Let’s look first at what is going on in your body. The first trimester is ripe with those early pregnancy hormones and lots of physical adjustments to this new growth. Usually in second trimester, we’ll see your nausea and breast tenderness subside a bit. We also will start to see a bit more of that pregnancy belly now that your uterus is filling your pelvis and rising up into the abdomen. For many, you can still get by with wearing a good bit of your pre-pregnancy clothes (though you likely have to use a hair tie to get those jeans to button).
There are so many things you can use to help you through labor. There are totally different techniques, lots of comprehensive and super effective programs you can use like Hypno, and a lot of position support and comfort measures that trained support people can bring to your birth as well. But let’s get back to the basics with these 6 tips for coping with labor.
…So, in addition to our regular content, we’re going to take our followers on a little journey. Starting with your first week of pregnancy and ending the year in the “fourth trimester,” adjusting to your new life with a little one, we’re going to take all of 2022 to try to help our clients, followers, and friends feel a little more prepared for what’s to come. We won’t post updates every week, but at the milestone moments. We’ll have little snapshots on social media, with more in-depth explorations on our blog.
Decide on COVID policies, visiting hours, and most importantly: a list of things that people can do to help! Friends and family often say “is there anything I can do to help??” And how great would it be if you had an answer?! 🧑🍼 yes! you can: ✔️ walk the dog ✔️ do a load of dishes ✔️ pick up my prescription.
So, hello! I’m Amanda, and if you’re reading this as a potential or current client, I am so thrilled to be supporting you. I will probably shed a few tears at your birth (I usually do!) and I will always have chocolate on me if you need a little pick-me-up post delivery. I promise to hold space for all of your fears, hopes, and dreams, and I promise to honor you and your family exactly as you are. I promise to educate, empower, and uplift you, and I promise to support your choices without judgement.
Welcome to Terra Cotta Perinatal. Kat and I are so excited you’re here.
Did you hear? “The General Assembly approved legislation… to make doula services eligible for reimbursement through private insurance plans. The legislation, which was also included in the state budget bill, now heads to the governor.”
I am excited to get to continue supporting our clients as Terra Cotta Perinatal Services grows. For those of you that have asked, yes, I will continue to attend births, but at a lesser rate as Amanda steps into heading up our birth doula services! In the meantime, I am taking a half-step back, working to develop our educational offerings and client resources, continuing to teach classes and even receive more training, myself, to expand our perinatal mental health services.
I am grateful for the unique perspective I am granted as a birth worker. There is something so grounding about attending births in this season, remembering that life cannot be stopped. I believe the world could use some more doulas right now; doulas in families, friendships and at work. Fellow humans, willing to sit in an honest acknowledgment of the fullness of our circumstance, reminding us of the value of the pain we are enduring. Someone willing to stand with you and say, “I know this hurts, but remember that you can do hard things.”
Fast forward to a few years into my full-time doula gig. Make sure to skip over the ugly crying emotional breakthroughs in my counselor’s office. I’ve changed my perspective: In channeling this tendency in a healthy way, I’m actually creating more room to allow myself to release the same habits in the relationships wherein they don’t belong. Now here I am deeply grateful for my codependence. If it weren’t for my need to be needed, I might never have signed on to do this kind of work. And if it weren’t for this kind of work, I would never get to feel like my brokenness is actually my superpower.
Since it is not the role of the birthing person to hold us as the support person as we download these emotions, these memos have been left alone on my phone until now. But the more I dig into the birth worker role, the more I believe that the way to avoid burnout in these roles is to benefit from space being held for you in the way that you hold it for others.
So here I am, stepping into a little vulnerability of my own - on the internet, of all places - sharing some of my own downloaded thoughts and hoping you might share along with me and that we, as birth workers, might create this space together.
Example: Let’s say A is a female-identifying salesman with a passion for art history and a best friend, and one day, her best friend dies suddenly. Now, not only did A go from being someone with a best friend to being someone without a best friend, but now she’s a female identifying salesman with a passion for art history without a best friend who has come to see death in a very specific and intimate way. So when A gets a new job and has to move cities, you think she takes her job and her hobbies with her, but leaves behind her relationship with death? No way. Whether she knows it or not, this relationship packed its things and hopped on the moving truck in a box labeled “trauma.” But don’t worry, it stuck itself in the back near the keepsakes and holiday decorations.
I was at a conference a few years ago. I had an eight-month-old at home whom I had recently stopped breastfeeding (not by choice) and was in the beginning stages of what I would later identify as postpartum depression. There you go, the scene is set.
I’m really asking here, not just throwing out options. Because here’s the thing: every single thing I just listed helps me feel at least 40% better, and that’s a minimum, like when things are really bad. But I also only do those things like 4% of the time.
My reasons for not prioritizing that type of self care are endless, and I’m willing to bet I’m not alone.
