Your body, your baby, Your choice.
You just can't quite put your finger on it.
.
There is " need" to hear your babies heart beating at this specific moment, even though you felt baby alive and kicking just moments ago.
There is a "need" to put their fingers in your vagina even though this is the last thing you want.
"There is a need for you to be lying in the bed attached to a continuous Fetal Monitor (even though there are no proven benefits to this!) when your body is saying it wants to move.
I've heard these needs before.
And do you know what I want to share with you now?
That even in birth : your body is your body! It is your own, YOU GET TO CHOOSE.
I want to say that again, Your midwife, your doctor, your OB, your doula- they are all hired by you! Yes they might have studied more than you.....
but ultimately YOUR BODY AND YOUR BABY ARE YOURS. You get to choose in each moment.
You can say no to someone putting their fingers in your vagina in labour, just as you can say no to someone doing that while you are not in labour.
There are other ways to tell how far along you are.
There is choice in each moment and birth often isn't in a hurry- there is a moment to say
"Hey, I just need time to think about what you have offered me, give me five minutes please" before you make your decision.
Your body, your baby, your choice.
You can recieve your own baby.
Did you recieve your own baby?
I had a feeling I would. I really wanted to and that intention came to be in the last delicious moments..
I reached the point where everything felt too much, like I couldn't quite do it anymore....
And then I suddenly recalled all I had studied and realized.....
THIS IS TRANSITION!!!
There often comes a moment, where you feel you can't do it, and this is often expressed out loud....
But this is the very moment doula's and midwives listen for .....
It means a very special thing is occurring.... transition...
The time when your body is fully open, you often slow down to take a rest, and then.....baby begins the descent down and out.....
It's magical!!!
It was amazing that in my trance of labour I was still able to connect with all of the rational book knowledge I had gleened....and so the moment of "I can't do it" was quickly followed by... "Oooh that means my baby is coming!!" And I reached down and could feel her sweet head ready there ...
And of course, I COULD do it....!!
..
Birth is amazing!!! It was absolutely my favourite day of my life! ❤️
Capturing Your Birth
I just keep hearing people tell me again and again how they wished they had captured this moment professionally rather than just on a camera phone, how very crucial and life-changing it was, how they wished these moments had been caught on camera, how much they regret not having someone there to document their story,
how they wished they had the benefit of hindsight and knew what they knew now…..
Did you miss documenting your first babies birth????
Although I birthed my baby with no medical assistance, there was someone else at the birth, besides Benji. A Photographer and now dear friend called Talitha.
I am absolutely so passionate about birth that I wanted to see from the outside what my own birth looked like, and knowing that I would go deep into the trance of labour, I wanted to see each moment in detail once I had completed my journey.
A big part of me knew that this was a ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME moment....a chance that would never happen again....
I've heard of so many women regretting this, regretting not capturing this absolutely life-changing moment, the moment their baby first comes Earthside, and I did not want to regret it too . .
And so I called Talitha to capture these precious moments and I will never regret this choice.
Sometimes people think birth photography sounds a bit odd..... Photos of a baby coming out a vagina!!???. But it's so much more than that.
It is the story of your journey to Motherhood.
It is the precious moments between Birthing Mama and Partner,
It is the support and connection that is shared,
It is the physical occurrences.
It is capturing the magic of the first time meeting one of the loves of your life!
The day your child comes into the world, it changes everything. You feel the weight of their warm body against yours and kiss that damp, fuzzy head. Where words fail to capture the depth of this moment, an artful photograph preserves all the emotion of your first minutes together.
You grew this baby. You birthed this baby. Birth photography provides evidence of your incredible strength and power.
Did you have your birth Photographed?