I draw inspiration from many resources; the amazing Ina May Gaskin is, of course, on the list. Positive birth stories, stories that empower, are an essential part of my pregnancy yoga.
Recently I read to my class from Caitlin Moran's book, How to be a Woman:
"For this birth I don't lie on a bed, helpless – waiting for a baby to be delivered, by room service. I've been told to walk, and I do – I pace miles and miles like I'm on my way to Bethlehem. I use the hospital corridors like the slowest, fattest race track.... Gravity is the magic I couldn't find before, strapped to the bed two years ago. Gravity was the spell I should have invoked. I was looking in all the wrong grimoires.
"After four hours of pacing, everything changes, I know I have walked far enough. I climb into the pool, and push Nancy out in five, short bursts.... "'That was easy!' I shout, the first words out of my mouth, before she has even left the water... 'That was easy! Why doesn't anyone tell you it's so easy!'"
I often dip into Ina May Gaskin's book, Spiritual Midwifery. One particular passage I like is Labouring mothers as elemental forces:
"The mother's state of consciousness goes through a very great change during the first stage of labour ... she becomes less of an individual personality and more like an elemental force, like a tornado, a volcano, an earthquake, or a hurricane, with its own laws of behaviour. This quality of women has been described as 'a great amorphous, gravity tides thing, electrochemical tropism, older and smarter than you, that always gets what it wants.'"
When preparing for birth, focus on the female as an elemental force, be it working with the power of gravity, movement, breath. You have the right, the strength and the ability to birth your baby without fear.
