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Shining Light

Building empowerment, self-confidence and connection through candid education and compassionate advocacy for all families before, during and after pregnancy.

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An Interview with New Mom, Constanza

August 14, 2013 By Deena 1 Comment

Your name: Constanza Partner’s name: Greg Babies birthdates: My first boy May 9 2011, my second February 21 2013 1. What is the best part of being a mom? That is a very hard question to answer! There are so many things I could think of, like the unconditional love in the eyes of your baby as […]

Filed Under: Interviews with students, Main Blog Page Tagged With: Baby, Birth, birth story, C-section, Childbirth Education Classes, Emotional State, Expectations, Interviews, Labor, Motherhood, Mothers, Newborn, Pittsburgh, Pregnancy, The Center, VBAC, Water breaking

A Birth Story – Barb and Rob, mama and papa to Flynn Viktor

December 17, 2012 By Deena Leave a Comment

Barb was a regular at our Prenatal Yoga classes.  She and Rob also came to Infant Care class.  I’m honored that she’s sharing her birth story with all of us.  Happy reading!   I woke up in the morning on November 23 (my due date) feeling great with no plans to do Black Friday shopping. Since […]

Filed Under: Into the Light, Main Blog Page Tagged With: Baby, Birth, birth story, breastfeeding, Childbirth, Coping Skills, Fathers, Fear, Infant, Labor, Newborn, Pain, Pittsburgh, Placenta, Pregnancy, Prenatal Yoga, The Midwife Center, Water breaking

“I didn’t know what I didn’t know.”

June 17, 2012 By Deena Leave a Comment

I hear this quite a bit from moms who are pregnant with their second or third child. I hear this from moms who didn’t take a childbirth preparation class. I also hear it from moms who took a childbirth prep class that focused on natural birth only and neglects to cover the reality of hospital birth in […]

Filed Under: Into the Light, Main Blog Page Tagged With: Birth, C-section, Childbirth Education Classes, Coping Skills, Decision making, Emotional State, Expectations, Fathers, Fear, Ideal Birth, Interventions, Labor, Lamaze, OB, Pittsburgh, Pregnancy, Traumatic Birth, Water breaking

Birth Story: Christine’s birth – Connor Michael

November 3, 2011 By Deena Leave a Comment

Written by Christine, to share with all of you! As requested, however, I just wanted to share a little bit about my birth with you: Connor Michael was born October 3rd 2011 (about 6 days after my due date) at 2:45am. I started having some small contractions the morning of the 2nd. I took about […]

Filed Under: Into the Light, Main Blog Page Tagged With: birth story, breastfeeding, Childbirth Education Classes, Coping Skills, Fear, Labor, Lamaze, Position, Water breaking, yoga

Owen’s birth story – My C-section

March 3, 2011 By Deena 9 Comments

As promised, here’s birth story #1.  This is how I wrote it, in the week after his birth.  It’s interesting reading it with my childbirth educator eyes.  I’ll comment on the birth story at the end of it. Looks like today is the day!  April 16, 2005 My water broke at 8:30 this morning. So, […]

Filed Under: Into the Light, Main Blog Page Tagged With: birth story, breastfeeding, C-section, Ina May Gaskin, Labor, VBAC, Water breaking

About Shining Light

Building empowerment, self-confidence and connection through candid education and compassionate advocacy for all families before, during and after pregnancy since 2012.

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