(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. I have, I don't know, this one might get a little, um, a little intense today.
This has been coming up so much. I've gotten a lot of DMS about it. I was talking to a client the other day about this, like pretty heavy stuff.
So buckle up. It's going to be a fun one today. If your last birth felt out of control, maybe even traumatic, this episode is for you.
This is not about shame. It's not about blaming yourself or even anybody else for that matter. It's about honestly looking back so that you can fully step forward because healing from a hard birth or really truly anything for that matter, doesn't just happen with time.
It happens with truth. And it happens when you realize that you weren't the problem, but you do have the power to make sure that next time is different. And I am here to walk you through that process today.
Are you ready for this? If you're not, you can leave now. Now's your chance. Okay.
Let's talk about what really went wrong last time. Why that experience still lingers with you. Why you think about it a lot, especially as you're preparing for your next birth experience.
Why there's so many fears that this next time is going to be exactly like last time and how to really dive into your healing journey as you prepare for a redemptive birth experience. One that is so wildly different from the last one that you had that I know you are preparing so hard for healing is part of that preparation process. I know it's difficult.
I've done this work. I had an extremely traumatic first birth experience, honestly, second and third weren't that great either. I had to walk through those things.
I had to take accountability for my part in it. And I had to revisit all the painful things that I had gone through. And this is not easy work.
This is work that most people are not doing. You are doing work that most people ignore for their entire lives because it's hard and uncomfortable and it hurts. But speaking from experience, there are so many lessons to learn.
And there's so much beauty on the other side, whether you choose to look at it or not, you're carrying it with you regardless. So let's get into it, shall we? So you wanted a beautiful, empowering experience. You wanted it to be one for the books.
Instead, you felt powerless, maybe even violated. You weren't in control that day, not of the decisions, not of your body, not of your mind. Maybe you were pressured into an induction.
Maybe no one explained what was happening. Maybe you felt frozen or ignored or talked over. Maybe you got the epidural, the IV meds, the Pitocin, and you didn't really want any of it.
Or maybe you avoided the meds, but still walked away feeling broken. And here's what I want you to know. If you walk away with anything today, walk away with this.
That wasn't just how birth goes. That was trauma. And your body remembers that.
There's this narrative that if birth didn't go well, it's because you weren't strong enough. But let me offer you something better. And honestly, let me offer you the truth.
What happened last time wasn't because you were weak. It was because you were unprepared in the ways that actually matter. And that's not your fault.
No one gave you the tools to say no confidently. No one gave you the education to ask better questions. Nobody gave you the strategy to push back on policies.
Nobody gave you the space to grieve what was taken from you. We're told our entire lives, just go with the flow. The doctor's no best.
Healthy baby, healthy mom. And now maybe you're wrestling with two truths at the same time. You're grateful and you're grieving.
And that's allowed. It's a hard combination, but it's allowed. But to heal that, you have to be willing to do more than remember what happened.
You have to understand it. You have to learn from it and you have to choose differently next time. Here's the hard truth.
Healing just doesn't come with time or another baby. It comes with responsibility. And that part can feel extremely heavy until you realize that it's actually the most empowering thing you can do for yourself.
Because when you can say, I can't change what happened, but I can change how I show up this time. That's when you take your power back. My first birth experience was very traumatic.
I had a lot of things happen to me that day. I went in extremely unprepared for the realities of that situation, but when in thinking I was totally prepared for birth. So I did all the things that they tell you to do, right? I went to the hospital birth class.
I asked all the questions at my appointments, went to all of those. I read my pregnancy apps religiously. I had like four of them.
It was ridiculous. Um, I like lived and breathed this stuff, right? I was spent my whole pregnancy hyper fixating. My little ADHD brain just was consumed by it, right? Every single thing that I did, I was just consuming information, but it just wasn't the right information.
And I didn't know that nobody told me any different when I walked in that day. It was so not what I expected. As soon as I got there, they hooked me up to Pitocin, which was totally unnecessary because I was in active labor.
I was like five centimeters. When I got there, hooked me up to a bunch of different monitors. They started IV fluids.
It was really tough. So I opted for the IV pain management. I was adamant about not wanting an epidural.
The cervical checks absolutely sucked. I hated every second of them. They came in and broke my waters.
Everything was, we have to, we need to, we need to, the doctor's coming in to do this. No questions, not even a hint that I had other options, that there were other options available. They made it sound like everything that was happening was required for me to birth my baby.
And that was that. And I trusted them. I didn't know.
I had no clue. We're not taught this stuff. That's why I'm on the internet doing what I'm doing, because somebody needs to teach you.
And it's going to be this girl, if it's anybody, but when it was time to birth my fourth baby, and I was preparing for a much different experience, I had to come to terms with the fact that I gave my power away, that it wasn't stolen from me, even though I could blame the doctors, right? I could sit there and say, well, they did this and they did that because they did. They lied. They were manipulative.
I literally went through so many different things that like very much equipped me to do this work, but dear Jesus, they should have never happened. Like when my provider gave me husband stitches after I had birthed my first baby and he didn't tell me, he looked up at my husband and said, Hey, I did some extra ones for you, which created a very painful few months for me. But at the end of the day, the responsibility to know better and do better is still in my hands.
And again, I can't go back and change what happened, but I can change how I show up this time. And that's exactly what I did. Healing looks like learning what really happened to you last time, not just medically, but emotionally.
It looks like educating yourself. So you're no longer blindsided and getting honest about what you need to feel safe in that environment. And it looks like preparing from a place of power, not fear.
If fear is what is fueling your preparation, you probably have some more stuff to look at inside. Those redemptive births don't just happen by chance. They happen through healing and preparation.
You don't just want a different birth this time. You want a different experience of yourself. You want to feel steady and anchored and safe.
Even if things don't go perfectly according to plan, you want to walk in prepared and walk out transformed. And that's exactly why I have the birth prep course because I've done this work so much so that I put an entire bonus training in there called birthing after trauma. This stuff is deep and heavy and it's hard and I get it.
I've done it. But the reward on the other side and the experience of taking your power back and being the one in control of your birth space that day is worth, it's worth every second of it. My fourth birth was my first unmedicated birth and it was in my home and there was a lot of fear still, right? I was having my first home birth and it was, it was scary and I wasn't totally healed yet, but I had done a lot of work in preparation for that.
And that birth was very painful and it was my longest birth. And I still right after birthing him and that was supposed to be our last baby, but still just the fact that I was in charge that day had created such a different experience that I literally said out loud, there's witnesses for this. I can't wait to do that again.
Hadn't even gotten up from my birth space yet. And again, that was supposed to be our last kiddo. It was very well known, but that moment changed so much for me.
And yeah, you might not go on to create an entire business about it and make it your life's work, but I'll tell you what the work that I did for that birth experience changed the way I went about everything in my life. It's the reason my fifth baby exists. It's the reason my postpartum experience was the best it had ever been.
It's the reason why I've changed so much in my life by taking ownership of the experience and say, okay, I don't have to do it the way everybody else does it. I don't have to do it because I felt this way my entire life. I don't have to do it because so-and-so did it.
My parents did it. Their parents did it. I don't have to do it that way.
I'm in charge. I get to decide. Living life unapologetically and intentionally.
But I didn't just create the things I've created to help you understand how labor works or help you manage pain. Honestly, you can Google those things. I help you understand the why behind your last experience.
I help you build a real plan, not just a list of preferences. Help you train your body and your brain for what labor will ask of you. Help you learn how to say no, how to delay, how to advocate, and how to bring peace and power into every part of the process.
Now, I didn't have a roadmap to do this work, but I did create one for you. This course is your healing in action. It's where understanding meets strategy.
It's where grief meets grace. It's where you stop avoiding the past and start redeeming it. You can't go back and change what happened, but you can make sure it doesn't happen again.
You can create a birth experience that leaves you feeling whole, not like you barely made it out. You are allowed to want more this time. You are allowed to heal and you are absolutely capable of birthing from power, not pain.
Don't be like me. Don't carry that trauma into your next birth. And the one after that, spoiler alert, you'll create very similar results.
So let today be your turning point. Let this be the moment you say, I'm not carrying that story into this birth. I'm writing a new one.
There's more information for enrollment for the birth prep course inside the show notes for you. And that birthing after trauma training that I did in there is, first of all, I think it's the longest thing that's in there. It's like over an hour and a half, but it's not like fluffy, cute stuff.
It's like actionable stuff that you can put into play to create a much different experience for yourself. And like with a lot of the skills that you're learning inside the birth prep course, you can just carry them right into other areas of your life, your relationships, your motherhood experience, really all the work that we do inside the course is all about stepping into your power. And that my dear is life-changing work.
So let's prepare on purpose. Let's heal what happened and let's birth like the HGIC you were born to be. Thanks so much for being here and for listening to a part of my story today and my heart for this work.
All right. Love you long time. I'll chat with you guys again very soon.
Until then, as always, happy prepping.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
