You may recognize Cara and Jason from the pictures on our website here. They were gracious enough to allow us to photograph them during Confident Birthing. They can be found hanging out in their awesome storefront for Black Cat Tattoos here on Butler St. Check out Cara’s thoughts on motherhood! ~Deena
Your name: Cara
Husband’s name: Jason
Baby: Luna was born on November 6, 2012
1. What’s the best part about being a mom?
I can’t really answer this question with one particular thing because “the best thing” changes so much! I’m constantly learning new things about myself because of Luna and she just keeps changing and getting more and more amazing. I’m just going to rephrase this question to: “What is the best part about being a mom today?” The best part about being a mom today is the way that she enhances our lives. Everything has changed but I can’t imagine it any other way and today when I see her happy and growing and smiling I fill up with gratitude. This happens when I least expect it and that makes it even more special.
2. Give us the cliff’s notes version of your birth story.
I was 42 weeks and 1 day the day that Luna was born. I was at the Midwife Center and tried everything to have a birth center birth (and I mean everything) from 41 weeks on. I just wasn’t going into labor on my own! After lots of waiting, pumping and walking, sex, cervical sweeps, acupuncture, and as a last resort castor oil.
We decided to break my bag of waters and see if that worked. There was a good amount of meconium (normal for a 42 week baby) so the midwife decided to send us to Mercy at about 9pm. Because I wasn’t going into labor on my own, I decided to start a little Pitocin to start my contractions. It worked like gang busters and I stayed at the lowest dose until about 2am. They upped my dose only one more time and the contractions continued through the night into the early morning.
I went through each contraction standing in a sort of squat leaned over a exercise ball that was on the bed. With each rush, I held my husbands hands and pulled them toward me while my doula pressed my hips together and encouraged me to root my feet on the ground as I was moaning through the contractions. In between the contractions I drank water and swayed staring out the window at the glittering hillside. At about 6am the rushes were coming fast and on top of one another, I hadn’t been examined in a long while so I really had no idea how much progress I had made. I think in the back of my mind I knew that I was in transition, but I still didn’t know for sure. I didn’t think I could do it any longer!
I made a deal with my midwife that I’d hold out until 7am when the shift changed and they’d check me and give me some pain relief then. It was a hard hour but when Emily walked in and I heard her cheery voice fill the room I felt like I wanted to push. She checked me and I was fully dialated. I got on all fours and followed my body’s overwhelming urge to push. In about 25 minutes my baby girl was born!
Because of the meconium they had to make sure she hadn’t inhaled any of it. I felt immediate relief! I was so happy as I watched the team rush to get her over to me, I heard one of them shout “skin to skin!” and I knew that they had read my birth plan! I felt so respected and taken care of. They told me it was a girl and I wasn’t surprised. I had known it in my heart the whole time. I’ll never forget the mood of every single person in that room after Luna was born. There was complete undeniable joy on every person’s face. It was the most magical moment of my life.
3. How do you find your “me time”?
I can’t stress enough how important me time is. I have a new baseline today. Being a Mom is hard work and very demanding. I make sure I get at least 15-30 minutes of quiet reflection a day while my baby is napping. It’s been easy to blow it off in the past, but I always pay for it later when I’m more quick to snap at my husband or react negatively in some other area of my life. It’s also important for me to go out and be a part of the world without my baby. I tend to get lost in being a mom sometimes, and I’ve found that if I go out for an hour and interact with the world without a baby on my hip, I feel refreshed.
4. What was the last non-baby related book you read?
The last non baby related book I’ve read is Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner. I’m very interested in Zen Buddhism and like Warner’s experience of it and his writing style.
5. What’s the most useful baby product you have? Why do you love it?
The most useful baby product are those that I’ve used for babywearing. Recently I have been using my ring sling and it is incredibly convenient and gives me both of my hands to use while keeping my baby close! When Luna was wee I used a wrap and I still use a soft structured carrier to put her on my back when she’s fussy and I’m trying to clean my house. Baby-wearing is so helpful and I encourage all parents to try it out!
6. If a newly pregnant mom asked you why she should take classes here, what would you tell her?
Why take classes at Shining Light? Pregnant woman have a lot of odds stacked against them. There are a lot of scary statistics out there and unfortunately we must be diligent and researched when choosing our support during pregnancy and birth. Our culture has lost it’s village mentality of caring for our families together and sadly we’ve lost the community to our overly independent lives. It has been very beneficial to me during and after pregnancy to build my own community that supported my choices and that gave me intelligent and well researched information without bias and with love! I found that support at Shining Light and I continue to attend yoga classes and plan to attend future classes there! It’s been such a gift to have a familiar place that I continue to go to with my baby where I spent many hours wondering what she’d be like.
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