Happy Women Day

I spent a beautiful day in honor of Women's Day by doing the work that I love. At noon I met with a pregnant couple and had the pleasure, accompanied by one of my wonderful students. One of my duties as a doula, I feel it is women with the internal resources they need to combine to bring their birth / parenting experiences. It was wonderful to learn how this lady had some serious work to heal their lives in active problems and create healthy boundaries done. This kind of emotional process inventory and work will do wonders for the release of energy bound by our past, creating more resources available with which to birth. I was so glad to see what was natural to my apprentice, took the opportunity to really honor this woman's work, she connects with the value of what they had done for herself, and her future child. I could also feel a strong desire of the woman partner, a big supporter of birth. We fed that desire and emphasized how valuable it is to have a partner affectionate to do his best to help his child into the world to have committed. There are so many ways in which our culture builds the image of the people, real dufuses during birth, and it's just not fair. Sure, some couples prefer, for whatever reason, fewer hands to partner, and that's fine, if both parties in agreement and honor each other's expectations. But from my personal experience, I think if a man really have invested in it for his wife and child, who are willing to embrace her experience as an expression of power by themselves to be vulnerable, open, and a rock all at the same time, the experience is even more special. It is an amazing opportunity, sticking together, starting off new parenthood on performance basis as a dedicated team. Next date was with another beautiful apprentice company. We have a first prenatal meeting with a couple we had not personally met before, so we were both on the same level. I just love getting to know people and to get a feel for what help they can have the best experience possible. I learned that this couple have great resources in terms of the situation in which to relax and cope with stress. What I felt was mentioned the most in this session was to create enthusiasm for the normal process of birth. We are enculturated tell each other scary stories, project our fears on innocent pregnant women who become too scared to even some of the more normal dreams infused them with that fear. So, to neutralize it, I tell good stories and books recommend, not full of alarming advice, but wonderful, triumphant stories. It does not fool them to women who feel positively about their upcoming birth experience. Confident they do not rose-colored glasses on them. This seems to be what we want to believe women when they feel positive about birth, they are more hurt if things do not go as expected. So we seem to us to take them out of what we expect to save, is, their feelings of failure or disappointment of "remind" them of the harsh reality with all the birth stories of woe we can muster. Good stories to tell and to discuss birth as a wonderful thing, reduces fear of fear itself be responsible for many of the challenges in labor and delivery, not an airy fairy plane, but a real, physiological, hormonal level. Confidence and hope are resources, not foolish fantasies of the uninitiated and ignorant as we tell our stories with our obsession with terrible drama of pregnant women tend to imply full. So much can be cured simply by changing the melody of our stories. Our telling of stories is the story good medicine at the highest level. My third meeting was a new mother and father. Again I had the pleasure of accompanying, this time from an experienced mother wit apprentice. We have to join together a few times, and I love her strong, loving presence. She radiates security and performance. Our baby pair had fed some problems, but it was great to see these greedy little munchkin again gobbling up milk like there's no tomorrow, fat and pooping up a storm. Mom was exhausted, however, and was putting a brave face while clearly felt nothing of the requirements of the growth spurt nursing, fatigue and a baby who will not sleep without being in constant contact with a parent in question. And Dad, well, he has only anchor to do everything, all the many beautiful things unseen do new fathers to support their partners and children, as well as the whole time they feel like they know how overwhelmed. Win it does something to my heart to adult professionals, people who have lived outside in the world, tons of life experience, masters of what they do, be reduced in order to include amateurs, when her baby held in her arms for the first time to see. I am filled with the most motherly feelings, not for newborns, but also for the new-born parents. It does not matter who we are or how many degrees we have, or places we've traveled. When we have our own first baby, we are brand new and experience the joy, triumph, discouragement and frustration, trying something we have never done before to master. But we do it with the hearts of those who never invested before, love and responsibility being so big, it gave us the language in the areas we think makes switching between diapers. We also try all the endless tasks of the new baby care is sometimes manage to empty. Life does not come more specific, it is difficult to rest, to get food, and support we need in order to do this sacred work with as many resources as we could if we were only a little more care. A doula can visit on the point, what to cut in terms of required resources, while acknowledging all the positive things going on (but not in an annoying, "Count Your Blessings" preachy way). As is typical for postpartum visits, we were tired of parents who needed more sleep, and tips on how to get baby (or at least try) to sleep. Baby was not happy with lying on their backs to sleep alone. Not that it causes intense pain, but she just woke up every time she was taken down and cried, for the enterprise. It's easy to say, "Well, they hold all the time then," when we enthusiastic about attachment parenting, we are ourselves, but for those not used to such intense physical contact all the time, the Council may, feelings of helplessness . increase We gently about how many babies actually prefer most of the time, as always, to life outside the cozy lap used instead of talk, but we also like to have some tools to try to give parents so that they can decide for themselves to calm their fussy baby like. We showed (taking into account wins, this baby skin to skin and sisters is like a champion) has some tips diapers and baby to reduce gas in the stomach. The parents were tears flow at the intake of overwhelm, and the guilt that always seems to get too overwhelmed with emotion. Although I personally think, feel overwhelmed by the birth of a child is quite reasonable. It is not easy! Sometimes when I show someone a way to get her baby she kept calm and then lie down and they stay asleep, it makes them feel like they've been missing something crucial and strengthened feelings of their imagined inadequacy. I am sensitive to that, and they have to remind you that I (not to mention have shown, colic stops and-down techniques to countless hundreds of parents) 20 years and four babies in the value of mothering experience to have but suddenly I was in exactly the same position with the world's colicky baby. From a few months though, I was an expert, and I assured them they will be, too. There is a nothing like learning in the field. I got good advice from my mother, my grandmother, my midwife, my doula and La Leche League friends to help me along the way. Parenting is part instinct, part of it to find out. We learn how to be qualified parents, not only from books and intuition, but by lovingly taught skills from other parents or people with a lot of experience with babies. How do we "experts" relay these skills is very important because it is a fine balance between building financial resources and unsolicited advice to stir up our own egos. So it is always important that you know new parents, we all overwhelmed as newcomers felt at a certain point, that their feelings are completely normal, and that in fact, I'm still overwhelmed a lot, because I never had a teenager had before, or a daughter about to leave the nest. I have with my friends, the children are grown up learning all the time, ways to cope with new challenges to consult. We are still novices at a certain stage of parenthood. But nobody is quite as sensitive, tired, hormonal and as parent of a newborn, so that our resource-saving building shall have and motivate them, filled with confidence that makes them beautiful. You must know that only their desire to try to show their willingness to late at night for those who feed and massive, up the back poop-alanches, her heart's desire to be good for this teeny little piece of man, makes BRILLIANT. I left these parents with a few ideas how to get more sleep, for dates of our wit Mom Group to reduce the feeling of isolation and have a space that can be exchanged in the mother to mother support by those in the same boat, and the number the one I trust, osteopath, some of the problems of tensions and difficulties in resolving this wee man prone. Often it is as simple as a small cranial / sacral orientation to the digestion and relaxation to help in a newborn. We left them with big hugs and promises that it will be easier and they feel that soon the situation would rule over her. It was a great day, and now I get to hang out with my younger teenage daughter and her friend to wrap up a wonderful Women's Day. Blessings to all of you precious women out there.