Dad (to me): “So, how painful will childbirth be for her?” Before I can answer, Mom blurts out, “It’s the worst pain of your life!” This is one of the most common myths about childbirth. When we talk about pain, we need to put it into context. “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” Me: “Well, […]
Lamaze Conference Redux
Hey Y’all, I’m back from Fort Worth, TX where I attended the annual Lamaze conference. I had some reservations about going to the conference. Some of which revolved around the potentiality of Elaine weaning. (After me being gone for 4 days, she was clawing at my shirt to get to the boob… she’ll nurse longer […]
Perfection vs. Purpose OR the Birth Experience vs. Giving Birth
To interrupt the series on “Integrating Yoga and Lamaze” for a moment… I’ve had something nagging at me for a while… I keep hearing the same theme from mothers who didn’t have the natural birth they wanted; the birth they were told they were *supposed* to have. They feel like failures because their “birth experience” […]
The Myth of the Painless Childbirth
Out there in the cloud of birth information is this idea that birth can or should be painless. Somebody heard a story about a friend of a friend who had just the most blissful, fabulous, painless, even orgasmic birth experience. There are a number of videos on YouTube which show women in all their birthing […]