cesarean when its life saving for the mother and/or baby. We are very lucky to live in a time where we have access to so much advanced medical care in case of an emergency.
But most births are not an emergency.
Birth is something women have been doing since the dawn of time. We are instinctively wired to do it. But western society these days can drown out that instinct with fear.
When I started my research I was amazed to find out how much women aren’t told - and don’t know to ask - about options when giving birth. Everything from inductions, to pain relief, to cord cutting, to the shot in the leg to “help the placenta along” at the end has options!
Choices we are entitled to make, but often we are not presented with!
That’s when I found Hypnobirthing.
What I love about Hypnobirthing is that it is all about positive birth - however it unfolds for you, whatever you choose.
Steeped in the foundations that our bodies are designed to birth, Hypnobirthing is also about empowering women to know their options. It takes away the “unknown” of birth, and allows you to prepare for and visualise your birth well in advance.
Using a range of relaxation and breathing techniques it arms women and birth partners with a tool kit that adapts to any birthing situation! Hypnobirthing is the foundation to making your birth the amazing, joyful experience its intended to be.
I love that its not prescribed, there is no judgement of your choices. It actively involves support from your birth partner and gives them a big role in how the birth unfolds.
Hypnobirthing allows you to approach your birth in a calm, prepared, positive and excited manner.
When the time finally comes for me I know this is how I want to approach my birth experience. How about you?