The Mental Preparation for Labor and Birth

The addition of a new little person to your family is such an exciting time! People are excited to host a baby shower for you, you purchase little tiny baby clothes, and prepare the nursery. There’s lots to prepare for and all of this helps build the anticipation of the arrival of your baby. But before baby is in your arms, mentally preparing for the hard work of laboring and birthing your baby is one of the most important things you’ll do!

The labor and birth process was something I was excited to experience. I knew it would be a transformative and empowering time. But if I’m being honest, it was something I was nervous about too. It’s something I hadn’t done before and I had never experienced anything like it. Will I pass out since I tend to do that when stressful things are happening to my body (wisdom teeth removal, belly button piercing, putting in contacts for the first time)? When it comes to fight or flight, I faint, ha! (I am happy to report though that I did not faint during either of my births!) Doing the mental preparation allowed me to have the two birth experiences that I did. Let’s dive into what I did to mentally prepare.

Decide What Kind of Birth You Want

There were two things I decided on shortly after I discovered I was pregnant: have a nonmedicated birth and follow with a midwife. These are two decisions that dictated what kind of pregnancy I envisioned and allowed me to start educating myself right away with those factors guiding the information I took in.

Being a healthy woman with no underlying medical conditions, I knew I wanted to follow with a midwife. Following with a midwife would allow me the greatest chance of having the birth I desired. This is because midwives take low risk mamas and believe in normal, physiological births.

Deciding I wanted an unmedicated birth was a decision I made coming off of training and running my first marathon. I knew if I could do that, a huge mental undertaking, I could give birth naturally. And from the moment I made that decision, I never allowed myself to think there was another option. Although I knew there were different options to relieve pain, medication was off the table for me. I made that decision and stuck with it.

As my pregnancy went on, and I continued to learn about birth and the incredible power a woman has within her, deciding to have an unmedicated birth would allow me to feel and listen to my body. It would allow me the freedom to move throughout labor and I learned that was necessary to have a successful, uncomplicated birth.

Follow Birth Accounts on Social Media

I flooded my mind with information. It didn’t take long for me to learn that most births aren’t like the movies, or at least they don’t need to be. Thank goodness for that! I didn’t want a panicked, yelling situation. You know what I mean? The one where the woman’s water breaks, she starts yelling, people are scrambling, and it’s chaotic? Then when they finally get to the hospital, the woman is on her back screaming at her husband, nurses are pushing her legs back, and the doc comes in to save the day and deliver the baby? Yeah, I didn’t want any part of that birth.

So the first thing I did was find positive birth accounts on Instagram to follow. We all scroll our phones, at least I do, so I figured if I’m spending time on it, I might as well take in encouragement, tips and tricks, and little pieces of information on birth while I’m there. Some of my favorite accounts to follow were: Pain Free Birth, Empowered and Expecting, and Built to Birth. These accounts showed positive birthing experiences, educated me on different positions to birth in, how to work with your growing and changing body, and allowed me to see how birth can really be a magical time, if left uninterrupted.

Pregnancy and Birth Books

After I followed those few accounts on Instagram, I headed to Amazon. I wanted physical books to read and have on hand that I could refer back to. When searching for birth and pregnancy books on Amazon, there are so many options! Where do you even begin? When I placed my first order, I ordered 5 different books covering a variety of topics.

I feel these books were great places to start! Ina May Gaskin was a midwife who really changed the birthing scene. I highly recommend both of her books. The first half of the Guide to Childbirth book is filled with positive natural birthing stories. Reading these gave me encouragement since having a natural birth was something I was desired. Her breastfeeding book is packed with information on how to breastfeed and ways to fix problems that you may encounter when breastfeeding.

How to Grow a Baby was a fun and easy read. There were illustrations throughout and the chapters are quick and digestible. This book flows more like a fun chapter book versus a heavy textbook. I learned so many things in this book. Did you know, depending on the time of day, your breastmilk carries different nutrients. This is called chrononutrition and it blew my mind learning this! It was little bits of information like this that really gave me the confidence I needed to birth and care for my baby.

The Fourth Trimester is a book every single pregnant woman should read. There I said it. It is jammed packed with rich information for that time period right after baby is born. I didn’t even know they called the first forty days after birth the fourth trimester. I thought trimesters stopped after three! This book educated me on how to care for myself, a post-partum mama, during a fragile time. Did you know you should eat warm and cooked foods during this time to really nourish and heal your body instead of cold and raw foods because they’re harder to digest? I didn’t until reading this book.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting was gifted to me. It’s such a popular book for first time moms. I’m glad I had it as it gave me weekly updates on my baby’s growth and the changes that were happening with my body. I will say though, it isn’t my favorite and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. It lists every complication or odd thing that could happen during pregnancy. And although it’s good to know about a few of these things, I didn’t find it helpful reading all of it because then I questioned, “Do I have that symptom? Do I have restless legs since it can occur during pregnancy?” These are things I didn’t need to think about and get in my head about.

Journal About Birth

I love to journal and it’s a practice I have done since my mom gave me a journal in 2006. (That’s almost 20 years ago, holy cow!) But when it came to birth and getting my mindset right, I really dove in. When pregnant, it’s nearly all you think about, at least that was the case for me. So naturally, in the morning, I journaled what was on my mind–my weekly updates, my fears, my excitements, all of it.

If you don’t journal regularly, this would be a great time to start! A blank page can feel intimidating but I start with the date and then do a journaling practice I started in 2018. If you’re familiar with Rachel Hollis, it’s her Start Today Journal concept. You can learn more about it here. It’s a practice I fully believe in and something I recommend checking out.

I take my everyday journal and start with 5 pieces of gratitude. Things I’m grateful for that have happened in the last 24 hours. Then I write down my 10 dreams. And because I’ve been doing this practice for so long, I have dreams written down that I’m still working towards. But when I became pregnant, I swapped out a couple dreams like “I made 100k in one year” to “I listened to my body during birth”. Something that was more applicable in that season and something that I wanted to focus on during that time.

Writing these dreams everyday really instilled in me what I wanted to happen. And notice I wrote the dreams in past tense, as if they had already happened. I think this is key for shaping your mindset. Stating this is what happened versus hoping this is what will happen allows your mind a way to make that statement true.

Daydream About the Birth Experience Desired

I often let myself daydream about how I wanted my birth experience to be like. What time of day would the baby be born? What would I be doing when I went into labor? Were lights dimmed in the room? Was music playing? I played it like a movie in my mind and then journaled about it often.

You may hear mixed reviews on writing out a birth plan. Some may say that it never goes how you want it to but I say absolutely do it! Write it out. This is the time you can write out exactly what you want. Then sharing it with your partner, and then provider, allows you to speak it into existence as well. The more you talk about, write about, and dream about your birth, the more say you have in what happens when the time comes.

“I envision laboring at home as long as I can. Calmly going to the hospital and getting settled in the room. Lights dimmed, oils diffusing, Christian music playing, Lukas being my rock, laboring in water…” This is a journal entry I wrote at 33 weeks pregnant with my first baby. And I can tell you, because I imagined this in great detail, this birth was my reality. Except for the oils diffusing because I wasn’t focused on that during actual labor. You can read more about my first birth here.

Protect Your Mind

Hearing stories from other mamas can be really encouraging and they may say the exact thing you need to hear! However, you may hear stories or opinions that don’t serve you. Let those stories go. One thing I had heard was to tell yourself in those instances, “That’s their story, not mine.” You don’t have to hold onto the beliefs they may project on you. Protect your mind and the information you allow to take up residency there.

You Were Made For This!

Pregnancy, labor, and birth is such an exciting time! There’s so much information out there so I urge you to really weed through it and find what fits for you. Knowledge is empowering when it comes to understanding what your body and baby are doing during this time. Remember though, your body is made to carry life. It is beautifully designed to do the hard work of laboring and birthing a baby. You are more than capable of doing hard things. The hard is transformative and worth it. You are worthy of the birth you desire.

With love, Megan

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