The person responsible for your crappy birth experience

The bad news & the good news

Is it your partner? He was too caught up in his own anxieties to be fully supportive of you.

Is it your doula? She didn’t help you achieve the goals you had.

Is it your doctor? They pushed medical intervention instead of encouraging you to believe in your body.

Is it the medical system? It’s practices aren’t patient-based because they’re beholden to the insurance companies who have them by the balls.

Those all make sense and yet none of these entities hold responsibility for how your birth experience unfolded. The only person accountable for your experience is YOU!

That’s right, its all on your lap. The decisions made and consequences of those choices, how you managed your experience and feel about it now in reflection, all rests on your shoulders.

There’s no one to resent. No system to blame. The only person to look at is yourself.

This is both the bad news and the good news. Bad news because it means you can’t schluff culpability onto anyone else. It was what is was. It is what it is.

No one else let you down. No one failed to speak up for you. No one forced you to make decisions out of your alignment. No one else could have made you stronger. No one but you!

I say this not to give you reason to beat yourself up if you’ve had a disappointing birth experience. I’m not saying it’s your fault.

Hear me loud & clear: You did the best you could, or knew how to do, in the moment. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BAD DECISION! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BAD OUTCOME! There is only the failure to learn from our path and what is.

We are all solely responsible for how we accept the unfolding moment and the perceptions & judgments we have about it afterwards. We can only control ourselves, BUT ONLY IF we are present with our truth and the reality of our experience.

This is the very good news! Why? Because it means you entirely hold the key. This doesn’t enable you to change the events that naturally, or circumstantially, arise during childbirth. But it does give you full control over what you do with those circumstances at the time and how you perceive them later on.

Self-doubt and fear may make this scary as hell for you. It’s so much easier, or so you may think, to make someone else responsible for what happens to you and how you feel as a result. To only have yourself to look at in the mirror can be uncomfortable. But it can also be something life changing…

EMPOWERING!

You want to be strong & long-suffering? DO IT!

You want to keep calm & balanced? DO IT!

You want to make wise decisions? DO IT!

You want to love your birth experience? DO IT!

You have the power to do it. You’re the only one who does. YOU are entirely responsible for how you react to everything that befalls you. It’s a choice. That’s the bad news and the good news.

When situations spontaneously arise that are completely out of your control or influence, it’s still your responsibility as to what you do with it. Even if you were horribly violated by someone or an institution, it’s still up to you to acknowledge your role in it, learn from it and allow it to evolve you.

If you’re stuck in blame, anger or sadness, you are giving your power away. However, if you’ve learned and grown from what you’ve gone through, from what has been divinely arranged to teach you, you are empowered in present moment awareness and wisdom.

And then it doesn’t matter that expectations were dashed. It doesn’t matter that goals weren’t met. It doesn’t matter that the final picture looked nothing like your vision. The only thing that matters is what you learn from it.

Recently I was asked what the toughest part of my job is as a birth doula. Without hesitation I responded that the hardest thing for me is that I can’t get into my mama’s heads. I can’t change what they focus on (pain vs. everything else). I can’t muster up their strength (it’s an inside job). I can’t keep them present to the truth of what is (that’s subject to their mindfulness practice and awareness level).

As a doula, my goal is to intuitively hold and anchor you, show empathy, and say things that spark you back to the present. But the bulk of the work, internally and physically, lies within you. You alone are responsible for how you meet your experience. I’m merely here to support you and encourage you to do so with confidence, grace & presence.

Childbirth is intense. It requires mental and physical stamina. Although your birth team is there to help you through this transformative event, making grounded choices in the moment and looking back positively on how it all went down is utlimately up to you.

Be empowered in birth, in life, within yourself. Trust yourself in the now. See the lessons in the unfolding. You got this! You’re the only one who does, who even can. Isn’t that amazing news?!

What did you learn through your birth experience? What will you do differently, if anything, the next time?

Please pass this on to someone who’s ready to create a positive birth experience for themselves, no matter how it unfolds.

And if you’d like to learn more internal tools for creating the birth and life of your dreams, I’d love it if we kept in touch.