One of my favourite things about my profession as a childbirth educator is that I am blessed to hear a lot of birth stories. After couples who have gotten to know each other over the six week class series have had their babies, we all get back together and have a reunion class. We hosted our first reunion in our new space just this past Tuesday, and it was truly inspiring!

One of the biggest things we try to drive home in our classes is that birth satisfaction has a lot to do with your involvement in your birth. We talk about birth "wish lists", yes, but we also talk about what's important in the event that birth takes an unexpected turn. As teachers, we feel it is extremely pertinent to convey how important informed decision making is, and how empowering it is to be a participant in birth. We aim to provide as much information as we can, and be sure that parents have the tools they need to make an informed decision, whether that be consent or refusal. We are neither pro nor anti intervention, pro or anti pain medication, etc. What we are is pro using tools for their correct purpose at the optimal time. After all, we wouldn't try to put a screw in with a hammer, right?

I feel very fortunate to be able to hear a great deal of birth stories through this forum, and know that a lot of parents go into greater detail about their births with their peers who have just gone through a similar experience, and their educators who are genuinely interested. I often wish that I could record these stories because I know that once they leave the room they might not be told in the same way again. That's the thing about birth culture. If someone has a "good birth story", they don't often talk about it at length. If someone has suffered in their birth, or felt a loss of control, they often share. 

So what is a "good birth story"? In my opinion, it is a very broad definition. It doesn't have to be a straight forward birth. It doesn't have to be an unmedicated birth. It doesn't have to be a vaginal birth. To me, a "good birth story" involves parents aware of their options, gathering the information they need to make informed decisions, and being active participants in their birth. Sometimes a "good birth story" takes place at home, sometimes it takes place in a hospital, sometimes it involves a vaginal delivery, sometimes it involves an assisted delivery, sometimes it involves a caesarean delivery, sometimes it involves a medication free labour, sometimes it involves multiple forms of narcotics or an epidural. What it never involves is a Mother feeling as if things were done to her without knowing why, a mother who has lingering questions about what happened, or a mother who suffered unnecessarily. I won't call those types of stories bad, but I will say that I wish they weren't the types of stories that were informing women, teenagers and children about what birth is like. Because let's be honest, majority of the time, especially living where we do, it's not.

Without naming names or giving particulars I will say that on Tuesday night I heard 6 excellent and very different birth stories. The parents excitedly telling their stories demonstrated that even if birth takes a turn away from what you expected, it can still be wonderful and empowering if you are aware of what is happening, what your options are and how you can make an informed choice in any scenario. Not one couple wondered why something happened in their care. Not one couple felt a loss of control. Not one couple wished that things had gone differently, regardless of how their birth story played out. 

I was inspired by everyone in attendance, but there is one detail I feel compelled to share that made me over the moon excited. One of the births was attended not only by Dad, but by a seven year old sibling. This awesome sibling was in attendance at the reunion also, and we got to hear her experience of witnessing life come into the world. At seven years old this girl was not afraid of birth. She was not shocked by birth, or jaded by poor representations in media. When asked what her favourite part was we heard a resounding "seeing the actual birth"! It's experiences like hers that will change the culture surrounding birth. I can just imagine this young girl telling her friends about her experience. I can imagine friends of this lucky sibling witnessing what parenthood of a newborn is like. I can imagine nursing being normalized to young girls and boys. This makes me extremely excited! 

So, do you have a good birth story? Do you tend to keep mum when asked about it? I challenge you to share a little more. Even if it means just telling someone that it was good, and why (did you listen to your body? did you feel confident in the decisions you made? did you feel well supported?). This challenge also applies to me. I am definitely guilty of scaling Jo's birth story back to a simple "it was great!". If you're interested, stay tuned to read Jo's birth story in the coming weeks, my goal is to make some sense out of the 20 page journal entry I wrote not long after she was born and post it. 

Why am I challenging you, and myself, to share more? Because it is important! Something I often tell students is that for every birth "horror story" someone tells them on the street (or they unwittingly read online), they should read at least 3 positive birth stories. I feel like we, as parents, need to add to the canon of positive birth experience! You never know who your story might affect. The more "good birth stories" we share, the more we change birth culture, one reader or listener at a time. An empowered birth is not always a birth that went "to plan", and people need to know that!


As an endnote I will just mention that it is a goal of mine to collect as many birth stories as I can in hopes of one day putting together a compilation and making it readily available to readers. If you've got a story you'd like to share, please feel free to contact me!

My daughter Jo turns a whopping 8 months old today. I'm finding it unbelievable that time has moved by so quickly. On the other hand, she's cutting her top two teeth, and her bedtime has been later than mine was before she existed since Christmas...which reminds me of a very potent saying, "Though some days are long, the years are short". 

I've never made a practice out of the whole New Year's Resolution thing, and would be a bit late if I did this year, but I've been thinking that I want to make some changes and I can't think of a better way to keep me honest than feeling accountable to my 8 month old child. 

I also figure that if I take this time to sit down and type this out while Jo is napping (yes, I'm crunched over a dozy nursing babe), I'll take it more seriously. 

So, without further ado, here's what's been percolating in the ol' brain...

SCREENTIME:
In the past week and a half I have built a new website for my small business Breathe Into Being, started this shiny new blog, and spent a fair bit of time helping Hunny B Photography with social networking. I've been neurotically checking in on Webmaster tools and trying to get my new site crawled so that I can redirect traffic from my old page. I've been trying to do most of this during Jo's naps, which generally looks like me pacing around the kitchen with her in the Ergo until she falls asleep and then making a B-line to the laptop, but there have been moments where I'll admit I've popped her on the floor with a few toys to utilize her fantastic sitting and chewing skills. Sure, I'll sing her songs and interact with her whilst typing and clicking away, but I feel the fog of guilt settling in knowing that she's watching me staring at a computer. 

Jo is a very good eater, and enjoys lingering meals at the breastaurant which gives me time to pick up my phone and check emails, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Quite often she'll nurse herself into a little nap, and I find myself nearly glazed over staring at a screen. This bothers me. It bothers me that instead of stopping to look at my beautiful baby peacefully sleeping, I feel compelled to click another link to a buzzfeed thread on something ridiculous. Even when she is awake and engaging with the world around her I often feel compelled to document it through photos and videos on my phone. I'm certainly not the only one who reaches for a phone everytime she does something adorable either. It's got me thinking: do I really want this sweet, impressionable baby to have the impression that everyone around her has an extra rectangular shaped appendage? No, I don't think I do. 

Darryl and I enjoy media. Though we haven't had cable in the entire 7 years we've lived together, we enjoy viewing movies and have been known to get temporarily addicted to seasons of HBO and Showtime series. When Jo was predictably falling asleep around 8:30, I didn't feel so bad about turning on a movie or an episode in bed once she was snoozing. Her recent changes in sleep have really highlighted the fact that we do this often as I've found myself wishing her to sleep so we can become media-consuming zombies for a while. Too often. I knew there was some silver lining in the sleep deprivation!

We love to read! Books are something I've been seriously missing in my life since becoming a Mother. It's a 24 hour job, and in the first few months any "me time" I experienced was used to shower, nap, or frantically do yoga--which it turns out isn't all that relaxing! In the past two days I have used one nap a day to sit and read. Hallelujah!

THE GOALS:
Cut down non work-related screentime to an hour a day or less, and never while Jo is watching. 
What this means: 
-If I desperately need to check social media, I can do it while Jo is sleeping, and not before breathing in the sweetness that is my wee one napping away.
-If screentime is work-related, I'll get to it while Jo's asleep, or when she's hanging out with her Daddy.
-I'll pull out the beautiful camera-yes, a real one, not attached to a phone!- we purchased three days after Jo was born when I feel the need to document how wonderful she is (unless it's really awesome, and we're out).
-We'll keep up with "Jo about her business", that Darryl started over the Christmas break (setting up our video camera on a tripod in a corner to passively capture what everyday life with Jo is like as she ages).
-No screentime 2 hours before bed on week nights. Low lights, reading to Jo, quiet play, and once she's asleep reading ourselves, or to eachother. No phones, unless there is a rare occassion where they are being used to actually talk to someone. Weekends are free for movie watching once little Miss is sleeping.

The long and short of it: I really feel we owe it to Jo to teach her healthy habits, and in this day and age, media and technology are a huge piece of the pie.