(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. It is heading into the most wonderful time of the year, unless you're doing December and your provider just said, well, let's get you scheduled for an induction so you can get that baby out before Christmas so everyone can enjoy the holidays.
Taylor, that doesn't happen. Yes, it does. Have you ever looked at the least common birth dates in the United States? December 25th, January 1st, December 24th, July 4th, January 2nd, December 26th, November 27th, November 23rd, November 25th, and October 31st.
Every single one of those birth dates are a holiday or the day right after. So yes, it's absolutely happening, but we're not just going to talk about the possibility of pressure from your provider, but we're also just going to talk about what it looks like to be having a baby around the holidays. You know, even navigating prenatal appointments and short-staffed hospitals because of vacations and such.
Navigating what it looks like to have a newborn around family around the holidays and what it looks like to create boundaries there. So we're going to dive into all the different things so that you guys are equipped and ready for a holiday season where you are HGIC, head girly in charge. We're going to have an HGIC holiday, okay? But to start our episode, we are going to talk a little bit more about the reality of holiday hospital births because this is just, you know, interesting information, right? These least common birthdays.
But then if we take it a step further and look at more data where we're looking at the birth dates that come before these least common birth dates, we're seeing a spike. And I'll tell you right now, it's not because babies don't want to be born then it's because we don't want them to be hospital schedule, fewer inductions and C-sections around those dates. Providers go on vacation.
Families are encouraged sometimes outright pressured or even coerced lied to, to go ahead and get baby out before the holidays. That's why you see that spike in the births around December 20th through 23rd. And then a sharp drop on Christmas Eve and Christmas day.
It's convenience culture at its finest, and it shows up even in birth. So if you're pregnant right now, especially due late December or early January, you might feel that pressure creeping in. Little subtle comments like, wouldn't it be nice to be home by Christmas morning? Or Hey, your doctor's out next week.
We can schedule before that. Or you're probably going to want to avoid new year's Eve, right? But here's the truth. Your baby doesn't care what the calendar says.
Your baby knows when they're ready. And when you force the timing, even with the best intentions, you can disrupt the body's natural rhythm and the hormones that make birth unfold smoothly and as designed. So pause before agreeing to anything for convenience sake.
Is this about me and my baby? Or is this about the schedule? Is this about me and my baby? Or is this about their holiday dinner? And I'll say it again. I've said it before. The hospital is a tool.
It's not your teammate. It's not your enemy. It is a tool and you get to utilize it the way you want to.
Next, I want to just touch on how to stay grounded and guarding your peace in this season, because it can be kind of crazy, even like birth stuff aside, right? Just the overall societal like experiences like hectic and everyone's out shopping and everyone's preparing and everyone's consumed with all the things that are happening. So I just wanted to touch on how to stay grounded when everyone else is in a rush, because whether it's the hospital, your provider, or just family buzzing around gifts and gatherings, and you know, all the things that we experienced during the holidays, your job is to create peace in the middle of the chaos. Your baby's birth date is sacred.
It's not a holiday obligation or a scheduling inconvenience. It's the day God handpicked for your child to enter this world. So really just be intentional with it, right? Like that might mean bringing your worship playlist to the hospital or keeping the lights dim, limiting the visitors, just really protecting your peace, making sure that everybody understands like this is what I'm aiming for.
It doesn't matter what day it's on. It doesn't matter who's here. This is what's happening.
Praying over your birth team before things even begin, no matter the team that you encounter that day. My best friend and I were chatting the other day about what it would be like to parent the son of God. Like what, like how was Mary's experience? Like that must've been wild.
And it kind of had me thinking about Jesus' birth. It's like, there was nothing convenient about that. It was literally in a manger.
It was messy. It was not what she had planned, I'm sure. And yet, hello, we're still talking about it 2000 years later.
It was the most popular birth that ever was, right? It wasn't perfect. It wasn't convenient. It probably wasn't anything when she thought it was going to be, but you know what? The Lord was there.
You just have to invite God into your birth and trust his timing over the world's timeline. So during the craziness, during all of the hustle bustle, don't forget to lean on the Lord. The best way to stay grounded, especially in peace, right? The Prince of Peace is the one to go to for that.
Next, let's talk advocacy because the holiday season can make even the most confident mama start to doubt herself. So here's some red flags to watch out for. Things like, let's get baby out before Christmas or your doctor's going out of town, so we're going to induce you before they leave.
The hospital will be short-staffed next week, so why don't we go ahead and get you on the schedule? And it can even be sneakier than that, right? I had a provider who lied to me before going on vacation. It wasn't around a holiday, but it was before she was leaving and she was, you know, tying up all her loose ends. And she sat there and she lied to my face, told me that my baby was going to die if I didn't get a C-section, that my baby was going to be way too big to birth vaginally, that something bad was going to happen and I needed to make the decision and get it on the schedule.
I did not want to do a C-section. I'm like, if it comes down to that, like, we'll do that. No problem.
Like, obviously I'm going to do that if my baby needs it. Um, but she coerced me into an induction instead. And that was the smallest baby I've birthed to date.
Nothing was wrong other than complications from the induction that she had told me that was the answer to all my problems. Except the only true problems that there were, were her schedule and her morals. I should have asked more questions.
I should have informed myself better, but she sat there and told me my baby was going to die. I didn't want my baby to die. I was uninformed and therefore coerced easily.
If it's not medically necessary, it's not necessary, period. You have the right to say I'm comfortable waiting until baby and my body are ready. You have the right to ask what are the medical indications? Can we wait? Can we add some extra tests? As long as baby's looking good, can we watch and wait and make a decision maybe next week? What are the risks of inducing versus waiting? Use your brain, ask what are the benefits? What are the risks? What are the alternatives for this? What does your intuition say about it? What if you do nothing or nothing yet you're watching and waiting? And don't forget to prep your birth partner to speak up too, especially if the staff feels rushed or distracted.
You're going to need someone else on your side, especially if you are there in labor during a holiday experience, when they're short-staffed, when they're rushed, when they don't have enough team members to really adequately support you guys. A prepared and ready to advocate partner is priceless in the delivery room. You can absolutely advocate kindly and confidently and effectively even during a busy season because you're not just birthing a baby, you're quite literally stewarding an experience that shapes your entire postpartum journey, maybe even your literal entrance to motherhood.
So please remember no matter what the calendar says, you get to say nope, not today. Next, I just want to talk about family boundaries and expectations for a minute because this can get a little messy, especially around the holidays when there's expectations to navigate, like there's even more expectations than there normally are. And let's be real, there are a lot of crazy wild expectations put on a postpartum mother.
So not only do you have the extra hospital hustle to navigate, you also have, you know, Aunt Eleanor and your grandma and everybody else. If you're due around the holidays, you might already be getting some, you know, little comments like we can't wait to come see baby, we hope baby's here for Christmas, blah, set your boundaries now. That's my advice here.
Set the expectation in advance so that nobody's blindsided. Nobody feels, you know, everyone gets plenty of time to sit in their feelings, which are not your problem, by the way. And you might want to be all up in the family stuff, Christmas day or whatever, like that's totally up to you.
But also I know how important rest is during your postpartum experience. And I know how demanding newborn life is. So if you and your little tiny family are going to have a nice quiet Christmas in this year, that is totally okay.
If you're undecided yet, and you want to decide in the moment, because you're honestly not sure how you're going to feel. Maybe you've never done this before, or maybe you've done it, and now you're navigating it with a toddler for the first time or whatever. This is an opportunity for you to say, Hey, I don't know what things are going to look like.
And I don't know what I'm going to want to decide. So I just want everybody to manage their expectations because I cannot promise to meet any of them. And it's not that we don't love them.
We don't want to see them. We don't want to spend time with them. It's that we have things that we need to prioritize right now.
So don't be afraid to say things like, we'll let you know when we're ready for visitors, or we're keeping this Christmas quiet and cozy while we rest and bond, or we're asking for no visitors the first few days so we can adjust as a family. This isn't you being rude. This is you being wise.
This is you protecting your peace, your hormones, your healing. You're not depriving your family of a moment. You're preserving one.
They will get their moment and they can wait for it. So I just encourage you to really sit down even with your partner and think about what you want for this next season and what that might look like. And if you can't pinpoint it yet, or you want to decide in the moment, that's totally okay too.
But just, you know, have a conversation about it, set expectations with your loved ones and navigate those things the best you can. Sometimes you just got to take a break from everybody and just leave it at that. But when you have these conversations, like when you're in the hospital, um, don't, I don't recommend stuff can get messy and it's going to pull you away from being in the moment where you right? So those are just a few things that I wanted to share with you guys with the, you know, upcoming holidays and stuff.
Uh, we've been talking about the holidays over here. We are celebrating Hanukkah for the first time this year and not doing Christmas in our home. We're going to be still celebrating Christmas with our loved ones, of course.
Um, but the Lord told me to throw my Christmas tree away last year, which was really hard, but Christmas has always stolen so much from me. I've given so much to it, um, by choice of course, but also out of obligation and, you know, meeting expectations that I really don't have to meet. So I'm looking forward to just a quiet, beautiful time of celebrating with my family and just like getting back to basics and stuff.
So, you know, we've been talking about holiday stuff. You guys are probably talking about holiday stuff. Y'all have probably seen Ralph Lauren Christmas on the Tik TOK, maybe making your Christmas gift lists.
It's an exciting time, but it's also a time where we can get really consumed with other things and we let our birth prep slide and all of that. So I just want to encourage you to make it a priority. There's still plenty of time, even if you're due in December, like you can still join the birth prep course.
I have prep path. It's as little as four weeks in there. It tells you everything that you really need to prioritize in the little time that you have.
If you have a little time, um, and step-by-step walk you through it so that you can make sure you're actually checking things off of the list. Plus you've got me supporting you along the way. So don't write it off because stuff is getting busy.
Don't write it off because you're running out of time. You can make so much happen in such little time. I promise I've had women come to me literally the day before they're due.
And we have a conversation and we nailed down their birth plan. And we talk about some of their fears that they're having. And we talk through some mindset skills and stuff like that.
And then they come back a week later and like, Oh my gosh, I went into labor like two days later and blah, blah, blah. This is how it happened. So beautiful.
And I couldn't have done it without our chat and all that, like literally an hour's worth of time. So please do not count yourself out. You have plenty of time to really make some major moves, not just for your birth experience, but your postpartum experience, your motherhood experience.
A few things I'm going to leave you with as you head into the holidays, you can have a calm, beautiful, peaceful birth experience. No matter what date is on the calendar, your due date doesn't cancel your authority. You are still the head girly in charge.
And as the Bible says, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. That piece is available to you anytime, any place, any day in the middle of contractions in the hospital hallway, even under the twinkly little Christmas lights. Thank you so much for listening as always.
I hope this episode helps you walk into the holidays with a little more HGAC energy. And if you're due during the holidays, I'd love to hear from you. You can slide into my DMS over on Instagram.
I love chatting with you guys over there. Next week, we're going to be diving into the question that probably all of us have asked ourselves at one point or another. Can I actually do this naturally spoiler alert? Yes, you can.
We're going to dive into it. I've got lots to say on that topic. So I'll chat with you then until then as always happy prepping.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
