Episode 159 All About Mothering

My regular listeners know by now that the All About Mothering membership site is launching on April 1st, 2017 which is 5 days from now.

Inside this membership site you will find a warm and inviting place where you can come and learn and have access to educational information on all aspects of care related to conception, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and the first year of postpartum life. As many big projects go, they always take more time to complete then we think they will.  In the online world, there are so many things I can do with this site, and I have decided to be very focused on the time period between conception and your babies first year as I find this is a time when most of us are quite needy in the education and support department. Notice I did not say good or bad or right or wrong, just different.  We need to learn what kinds of things are important to us for our prenatal care, before finding the right caregiver.  The same goes for where you give birth – hospital, birthing center or home.  Again, this is a case of – we don’t know, what we don’t know.

I developed the AAM site because I have a huge desire to be able to provide one solid place where moms can come to rely upon, where they can get to know me and can rely on getting accurate information about pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and postpartum.  There is nothing more aggravating to us women then to have so many different opinions, such inconsistency in care plans and to find out later that we were given bad information.  There is nothing worse then having to search the internet looking for answers and not being sure of what we are being told.

It wasn’t until After the birth of my first baby, Alisha, I realized what I really wanted out of prenatal care, what kind of childbirth classes would have been best for me.  I didn’t know that during my pregnancy, I just went along with the program, not understanding the importance of finding that special person to provide prenatal and birthing care for me.  The very first thing that became apparent is that my Dr. could not be with me during my whole 24 hour labor.  Of course, he could not. I think that one might think this is an obvious assumption, but never having been through this before, and just didn’t know to ask that question:  If you are not with me, than who?  I realized after the fact that I would have been better with a practice that had 2 caregivers, that I could meet with throughout the pregnancy, that shared the same birth philosophy.  Silly me?  What good was it that I had spent a better part of my pregnancy making sure my Dr. understood and agreed with birth plan if he was not going to be there to help execute it?  And who knew that the nursing staff would not agree with all my wishes?  Everyone had an opinion.  That went for breastfeeding also.  When her blood sugars were low, I did not know at the time that I could insist that I hand express my milk and give that to her?  Yes, Alisha was healthy and I was blessed with a beautiful baby girl, but was it wrong of me to want more from my experience.  Some people made  me feel guilty for complaining at all.

So, what happened to me?  Well, I was in a teaching hospital, that wanted to have everyone and their mother in the room with me,  frequent vaginal exams by unknown staff members – I said No to each and every one – which of course, did not make me a popular patient, I was  strongly encouraging me to stay in bed and pushing medication on me as the labor got tougher.  I had discussed a lot of this with my Dr., who agreed that I could labor as I wanted, to be up and about most of the time,  but when he was not there, overnight of course, I was relegated to other Staff who were not as accommodating.  I was put in a position of begging to get the things I wanted.  Some staff were okay and others I felt like I had to fight with and as labor progressed, I had less and less energy to fight the fight.  My husband was of huge support but he was not listened to either and I needed him there for me, not to be arguing with the hospital staff.

I did have a vaginal birth, without medication, which was my personal wishes, but I felt like I had to fight every step of the way.  I knew I did not want to do that again, but I did want more babies.  Who do you know that comes home from the hospital and within a few weeks makes a b-line to the book shelves to try and figure out what went wrong, what could be done differently the next time?  Well, that was me.  My husband was like:  what ARE you doing?  We just had a baby?  And I was like,  yeah, I know and I want more babies, but I  never want to do it that way again.

It was a long process, but I learned a few things, trained to become a certified childbirth educator.  Everything that I have done since, in my career, has been motivated by my desire to learn how I can do better and be a more informed consumer.  As a childbirth educator, I taught parents who were planning on giving birth with different caregivers, medical doctors, naturopathic doctors, midwives,  parents who were planning on hospital birth, birthing center births and home births, water births.  It has never mattered to me who parents use for their care or where they birth.  It does matter to me that they have the best information available so they can make the best choices for their family.

During pregnancy, it is easy to lose focus and become overwhelmed with all the choices that we have.  As a community member, you will be able to take yourself through a learning experience that will not be overwhelming.  It will be informative, easy to understand, a place you can visit with your partner at the same time, or different times, at any time that is convenient for you  – days/nights/weekends. You will not be limited to times of days that you can learn.

I do have to say that this has been quite an undertaking.  As most things are that I take on, the doing is a lot more involved than the dreaming stage.  Things are harder, take longer, with some bumps along the way.  I really want you to join the membership so you can be a founding member and help the site grow.  The site is in its infancy and right now The center of this community is in the forums and Live weekly hangout where we will get to know each other better and you can have access to me and have your questions answered.  This will be the heart of the All About Breastfeeding community, along with the videos, guest speakers and information that is already in the site.   Each week, I will be adding more videos, guest speakers,  more checklists, handouts on specific subjects and making it a fun place to learn.

The biggest question is always – How much?  My answer:  Incredibly, ridiculously affordable.  Like – how do you feel about $30.00 for a 3 month period.  Details about a yearly membership can be found at www.allaboutmothering.com