Posts filed under ‘Birth Stories’
Groovy Guest Bloggers Wanted!
We Want YOU…
to be a guest blogger.
- Have personal experiences and wisdom about pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum to share?
- Want to publish your views on current topics and news related to the birth community?
- Have a burning desire to share your passion for women, babies, and birth with us?
- Please review the AZBN Guest Blogging Guidelines before submitting a post.
- You may also submit all of the information to Leigh Steele at leighasteele@gmail.com.
We are welcoming submissions for guest bloggers for this year. Please contact Leigh Steele at leighasteele@gmail.com for more information.
Possible topics could include stories, news, advice, pros/cons, science, history, cultural viewpoints, rituals, techniques, theories, personal wisdom on the following topics:
- Breastfeeding
- Midwifery
- Natural & Alternative Medicine
- Labor and Birth
- Birth Trauma
- Baby Loss and Remembrance
- Adoption
- Surrogacy
- Fertility
- Family Planning
- Pregnancy
- Children’s Activities & Toys
- Bottle Feeding & Formula
- Cultural Rituals around Pregnancy and Birth
- Community for Mothers
- Nutrition
- Upcoming Events & Classes
- Local Artists and Businesses
- Body Image
- Parenting
- Baby & Mama Sleep
- Marriage
- Informed Consent (Pregnancy, Labor & Birth)
- Doulas
- Childhood Development
- Pre & Perinatal Psychology
- Spirituality
- Poetry
- Birth Stories
- and more!
Call for Birth Stories!
Birth: In Your Words
The Arizona Birth Network is planning a printable Birth Connection e-newsletter with the theme of “Birth Stories”. We’d love to have YOUR story as part of our featured newsletter.
Whether you gave birth in a hospital, birth center, at home, or in the car 
, we want to hear your powerful story and share it with our beloved community.
Send your fully-edited story to Leigh at leighasteele@gmail.com.
- Submission deadline is July 6, 2011
- Please limit your story to 1,000 words or less.
- In some circumstances, if your story is longer and you have it posted publicly on a blog or website, we may be able to link to your complete story in our newsletter.
- Photos are welcome in jpeg format. We just ask that you limit your photo submission to two of your favorite photos.
- We may do some very gentle technical editing on your story; however, you would be provided a draft copy before it is published. The editing would not alter the overall content, voice, or style of your story.
- If we are not able to use your story in our e-newsletter due to space constraints, we kindly ask that your permission be granted for us to potentially share it on our blog.
The Importance of Birth Stories
Storytelling is an ancient means of processing experiences and learning from them. It is an interactive way to pass along information from one person to the next and involves a range of colorful emotions, voices, and perspectives. Our stories hold the power to define us. Our culture’s stories about birth reveal much about how we view the rite of passage known as Birth.
Most would agree that the classic “birth horror story” is the one most told and the one most repeated. What do we learn from these stories if we don’t ask the right questions, or listen carefully? Perhaps we can begin to shift the horror stories into stories of a “Hero’s Journey”** – not by changing the story, but by changing our awareness into more conscious and introspective views of women as active adventurers vs. passive participants.
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In this upcoming edition of our e-newsletter, we hope to create a safe place you to tell birth stories full of empowerment, courage, even trial and tribulation. This doesn’t mean that you can’t share traumatic birth stories. Instead, it means that your story and your heart will be held tenderly with the knowledge that no matter the place, setting, or outcome of your birth story you were a transformed and brave woman. Here, all stories matter.
So, we invite you to tell us about the journey you walked during labor and birth.
What is your story?
(**From “Birthing from Within”: New mothers need your help to counter the Western message and initiation of birth as a “victim’s journey” into birth as a “Hero’s journey”. Learn how you can guide new mothers from their perfect beginning place of innocence, show them to see the prey and the predator and teach them how to ‘hunt’, and how to cultivate the determination and courage of their inner Love Warrior. This kind of birth preparation leads to awakening the Mother-within.)
Tips for Sharing Your Birth Story
• Can you incorporate/identify some of the elements of “The Hero’s Journey” into your unique story (i.e. how you accepted/declined the journey, your challenges and trials, your triumphs, how you returned to the ordinary world with new insights)?
• What have others’ reactions to your birth story been?
• Has the view of your birth story morphed over time, or have your insights continued to reveal themselves?
Mama Artist Feature: Erin Darcy Talks Mama Body Love
Today we are featuring mama and artist Erin Darcy, all the way from the fairy land of Ireland!
With her daughter Claire as her muse, Erin creates swirling and magical works of art featuring mamas, babies, and families of a kinds. Her Etsy shop is chock full of incredible watercolor originals as well as prints and greeting cards (great for expectant or new mamas!). She also creates one-of-a-kind custom pieces of art by consulting with her lovely clients.
Erin is also a talented photographer and recently sent love-waves through the world with these stunning and honest photos of her postpartum body. These photos made it into the digital pages of Glamour.com, Parenting.com, msnbc.com, and The Shape of a Mother.
Erin writes:
“i’m a mama…
my body is so imperfect and soft and sexy in a different way. in a real way… in a powerful way that- i carried life, i gave birth, and i nourish this babe. in a way that- i know i look more like you and less like airbrushed images. genuine and honest and imperfectly perfect.“
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We had a chance to chat with the endearing Erin over email and seek her wisdom in a few questions.
What inspired you to take the beautiful photos of your postpartum body that have been featured on websites such as Glamour.com, Parenting.com, The Shape of a Mother, and MSNBC.com?
– Claire was 20 weeks old, I so clearly remember reaching 20 weeks pregnant with her. My body glowing and ripe. There was so much unknown swirling around, and at 20 weeks pregnant, I finally really.. really truly felt like I could celebrate that I was pregnant and was carrying a healthy baby. That this was really real. Her magic within was so mysterious to me. Then, in a split second, there was 20 week old baby….
I wanted to capture the purity and vulnerability of my soft, saggy, stretched body with her sweet rollie pollie body. A beautiful contrast.
I wanted to forever remember this moment. I wanted to celebrate this achievement.
Tell me about your reaction to all the conversations and comments that your photos have sparked.
– The reactions have been so beyond… So intense. So big. Women finally giving themselves permission to look at their body as something else. Permission to be kind to themselves. Permission to really truly see their beauty. If only for a little moment. It’s like it gave them a way out- a gentle bow out from mainstream images of what we are ‘supposed’ to look like.
To which I feel… incredibly proud, honoured, humbled, beside myself… and also like- I’m not big enough to hold all of this space for these women. It felt like such a simple act- this picture, asking my husband to grab the camera for me since the timer was too difficult with a babe in arms… Directing him to capture what I wanted. It feels normal, you know. This is my body, I have nothing to prove to anyone. I didn’t have a statement to make- I simply was being.
In ways, it makes me sad to hear women saying ‘that’s so brave of you!’ ‘i wish i could be as brave’ because really, what’s so brave about it? and- why can’t you? It just makes me sad that that’s acceptable. That something like- normalcity- has to be congratulated, celebrated, and remind us to be kind to ourselves.
I hope that by being honest with my body, with myself, with other women- we can all move on and celebrate our own truths, our own skin… and honour the beauty within.
– I would ask women to befriend themselves. To consider themselves their best friend- would you ever say some of the negative things you say about yourself to your best friend? I doubt it… Because with your best friend- you see all of the beautiful qualities about her that she fails to see… You would remind her of how beautiful she is, how graceful her curves are, how wonderful her laugh is. You’d remind her how much you love her. It also wouldn’t matter to you what your best friend looks like- in the good times, and the bad. You love her for who she is…
I would encourage women to give themselves permission to love themselves.
There is so much weight and burden to carry around negative energy. I promise that the moment you start accepting this wonderful you in the mirror- the light and energy will shift around you… giving you more space to let the LOVE in.
anger/jealousy. depression/failure. lonely/scared
In three words, sum up your pregnancy journey.
mysterious. light. magic.
unsure. blur. delight
JOY! LIFE! LOVE!
Birth Story: Jase Samson Ledner
We wish all of the mothers, and mothers-to-be, a beautiful and peaceful Mother’s Day! Don’t forget to enter our blog giveaway, which ends Monday, May 10th.
In honor of this special holiday, are posting another powerful birth story. We hope you enjoy the story of Jase Samson Ledner’s birth. Welcome to the world, Jase!
Submitted by BreAnna Ledner
Pre/Early labor:
I woke up Saturday morning. In seeing that I lost my plug I also started noticing lower abdomen wave-like surges. There was also pressure in my pelvis so I knew something was happening. The surges were lasting 1 minute long and coming every ten minutes like clockwork. They did not hurt nor were they uncomfortable, but exhilarating. I called my midwife to tell her that something was happening but I was in pre-labor and still in a happy and chipper mood.
We tried to go about our day as normal. My husband, 3 children, and mother in law were home with me. Every ten minutes I would feel the sensation and my husband would come over and we would slow dance, laugh, even kiss our way through them. I asked him not to shower as his scent brought me comfort.
This went on for about 4 hours and I was still in a happy cheerful mood. Then we decided to go for a beautiful walk and on the way looked at a garage sale. I did feel more surges as we walked and Griffin would just hold me until they were over. When we got back, I slept for a good hour and at 11:20ish my water broke and woke me up. I have never had my water break by itself, (with Liam it did while I was pushing) and it was exciting. I called our midwife and told her and she said she would be there in about an hour. Still in a great, chipper mood I asked Griffin if he would start filling my tub.
Active labor:
Griffin is trying to set up the hose for our pool. The knob to turn the water off is broken and you have to turn it with a wrench, which we couldn’t find. So he used another tool and it ended up bumping off the hose with the hot water on and spraying everything in the laundry room, including him! As he’s fixing this, I go into hard active labor, just 10 minutes after getting off the phone with our midwife.
Still in denial that this is truly it, I told Griffin not to call our midwife back that she was on her way already and the look he gave me was priceless, as he said “oooooh I’m gonna call her.”
But indeed they got harder and stronger right after he got off the phone with her. I needed Griffin to hold me, to help me sway, and to be my support but water was still spraying in the laundry room everywhere! He would run to me then run back to try and stop the water. This went on for maybe four or six surges, and then he finally got the water turned off.
As all this is happening, Griffin’s mother (God bless her heart) is filling anything she could get her hands on, like pitchers and pots, and is attempting to fill my tub that way. I see her going back and forth from my pool to the sink (which was maybe 10ft away) back and forth while Griffin was swaying with me, slow dancing, and soaking wet.
It was a peaceful atmosphere once the water problem was solved. The soft music playing, candles lit around me, and my husband being the best thing I could ask for. Even though my pool wasn’t close to being full I still desired to labor in it. The thing that I found most relaxing was when Griffin would pour water on my back with the hose while rubbing my back. He was saying the most encouraging things that I still replay in my head when I think of this birth: ”You were created for this”, “This is completely normal process”, “Just get through this one”, “God made you strong” and “I’m so proud of you, honey”. He was so amazing because he knew exactly what I needed to hear at that time. Having my husband there as my main support was incredible and made our relationship stronger. He was my rock and being there made me stronger, too.
Transition:
It was not long after I got in my pool that that I began to feel the urge to push on my own. At first it was subtle which made me look forward to the next surge to see if my intuition was correct. With each surge, the urge to push came stronger and I found it releasing to push against them and work with my contractions. At one point, my husband said to me “Honey if you feel like pushing then go for it” to which I replied “What do you think I’ve been doing?!”
I reached down and could feel that my baby was still a good inch in. I knew just a couple pushes and he would be here. That’s when our midwife’s assistant came through the door. He was at a +3 station (or a knuckle in) and with one push he started crowning. With two more pushes and his head was out.
Baby Jase
At this time all three children came in as well and all three were in awe. I saw Lilly with the biggest smile on her face. Liam and Beth were just standing there in awe as well. They were quiet and just sat there and watched their brother being born. Seeing them there was one of the many highlights and I am so pleased that they got to see it and be there to share it with Griffin and I.
Jase Samson was peacefully born at 12:50pm. My labor lasted just minutes over an hour. My midwife was coming from Queen Creek which is a good 45 min + away and she came in right after he was born. Jase looked perfect and healthy and everything after the birth couldn’t have gone better! I couldn’t believe I just had a baby because I felt amazing. Jase started nursing wonderfully and we’re just enjoying our newest addition to this tribe.
Looking back it was a truly amazing empowering experience! And yes we will do it again 
Jase was 8lbs 3oz, he was 20 inches long, and he is named after my father Jason. His middle name (Samson) is after a man in the Old Testament who God gave great strength to.
Thank you for everyone’s support and encouragement especially the East Valley & Queen Creek birth circle! It has meant a lot to us!
The Ledners
Blog Giveaway – Mother’s Day! Ends 5/10/10
Time for another fun blog giveaway!
This giveaway is in honor of all of the mamas and mamas-to-be out there. Your constant love and nurturing of children is the only true way to lead to peace in our world. We appreciate each and every one of you.
We are giving away two rockin’ gifts, specifically geared towards mothers (and their little ones):
Karen Maezen Miller’s inspirational book “Momma Zen, Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood”.
From Karen’s website: “The daily challenges of parenthood can become the most profound spiritual journey of our lives. Combining humor, honesty and plainspoken advice, Momma Zen distills the doubts and frustrations of early motherhood into vignettes of Zen wisdom. This compelling and wise memoir follows the timeline of early motherhood from pregnancy through toddlerhood. Miller takes readers on a transformative journey, charting a mother’s growth beyond naive expectations and disorientation to finding fulfillment in ordinary tasks, developing greater self-awareness and self-acceptance – to the gradual discovery of “maternal bliss,” a state of abiding happiness and ease available to us all.”
A gift pack from Baby Bliss, which includes: A travel pack of Baby Bliss Gripe Water, Baby Bliss Diaper Cream, and Mommy’s Bliss Morning Sickness Magic.
“Baby’s Bliss and Mommy’s Bliss is committed to creating quality products made with natural ingredients for the different phases of pregnancy and life.”
To Enter:
- Comment on this post, with your response to the question: “What mothering moment (either as a mother, or as you think about your own mother) has defined you?” The comment form will prompt you for a valid email address.
- All entries must be received by Monday, May 10, 2010.
- Winners will be selected randomly on Tuesday, May 11th, and will be notified by email and via this blog.
Did You Know? AZBN Members are Auto-Entered into Raffles!
- AZBN members are automatically entered into each of our monthly blog giveaways? If they also leave a comment on the blog post, that doubles their chances of winning. Become an AZBN member today and NEVER miss out on the opportunity to win awesome prizes. We ♥ our members and we ♥ giving away cool stuff!
Birth Story: Guiseppe
Thank you to Jazmin Ford, for submitting the first birth story to the AZBN blog!
Below is an excerpt from her story. Click here to read the rest of the story of the birth of her son, Guiseppe. Guiseppe was born at home on 12/12/09 and weighed 9lbs, 13oz.
“All I really remember is very intense pressure. Which made getting comfortable really hard. I couldn’t find a position that I liked. I ended up just kinda squatting. Yes it hurt, but hey it’s labor! My back began to hurt really bad. During a contraction, Connie (midwife) added pressure while the Nicole poured water on my back! That felt great. She also gave me a massage after one of the contractions…
Photo courtesy of Jazmin's blog
I started to feel the urge to push, but I resisted. It hurt to push and it didn’t really help relieve the pressure. Then a big contraction hit…Focusing on Connie really helped me during the contraction. During that contraction my body began to push on its own. I couldn’t hold the urge anymore. I told Connie I was pushing and then that my water broke. Then that his head was crowing. Seriously that’s how it went. Right after I said one thing the next happened like that. It was amazing. “
Photo courtesy of Jazmin's blog
Send us an email at at abnmembership@gmail.com if you’d like to submit your birth story.
Online Birth Videos
With the instant and easy accessibility of real and personal birth videos online, there is now no excuse for anyone to say they haven’t seen a video of a birth!
Every manner, setting, and type of birth can be found on the internet via You Tube and other websites: unmedicated hospital births, home births, VBAC births, Cesarean’s, Breech birth, multiples births, medicated births, birth center births, and unassisted births.
Have a favorite video link? Submit it in the comments below to share with the rest of our readers.
Links to Birth Videos
- For a comprehensive list of natural birth videos, categorized by type of birth (including graphic), visit the Giving Birth Naturally website.
- Here are two very brief (and kid-friendly!) animations of child birth that can be simple and powerful tools for childbirth education and understanding of the birth process.
- And for your viewing pleasure, a powerful photo montage of mama’s that used the HypnoBabies method for birthing.
