‘Change’ … a BIG WORD for mothers-to-be and expectant fathers. Step 5 of your Hero’s Journey was all about: ‘committing to change’. That’s a choice. Step 6 was all about ‘experimenting with change’. Now you’re choosing direct aspects of how to change. In Step 7 you were ‘preparing for change’. Step 7 was a deeper understanding beyond just committing to change. You are internally and externally preparing for this big change of ‘doing’ The Birth and welcoming your newborn.
Characteristics Step #8 … attempting change
- you realize you are going to face an ‘ordeal’... Birth. The ordeal is the ‘doing’ (active verb) birth. That’s the ordeal … like climbing Mt Everest, running a marathon or any major, major, major activity that comes only a few times in life.
- Because you’re facing an ‘ordeal’, you are drawn into ‘attempting change’
- you’re still in the ‘special world’ which makes sense. This ‘ordeal’ is Life transforming!
We’d like to assume you’ve been using our Birthing Better skills to prepare your partner’s pregnant body to give birth. At 32 weeks is the Time to begin the Internal Work part of the Birthing Better skills so your partner’s birth passage tissue becomes mobile and pliable. While it doesn’t seem like it, by the time your baby is born (and if your partner labors and has a vaginal birth) your baby’s head will be the size of a grapefruit. That size alone should motivate you to prepare her birth canal.
If you have not started with preparing her pregnant body, get on board! Your partner’s Mount Everest climb is coming soon. You will be walking with her!
You are ‘attempting a big change’ and this can feel like a big struggle.
- First of all, you can’t practice your Birthing Better skills (or any others you’re learning) by ‘doing the birth’ beforehand.
- Second, there’s no way to know what the birth will be like.
- Third, Life gets in the way of actually preparing to do this activity unless you treat this coming activity as an Olympic event you’re training for.
Birthing Better fathers walked these same steps but they also have the advantage of hindsight. Every Birthing Better father will tell you that learning skills in pregnancy, preparing the woman’s body to do the activity of giving birth, learning, practicing and then using birth-coaching skills changes Life forever in positive ways. Even Birthing Better fathers sometimes found themselves regretting not putting in sufficient Time. In other words, what you do now on your Hero’s Journey will influence your Life forever.
The question Birthing Better fathers were really asking themselves was: ‘Why is a high level of being skilled not associated with this one-off, incredibly dynamic and life-altering activity?‘ Men much more than women resonate with the absurdity of just letting birth happen.
This ‘ordeal’ of Step #8 is just that … an ordeal. You can do birth with your hands tied behind your back, with blindfolds on and in the dark. That’s your choice. On the other hand, you can step up and become a skilled father-to-be who by the actions you take now will lead you to be a skilled dad. Your choice. This Journey won’t wait for you. Every step you take leads you down one path or another. You will either step off this Journey and be swept away with whatever happens or you will become the Hero.
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