Reading Material

>I shared a few weeks ago that I am training to become a Brio Birth instructor. The actual date for my workshop has not been set yet but will be in April sometime. I CANNOT WAIT!! I am eating, breathing, sleeping child birth as if I was pregnant again. One thing I am doing in the mean time is reading. Now that I am a mother and have given birth before, I wish I would have read more. I did, in fact read quite a bit, but I don't think I was reading the right material. That may sound bad, but considering I was aiming for a med free vaginal birth I should have been reading more material focused on just that. I only recall reading things like What to Expect When You're Expecting, The Bradley Method Handbook and a book on my baby's growth. Nothing specific on being confident in the kind of birth I actually was going for. Sure we had a "birth plan"and I wanted certain things, but I was not confident in those things and aside from Logan popping a hole in his lung, I really didn't get the birth I truly wanted. HOWEVER, let me say that I LOVED how it turned out. But if you asked me if I could change anything about my birth, I'd pass you a list.

Because of this, among other things, I have discovered a new passion and I want to encourage women to know their choices and have the best birth they can. The following is a list of the books I am/will be reading:

• Your Best Birth by Ricki Lake & Abby Epstein (I'm halfway through this and LOVING it!)
• Ask a Midwife by Catherine Parker (Also half way through this)
• Husband Coached Childbirth by Dr. Bradley
• Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way by Susan McCutcheon
• Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Sara Buckley
• Mind Over Labor by Carl Jones
• Having a Baby, Naturally by O'Mara
• Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin
• Born in the USA by Marsden Wagner
• Misconceptions by Naomi Wolf

Wow! I know that is a TON of reading. But if you think about it, it's not really any more or less than what you would expect while taking a true college course on the subject. Also, a few of the books are very similar and I will be skimming most of it. Starting off with Your Best Birth has been great. It's one of the more recently published which makes the skimming easy.

My goal as a childbirth educator is to NOT make any mom feel like she is making a bad choice, no matter what that choice is. I want moms to feel fully educated so that when they make a certain choice, they are fully away of the pros and cons. My Bradley instructor, while amazing and not intentionally, made me feel bad about ending up with an epidural. I remember sitting on the birth ball while B was holding my shoulders through a contraction. I had oxygen on and was nearly passing out from the pain. I had not dilated from a 4 in over 2 hours. My nurse was amazing, not asking if I wanted some relief. I cried as I told B that it was time for some relief and we were both so scared that it would lead to a c-section, because that is the fear that was instilled in us in class, that my guilt flooded me as I waited for the anesthesiologist. I know now that getting the epidural helped me relax, something which does not happen with all moms, and made things move along a lot faster. Regardless, I don't want one of my moms to feel guilty if she choses to get an epi.