(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 back to the birth prep podcast. Today's another episode of the HGIC hotline where you send in your real and raw, most important questions about birth prep.
And I give you the truth and the strategy and the permission to trust yourself like the head girly in charge that I know you are. Today's questions are so good because they hit on moments that every mama either has faced, will face, or is terrified of facing. Hitting that, I can't do this wall in labor, when your birth plan flies out the window and everything shifts and that awkward, but necessary boundary setting moments with visitors.
We've got mindset, we've got emotions, we've got strategy, we've got a lot today. So let's get into it. Actually, before we do that friendly reminder, if you're loving these episodes and want even more guidance on actually crafting a plan that works, even if everything changes, you need to be at the birth plan party.
It's my free event. It's happening tomorrow, Friday, April 25th. We're going way beyond the basic checklist and building a strategy that actually helps you feel confident on the big day, head to the show notes to grab your free seat, all the information you need to register and all the information about the party is there for you guys.
I'll let you do that while I dive into these questions. Okay. Question number one is from Jillian.
What if I hit that? I can't do this wall that you talk about. How do I push through it? Oh yes. The wall, almost every birth has it, right? Like I've had it with four out of five births.
And if you're sitting there thinking, oh, I'm going to prep so well that I skipped the wall altogether. I love that optimism, but also we're going to prepare for it anyway. Like I'm rooting you on, but also I want you to prepare for the reality that it very well could happen because that moment of, I can't do this.
Isn't a sign that something's wrong. It's often a sign that you're closer than you think. Here's the thing about that.
I can't do this moment. It usually hits during transition. This is the most intense part of labor and it happens right before pushing begins.
Contractions during this phase are usually longer. They're closer together. They're more intense.
Things are probably getting rough. You're not getting much rest time in between. It's also the point in labor where your logical brain usually shuts off and your primal brain takes over.
In other words, your brain is going into survival mode. It is just doing anything it can to survive. And the truth is your brain doesn't want to go through with what you're doing, right? Your brain is now in survival mode.
It's wanting to get through this. It's feeling challenged. It's feeling unsafe.
And it's going to try to make you stop doing what you're doing is if you have a choice, right? Your brain's smart, but it's not that smart. So it makes sense that your brain is going to tell you, Hey, you can't do this. So this moment can feel very emotional and physical.
Like your body and your brain are both screaming at you, please stop. No, stop this. You're crazy.
What are you doing to us? And there is that sliver of possibility that your brain might be right, right? Like, okay, maybe you can't do it. Maybe you need some intervention. Maybe you need some assistance to get to the finish line, but odds are you can do it.
And your brain is just doing what it was wired to do. So it's not necessarily a helpful thought to keep thinking your brain can be so convincing in those moments. And you start to second guess everything.
Why did I want this unmedicated birth? Can I still get the epidural? I really thought I was strong, but maybe I was wrong. I want you to remember this. The wall is part of the process.
It's not a red light. It's a checkpoint. When you hit that moment, here's what I want you and your team to do.
I want you to reframe it immediately when you or someone on your team hears you say, I can't do this. They should be trained to say you are doing this. And this moment means you're so close.
Remind yourself that this isn't the beginning. It's likely the turning point and you're almost there. Focus on your breath, not the finish line.
It can be so easy to like start staring at the clock and be like, oh my gosh, when is this going to end? When is this going to be over? You don't need to be strong for the next three hours. You need to be strong for the next 60 seconds. Then the next, then the next break it into small doable pieces.
One of my favorite affirmations during my fourth birth experience, which was my first unmedicated physiological birth, I was doing it at home for the first time. It was a long and rough, hard labor. And I definitely got to that point of, I can't do this.
And the thing that kept me through was I can do anything for 60 seconds. I can do anything for one minute, especially for my baby. Are you kidding me? I can do anything for a minute for my babies.
And that kept me going. I just kept telling myself, okay, it's only a minute. You can do it for a minute.
The next thing I want you to do is to use your environment to anchor yourself. Is the lighting too bright? Get it dim. Is somebody rubbing your back in a way that's distracting? Ask them to stop.
Does cold washcloth on your neck help do that? This is where all your birth bubble prep kicks in, which by the way, we cover inside the birth prep course. And it's really important to make your environment work for you, not against you. So make sure you are preparing your birth bubble with intention to help you through those moments.
The fourth and final thing I want to leave you with today for this question is to say your affirmations out loud, to say your practiced positive thoughts, because your brain is just feeding you negative thoughts, right? To try to stop you from doing the thing. And you can't stop doing the thing. Your body is going to birth this baby one way or another.
It's time, right? Your brain is not on board with that, and that's okay. We're going to feed our brain practiced positive thoughts when it matters most, okay? Right? Like your body is not the enemy. God is with me.
I was made for this. It's intense, but it's not impossible. I can totally do this.
So you don't need to fake feeling fearless. You just need to keep going anyway. So if you get to the point in your labor where you're feeling like, I can't do this.
Why did I even sign myself up for this? What was I thinking? Oh my gosh, something bad is going to happen. It's okay. You didn't do anything wrong.
You are not, not strong enough. You are experiencing a very normal thing, and you're going to keep going anyways, because odds are that moment where your baby hits your chest for the first time is right around the corner. And that's something to get excited about.
Question number two is from Cassandra. How do I cope if my birth plan changes and everything that I planned is now different? We kind of touched on this in the last episode, but we're going to touch on it again because this is important, right? Because sometimes things shift. And if you've ever been told that making a plan sets you up for disappointment, I want you to hear this from me today.
Making a plan doesn't guarantee a perfect birth. Okay? You can't do anything to guarantee a perfect birth. And for things to go exactly according to your plan, you can't, you can't.
That's just the fact of the matter, but it does guarantee that you stay in the driver's seat, even when the route changes. So you might not get the labor that you wanted, but that doesn't mean you can't create a birth that you're proud of. One where you feel in control of every decision that's being made.
So here's how we process and pivot when things go off plan. First, I want you to zoom out. If something changes like an unexpected induction or your water breaks with no contractions or your baby flips to breach late, pause, take a deep breath, zoom out, ask yourself, what are my options? What are the risks and benefits of each option? Which one aligns most with my values right now for my birth experience? This is when tools like the brain, like I teach my students, B-R-A-I-N, come in handy.
And we're going to break that down inside the birth plan party too. But what are the benefits? What are the risks? What are the alternatives? What does my intuition say? And what if I do nothing or nothing yet? What if we watch them wait? Write that down. It's an acronym.
It's really easy to remember. Brain, B-R-A-I-N. Benefits, risks, alternatives, intuition, nothing.
It can really help you get the information you need to make a new informed decision in the moment. Number two, I want you to re-anchor your why. Why did you want an unmedicated birth in the first place? Why did you make that birth plan? Hold onto that because even if the method shifts, your values haven't.
Maybe you're now having an induction, but you still want minimal cervical checks and no unnecessary pain meds and a peaceful environment and skin to skin as soon as possible. All of that still matters, right? You're not powerless. You're pivoting with intention just because one thing has to look different.
And yeah, I understand like there's a grieving process for that and there's feelings that come with that and that's totally fair and totally fine. And I want you to process all of that, but that doesn't mean everything has to change. And then afterwards, I want you to debrief the experience.
One of the biggest sources of trauma after birth is not what happened, but how we felt during it. If things changed and you weren't prepared or no one explained why, or you felt swept away, that's when the damage happens, right? You deserve to process that, you deserve support in that, and you deserve to tell your story and to feel heard and to feel validated in your feelings about it. When I had my first baby, it was such a traumatic experience.
So many things were done to me and for me that day and I felt all types of ways about it, right? It was not anything what I expected. It was way worse than I imagined it. And I sat there afterwards sitting there holding my baby and everyone was like, oh my gosh, you did it.
That was amazing. No epidural, superwoman. That was so awesome.
How could you do that? And like I felt wrong for the feelings that I was feeling because everyone else was telling me that I should feel different, right? That I should feel so proud of myself and I should feel amazing. I should feel like I did it and I accomplished what I set out to do. And I felt traumatized and disappointed and violated and just utterly just crushed, to be really honest with you.
I felt very wrong for having those feelings. So what did Taylor do? She stuffed them in a little box in her brain and stuffed them away and she carried them right into her next birth experience. And it wasn't until after my third baby that I really unpacked all of that and processed it.
And that was honestly way too much time to hold all of that in. And it affected me heavily, whether I recognized that or not in the moment. Looking back, I think it was a huge reason why I was so depressed during my postpartum experience.
It was a huge driver of the fear that I felt the second time around. It shaped my beliefs and my views on how birth was supposed to be. I let it all sit there and fester and it just wreaked havoc.
I think it's really important for you to process those things afterwards, for you to grieve properly, for you to sit in those emotions. And I know it's uncomfortable and I know it sucks and I know it's really hard. I get it.
I'm not asking to do anything I haven't done. It sucks, but also it's so healing and it's so freeing and it really sets you up for a much different experience if you actually dive into all that and deal with it versus hiding it away and letting it sit there. Because it doesn't just go away with time, it goes away with processing.
One thing you can do so easily is to just sit down and journal it out, dump out your thoughts. You can even start with a prompt like, what felt scary or out of control or unexpected? What emotions came up during my labor experience? How do I feel about my birth right now? Is there anything I'm holding guilt or anger or sadness about? Is there anything that I feel really proud of? How did I feel about the support that I received? Were there any moments I wish I had spoken up more? Were there moments I did speak up and I want to celebrate? Did I feel like I was making decisions or like things were happening to me? Things like that, right? What do I need in order to fully process or heal from this experience? What am I ready to let go of? What am I carrying forward from this experience into motherhood, into future births, or into how I care for myself now? There's so many things that you can dissect after a birth experience and it's work worth doing. So if your plan flies out the window, things change.
First, you're going to zoom out, then you're going to re-anchor into your why. And then afterwards, you're going to debrief it. Okay.
Question number three is from Kels. I don't know. I'm sorry.
I'm already overwhelmed by the amount of people who want to visit in the hospital. What's your advice for setting boundaries with visitors after birth? I love this question. And I love this question because I unfortunately had to learn how to set boundaries the hard way, very hard way.
It took me way too long to learn how to do this. But let's talk boundaries because birth is not a spectator sport and the hospital room is not a meet and greet. You just did one of the most powerful, exhausting, intimate things you've ever done.
You're bleeding, you're leaking, you're learning how to feed a human, you're processing a major physical event, and your body and brain need privacy, quiet, and protection. But what do most people get instead? Relatives hovering, people asking to hold the baby while you're still in a diaper, phones out, cameras on, and you're feeling like you have to host while your uterus is still contracting. But that doesn't have to be your experience.
And not everybody in your life is going to feel that way, right? Like some people that are really close to you and that bring, you know, a certain level of relief and help to the scenario. That's a different story, right? Those people, we love those people. They make our experience better and easier, and we feel held and supported.
It makes sense to want people like that in your space when you're freshly postpartum. But let's say there's some people that really should not be there, truly honestly. They're more concerned about the baby than how you're feeling.
They're more concerned about them and their experience versus yours. So we're gonna talk about how to handle that, okay? Make your visitor plan before labor. Talk to your partner, your support person, whoever you have making these decisions with you about who's allowed in the first 24 hours, about who's allowed in at all, about who's going to be told what, when, and how.
And now I personally like to delegate this to my husband, but I suggest putting one person in charge of communication so that you don't have to text anyone back because you're busy healing and bonding, and it creates less room for miscommunication. All the communication is coming from one person, so there's no mix-ups or mishaps or anything like that. There's no, oh, well, so-and-so told me this.
So pick one person as the line of communication, and if it's you, that's totally fine. I just like to delegate that because I like to prioritize myself. If you want to make sure that it's done your way or you don't have anybody that you can trust to do that for you, or if you just want to do it yourself, that's totally fine.
Second, I want you to use language that makes it about your needs. It's not, we don't want visitors. It's, we're resting and recovering.
Thank you so much for understanding. So here's some little phrases that you can try. We'll let you know when we're ready for visitors.
Right now, we're soaking in time as a family. We're asking for no visitors in the hospital so I can rest and recover in peace. We're keeping the first 24 to 48 hours quiet and calm, and we can't wait to introduce you when we're settled at home.
And number three, I want you to know that it's okay to change your mind. Just like with your birth experience, if you decide that you want to implement something that you weren't originally planning on, it's okay that if you change what you originally communicated with your people, even if you thought you wanted people to visit, you can always say, actually, we're needing more time or opposite. If you said that you didn't want anybody in the hospital, but you're really bored and you want people to come and visit you so you can feel like a human being for a second and feel supported and say, Hey, can you bring this, that and the other, and then come and see our baby? That's cool too.
You're not being rude. You're protecting your peace. You're giving yourself what you need in those moments.
If someone can't respect that boundary, they're not entitled to that time anyway. If they're saying, Hey, I care more about myself and what I'm experiencing than you, the person who literally just gave birth, that's not someone you probably want in your space anyways, like truly honestly. If somebody is giving you for lack of a better word, crap for setting boundaries, because that totally happens, especially with people who don't know how to set boundaries and don't know how to respect boundaries.
I think we probably all know somebody like that. But my biggest piece of advice here is to hold them a mirror, not a physical mirror, but just mirror what they're saying back to them. So if you're saying, Hey, we're asking for no visitors in the hospital so I can rest and recover in peace.
And they're saying, well, I'm going to come anyways. That's silly. You're just going to respond.
So what I'm hearing is you think me resting and recovering after childbirth is silly. Oftentimes when people hear what they're actually saying, they back off or you can even take it a step further is what I'm hearing is your experience is more important than my rest and recovery. What I'm hearing is that it's more important for you to see the baby immediately versus waiting a few days so that I can rest and recover in peace.
If it's still an issue after that, then obviously you can take more extreme measures. Maybe you tell the nurse station, like, Hey, do not let anybody back without my permission. Do not let so-and-so back.
You can get very specific. You can let them do the dirty work and you're going to need to handle it. However you see fit.
But just because somebody is being persistent and somebody wants what they want, doesn't mean that you have to bend what you want and need for them to feel. Okay. Trust me, you are not going to regret prioritizing yourself over other people, but the odds of regretting prioritizing somebody else over your wants and needs for your postpartum experience are pretty, pretty big.
Those were some great questions. Thank you ladies for submitting those. If you have a question that you'd love to hear answered on the podcast, there's a form in the show notes for you that you can send those my way.
Let's do a quick recap because I know that was a lot. If you hit the wall during labor, where you feel like you can't do this, you can push through it with mindset, with breath and with support. If your birth plan flies out the window, you can still pivot.
You can still make empowered decisions and create a meaningful birth story, one that you're proud of. And if you're overwhelmed by visitors or the thought of them, you're allowed to say, no, your needs come before their feelings. I just want to leave you with a few reminders that you're allowed to take up space.
You're allowed to lead your birth and you are allowed to protect your experience. And if you don't want to figure all that out by yourself, you should come to my birth plan party tomorrow, April 25th. This is a free event.
It's going to help you build a birth plan that actually works. It's going to help you get clear on what matters and how to make it happen. It's going to help you set up your support team for success and help you prepare for the real deal hospital birth system.
This isn't fluffy stuff. This isn't like some, oh, here, come. I'm going to give you the same stuff I always give you.
This is birth strategy with your name all over it. You can register for free at the link in the show notes, come ready to learn, come ready to laugh, come ready to leave with a birth plan that makes you feel like a total boss. And if life's a little wild, there's a replay available for a few days.
So make sure you grab your ticket, even if you can't make it live. And I know I'm going to see you there because head girl is in charge. Don't wait for birth to hopefully go well.
We prep on purpose. So join me at the party. I'll see you there until then as always happy prepping.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
