Podcast: Sharing Birth Stories with host, Megan Rossiter
Sharing Birth Stories with host, Megan Rossiter
MINI SERIES
I was once told that we should only be sharing with women 'positive birth stories'.. But as the years have gone by, I've supported 10,000s of families in their birth prep, I realised that perhaps it's not quite that simple.
Dive with me into the nuances of this conversation, discover how to use birth stories as a way of deepening your understanding of birth, building your confidence and helping you to make choices for your own experience. Consider the clarity, processing and freedom sharing your birth story can bring you.
And find out a little more about how Birth Stories form part of The Birth-ed Method.
Podcast Transcript (AI Generated)
Hi, everyone, welcome to our mini bonus series of The Birth-ed Podcast.
I have once again the most incredible lineup of expert guests joining me to explore a huge breadth of pregnancy, birth and postnatal topics from cesarean recovery to BMI to mixed feeding to positive hospital birth and pretty much everything in between.
But if you're listening to this in real time, so April, 2024, you'll probably know by now that this week sees a huge shift in the support that I offer here at Birth-Ed.
As we wave goodbye to the old Birth-Ed hypnobirthing course and welcome in the Birth-Ed method.
Across this week, I'm going to share a deeper insight into the Birth-Ed method, what makes it different and how it can help you to have an empowering and satisfying birth experience.
So I wanted to kind of kick off in today's episode by diving right in to discuss the topic of birth stories.
Now, when I first trained to teach hypnobirthing, there was a very clear ideology that we should be seeking out and sharing with women, positive birth stories only.
And this appeared to be grounded in a lot of sense.
We often haven't heard tons of positive birth stories, the idea that birth can be wonderful, enjoyed, to look forward to, empowering, satisfying, brilliant, can be a really challenging concept if all we've ever known about birth is that it's hard, it's horrible, it's dangerous, it's something to be endured.
And because of the way our bodies are so impacted by the information that sits in that subconscious part of our minds, it is really important that we start to fill this subconscious cup up with positive thoughts and feelings about birth so that we can build our own self-trust, we can become more confident, we can become more trusting in birth, we can feel safer giving birth.
And when we feel those things, we are much more likely to, number one, experience a birth that is more straightforward because when we aren't in a total panic and we have made decisions to help ourselves feel supported, then physiology literally works better.
But also, number two, we're more likely to experience a birth that feels right for you as an individual making decisions on your terms, not just because we're told you have to do something or because you're making decisions from a place of panic.
And there was a sort of acceptance in lots of hypnobirthing practice that any type of birth could be positive in inverted commas.
So a positive caesarean birth or a positive induction, a positive instrumental birth.
And of course, it is totally possible to give birth in any of these ways and have a birth that really did feel good.
But the fact of the matter is, not every birth is going to be described by the women or the partner who experienced it as positive.
And something that was really starting to get me down was the censorship that women felt over sharing these experiences as a result of having prepared for their births using hypnobirthing.
So if you're already feeling pretty shit about what happened, a layer of shame on top of that probably isn't going to help.
Now, I want to point out when I taught hypnobirthing, these stories were certainly never censored.
Everyone was very welcome to share their stories with me or our community, regardless of how they were feeling about it.
But this is definitely one of the reasons why I'm shifting away from the kind of generalized practice of hypnobirthing.
Because as a birth prep method that is totally unregulated, everyone's going to have a different interpretation of how to share, utilize and receive other people's birth stories.
So I wanted to give you my take on how to listen to, learn from and share birth stories in a way that is going to be really, really helpful.
So starting with hearing birth stories.
Now, the minute you get pregnant, you become a magnet for birth story sharing.
People spot a bump and they want to tell you absolutely everything that they've experienced in their own pregnancy and birth.
And some of these stories are likely to be utterly empowering and joyful.
Some might be potentially quite complicated and some might be actually quite traumatic.
And quite possibly many might be a real combination of all of those.
Because when we limit stories to being described as just positive or traumatic, we lose sight of all of the nuances, the layers, the complexities of feelings that somebody has about their birth.
Like my first birth, for example, was a fairly straightforward induction of labour.
In many ways, I got what I wanted.
It felt like it was my choice and I had an unmedicated vaginal birth.
And I would absolutely categorise it as a positive birth experience.
I felt joy, I felt pride, I felt so powerful, and I kind of rode on that wave of oxytocin for months after the birth.
But within my story and reflecting on it on the kind of years since, this is eight years ago now, I also felt disappointed that I didn't get the home birth that I wanted.
And within that, certainly in the kind of early days, feelings of embarrassment or shame for even thinking that I could have a home birth, I found it really painful, which surprised me and I really struggled to manage in parts of it.
I felt let down by certain members of staff when I felt violated and angry when things happened that I hadn't wanted like cutting the cord immediately or my placenta being thrown in a bin.
I felt real frustration when I wasn't trusted or believed at a certain point, like when I knew that the baby was coming and I said that the baby was coming and they told me it was just early labour.
It wasn't.
And actually, when it came to then making plans for my second birth, do you know what informed my choices and the plans most?
It was those, I suppose, in inverted commas, negative feelings.
The bits that maybe wouldn't have made the cut if I was trying to share with somebody everything that was incredible about the birth, because it was incredible.
I loved it, but it wasn't perfect.
And it's only when we allow the nuances of our stories to be shared that we can really get a full picture of what to expect.
I really believe that there is wisdom to be gained from every birth story, and every birth story deserves to be shared and heard.
It is up to you, however, when you're pregnant, to decide which stories and which people you engage in listening to and which you don't.
When someone shares a really difficult experience with you, it's often coming from two places.
Firstly, as a place of warning, we instinctively try to protect each other when we sense vulnerability.
You know, if I'm walking down an alley and an angry dog jumps up at my toddler, and I get to the other end and I see another mum about to walk down with her toddler scooting up ahead of her, I'm going to tell her, by the way, there's a really aggressive dog up there, maybe grab your toddler or go another way.
I don't want her and her child to face the same difficult experience that we just did.
You know, we've been trying to book a holiday this week, and we're there scrolling TripAdvisor in search of all the bad reviews before we book.
People don't want you to waste your money on a crap hotel if they had a poor experience there.
So the intention in sharing a difficult birth story is kind of the same.
It's coming from usually a really kind place, a place of trying to warn you or protect you about certain things.
The other place that it comes from when somebody is sharing a difficult or traumatic birth story with you is that sharing our stories is a really valuable and effective way to process our experiences.
So sharing aloud or writing it down.
Somebody expecting a baby is a captive audience.
We have something in common now.
Finally, I can say aloud everything that has been sitting in my mind for months or years or even decades.
Honestly, I've sat next to total strangers at weddings or events, women in their 60s or 70s.
And when they find out what my job is, that I get like a play-by-play account of every single one of their birth stories.
These experiences will stay with you and impact you forever.
And if we don't have a safe space to process the experience and be heard and validated in our story, then it just sits there chomping at the bit to get out.
So it's really important that everyone is provided with a safe space for their story to be received, to be listened to, and if they need it to be, for kind of greater and more ongoing support to be provided.
Now, what we do need to understand is that when you are pregnant, you are literally biologically more susceptible to taking in emotional information than when you're not pregnant.
Your brain is literally rewiring itself and functioning with the primary aim of keeping your baby safe.
So, we can find ourselves on quite high alert when hearing things that make us feel like we or our babies might be in danger, and our brain kind of clings on to this.
And this is what we need to bear in mind when we're watching TV, when we're reading newspaper articles, or we're hearing these stories from family and friends.
If the person you're speaking to understands your wishes for birth, your approach to making choices, your concerns and your worries, and is happy to answer your questions and share their wisdom, then they're likely to be wonderful learnings to be made from their story, however they feel about their experience.
If the story is being shared with very little listening to your wishes, or with the aim of dissuading you from something that you feel like you have researched and considered well, then perhaps you ask to hear it after your own experience of giving birth.
And as with everything, there is nuance needed when deciding which information and stories to consume and take on and which to leave.
It's also important to remember that unless we can be completely sure of the clinical circumstances of a situation, the decisions that someone's made during pregnancy and their birth, and the approach and preparation that they did, there is no way that we can apply their birth story to our own personal circumstances.
Similarly, just because things unfolded a certain way in your first birth, that doesn't mean that your second birth is going to unfold in the same way.
So what we want to use pregnancy to do is to start filling up that subconscious mind with thoughts and ideas that are going to build us up, make us feel confident, informed and prepared for the different paths that birth may take.
And reading or hearing birth stories is a really powerful way to do this, literally inserting new stories to challenge old ones.
On the Birth-ed website, you'll literally find hundreds of birth stories from people that have used the birth-ed method to support them in a home water birth or an induction of labour, for a caesarean birth, women whose births went entirely as expected and women who had many twists and turns along the way.
And I challenge you to read a whole variety of stories, firstly to affirm that on the whole, birth works really well.
Secondly, to challenge yourself to see how birth can be a satisfying experience, even if it takes these twists and turns and the things that you might currently be anxious about experiencing.
And finally, at a time where you feel emotionally safe enough to dive more deeply into the challenges that other women have faced in their births and the learnings and wisdom that they gained from those experiences.
This passed-down wisdom is such a fantastic way of deepening our understanding of what birth looks and feels like in real life in 2024.
So much of antenatal education is about your pain relief options, when to phone the midwife, what interventions and monitoring might happen, and so much less about what's it going to feel like?
What's my brain going to be saying?
What bits were really hard for this person?
What do you say to yourself when you're struggling?
What was really annoying?
And how do I avoid that?
There is so much depth to be gained from hearing and sharing birth stories.
So if you've signed up to the birth-ed method, I would really encourage you to make the most of the community space in there.
Ask all your nitty-gritty questions, share your stories, the incredible bits, your learnings, the bits that were really tough.
This is a community, not a dictatorship.
You take from the method whatever you need.
And the collective wisdom of this space is unrivaled, thousands of women all over the world, each with a very unique and powerful story to tell.
The other thing that we need to consider is the value and the power of telling our birth story.
So this is going to be relevant whether you've had a baby already and you have a story to share, or you're approaching your first birth and will soon have a story to share.
When we are experiencing a life event as monumental as giving birth to our baby, there's a lot of processing that the brain needs to do to make sense of what happened, to lay down the memories, and whether we want it to be or not, your birth is going to be one of the most transformative events that you ever experience.
You'll probably find in the very immediate moments after the birth, your brain is quickly trying to kind of grapple with what you experienced.
That first shower or the first time you're kind of completely on your own, you kind of step through the door and put your baby down on your bed and go, oh my God, they've left us to it now with a baby.
And you sit there and you close your eyes and it can be like a movie of your experiences kind of playing in your head as you recall and recount everything that happened, trying to kind of piece together a timeline of it all.
And there can be a whole breadth of emotions here, relief, joy, pride, fear, panic, sadness, disappointment, confusion, happiness, loneliness, power, strength, vulnerability, or a combination of any of those things.
And as time passes, the hours, days, or weeks afterwards, things can start to feel like more of a story and less of a kind of jumble of pictures and emotions.
And you might find yourself with some answered questions.
There might be bits of your story that feel more blurry.
And you may find that over time, your feelings and emotions and the standout bits of your story actually change.
Now, one of the most valuable ways to process our birth experience, and this goes for birth that felt incredible to us, birth that felt traumatic and everything in between, is telling our stories.
It might in the first instance be just writing them down.
So grab a pen and paper and just kind of brain dump the timeline of what happened, as it felt to you, your emotions about the experience, things you're left wandering about, the bits that felt amazing, the bits that felt hard.
Just get them all out and down on a bit of paper.
There might be someone, a friend or a family member or a doula or your midwife, that you know is really going to listen to everything that you've experienced.
And so saying it aloud to somebody like this can be really, really helpful.
It often helps if this person wasn't there, so they don't have their own version of events.
But somebody who is really going to hold space for you to share as much of your experience as you want to.
At this stage, without judgement, without trying to find new answers or fix anything, just to hear you, hold that space and allow your story to be spoken aloud, often for the very, very first time.
And you may find, what you may find is that every time you tell your story, you tell it a bit differently.
Maybe you remember a new bit, or maybe your emotions around different parts change as you learn new information, or you get to know your baby, or you filled in more of the gaps about kind of what happened next in your birth and postnatal story.
And certainly, the times that I see this happening most frequently when I'm supporting families is first off around birthdays.
So especially the first birthday, but often many more birthdays after that, the birth experience is often brought to the forefront of our minds again.
So once again, finding a safe space to talk about it or writing it down each time can be a really special moment of reflection each year.
And that can be like beautiful, joy, wonderful memories.
Or if the emotions you're feeling are still very intense and difficult after a difficult birth experience, then this might be an indicator that actually perhaps you need a bit more emotional support processing your story.
And this can happen years, even decades after your birth if you need it.
The other time that I find people's birth stories tend to resurface again or start to draw more of your emotional attention is if you are going on to have another baby.
So either during pregnancy or when you're kind of considering trying to conceive again.
Your previous experience of birth is likely to impact the choices you're making, the things that you feel concerned about or confident about.
And so frequently, the kind of one-to-one sessions that I have with second-time parents, this is often where we start.
A real deep dive into that previous birth experience or experiences, possibly digging into what happened and why if there's unanswered questions there, which there often is.
Often simply holding space for that story to be told.
Maybe it's never really been said aloud so honestly and candidly before.
And it's incredible just how much of a weight is lifted and how much relief being listened to can bring.
Sometimes people might seek to kind of get hold of their maternity notes, so the clinical notes written during your pregnancy or birth.
And if you've got paper notes, you can literally take a photo of these while you still have them.
So whilst you're either in hospital or at home before you either leave hospital, before your midwives leave home birth.
It is important to know, though, that what forms a birth story from a clinical perspective can be quite different to what forms your story in your own head based on how you felt it.
The things that are relevant to medical notes aren't always the same as the things that are relevant to you.
And the way you want to tell your story is what is most important here.
And this goes for anyone else in your birth space.
So partners can hugely benefit from telling their story in the same way.
But you might find again that their story actually feels quite different to yours.
Watching someone give birth is very different to actually giving birth.
So finding a safe space to share your stories is so important.
And then asking someone if they have the emotional capacity and they want to listen to your experience is a really good first step to kind of judge who that might be.
But I guess in this episode, I just wanted to share with you that there is no censorship on birth story sharing here.
However, you describe your experience of birth is valid.
Hopefully, as many of the birth-ed community stories are, you will feel powerful and supported and like you truly had the birth that you needed.
But for, you know, if any number of reasons, your feelings around your birth are more complicated than that, then we are here to help.
If you're not already signed up to the birth-ed method, the doors officially open on Friday the 26th of April, 2024.
I cannot wait to have you as part of our community and hopefully one day hear your birth story.