Surrender to what? My three week wait to birth my son
About a week before my due date, I was in the change room at the local pool, and a woman in her sixties told me that each of her three babies were three weeks late. I was mildly appalled and silently certain that she must have had her dates wrong or some deep-seated psychological issues about being a mother. Being the nerd that I am, I had four years of data on my ovulation cycle. I was pretty confident about the dates.
My experience applying Zen Buddhism to labor and breastfeeding
When I went into labor with my son at 1:30 on Monday afternoon, I never imagined that he wouldn’t arrive into the world until 12:40 on Wednesday afternoon. Somehow, I survived forty seven hours of labor and lived to tell the tale. Surprisingly, I was even joyful and mentioning things I’d like to do differently “next time” as soon as we were recovering. Other than the epidural, my secret to managing a nearly two full days of labor is Buddhism.
From water to bed: our water-turned-hospital birth story
A sob escaped before the tears had a chance to start flowing in reaction to what my midwife was telling me. My wife, Kate, held my right hand and the nurse held my left while my midwife gave my leg a sympathetic squeeze. I cried bitter tears, agonizing over the hard work I’d done the past 26 hours — intense, induced, pain-med-free labor. As they streamed down my hot cheeks and onto the cool bed sheets, so fell my hopes for The Perfect Birth.
Do I have to have a birth plan?
Birth plan, smirth plan. Jess understands the reason behind them, but feels like she can do without — what do you think?
Pushba had her baby!
Because how could I not report the birth of my favorite Russian mama’s second child?! From what I can tell from Google Translator, Pushba gave birth last week to a health boy named Elisey via emergency c-section.
Was it Moctezuma’s revenge? Nope: I was just in labor.
Molly recently published a post on Offbeat Mama about ditching the U.S. health care system in favor of Mexico’s to have her second child — here’s how it went!
Debunking the myth of a “natural birth”
Does it take a vaginal delivery or medication-free labor to have a “natural” birth? We don’t think so.
Let’s talk about birth playlists that don’t revolve around Enya
Music is a HUGE part of many people’s lives, so it only makes sense that you’d want to push out a baby while jamming to your favorite tunes! Here are some of mine.