Giving birth to a baby can have many faces and posterior positioning is just one of those faces. Knowing your body, understanding the progression of labour and having the support necessary are all the tools you need to complete your journey into motherhood.

Not everyone who had a cesarean section with the first pregnancy needs a section with the subsequent pregnancies. Not everyone who would like to have a vaginal birth after cesarean section feels that the “medical establishment” supports her. There is criticism by some members of the public that the “medical establishment” is not doing enough to prevent cesarean sections in the first place.

Choosing to breastfeed means that your baby is getting the best nutritional and immunological support possible after birth. Choosing to surround yourself with a positive, knowledgeable, supportive community provides the environment conducive to mom and dad’s continued growth in their new role as parents.

So please tell your birthing stories to your kids, to your friends, to your families, to everyone who needs convincing, so they can believe that childbirth is safe, normal, and natural. It is not to be feared. It is to be anticipated as one of the most profound experiences of our lives.

Prepare yourself emotionally to be totally focused on your baby. Go beyond just bonding. Allow yourself the joy of new parenthood untainted by the guilt of not getting enough done. There will be plenty of time for it all later! Take this time to get inspired about assuming the mantle of motherhood

We are grateful to my parents for quietly blazing their own childbirth trail. And we salute the generations of midwives who courageously and passionately honor the choices of their birthing families. Our hope is that midwifery and home birth will continue to flourish and that our family’s journey will encourage other families not to give up too quickly on the choices they cherish.

“Birth is not dangerous; birth need not be frightening; birth does not require people well versed in the abnormalities of childbirth to observe and record it’s every fluctuation. Birth needs to be trusted and believed in. Birth is safe”

Thus, we begin to heal. Sometimes this is enough – to be fully received with open presence by other mothers and family members. To know that your experience is as valid as everyone else’s, and to understand that your process to sort out your childbirth experience is unique and important.

I am so happy that I was able to stay home for the birth. There were a few touchy times when my blood pressure went up where the midwife thought we might have to transfer. As long as I was in the pool the blood pressure stayed down enough that we could stay home.

That’s why a homebirth is different – that great divide, that portal, that window into the next-world opens into your home. It opened into our bedroom, onto our bed, where we usually do such normal things.

And it was a BIG DEAL. It was awesome.

Birth is.

After the CBC National coverage of Canadian women’s experiences with traumatic births, which was released at the end of last year in Annie Burns-Pieper’s article, “’Stop! Stop!’: Canadian women share stories of alleged mistreatment in the delivery room (1),” it has become clear to ASAC that mistreatment in childbirth is largely under reported.

I am happy to have learned all I have, but I wish it wasn’t all such a fight to have what I wanted in childbirth. I wish there was more available options to women. My journey as a mother has been interesting, I have learned how to advocate for myself and make choices that suit me and my family.

Trystan, famously known for his blog Biff & I that is centered around his life with his family and partner, is a transgender man in Oregon USA that chose to carry his own biological child. He made the choice to be open and public regarding his pregnancy because he was frustrated that the only wide spread news about transgender people seemed to be suicide rates and stories of discrimination.

As a parent, we are faced daily with making decisions that will have an effect on our children and family. Did you know that parental decision-making starts before your child is born? There are many decisions to make, and making the best decision, with all the correct information, is making an informed decision.

Over the past decade I have accompanied many women during the births of their babies. I am now starting to attend the births of their 3rd children. As I have become more experienced, there is one thing that sticks out, when a baby is in an optimal position, labour is shorter.

Infertility changed me and it took some time to truly acknowledge, accept and appreciate that. It gave me some great gifts and as odd as it sounds I am grateful for it. I have lost relationships along with perhaps some innocence of how the world works but I have gained so much more.

My advice to new moms and those that are pregnant is to be gentle with yourself during this time and to conserve your energy. Keep asking for help. It’s good to avoid difficult situations. Your well-being affects baby directly. It’s good to begin thinking about how you intend to continue with meal times and routines. Make small commitments to yourself such as ‘If I step on it, I’ll put it away’ or ‘As I enter a room, I improve upon it slightly each time’. Decide that you have truly done your best and refuse to let guilt or worry rob you of sleep.

I did not think that after an 8 hour labour for Diana and 12 hours for Amy that the boys would ever be that fast. I am thankful, though, that it is over and I did not labour that long at all. It was so much easier with twins! Today is the start of our new life together as a family: two girls, two boys, and happy parents.

After working with Dr. Toane for two and a half years, the College of Physicians and Surgeons passed a ruling prohibiting doctors from attending home births. After considerable thought, Sandy and I decided that we would continue to attend births, even without a doctor present. We felt that home birth was an alternative many couples needed, and we would support it in any way we could. We have been working and learning ever since and are grateful that we have the opportunity to work with couples to help them make their births happy experiences.

What then? Would childbirth really be painful for so many? Might more of us try desperately to find the words to explain the wonderfully indescribable sensation of giving birth the same way there are just no words that accurately describe your most wonderfully indescribable orgasm? Could our experiences really depend largely on our beliefs, expectations and the language we use to describe it? I think so and I can’t wait for Dr. Michael Klein to take me as one of his research informants.6