(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
Welcome to the Birth Prep Podcast. I'm Taylor, your birth bestie, who's here to support you as you plan and prepare for the unmedicated birth of your dreams. If you're ready to ditch the fear, conquer the hospital hustle, support that bump and bod, and walk into the delivery room like the HGIC you were born to be, then buckle up, babe.
This is where it all goes down. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Birth Prep Podcast season two. I am so pumped for this.
We're going unmedicated, baby, and I am so glad that you're along for the ride. If you are new here, hi, I'm Taylor. I'm the birth prep coach.
I'm so happy to have you. If you're not new here, hey girl, what's up? I'm so happy to have you back. The podcast has been in intermission for a while, and there's a reason for that because about, gosh, in July, I decided to get very specific with the people that I was helping.
Now, it's one thing to prepare for birth, right? A lot of it's the same. It's like preparing your mind, your body, your team to best support you in achieving the goals that you're trying to accomplish for your birth. That's great.
We love that. I did that for a long time. I've helped a lot of women on this journey.
I've been doing this for a couple of years now. My students, live streams, all the podcasts, all the things, I've been helping in this area for a while and helping women get results. I myself have gotten results doing that work, but I was noticing that most of the women that were coming to me for help were working towards an unmedicated birth in the hospital.
When I felt called to make this transition because the Lord runs my business, not me. I'm just an employee. I'm like, I'm CEO and he's the boss.
But anyways, he was calling me to start educating specifically for unmedicated births in the hospital. I kind of felt impostery because I've never had an unmedicated birth in the hospital, full transparency. I've never done that.
I have had three medicalized birth experiences in the hospital and I have had two unmedicated physiological birth experiences at home. I've done unmedicated, I've done hospital, but I haven't done unmedicated in the hospital. I felt unqualified to be honest with you for a little bit there.
I'm just going to be honest, I was resistant to changing the way that I was already doing things. I'm like, I'm already helping those women. I'm just also helping the home birth moms and the C-section moms and the birth center moms and all the different, I'm just helping moms prepare for birth and it's totally fine to just continue to do that.
And the Lord said, nope, you're going to trash everything and you're going to redo it so that you're helping this specific person because they need you and they need what you have. Now, I am not saying that I went through the experiences that I went through on purpose, but I am a firm believer in the Lord's promise that he will use it all for good. And this business, this podcast, my birth prep course, all of these things that I now get to put out into the world and connect with you guys and help you, at least in a small way, prepare for the birth that you are dreaming for, hoping for, praying for, preparing for, that is the good.
That made all the things that I went through and experienced all worth it because I get to do this job with you guys now. So I trashed my whole course and I rebuilt it from the ground up. I am now redoing the podcast and my content looks different and the emails sound different and everything is specific to helping you pull this off.
This is the season where we make sure you are prepared for that unmedicated birth inside the hospital. There's no more wondering if you can do it, no more second guessing yourself. You're here because you're ready to take charge of your birth experience.
And I'm here to make sure you have every tool, every strategy, and every bit of confidence that you need to make it happen. So let's get straight to the point. Why do so many women want an unmedicated birth? Why are these crazy ladies out here saying no to the epidural when literally everyone around us is saying, why go through all the pain when you don't have to? Why would you do that to yourself? Why wouldn't you just click the easy button? Here's why.
Confidence and trust in your body. Your body was quite literally made for this. It already knows how to birth, just like it knew how to create little tiny eyeballs and fingernails and toes and connect it all together.
Like your body was made for this experience. And I'm a Jesus believer if you didn't already catch that. But our bodies were quite literally designed, perfectly designed for this process.
And I'm not saying it goes perfect all the time, but like we were created to do this work. Our bodies aren't broken. We don't need all this help that we've been convinced that we do, that our bodies aren't capable of birthing the baby that it quite literally grew from scratch.
Like, sorry, not sorry. I will never buy into that lie again. Another great reason is there's fewer interventions and a faster recovery.
When you skip the meds, you skip the snowball effect that comes with them. And I'm not saying like implementing an epidural always leads to all the interventions, right? But it very, very often does and absolutely can. And your risk of those interventions is so much higher when you start implementing things, even simple things like continual monitoring and IV fluids and cervical checks and things that like seem harmless and seem like, okay, it's not that big of a deal.
But these interventions can be sneaky because, okay, you got the epidural so that you could rest, but now your movement is limited. And now your body's not able to progress the way it could be and guess what? The hospital's got time limits on you. So now they're coming and saying, hey, this isn't moving fast enough.
You're failing to progress. So we're going to go ahead and get you started on some Pitocin to get things speeding along. Then next thing they come in and say, hey, we're going to break your water so we can get this thing going faster.
Then next thing we know, baby's in distress because all of these things are unnatural and baby's not getting to do what they need to do. Your body's not getting to move the way it needs to move. And all of these things are interrupting the natural hormone processes.
And then guess what? We've got D cells in the heart rate. Now we're freaking out. And now you're on the operating table having your baby under a knife, which you totally didn't want.
And it's like that one thing, implementing the epidural that everybody says is so great and so wonderful. It's like that could have been avoided. All that could have been avoided.
And we're not saying that's guaranteed. And I'm not saying this is always the result, but it happens a lot. If you look into the statistics that the United States gets as a whole, the birth industry as a whole, it's not good.
It's not great. One in three women have C-sections. 45% of new mamas walk out with birth trauma.
Epidurals are used in over 80% of birth experiences. All of this stuff is because we've medicalized birth. And I'm so grateful that we have interventions for when they're needed.
I am not an intervention basher. I'm like, I think they're great when they are used when necessary. And they can be really awesome.
And even if you want to choose the epidural, if you've educated yourself and you understand the risks, and you're like, yeah, I think the pros for me outweigh the risks of that. Great. That's what you get to choose.
And I love that you did that work for yourself. And I love that you're confident in the choice that you made. However, I also understand how the birth process works and how these things can absolutely disrupt and basically hijack your birth experience and have you leaving with a very different experience than what you were hoping for, expecting for, and preparing for.
So that was a whole rant, but you get my point, hopefully. Another great reason is because you get to birth on your terms. And everybody should be birthing on their terms, in my personal opinion.
But going on Medicaid, it isn't about proving how strong you are. It's about taking charge of your birth experience. And you can do that in any type of birth.
I'm not saying that you have to go on Medicaid to be in control of your birth experience. I've seen mothers have beautiful, amazing, family-centered, gentle cesarean sections and had their golden hour. And it was just so intentional.
And they got everything that they wanted, given their medical situation and the decisions that they had to make for themselves. And they were in control the whole day. And that's totally possible in any way that you birth.
But getting to do it this way and getting to be fully present and aware, and you're not on drugs, you're not any of that, you get to actually fully be in control the entire time and doing it the way that you want, feeling every single moment and experiencing birth in the way that you were designed to. This was one of the big reasons why I decided to change the way that I birthed my children after my third baby. Really quick backstory.
I've got stories for days, which you'll find out soon enough. But with my third baby, I wanted to push while I was on my hands and knees. I had been laboring that way for a while during my transition period.
And they told me that I couldn't. And they sat there and they fought me. And I was not prepared to advocate for myself.
And they ended up physically turning me over. And that was the moment where I realized because I knew, I knew enough to know that I could birth in a different position and that being on your back wasn't that great. But like I so I was a little bit educated a lot more than I had been in my other two birth experiences.
But I wasn't educated enough to navigate what that would look like that day. I wasn't prepared for pushback. I wasn't prepared to be told No, I wasn't prepared to have hospital policy shoved down my throat.
I was not prepared for that. And that was a very eye opening experience. That was the day that I vowed and I had no clue what birth would look like for me in the future.
But I vowed that day in that hospital bed holding my newborn baby. I said, I will never, ever do birth this way again. Because it's like that.
Sometimes it's like, like on a show, like where you see like the flashback and then like that, like moment of realization. It's like, and it shows like, Oh my gosh, all the like backstory, like really fast, really quick, like all the different scenes flashing up really quick. And it was like one of those moments for me where it's like, Oh my gosh, they've been doing this to me the whole time.
They've been putting their self, their priorities, their wants, their needs, all of that over me over what I want. The person literally birthing the human being they put the people that I'm paying to help me bring this baby earth side. They decided all the things for me and did things the way they wanted to do.
And I was just a byproduct. I was like, um, like a, like a freaking extra in my own, in my own show. Like, that's what it felt like.
And it, it just was, it was the moment where I decided that everything was going to change. And that's when I really started doing this work. But that was the big reason for me was I wanted things to be on my terms.
I wanted to be in charge. I wanted to be the one in control. I wanted to make the decisions for my birth.
And that's exactly what I did the next time. And it was magical spoiler alert. It was awesome.
But those are some of the reasons that I hear from mamas all the time of why they want an unmedicated birth. There's so many other reasons to even like medically speaking, like there's just better outcomes for yourself, your baby, your postpartum experience, your breastfeeding experience. When things are as physiological as possible or as designed as possible, it, the whole process just runs a lot smoother when that process isn't severely interrupted.
There's even like higher rates of maternal satisfaction with an unmedicated birth. So there's like tons of reasons why someone might want to skip the epidural, skip the medicalized experience. By the way, let me just say this now.
I thought just avoiding the epidural meant I was having an unmedicated birth. Plot twist. I ended up with a highly medicalized birth experience that just left me feeling, well, traumatized first and foremost, just so disappointed, so defeated, so just sad.
I wanted a big family. I was like, how will I ever do that again? And now I'm just like, I can't wait to do this again, literally. But anyways, I just had to throw that out there.
Just because you're skipping the epidural does not make that an unmedicated birth. It's so much more than that. And we'll be talking about that.
Okay. Okay. Taylor, I get it.
I get why unmedicated birth is great and all, but I'm wondering, can I actually do it? The short answer, yes, you freaking can. But here's the thing. Birth isn't something you just wing.
You don't go show up and hope for the best. You prepare for it. And that's why so many women go in hoping and praying for that unmedicated birth experience and leaving with a much different result because y'all are skipping the prep work.
I get it. I did it too. I thought taking the hospital birth class was my ticket to the dream birth, right? No, that class taught me how to be a really good patient, which I have zero interest in being ever again.
So preparation is key. And that is why I am here to help you do that work. And I know the fears are real.
What if I can't handle the pain? What if something goes wrong? What if I fail? What if I actually put in all this work and it doesn't happen? But here's the truth. Fear makes birth harder. When you're afraid, your body tenses up and that makes contractions more painful.
This is what we call the fear tension pain cycle. And I'm going to deep dive into this in this season so you can break out of it and birth from a place of confidence and not fear. But fear quite literally creates the pain that we feel during our birth experience.
And maybe you're like I was at first and be like, that's weird. I don't know about all that. That doesn't really add up.
That's not making a lot of sense. I don't know how me being scared would make my experience more painful. I just don't know if I believe that.
But despite my initial doubts, the more I learned about it, the more it made sense, the more I understood why that would make sense. And I was like, okay, you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna work on the fears. I'm gonna figure out where the fears are coming from, why they're there, what's going to help them go away? How can I shift these? How can I lessen my fears? How can I create more confidence? How can I set myself up so that I'm not as scared that I'm not constantly Well, what if this happens? Or what if that happens? And the timelines and like all the things like wanting to get everything perfect.
Like, I had to set all that down. And I did a lot of this work with the Lord. He's really great with that.
He quite literally says it a lot in the Bible to do not be afraid. So I was like, Okay, bet like we're gonna work on this. And I did I put in the work like major work, and it was hard.
It was very difficult, especially when your girl went 10 days past her due date, and due dates are a scam. And we'll talk more about that, too. But I was like, really having to sit there and coach myself through this stuff like in real time and actually having to implement all the things that I had been teaching.
And like, it was hard. It was like a whole different beast, right? But I did it. And the result was a pain free birth experience.
And some people that quite literally don't believe that I did that, but I did. And it blew my mind that day. I was like, wait, what just happened? Like it's over.
This baby is in my arms. Like, that's it. Like all that work.
I'm like, don't get me wrong. Like, I'm glad I didn't struggle that day in any way, shape or form and that it was a joyful, amazing, relaxing, peaceful, beautiful, just serene experience. Like I was so grateful for that.
But it was almost like, gosh, that kind of felt like a rip off because of all the work that I did. But the more work you put in before that day, the easier that day is. And I have so much evidence for that now.
And I need you to hear me. I am not telling you to change your birth plan and your dreams and your goals to pain free birth. That was not my goal.
And honestly, that will probably never be my goal because that, my dear, can add a lot of stress, which adds a lot of fear and can really mess up your mindset if that's what you're aiming for. And then you get to that day and you've got contractions going and it's, oh, it's not what you expected. And that can derail you so fast.
So can it be your goal? Of course it can. If that's your goal, I love that. I'm going to support you and I will help you try to pull it off.
But that personally will never be my goal. It was a beautiful, wonderful, happy side effect of the work that I put in to pull off my unmedicated birth experience. Now you're probably wondering, okay, that's great.
That's wonderful. Sign me up. But how do you actually do that work? How do you get to the point where you're walking into that hospital, confidently ready to stay in control and birth on your terms and pull off your goals? How do you do that? Girl, I am so glad you asked.
First and foremost, you're going to pick the perfect for you provider. Not all doctors and not all midwives are created equal. We'll talk about spotting the red flags and finding the perfect for you provider in a later episode.
But basically, you're going to want to find somebody who is ready to support you in achieving the goals that you've laid out for your birth experience. The sooner you know what you want, the sooner you can have that conversation and the sooner you can decide if your current provider is the perfect fit for you or if you need to go shopping again. There is so much, okay, do I really want to go on this rant right now? Y'all will put in more research into choosing a new microwave or refrigerator than your provider that's going to help you literally bring your baby into this world.
And we're not doing that. My girlies aren't doing that, okay? We're HGICs. And if you're new here, that means head girly in charge.
And there's nothing less. We're not passive patients. We are not little good listeners.
We are take charge, get what we want, accomplish what we set out to accomplish. And we do that by creating the support that we are going to need for that day. First and foremost.
But we're going to need more than just a provider, right? We're also going to need a birth team. Who's going to be in your corner on the big day? Maybe you're hiring a doula, you've got your partner, husband, whoever, you've got mom, you've got whoever, right? But every single person in your space needs to be 120,000% on board with your birth plan, okay? They need to understand what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what's required to pull that off so that they can help you do that work. Everyone in the room that day is there to support you in pulling off that experience.
And if that is not their highest priority over watching, over their paycheck, over what's convenient for them, over what they want to do, because whatever reason, right? If that's not their highest priority, kick them out as fast as you can. Fire them, replace them, and keep on moving. The next thing you're going to want to do is understand the hospital hustle.
Hospitals have routines, they have policies, they have protocols that may not align with what you are trying to pull off. And if you're here wanting an unmedicated birth experience in a medicalized birth industry, odds are they probably won't align with what you want. But you're the HGIC of this birth, don't forget it.
You need to know how to navigate the system without getting steamrolled by it. Now when I say I could quite literally be here all day on this topic, I'm not joking, but I will keep this short and simple. The birth industry is a business and it operates as such.
There's a game that's being played and it goes deeper than you might think, but your girl's done the digging. So I know what the system looks like and I know how it operates and I understand that this is essential. Once you understand the game that's being played, you can learn how to play it and how to win it.
Actually, if you haven't watched The Business of Being Born, it's a documentary, you can google it and watch it. You need to watch that, that's your homework tonight, okay? That's the birth prep homework for the week. Watch The Business of Being Born and then shoot me a DM on Instagram once you get it, okay? Anywho, back to the regularly scheduled programming, which is really just a lot of education, a lot of informing yourself.
You need to understand all the decisions that need to be made surrounding a typical birth experience and what options are available for each of those decisions. That's going to vary based on your provider, your location, what your insurance covers, what you're willing and able to pay out of pocket for, lots of things, but that is work that you need to do. That's work that is even required for a birth plan and all the things that need to be decided on that day, even the things they don't even tell you about and usually just decide for you, you're going to know because you're HGIC, your boss, babe, birth girl, you're going to walk in and you know exactly what you want.
You know exactly what you want to say yes to and exactly what you want to say no to and also you know how to get what you want. So that's part of this work, learning how to advocate for yourself, learning how your body actually functions to birth babies because, spoiler alert, your OBGYN probably has no freaking clue and I hate that for you and I hated it for me. It was a terrible experience.
I'm like, these people have had children themselves and they do this every day and they literally don't even know. They literally don't even know how your hormones actually function together, how to help your body actually work through an unmedicated birth experience, how to support your body in that. They know how to support a very specific type of birth experience because the birth industry gets a very specific result.
You are looking for a different result but you're doing it in this system so you have to show up differently, okay? So you have to learn this stuff. You have to understand what's required of you and then you really need to understand how to support your body that day. Pain management is going to be a big thing.
Labor is work and pain usually comes with the program, okay? But pain doesn't have to equal suffering. This pain is productive pain. But I already know you're coming for the natural pain management techniques and how to lessen the pain and all the things and we're going to be talking about that.
I want you guys equipped with all the tools and the information you need to handle this as best you can. So we'll be talking a lot about preparing your mindset for that day, working through your fears, learning how to support your body through the work that it's doing, learning how to have conversations with your provider and your birth team, getting everybody on the same page. We're going to be talking about all the things on this podcast but the best way to get fully prepared is taking the birth prep course.
That is quite literally the map to get you from where you are right now to your unmedicated birth experience. It has everything you need, all the education, the support. It's all in there for you.
I'll have the link in the show notes if you want more information and you can always DM me over on Instagram which I'll also put the link for that. If you have any questions or just need help deciding if this is the thing for you because I love it and it's wonderful and everything but if you don't need it I'm going to be honest with you. So hit me up over there.
I'd love to hear from you but before I wrap it up for today I'm just going to give you a little sneak peek of what to expect in season two of the birth prep podcast. Every Tuesday I'm going to drop a new episode. We're going to be talking about all the things how to become head girly in charge, why hospital births need more than just a plan, how to create home birth vibes at the hospital.
We'll definitely be covering natural pain management techniques. We'll talk about preparing your mindset for that day. We'll even chat about like midwife versus OBGYN and tedoula or not tedoula.
All kinds of things. We'll talk about your hormones, how those function, how to best support your body and the work that it's doing, labor positions that don't suck. So many things coming to this podcast this season and I'm super excited to have you.
But not just that, every Thursday we're going to be doing a little segment called the HGIC Hotline where I'm going to pull three of y'all's questions that you can submit every week and I'm going to answer those on the podcast for you guys. I've done like weekly live streams in the past and things like that and it is so helpful for other women to hear questions from women that are doing this work right alongside them. Like oh my gosh I didn't even think to ask that question.
That's such a great question and now I have the information too because Taylor just answered the question for me. I am so excited to do this with you guys, but I'm going to need your help. I need you guys to submit questions.
So I'm going to drop the link for that in the show notes. Feel free to throw your burning questions in there for us to discuss next week. So that's all I have for you today.
Here's what to do next. First, subscribe, turn on your notifications so you never miss an episode. Second, I have a freebie for you guys.
If you don't already have it, grab your free unmedicated birth map. This is quite literally everything that it's going to take for you to get from where you're at right now to being totally prepared for your birth experience. I love that resource.
It's like just it's banging first of all and also it's really cute. Okay, I put a lot of work into it and I can't wait for you to see it. Anywho, I have one last thing that I wanted to mention.
The Birth Prep Lounge. That is my free Facebook group where I go in there, do live streams, support you guys, answer your questions, and just a place for you guys to be alongside other mamas trying to pull this off too. I would love to have you in there.
The link for that is in the show notes with everything else. And that is it for today, ladies. Thanks so much for being here.
This season is all about making sure you walk into birth feeling prepared, confident, and in control. And so are all those other resources that I mentioned in this podcast today. But I am here to help you do this.
So stick with me, do the work, and know that you've totally got this. I'll talk to you Thursday for the HGIC Hotline. Until then, as always, happy prepping!
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
