This article is from my book, Nourish & Thrive: Happy, Healthy Childbearing.
I’m strong and healthy and powerful!
My body and my baby are perfectly formed and poised for birthing beautifully!
My body knows how to birth and my baby knows how to be born!
I trust my body and I trust my baby!
I breathe in, I breathe out, I relax fully!
I relax, so my baby can relax!
I see my body opening like a flower to let my baby come out!
I see my baby moving smoothly from my body!
Every moment, every sensation brings my baby closer to me!
Once upon a time I drove to a tiny, mountainside cottage for a visit with an expectant mother and dad. We had a nourishing time together as we always did at our visits. And as it seemed I always did at our visits, I stayed too long—we talked and laughed too much, and I drank too much of the tea that simmered on their stovetop. At last I rose to go, slipping into their minuscule bathroom (thanks to all the tea) on my way out.
And there’s where I saw it. A piece of curling, water-spotted paper clinging to the wall over the roll of toilet tissue by yellowing strips of masking tape. It was a hand-scrawled version of the lines above. I sat there awhile, transfixed by those glorious words, feeling moved by those glorious words, absorbing those glorious words.
I’m strong and healthy and powerful!
My body and my baby are perfectly formed and poised for birthing beautifully!
My body knows how to birth and my baby knows how to be born!
I trust my body and I trust my baby!
I breathe in, I breathe out, I relax fully!
I relax, so my baby can relax!
I see my body opening like a flower to let my baby come out!
I see my baby moving smoothly from my body!
Every moment, every sensation brings my baby closer to me!
That extraordinarily wise first-time birthing woman went on to bring her son into the springtime sunrise of that year’s Mother’s Day with grace and might and beauty and dignity while her husband, overwhelmed with adoration, received him and wept. I witnessed it all from the foot of the bed, overwhelmed with adoration myself.
Later, seated once more in that ridiculously little bathroom, I saw those words again and marveled at how they’d come to life before my eyes. At the new family’s six week visit, the words were still there and I thought how wonderful it would be if more women approaching birth would take the time to scribble out, paste up, and, daily, read aloud such a list. I paid the gorgeous family a last visit some months later to bid them goodbye prior to a move back east. As usual, we talked and laughed longer than we meant to while drinking cup after cup of tea until, at last, it was time for me to use the bathroom and go home. I went in, sat down, and there, all those months later, those were words still fastened to the wall.
And I decided as I sat there to write this story for you.
Priceless friends, will you consider doing likewise? The Bible says we are as we think in our hearts and that we’ll, indeed, have what we say. It also says faith comes by hearing. While I admit those scriptures were written within specific other contexts, I do believe they reveal the basic truth that our lives here are an expression of what we immerse them in.
Speak life and make your birth beautiful! Speak life and make your life meaningful! Do every single thing you can to be and do all you were created to be and do! Speak life! It really is as you say!
GETTING READY TO GIVE BIRTH
Regarding getting ready to give birth, I’ll take a moment here to be honest with you. I really never worry much whether the families I serve are “fully educated” or “ready” for giving birth.
How really ready can you be to experience a thing so singular as giving birth to a living being?
And, yet, how un-ready can you be?
The act of giving birth is very much like the act of making love. Making love is a thing you surrender to, a thing that both schools you and unleashes you as it sweeps you along.
Prepare—sure. Read books, watch films, take classes—of course.
But when it comes down to it, just be ready to do what you do when you make love. Create a beautiful space. Fill it with music and soft sheets and lovely scents. Dim the lights and light the candles. Close the door. Cling to your husband. Let go as the sensations build and follow your instincts. Moan and writhe and cry out and do all and whatever you must to reach your climax. Then drop back upon the pillows and bask in the glow.
Again, and with all this in mind, why don’t you take a minute or two and think what you’d like to be the realities of your birth, then grab the nearest pencil and sheet of paper, write those things down, and tape them up. Tape them where you’ll see them lots of times in the day and, every time you see them, read them right out loud.
I’m strong and healthy and powerful!
My body and my baby are perfectly formed and poised for birthing beautifully!
My body knows how to birth and my baby knows how to be born!
I trust my body and I trust my baby!
I breathe in, I breathe out, I relax fully!
I relax, so my baby can relax!
I see my body opening like a flower to let my baby come out!
I see my baby moving smoothly from my body!
Every moment, every sensation brings my baby closer to me!
And why don’t you do the same for what you’d like to be the realities of your life while you’re at it?
For a deeper exploration of the subjects discussed here see the “Recommended Reading & Viewing List” on pages 97-100 at the back of the book.
Recommended Reading & Viewing List for IT’S AS YOU SAY! PREPARING FOR BIRTH
Book: Supernatural Childbirth, by Jackie Mize
Film: Birth Day, by Naoli Vinaver Lopez, Diana Paul, and Frank Ferrel
Film and Book: Orgasmic Birth, by Elizabeth Davis and Debra Pascali-Bonaro
Film: Birth Into Being, by Russian Spiritual Midwife Tatyana Sargunas and her filmmaker husband, Alexi
Book: Birthing From Within, by Pam England and Rob Horowitz
Book: Heart & Hands, by Elizabeth Davis
Book: Special Delivery, by Rahima Baldwin
Book: Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin
Book: Birth Reborn, by Michel Odent
Book: Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way, by Susan McCutcheon-Rosegg
Book: Spiritual Midwifery, by Ina May Gaskin
Kim Woodard Osterholzer, Colorado Springs Homebirth Midwife and Author
Books by Kim:
Homebirth: Commonly Asked Questions
A Midwife in Amish Country: Celebrating God’s Gift of Life
Nourish + Thrive: Happy, Healthy Childbearing
One Little Life at a Time: Recommendations + Record Keeping for Aspiring Homebirth Midwives
Reading your blog has become what I do at night to relax before I go to bed. I spent some years growing up in Amish country in Ohio and that was my initial draw to keep coming back. Now I am coming back for encouragement for when we are blessed with another baby and to borrow strength for that time.
That said, I decided to take your affirmation suggestion and give it a whirl. Currently we have 3 children (all girls), but I just wrote what came to mind.
“I am strong.
I am kind and caring.
I have the strength to speak life to my daughters.
I have the knowledge to teach them how to be godly women.
I am able to carry another baby and not be frightened because I know who has control.
My body is a survivor. *I* am a survivor.
I can let go of perfection and grab hold of peace.
I see our family with 7 children, all loved and all welcomed with open arms.
I trust in the One who formed me in my mothers womb to bring about His good will.”
Some of the stuff I wrote I didn’t even think about, I just wrote. I have a hard time being patient with my children and being the kind caring mom they and I desire me to be.
The survivor part is because of many things, not least of which was a bad car accident years ago that left me with a broken pelvis, broken sacrum, pushed out hip and a broken wrist. So when it comes to having babies, all that trauma comes back again and I revert back to that time. Hence being scared to have more babies! I have done it 3 times however. 🙂 I am going to print this out and put it up around my house to remind me of what I am capable of. Thankyou for putting this out there. Maybe God meant this blog post to be written for me.
This is beautiful, Becky, thank you for sharing it! More than I hope for any other thing, I hope for my writings to be an encouragement and catalyst for transformation in the lives of my precious worldmates!
Have you read SUPERNATURAL CHILDBIRTH by Jackie Mize? I think you’d like it! It’s a tiny book, but so powerful. I’ll sometime soon write a series of posts about that book, and what’s happened with the clients who’ve read it. I also plan to soon post the list of books I recommend my clients read, so you may find that interesting.
I, myself, am the product of encouraging words spoken by the power and authority of “Christ in (me), the Hope of Glory!” It saved my life. The tool of writing out what you hope will be, what you intend to be the realities of your life is, after the time I spend with God in His Word, is the most valuable tool I personally posses. I compare everything I write to God’s Word, as God’s Word and His Will for my life is what I treasure above all else, then I use this tool of intentional confession every single day on my own behalf, on the behalf of my friends and family, on behalf of my clients, and even on behalf of a number of strangers. I used it to climb out of the pit of a suicidal depression I found myself in after my son’s birth twenty years ago, it was what brought me through the “valley of the shadow of death” after I lost my young husband to cancer eleven years later, and it’s faithfully served me through numberless lesser events throughout.
This post originally ran the morning Hannah was giving birth to Evangeline! I wrote it the night before, scheduled it to run in the morning, and was with my two beauties, smiling and nodding and dribbling oil by the time it did ♥