You’re about 34 weeks pregnant and as birth gets closer, excitement and anxiety often vie with each other, that’s natural whether we’re becoming parents for the first time or the eighth.

The gateway to becoming a parent is the birth of our baby. Being pregnant is the path we must take to get to that gateway. Once you step on that path, there’s no turning back.

We all know passing through that gateway will be more like climbing Mount Everest or running the Boston Marathon than just opening your closet door and walking inside. What do these three have in common? Well they’re all very physical events and present challenges.

Navigating the gateway of childbirth takes time and effort and energy just like the other two. Childbirth deserves as much preparation as climbing Mount Everest or running the Boston Marathon.

Gathering information and making choices would not be sufficient to accomplish either of those two, so skills and skilful preparations are required over an extended period of time.

Fortunately only 16 weeks of skilled preparing is required in pregnancy in order to pass the childbirth gateway with more ease. That’s heaps less time than it takes to prepare for the other two. Since Mum’s and Dad’s run and climb, then any excuse ‘I don’t have time’ makes little sense.

People dedicated to having a positive experience based on their own effort take time to prepare as well as gathering information or making birth choices and birth plans. We have to make time during the last sixteen weeks of pregnancy to prepare for childbirth. We can’t have any excuse particularly the I don’t have time one.

Once our baby arrives, we have to take the time to take care of it. Preparing for childbirth takes a fraction of the time , in fact preparing withBirthingBetter is done during our everyday activities, for the most part with the exception of the internal work which many women do it in the shower or with their partner’s in bed.

In the past eleven weeks you and your husband or partner have learned some of the skills you’ll need to work as a team. Practise them at work, driving in the car or washing the dishes, in fact much of preparing is actually thinking about or imagining how to put positive birthing behaviours into a painful experience, contractions.

One Dad knew his wife had tight bum muscles and every she passed him, he’d lightly pat her on the bum. She learned to stop holding tension in those muscles. As women, we primarily need the skills, we’re the only one doing the work to pass through this gateway.

Fortunately one or more people can take the journey with us, helping at each moment when our energy flags or our efforts feel too great. There is a social expectation that Dad’s are the best person, with these Pink Kit skills they excel and we love them forever because they can see and hear how we’re responding to the challenges of contractions.

With skills they step in and help right away. Every birth provider has complimented the woman on how well she managed her labour and been totally impressed by how well BirthingBetter Dad’s coach. How much time do you and your partner need to prepare together? The answer is simple. Do you both know you know.

As a woman if you aren’t certain, your partner could see or hear whether you’re coping, talks 1 and 2, then go over  that stuff. As Dad’s if you aren’t certain whether a woman is really relaxing under your touch, spend a bit more time touching those specific words on your list, talks 4, 5 and 6. The benefits are yours, childbirth is so infrequent and so important. Don’t let this opportunity to have a positive birth pass you by.