Keep Going 'Til You Prove It To Yourself!

I’ll keep this brief.

I have a client who was pregnant with baby #3.

She’d never had an unmedicated vaginal birth and really wanted to prove to herself that she could do it.

She wasn’t so convinced that she could.

All she could remember from previous birth was that it’s going to hurt and it’d be easier to get an epidural.

Once we worked through reframing and renaming, we got to a point where she fully trusted herself to birth this baby unmedicated.

38 weeks comes: no baby. I must admit I was a bit shocked because this was the 3rd one and we had no inkling that he’d make his arrival.

39 weeks comes: I was sure he’d at least start trying to make his way earth side though I know how this goes. Babies, regardless of it being the first or the 5th, come when they damn well please. Baby is high!

Still no baby but mom was in good spirits.

40 weeks comes: I’m like this HAS to be the week. Nope! Baby is still high!

40 weeks + 6 days: mom goes in for induction everything goes pretty smoothly.

41 weeks (The next day): We got serious action! I get a text “Don’t kill me friend.”

Me:

Mom: I let them break my water.

Me:

Now why would I be relieved that that was her response?

Because my mind went immediately to she somehow convinced them to do a caesarean.

Why there? No clue but that’s where my mind went.

So here we are. Broken water + Pitocin = a baby is coming at some point!

We’d talked about her letting me know when she reached 5 or 6cm or just when it got too real.

She reached 5cm and I made my way to her. I got there, got her out of the bed and jumped straight in with pain relief techniques and different laboring positions.

👏🏽Sis 👏🏽Did👏🏽Her👏🏽Mfn👏🏽Thang!

Let me tell you why I’m proud.

She never really said it, but I knew she was afraid.

Though birth, itself, wasn’t foreign to her, unmedicated birth was.

Though she wanted to prove to herself she could do this, she naturally wanted to make the situation easy and comfortable; the very two things birth is not.

She overcame and conquered beautifully. She never ran from a contraction. She never fussed about changing positions. She never gave up on her goal.

Ok…maybe once. But neither I nor her husband were going to let her. She said “I don’t know guys. I don’t think I can do this.” Two contractions later, her baby was here.

Even after she was ready to give up she was affirmed and she tapped into her inner strength, maybe even ancestral strength and she birthed her baby. One long push and he was here.

She did it.

She kept going until she proved to herself she could do it.

To you, T: I’m still proud of you, playa! You did a marvelous job and I thank you for trusting me to support you on this journey. It was an honor and amazingly beautiful watching you go from skeptical of your own ability to fully trusting yourself and your body to reach your goal. For our candid conversations, I’m grateful. Never give up on yourself. Luh ya!

✌🏾💜

-Aeryka