Don’t Push and Keep Breathing

My children are slowly edging toward teenager-dom. A scary time. Perhaps now, before all hell breaks loose, I’d do well to find some coping techniques that might work. Yesterday, at doula training, I had an epiphany, directly from labor and delivery, which I think is perfect for life. This one I intend to use: Don’t push and keep breathing!

We were discussing a phase of birth called transition. In this phase a woman moves from the early and active phases of laboring to the second stage, or actual delivery, of the baby. Transition is the hardest and most painful part of the birth. Contractions are coming in greater frequency and are longer and stronger. The baby’s head is lower in the mother’s pelvis, ready to make its way out to the world. It is putting a lot of pressure on the mother’s bottom, but the mother’s body is not yet ready for delivery, and she needs to practice this fabulous lifelong lesson: Don’t push and keep breathing!

What a wonderful lesson for the future! It is a lesson all us parents would do well to remember when the time comes for the baby’s first steps and her first attempt to go up and down the stairs. It is perfect for our son’s first day of kindergarten, his first playdates at a friend’s house, and the first time he goes to the neighborhood store by himself. It’s invaluable for our daughter’s first car ride, her first date with a boy, and for when she asks us for help with birth control. And later, too, this lesson remains: when our boy goes to college, marries, and has his own child. Don’t push and keep breathing! Let go! Stay calm!

Parenthood is a hard road, paved with mistakes, crises, and love. It can teach us so much about ourselves, some that we like and some that we really, but really, don’t like. In the doula class yesterday, we learned that one good position for a laboring woman in transition to be in is to lie on her back in bed with her legs resting on the birthing ball. The blood is flowing easier in her body. The pressure is there, the contractions are strong, but she is in a position of relaxation, and she cannot push.

Keep breathing. Don’t push. Let’s lie back with our feet on the ball and at least try to relax. Let the blood flow to our brains. Soon enough transition will pass. It’s the hardest phase, and after that, at least till the next transition, we can get some relief. The daughter or son who we brought to this world and who had taught us so much will soon be all grown up and doing just fine. Like our road, so theirs is paved with mistakes and with love. If they stumble or fall, we parents are there, ready to kiss and hug and give our support. Don’t push and keep breathing. I know we’re going to be all right.

Doula Training, the Fantasy Birth, and My Road to Freedom

Twelve years ago, I discovered that women love sharing their birth stories with other expectant mothers. I remember one friend’s surrealist tale: she had accepted an epidural and felt free from pain. She sat in bed with her husband, ate an ice pop, and watched television till the nurse told her it was time to push. Other moms had horror stories. My sister, who gave birth a few days before me, said: “I can’t believe that you still have to go through this torture.”

I was not really excited about giving birth after this. I was terrified of the pain and even more terrified of a needle in my back. If there was one thing I knew, it was that I wanted to give birth without an epidural. I said “No, no, no,” to the needle, and the needle was what I got. The universe, never distinguishing between yes and no, delivered.

At that point in my life, I was not yet aware of the power of manifestation, my abilities as a healer, or the importance, to me, of leading a natural life (including giving birth naturally). By the time my daughter came around two years later I was one step closer. I knew better what I wanted and not just what I did not want. My message was clearer: “Yes, yes, yes” to a natural birth.

During doula training, I find myself going back in my mind to those two births, trying to figure out what made them so different. I think one difference lies with the medical personnel who attended my birth. The nurse in my son’s birth broke my water, insisted that I lie in bed, connected me to monitors, ordered pitocin, and overrode my worries about the epidural, warning me that the pain of pitocin-induced contractions would be unbearable.

My daughter, in contrast, came out without medical intervention after three and a half hours, with very little pain and a lot of (me) dancing on the labor and delivery floor. My fabulous doctor sat off to the side, quiet and reassuring, allowing me to try any movement I wanted to do, and permitting me to stay out of the bed till I needed to push.

A second difference, I believe, lay in me, in the changes I went through in those two years, my determination and will. I did not get scared but simply let the experience happen. As I think of it now, I feel so proud of myself for having been able to have the birth I wanted, express my needs, and handle the pain.

Breakfasting with a doula book

At doula training, I hear stories about women who have gone through natural birth and felt empowered, as though having faced that, they could now do anything. Without having ever before put this thought into words, I think my second birth has given me a similar knowledge. I was still at the bottom of my spiritual ladder, suffering from depression, in an unhappy marriage, and overwhelmed by the world. But slowly and surely I was climbing, one step at a time, toward freedom. So brave, I can hardly believe it of myself.