Birth: Let’s celebrate our stories

If you’ve had a baby before, you probably know labor and delivery don’t always go according to plan. If you’re still waiting for your first baby to arrive, it might be hard to know what to expect when it comes to your birth experience.

The process of birth is as unique as the babies themselves. Every birth is a little different. Some are long, some are short. Some are a natural progression and others follow a squiggly line that eventually leads to a baby arriving in the world.

No matter how your baby is born or what kind of birth you are planning, every birth story deserves to be celebrated. You deserve a moment to shine, a moment to share your story, and to acknowledge the love, hard work, determination, and commitment you showed in bringing a new life into the world, whether you had a natural vaginal birth with no meds and interventions or long labor and an unplanned cesarean delivery (or something in between).

In the article “Honoring the New Mother- Telling Our Stories, Tending Our Souls” the author,  Marcy Axness, Ph.D., says that as recently as World War II, ancient warriors returned from battle sharing their stories of horror and heroics with their fellow warriors and eventually with their communities. 

Birthing women also did this in the past through storytelling, dancing, music, poetry, and chanting. According to Dr. Axness, by recounting her personal story a woman can integrate the intensity of her birth experience into everyday life and into her own consciousness. 

Unfortunately, we have largely abandoned these postpartum rituals in our culture and the window of time for sharing our stories with others is very short. Visitors come asking to snuggle and hold the new baby, preferring to ask how the baby is sleeping than to hear about how the little one arrived into the world. Today the most common messages about birth are exaggerated punch lines in movies and sitcoms. 

Hearing other women’s birth stories (and sharing my own) has become one of my favorite rituals since I first became a mom. I didn’t know what a crazy, amazing experience it was to birth a baby until I had been through it the first time. Every time I hear a birth story, I find myself amazed that any of us even think about doing it more than once. 

My own birth experiences were as different as my boys are. But the common thread with both were my feelings of pride and accomplishment. I wanted to shout my birth stories from the rooftops for all to hear. But outside of a few close friends and family, I found that most people didn’t really care to hear about my birth experiences. So after a couple of weeks, I put these stories on a shelf and filed them away to share again at the right place and the right time. 

I decided to offer a birth story writing service because I hope to give new moms the time and space to share their story, process their birth experience, celebrate their accomplishment, and preserve their memories for the future. To be able to put a beautiful book of memories on their shelf to pull out and share or celebrate whenever they choose.

And by sharing these beautiful birth stories on my blog, I hope to bring these experiences into the community, so the next generation of women can begin to understand how they’ll experience the complex process pregnancy, labor pain, birth, and motherhood.

I’d love to help you preserve and document your birth story for the future, whether your baby is now a Kindergartener or you’re still waiting for your baby to make his or her grand entrance. Contact me today to reserve a spot on my writing calendar.