Top 10 Things You Are NEVER Allowed To Say To A Preggo!

THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ANYONE WHO COMES INTO CONTACT WITH SOMEONE WHO IS PREGNANT

Top 10 Things You Are NEVER Allowed To Say:  

10) Are you having twins?

9)  Are you sure you're not due earlier?

8)  You're so _____!  (insert any of the following:  Big, huge, fat, chubby, fluffy, round, etc)

7)  When are you having your next baby?

6)  Should you be eating that?

5)  Are you due, like, TOMORROW?

4)   You must be having a girl, you're carrying a lot of weight in back.

3)  Is this the hormones talking?

2)  You're MUCH bigger than I was at ___ weeks.

1)  Are you sure you're not having twins?

Anyone have any other good ones?!?!

Beautiful Birth Story - "We are made for this. We are Women!"

This is the birth story of one of my very best friends sons.  My friend, I must say, is one of the most amazing women I have met in my life.  Inspiring, positive, and beautiful inside and out. She truly radiates love wherever she goes.  This all sounds like hippie talk, but if you knew her you would agree! :D  She sent me her birth story in hopes it would help me calm my fears and encourage me on my path to D-Day!  For new moms (and experienced mom's alike) it is a breath of fresh air in a world filled with horror, and trauma dealing with birth.  I hope if you are feeling apprehensive about your D-Day that it will help you see the day in a different light, as it did for me.  Enjoy!!! 


"I had an incredibly beautiful birthing experience.
I was in labor for about 6 hours. I had music on in the background of the ocean and nature.  I also had a few incredibly strong, beautiful goddesses in the room with me.  The key to my spiritual and zen like birth was all in my breath. I truly heard what my body was asking of me.  I moved the way my body wanted to move, however strange that position may have been. All the while, maintaining a deep breathing rhythm.  DO NOT STOP BREATHING DEEPLY.  The deep breath brought me to a higher place where I was able to deal with the pain and contractions.  I felt the power of the endorphins and I honestly thought at one point maybe someone had given me something because I was feeling so high from it all. 
It hurt, but I felt like that represented something bigger.  


Motherhood is a sacrifice and it reminds me now what I went through to bring this boy into the world. I bled, I pushed, I cried and I felt every beautiful moment.  We are made for this.  We are women!  Think back to when women may have given birth on beautiful flat rocks, or on moss beds in the forest.  Sometimes all by themselves. [Women who were beautifully strong, allowing the primal instinct of womanhood take over to deliver their child.  The body knows exactly what to do and when to do it.  We just have to get out of its way.]

You listen to what your body is telling you.  Do not let fear stand in your way."

Pain VS Suffering during Childbirth

"18% of almost 1,000 new mothers reported traumatic births, as assessed by the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Scale.  Half of these woman had high enough scores to be diagnosed with PTSD after childbirth (Simkin, Hull, 2011)"

If we're judging childbirth based on movie portrayals its a wonder any young woman ever voluntarily says "Yup! I want to do THAT!" and gets pregnant.  Obviously, the silver screen was meant for dramatic story lines, but personally, my fear feels pretty epically dramatic.  I'm down right terrified!  Why?  Because the only exposure I've ever had to childbirth is through cinema.  I don't want the screaming, fighting, "I WANT A DIVORCE YOU A**H***" experience.  No thanks.  Where do I sign up for adoption? (Insert me looking down at my swollen belly) Well Damn! It's too late to change my mind now! 

So what are we (meaning me) afraid of?  Why are so many woman anxious, nervous, apprehensive, or just down right terrified of this supposedly magical experience?  I'd say one of the big reasons would be pain.  I've heard woman describe the pain as easy as mild menstrual cramping, all the way to a jack hammer pounding down from their rib cage.... really???  Yikes! With such a wide range of pain descriptions and such a large portion of woman reporting traumatic birth experiences I wonder what is the difference from woman to woman?  What makes one woman's birth story "magical and empowering" despite the jack hammer pain and another's "terrifying and traumatic"?  How do I prepare myself to have a more magical experience than a traumatic one?  

One possible answer to this question is the difference between a woman's perception and emotional state during her birth.  Yes there is pain that accompanies labor/delivery (thanks a lot Eve), but is the pain suffering, or are pain and suffering two different things? Vocab Time:

• Pain is a physical sensation.  It's an unpleasant one. It is sometimes associated with damage but it can also be associated with physical or muscular exertion (mountain climbing, lifting weights, crossfit in general haha etc) (Simkin, 2011). 
• Suffering is the sense of being overwhelmed, of being helpless, of being out of control. You can have suffering without any pain or pain without any suffering (Simkin, 2011).  

NOTE:  I've heard the pain of childbirth described as a "working" or "useful" pain.  With each contraction (pain) our body is getting closer to delivering our child.  The pain is not our enemy.  It is a useful tool in telling us how close we are to holding our child in our arms.  It is also a guide for our bodies on when to release certain hormones to aid in the instinctual process of birth.  Shifting our view of the pain into something useful may help us accept it more willingly rather than fight it. 

My doula sent me this short video clip of Penny Simkin explaining the difference between pain and suffering during the momentous event in women's lives that we call childbirth:

Penny states that a woman's pain may transition into suffering for many reasons:  

• Not being kindly treated
• Not being respected
• She doesn't know anything to do for herself to help manage the process
• Feels unloved and/or alone

Not being kindly treated or respected by the health care professionals around me seems like an atrocity!  How could someone be so unkind and cold to a woman who is going through perhaps the scariest (and hopefully happiest) event of her life?  Oh yea... Because the health care professional does this every day, and is probably caring for multiple woman at once.  I can understand their indifference.  We all have bad days and run into customers (patients) who annoy us.  BUT this doesn't mean that we (the patients) have to suffer because our attending nurse/doctor has a bad attitude.  Remember ladies, we have rights as patients, as woman, and as human beings.  If you don't feel like your professional is treating you kindly or respecting your wishes its okay to ask for another one... even if you are in the pushing stage.  It's easy to feel as though you are at the whim of hospital staff, just remember that this experience may only happen once (or very few times) in your life.  You deserve the support and respect of the professionals hired to help you to make the experience a positive one. 

Feeling unloved and/or alone is equally, if not more tragic that feeling disrespected and treated unkindly.  If you do not have a loved one or friend to attend your birth take the initiative now to find one.  Reach out to a local Doula (even if you think you can't afford her services), reach out to a religious group in your area to see if any woman would volunteer as your coach.  Join a local "mothers club" (LeLeche League, or free Childbirth classes) and ask if anyone knows of someone who could help.  Reach out to an acquaintance that seems to have "good energy"...  you never know, a life long friendship could result.  You deserve someone there to support you 100% of the way through this experience.  

Lastly, and what hits home for me the most, is a woman suffering because she doesn't know anything to do for herself to manage the pain.  Childbirth pain can be manageable.  If it wasn't, then civilization as we know it would have never gotten this far.  Penny speaks of her DVD that is available to teach comfort measures that can be performed to manage pain.  There are classes (Lamaze, Bradley Method) that can be taken to teach coping mechanisms.  There are MILLIONS of books to read on the subject!  (Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way, Active Labor, Husband Coached Childbirth, etc)  Just type in "natural childbirth" on Amazon and see what comes up.  I say "natural" because I've found many books on the subject focus a great deal on the specific ways to manage the pain rather than suffer through the pain.

Even if you do not plan to have a natural childbirth it is still beneficial to learn different ways of coping and working with your body through the pains of childbirth.  You never know what is going to happen so being prepared for all scenarios is a good idea! I would hate to be one of the woman who plan to have pain meds their entire pregnancy, don't prepare for any other scenario, and come D-Day find that for some reason the pain meds cannot be used.  Yikes! Now THAT is traumatic! 

"My cause, my whole quest is to keep it as pain that is manageable.  If it becomes unmanageable then I am all for using pain medication.  I don't want any woman to suffer in childbirth.... So I want her to be well equipped with comfort measures, and with the support she needs. Many woman are going to manage their labor very well... Or they may get to a point where they feel they want pain medication and that is their choice.  But I hate to have them take pain medication because they know nothing they can do for themselves. When they know nothing, then they suffer, and then they need help." -Penny Simkin

Simkin, (2011). Penny Simkin - Pain Vs. Suffering. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlj9ehB-hLc

Simkin, Hull, (Summer 2011). Pain, Suffering, and Trauma in Labor and Prevention of Subsequent Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.