What is Trust worth?
Katherine and Ralph were an ordinary couple living outside a Metropolitan city. When they fell pregnant the first time they did what every expectant family in their country did. They chose a midwife, went to childbirth classes and made a birth plan. They were a well informed couple and felt confident about their coming birth.
Although they went past their due date, they chose not to be induced preferring to allow nature to take its course. Two weeks and one day after Katherine’s due date labour began. In their country most women are attended by one midwife of their choosing. Their midwife encouraged them to stay at home for as long as possible before heading to hospital. Although they had the option to have a home birth for their first child they had decided to go to hospital. Their midwife would attend them there.
To make a long story short, the labour went on and on. Eventually their son was born after 36 hours, a long second stage and a massive episiotomy. Both Katherine and Ralph were exhausted. Ralph had tried his best to help but felt that Katherine was just unreachable in her pain. He knew he had been there and done his best to support her but had fallen short.
Katherine had just hated the whole experience. Early parenting had been difficult and their son had had a rocky, colicy 6 months. Breast feeding had eventually sorted itself out but not without a fair share of cracked nipples and mastitis. Three years passed before they even considered trying to fall pregnant again. That’s how traumatized they felt.
Gosh, this doesn’t sound like a good story for families like yourself planning an unassisted birth but bare with this family’s story for a while.
When they fell pregnant their new midwife gave them The Pink Kit. Immediately after watching the first segment of the video, they were hooked. Even though they received the resources in the last 6 weeks of pregnancy, they recognized the benefit. Together they made the time to go through everything again and again.
The Internal Work was a challenge because the scar tissue was tight but they persevered. They didn’t talk about the past and how these skills might have helped them last time, they just focused on the future and what they could do to calm Katherine’s fears and Ralph’s sense of failure.
When Katherine went into labour the heaven’s had opened up. Their whole regional area was experiencing the worst flood in over 100 years. They were only 20 minutes to the hospital normally but many of the roads were closed so they decided that as soon as labour started they would call their midwife and head to the hospital and that’s what they did.
At 1 o’clock in the morning the midwife received a phone call saying ‘labour has started and we’re heading out the door. Meet us at the hospital’. Of course, the midwife knew about their past birth and said that she would meet them there in about 30 minutes since she was a bit further away. She had just gotten into the car 20 minutes later when her mobile rang. It was Ralph who said. ‘there’s a change of plans, come to the house, our baby has been born!’
When the midwife arrived, there was Katherine, Ralph and their second son sitting on the floor in the hall of their house very happy. Ralph told the midwife this story.
‘After we called you we gathered our bags to leave the house. As soon as we stepped outside Katherine said to me ‘the baby is coming’. I was shocked but we turned around and got as far as the hall when Katherine began to bear down. I had enough time to fly to the bath and yank the shower curtain off the rail. Katherine serenely got into an ‘open position’ something she had learned on The Pink Kit.
We had time to look into each other’s eyes between the first contraction and the next to come. That look told me everything she TRUSTED me. It was because of The Pink Kit that I knew exactly what to do, although I have to say I didn’t have to do much.
Our son slide gently into the world on the very next contraction with Katherine opening up in such a beautiful way. She was incredible, so relaxed. It was all so normal. The placenta followed easily with a little more crampy feeling for Katherine but we fell into the Directed Breathing together and once it had delivered she was fine … more than fine. We were absolutely on cloud nine.’
The midwife said that she had never seen such radiant people. They were glowing with their success and this had been the first family she had given The Pink Kit to. She said she had hesitated to initially give the resources to them because of their past birth. She didn’t know much about The Pink Kit and wasn’t certain this family would be interested.
She converted on the spot and Katherine and Ralph they tell everyone about their amazing experience.
Unassisted births aren’t always planned. Consider how much greater benefit you will have from preparing for birth in such a conscious manner and enjoying the results of your planned birth. In some ways the term ‘unassisted’ birth is not accurate because fathers, other family members, friends and even older children are their to assist the woman in labour. Really it’s a home birth among family and friends.